Victorian scriptural hermeneutics : history, intention, and evolution -- Intertext 1 : Victorian legal interpretation -- Carlyle : between biblical exegesis and romantic hermeneutics -- Intertext 2 : Victorian science and hermeneutics : the interpretation of nature -- George Eliot's hermeneutics of sympathy -- Intertext 3 : Victorian literary criticism -- Subjectivism, intersubjectivity, and intention : Oscar Wilde and literary hermeneutics.

Toward an ontology of the social-historical -- Proto-institutions and epistemological encounters -- Anthropological aspects of subjectivity: the radical imagination -- Hermeneutical horizons of meaning -- The rediscovery of physis -- Objective knowledge in review -- Rethinking the world of the living being -- Reimaging cosmology -- Conclusion: the circle of creation.

An introduction to the key concepts and ideas of the celebrated Greek-French thinker, Cornelius Castoriadis.

The book offers the first systematic reading of Gilles Deleuze's mature philosophy through the lens of creative practice. Six authors - two fine artists, a dancer, a creative writer, a designer and a philosopher - open multiple dialogues between contemporary creative practices and the generative philosophy of Deleuze. These conversations are focused around key aspects of production: forming, framing, experiencing, encountering and practising."-- Back cover.

The Matter of Everything, accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy introduces us to the people who, through a combination of genius, persistence and luck, staged the ground-breaking experiments of the twentieth century that changed the course of history. From the serendipitous discovery of X-rays in a German laboratory, to the scientists trying to prove Einstein wrong (and inadvertently proving him right), to the race to split open the atom, Sheehy shows how our most brilliant, practical physicists have shaped innumerable aspects of how (...) we live today. Radio, TV, the chips in our smartphones, MRI scanners, radar equipment and microwaves, to name a few: these were all made possible by their determination to understand, and control, the microscopic. (shrink)

Analyses of gender-based violence during mass conflict have typically focused on violence committed against women. Violence perpetrated against men has only recently been examined as gender-based violence in its own right. Using narratives from 1,136 Darfuri refugees, we analyze patterns of gender-based violence perpetrated against men and boys during the genocide in Darfur. We examine how this violence emasculates men and boys through four mechanisms: homosexualization, feminization, genital harm, and sex-selective killing. In line with an interactionist approach, we demonstrate how (...) genocidal violence is gendered and argue that perpetrators committing gender-based violence perform masculinity in accordance with hegemonic gender norms in Sudan. We also show how gender-based violence enacts, reinforces, and creates meaning on multiple levels in a matrix of mutually reinforcing processes that we term the gender-genocide nexus. By extending the gender–violence link to the context of mass atrocity, this study facilitates an understanding of the mechanisms through which gender inequalities can be reproduced and maintained in diverse situations and structures. (shrink)

Offering a field-defining survey of the topic, this is the first book to engage all the key figures in the social imaginaries field. It offers new perspectives on the productive tension between social imaginaries and the creative imagination, providing the first programmatic approach to the field as a whole.

This article offers an unprecedented close reading of the poetic texts created by the Martinican author René Ménil, whose poetry has been almost entirely neglected by scholars to date and who is better known for his philosophical and political writings than for his verse. I pay particular attention to Ménil’s treatment of geographical and cultural spaces in his published poetry from 1932 to 1950, and place that verse in dialogue with a text by another Martinican author at work around this (...) period: Edouard Glissant, and his first poetry collection, Un champ d’îles. Despite their otherwise dissimilar literary approaches, I show how both Ménil and Glissant created verse in these years where landscapes shift unpredictably, where human subjects are often overwhelmed, and where bewildering, vertiginous contact between Europe and the Caribbean is emphasized. This stands in contrast to more descriptive or directly political depictions of local nature created by other Afro-Caribbean poets during the period, and, I argue, underscores the complexities of the unsettling encounters between places and peoples occurring with increasing frequency in these years of rapid change around the Second World War. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The proliferation of integrated health care in which a holistic approach of physical and behavioral health is addressed by multiple providers is quickly evolving to be the standard of care in the United States. Social workers are well-suited to be key members of these interdisciplinary teams. As a reference point for professional conduct, social workers are guided by a set of ethical standards. Given the nature of integrated healthcare settings, social workers may encounter unprecedented ethical challenges. This study provides (...) an exploratory examination of the ethical situations among social workers in integrated health care. (shrink)

