In this open peer commentary, we categorize the possible “neuroscience in national security” definitions of misuse of science and identify which, if any, are uniquely presented by advances in neuroscience. To define misuse, we first define what we would consider appropriate use: the application of reasonably safe and effective technology, based on valid and reliable scientific research, to serve a legitimate end. This definition presents distinct opportunities for assessing misuse: misuse is the application of invalid or unreliable science, or is (...) the use of reliable scientific methods to serve illegitimate ends. Ultimately, we conclude that while national security is often a politicized issue, assessing the state of scientific progress should not be. (shrink)

Much of health promotion is premised on the notion that health-related behaviours are under individual control, and strongly influenced by intra-psychic factors, including knowledge and attitudes. The emphasis placed on such factors has led to a neglect of the social and material context in which the individual is situated. This paper describes a number of psychological theories which have influenced health promotion, and suggests ways in which a wider set of psychological theories and methods, which take into account social and (...) material factors, may more usefully inform health promotion initiatives. (shrink)

Reports about possible genetic bases of homoerotic sexual orientation in adults have received a kind of schizophrenic social reception. On the one hand, these reports have been welcomed by some gay men and lesbians as biological confirmation of the commonly held view that sexual orientation is an involuntary trait, that sexual orientation is not in any meaningful sense chosen. Simon LeVay has received mail from thankful correspondents who welcomed his 1991 report about the possible neuroanatomical basis for male homoerotic (...) sexual orientation, and some legal analysts see important implications of biological studies for the ways in which civil rights are recognized, especially those that depend on an immutable characteristic like race or gender. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Violence Is Not an Evil”Ambiguity and Violence in Simone de Beauvoir’s Early Philosophical WritingsAnn V. MurphyThe recent translation and compilation of several of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical essays from the 1940s shed new light on Beauvoir’s understanding of the relationship between ethics and violence. While these essays predate the publication of The Second Sex (1949) and do not concern themselves with the subject of feminism per se, Beauvoir’s philosophy (...) of violence as it is outlined in both “Pyrrhus and Cineas” (1944) and “An Eye for an Eye” (1948) speaks to one of the more thoroughgoing concerns in contemporary feminist philosophy; namely, the nature of the relation between corporeal vulnerability, violence, and ethics. Together with The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948), these early essays probe the difficulties in moving from an ontology in which violence appears to be inexorable to the terrain of ethical prescription. This essay urges recognition of the continuing relevance of Beauvoir’s philosophy in relation to the renaissance of interest in the theme of vulnerability in contemporary feminist theory. I argue that Beauvoir’s philosophy provides one of the most sophisticated accounts to date of the ethical problems posed by the experiential ambiguities of violence, and that her legacy in this regard is as important and redemptive as ever. More precisely, I read Beauvoir’s early conception of ambiguity as the philosophical predecessor to contemporary deconstructive accounts of corporeal vulnerability.Discourse on the body has governed the evolution of feminist philosophy. Recently, however, the nature of the body under investigation has changed. Whereas previously the critique of the nature/culture distinction dominated [End Page 29] feminist debates regarding the social construction of sex and gender, recent feminist work has consolidated around another conceptual pairing; namely, vulnerability and aggression. In reference to Beauvoir’s philosophical corpus, this recent development is interesting. Her magnum opus, The Second Sex, has attracted more attention because of its centrality in the debates over the social construction of sex and gender, a debate that has dominated feminist philosophy for the last several decades. Indeed, many laud this text for being ahead of its time with regard to the acknowledgement that “one is not born a woman,” but rather becomes one. This essay argues that Beauvoir’s early texts are similarly prescient with regard to the current preoccupation with the philosophical themes of violence and vulnerability. By tracing the development of Beauvoir’s idea of ambiguity, I argue that her conception of the body as the site of both aggression and vulnerability both anticipates and continues to productively address the problem of how one moves from a descriptive ontology to the terrain of ethics. This is a movement that Beauvoir arguably theorized more rigorously than either Maurice Merleau-Ponty or Jean-Paul Sartre, neither of whom published such sustained philosophical work on ethics in his lifetime.1I. Ambiguity in Beauvoir’s Early WorkIn The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir’s reflections on ethics come from a resolutely secular, existentialist perspective. Beauvoir—like her contemporaries in French existential phenomenology—understood human existence to be essentially marked by failure. Importantly, this failure is not vicious; rather, it is the consequence of the fact that human freedom can only ever be determined in scenes of constraint. Despite her resistance to the universal aspirations of Kant’s ethics, Beauvoir’s understanding of subjectivity as failure is consonant with the Kantian rendering of the ethical agent as a being for whom reason does not infallibly determine the will; indeed, an agent for whom reason is necessarily undone by certain inclinations and contingencies.2 For Kant, it made no sense to speak of the will unless one was referring to a being that had the capacity to act in accord with reason but did not infallibly manage to do so. Hence, ethics is an issue for us precisely to the degree that we are capable of failure. In this sense, ambiguity and failure mark the human condition and our distance from the divine. Only a being whose existence is marked by this inadequacy would ponder right and wrong, would debate the nature of ethical atrocity and recovery, and would anguish over the... (shrink)

Since her death in 1986 and the publication of her letters and diaries in 1990, interest in the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir has never been greater. In this engaging and timely volume, Margaret A. Simons and an international group of philosophers present 16 essays that reveal Beauvoir as one of the century’s most important and influential thinkers. As they set Beauvoir’s work into dialogue with Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Foucault, Levinas, and others, these essays consider questions such as Beauvoir’s philosophical (...) relationship with Sartre; her ethic of the erotic; her views on marriage, motherhood, and female friendship; and her interpretations of oppression and liberation. This book discusses the full range of Beauvoir’s work, including The Second Sex, her unpublished diaries, autobiographical writings, novels, and philosophical essays, and broadens the scope and interpretive context of her unique philosophy. Contributors are Nancy Bauer, Debra Bergoffen, Suzanne Laba Cataldi, Edward Fullbrook, Eva Gothlin, Sara Heinämaa, Laura Hengehold, Stacy Keltner, Michèle Le Doeuff, Ann Murphy, Shannon M. Mussett, Margaret A. Simons, Ursula Tidd, Andrea Veltman, Karen Vintges, Julie Ward, Gail Weiss. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay explores the phenomenology of hunger in reference to work by Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir. Considering the wealth of references to hunger in phenomenological literature, very little has been written that acknowledges the importance of hunger in French existential phenomenology in particular. With reference to work by the above authors, this essay examines how hunger alters one’s basic experience of space and time, no less one’s sense of social belonging. Phenomenology illuminates dimensions of the human (...) experience of hunger that remain veiled in other discourses, and it is vital that efforts to understand hunger engage the profound narratives of disorientation, illness and shame that come to the fore in this body of work. (shrink)

This chapter begins by sketching an account of morally responsible agency and the general conditions under which it may fail. We discuss how far individuals with psychiatric diagnoses may be exempt from morally responsible agency in the way that infants are, with examples drawn from a sample of diagnoses intended to make dierent issues salient. We further discuss a recent proposal that clinicians may hold patients responsible without blaming them for their acts. We also consider cognitively impaired subjects in the (...) light of related issues in moral and political theory, asking whether they have been unjustly excluded from liberal conceptions of political community due to their presumed lack of agency. (shrink)

Historically left to the margins, the topics of imagination and creativity have gained prominence in philosophy of science, challenging the once dominant distinction between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’. The aim of this chapter is to explore imagination and creativity starting from issues within contemporary philosophy of science, making connections to these topics in other domains along the way. It discusses the recent literature on the role of imagination in models and thought experiments, and their comparison with fictions. (...) It then turns to the importance of constraints on imaginings in the scientific domain, as well as whether constraints can hinder creativity. The second part of the paper focuses on the social dimensions of science. It considers imagination and creativity of scientific communities, asks whether the institution of science promotes creativity (and whether we want it to) or if it encourages conservativeness, and ends with a reflection on the politics of imagination and creativity in science. (shrink)

The goal of human life, according to Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible, is to become as much like god as possible. This book, written in vivid and lucid English, illuminates Greek philosophy by showing how it grows out of ancient Greek religion and how it compares to biblical religion.

AI-developers face a challenge when seeking to use models that aim to be culturally sensitive. While we agree that culture is an emergent reality, there is always the risk of creating algorithms that treat culture as objective to account for various facets of the social realm. As a result, culture becomes prepackaged and autonomous. Nonetheless, culture is not only emergent but dialogically and socially invented. In this article, the point is to advance the discussion about culture by addressing a crucial (...) philosophical issue and proposing some practical themes on how to avoid culturalism in AI development. (shrink)

Examines how violence has been conceptually and rhetorically put to use in continental social theory.

_Examines how violence has been conceptually and rhetorically put to use in continental social theory._.

This article is a précis of Mark C. Murphy’s _Divine Holiness and Divine Action_ (Oxford University Press, 2021), which offers an account of God’s holiness and of the difference this view of God’s holiness should make to our understanding of divine action.

_Stranger Cities_ explores the nature of Australia’s distinctive urban civilization with its portal ontology, axial metaphysics, ambidextrous style of thinking, architectonic spirit, and happy phlegmatic outlook. This classic ethos is offset by various choleric and melancholic strands of Australian romanticism.

A leading critic of the disruptive force of technology in education, Bernard Stiegler saw the counter-effects of artificial intelligence in undermining human agency, autonomy and individuality, rendering the role of education ever more critical. Stiegler believes that our goal is not to abandon technology but to focus our attention on its power and direction in a hypercapitalist economy. While he did not foresee the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), its rapid acceleration raises important issues for his notion of digital (...) writing as a pharmakon. In this essay, we examine Stiegler’s view on intelligence, digital writing, technological memory, and neuropower, focusing specifically on his Shanghai lecture and Nanjing Lectures. We compare Stiegler with Catherine Malabou, who examines the nature of intelligence primarily through the lens of neuroscience. We argue that Malabou’s view of neuroplasticity in human and artificial brains, and her critique of techno-narcissism in the control over technology, add an important dimension to Stiegler’s political critique of education. Finally, we examine how best to construe AI as part of a hyper-materialist epistemology that Stiegler espouses in the conclusion of his Nanjing Lectures, to bring about neganthropic knowledge through a therapeutics of care. (shrink)

This bestselling dictionary is written by one of the leading philosophers of our time, and it is widely recognized as the best dictionary of its kind. Comprehensive and authoritative, it covers every aspect of philosophy from Aristotle to Zen. With clear and concise definitions, it provides lively and accessible coverage of not only Western philosophical traditions, but also themes from Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy. New entries on philosophy of economics, social theory, neuroscience, philosophy of the mind, and moral (...) conceptions, bring this authoritative third edition up to date. It is the ideal introduction to philosophy for anyone with an interest in the subject, and it is an indispensable work of reference for students and teachers. (shrink)

Speciesism, broadly understood as the view that species membership is a morally relevant property, has been a central topic of debate within animal ethics for around 50 years. However, in all this time, animal ethicists have paid relatively scant attention to the nature of species membership itself. This seems potentially regrettable, since species membership's precise nature is presumably highly pertinent to the question of its exact moral relevance. Here, I advocate for a ‘species-focused’ approach to assessing speciesism, arguing that, in (...) debating the merits of speciesism, animal ethicists should (i) centre the nature of species membership, and (ii) consult philosophers of biology. Adherence to this second prescription appears necessary since a lot of what philosophers of biology believe regarding the nature of species membership appears contrary to what many animal ethicists have seemingly assumed. (shrink)

This book offers an advanced introduction to central questions in legal philosophy. What factors determine the content of the law in force? What makes a normative system a legal system? How does law beyond the state differ from domestic law? What kind of moral force does law have? The most important existing views are introduced, but the aim is not to survey the existing literature. Rather, this book introduces the subject by stepping back from the fray to sketch the big (...) picture, to show just what is at stake in these old debates. Legal philosophy has become somewhat arid and inward looking. In part this is because the disagreement between the main camps on the important questions is apparently intractable. The main aim of the book is to suggest both a diagnosis and a proper practical response to this situation of intractable disagreement about questions that do matter. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Objectivism and Constructivism Problems for Constructivism Objectivism Troubles with Objectivism References.

What is trustworthiness? -- Being trustworthy -- Spreading trust.

Simon Critchley's first book, The Ethics of Deconstruction, was originally published to great acclaim in 1992. This edition contains three new appendices and a new preface where Critchley reflects upon the origins, motivation and reception of The Ethics of Deconstruction.

This chapter offers a general outline of Schopenhauer’s peculiarly named concept of the 'acquired character’ and explains its basic function in his ethical thought. For Schopenhauer, a person of acquired character is someone who knows the ways of acting (Handlungsweise) that are most expressive of their individuality and who allows that self-knowledge to structure their practical and emotional life. In keeping with certain elements of his psychological determinism, acquired character is not the acquisition of a ‘new’ character; rather, it is (...) the acquisition of self-knowledge of one’s essentially fixed empirical character. It is part of the argument of this chapter that by introducing the acquired character into his reflections on human action and agency Schopenhauer weaves a certain view of individual flourishing (eudaimonia) into his ethics. There are two central ingredients of Schopenhauer’s conception of eudaimonia, and both are linked to the acquired character. The first is self-knowledge; the second is a sense of personal autonomy that follows in the wake of the first. The chapter ends with a brief attempt to connect Schopenhauer’s concept of acquired character to contemporary debates in ethics concerning autonomy, practical identity, and what some call the ‘normative significance of self’. (shrink)

The Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Literature identifies key resources for topics important to the theory and practice of lesbian and gay politics, literature, religion, and more. The book contains hundreds of entries that summarize key issues at stake and then identify (mostly) book-length analysis of this topics. The topics range from activism, to age of consent, to legal history as well as individual entries on key authors and regional areas.

One might legitimately ask what reasons other than vanity could prompt an author to issue a collection of his previously published essays. The best reason, I think, is the belief that the essays hang together in such a way that, as a book, they produce a whole which is in a sense greater than the sum of its parts. When this happens, as I hope it does in the present case, it is because the essays pursue related themes in such (...) a way that, together, they at least form a start toward the development of a systematic theory on the common foundations supporting the particular claims in the particular articles. With respect to this collection, the essays can all be read as particular ways of pursuing the following general pattern of thought: that a commitment to justice and a respect for rights (and not social utility) must be the foundation of any morally acceptable legal order; that a social contractarian model is the best way to illuminate this foundation; that a retributive theory of punish ment is the only theory of punishment resting on such a foundation and thus is the only morally acceptable theory of punishment; that the twentieth century's faddish movement toward a "scientific" or therapeutic response to crime runs grave risks of undermining the foundations of justice and rights on which the legal order ought to rest; and, finally, that the legitimate worry about the tendency of the behavioral sciences to undermine the values of. (shrink)

Over the past few years postmodernism has been gaining popularity. Because the works of writers such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan, and Félix Guattari, for example, are now readily available to the English reader, a novel intellectual force is present that must be assessed (Hassan, 1985). Terms such as “mise en abîme”, “libido”, “schizo-analysis”, “undecidables”, and so forth must be explained and their relevance for social analysis deciphered. Furthermore, a conception of knowledge, a research methodology, and (...) an image of social order that are consistent with these somewhat odd ideas have been introduced, and thus must be evaluated with respect to their sociological importance. At first, due to the strange language that is adopted and the nature of the philosophy offered, postmodernism appears to the uninitiated as an attempt to subvert rational discussion. (shrink)

This article outlines an approach for implementing business ethics. A company should both organize for ethical business policies and execute them. The organizational dimension refers to structural components including codes of ethics, conferences and training programs and an ethical audit. The corporate culture must support these structural elements with top management playing a central role in implementing ethics. The execution of ethical business policies includes implementation responsibilities and tasks. These responsibilities are leadership in ethics, delegation, communication and motivation of the (...) company's ethical position to employees. Execution tasks are delineated for the marketing function. Although many company examples are provided, a program in place at McDonnell Douglas is highlighted as a model of ethics implementation. (shrink)

Critical Theory is usually associated with an intellectual tradition which emerged from the work of a group of social philosophers who coalesced around the Institute for Social Research, established in Frankfurt in 1923. This tradition is now considered to have two major branches: the first related to the work of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Leo Lowenthal, and Walter Benjamin, while the second pertains to the expansion of this original work which has been proffered by Jürgen Habermas, (...) Claus Offe, Niklas Luhmann, Karl-Otto Apel, and others. It should be immediately noted that Critical Theory does not form a unity, for it does mean different things to both its early and current adherents. Without overstating the case, however, the common theme which unites these theorists is a dislike for the types of determinism which saw socialism arising automatically from either appropriate social conditions or at the behest of elite party members. In each case the belief was inadvertently advanced that people do not make their own history. In line with the work of Lukács and Korsch, these critical theorists wanted to develop a more vital Marxist theory, one which understands human praxis to be at the center of social development and, thus, human liberation. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics, replete in his work, rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics, which challenge some of the self imposed limits that regulate the canonical concepts of the discipline. For Deleuze, these challenges provide an opportunity to reconfigure particular philosophical problems – for example, the problem of individuation – and to develop new concepts in response to them. The highly original research presented in this book explores the mathematical construction of Deleuze’s philosophy, (...) as well as addressing the undervalued and often neglected question of the mathematical thinkers who influenced his work. -/- In the wake of Alain Badiou’s recent and seemingly devastating attack on the way the relation between mathematics and philosophy is configured in Deleuze’s work, Simon Duffy offers a robust defence of the structure of Deleuze’s philosophy and, in particular, the adequacy of the mathematical problems used in its construction. By reconciling Badiou and Deleuze’s seeming incompatible engagements with mathematics, Duffy succeeds in presenting a solid foundation for Deleuze’s philosophy, rebuffing the recent challenges against it. -/- Simon B. Duffy is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Yale-NUS College, Singapore, and Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is the author of The Logic of Expression: Quality, Quantity, and Intensity in Spinoza, Hegel and Deleuze (2006). (shrink)

As Perelman suggests, rhetoric has always been concerned with understanding the basic nature of an audience. Considering this view, the perennial question posed by rhetoric might be: How does one discourse properly with an audience? Using the terminology supplied by Bitzer, this query might be rephrased to read: How does one “uncover and make available the public knowledge needed in our time and give body and voice to the universal public”. Of key importance is that the rhetorician must secure a (...) base of knowledge that will allow communication to commence between a speaker and an audience. If discourse is to be successful a speaker must address an audience in a style that can be understood, and therefore must substantiate all social intercourse on knowledge that is “public” or held in common. At first this might sound quite pedestrian, yet throughout the history of rhetoric this assumption has proven to be quite problematic. (shrink)