In the UK, as elsewhere in the world, the global financial crisis has focused attention on the cost of public services and the need to reduce expenditure, not least in respect of higher education. This, however, raises a set of prior questions: What kind of society do we want? What is important to democratic society? What kind of higher education is desirable? The article takes Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of what he calls liberal capitalist society as a starting point for considering (...) questions concerning the kind of higher education that would be valuable and relevant to a healthy democratic society. His thesis is outlined and the implications of this for the university set out. The article examines MacIntyre's notion of community, which he elaborates in relation to medieval religious worldviews, and argues that whilst his conceptualisation is more intellectually and educationally coherent than some others, it is ultimately too restrictive. The article argues instead for a recognition, within education, of what is uncommon. This may open greater possibilities for keeping alive the serious questions that we must constantly attend to, beyond and within our communities, secular or religious. (shrink)

A key goal for a professional ethics teacher is to help students improve their moral reasoning within the context of their profession, with the ultimate aim of developing a commitment to the values of their future profession. Using Rest’s Four Component Model as a framework, this study examines the relationship between the first two components of moral sensitivity and moral judgment. The study utilises two scores from the same cohort of computing undergraduates: a score for ethical sensitivity using a devised (...) dilemma analysis; and a score for change in moral judgment resulting from an educational intervention, using the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Although average DIT scores showed no significant improvement in moral judgment, this study found that levels of ethical sensitivity had a significant impact on the development of moral judgment. The paper provides evidence that ethical sensitivity appears to play a key role in the development of moral judgment. Therefore an initial key objective critical to any ethics course should be to raise student levels of ethical sensitivity as a necessary foundation for development of moral judgment. The paper also highlights the wide range of levels of ethical sensitivity measured within one cohort and suggests targeted learning support should be provided to students who score in the lower part of the scale to raise their levels of moral sensitivity early in the course. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the interpretation of quantity expressions in Yudja, an indigenous language spoken in the Amazonian basin, showing that while the language allows reference to exact cardinalities, it does not generally allow reference to exact measure values. It does, however, allow non-exact comparison along continuous dimensions. We use this data to argue that the grammar of exact measurement is distinct from a grammar allowing the expression of exact cardinalities, and that the grammar of counting and the grammar (...) of measurement may use numerals with different, though related interpretations. As Yudja shows, the language of measurement is not automatically acquired along with the knowledge of exact numeral expressions. We show that the ‘gap’ between prelinguistic intuitions about quantity in terms of numerosity and counting, which is bridged by the learning of language expressing exact cardinality, is paralleled by a similar gap between prelinguistic intuitions about quantity on a continuous dimension and measuring: this gap too must be bridged by language which expresses exact measure values. Our results suggest that the enculturation process by which we develop skills to perform abstract operations in the domain of measurement is (1) language dependent and (2) distinct from the process by which we learn to perform abstract calculations in the cardinal domain. (shrink)

How can we improve business ethics education for the twenty first century? This study evaluates the effectiveness of a visual case exercise in the form of a 3D immersive game given to undergraduate students at two UK Universities as part of a mandatory business ethics module. We propose that due to evolving learning styles, the immersive nature of interactive games lends itself as a vehicle to make the learning of ethics more ‘concrete’ and ‘personal’ and therefore more engaging. To achieve (...) this, we designed and built an immersive 3D simulation game in the style of a visual case. The effectiveness of the game was evaluated using a mixed methods approach measuring recognised and adapted constructs from the technology acceptance model. Results demonstrate that students found the game beneficial to their learning of ethics with the development of knowledge and skills applicable to the real world and that they engaged with the process due to game elements. Findings demonstrate the potential for the development of simulated games to teach ethics at all levels and modes of delivery and the contribution of this type of visual case model as a pedagogic method. (shrink)

A key goal for a professional ethics teacher is to help students improve their moral reasoning within the context of their profession, with the ultimate aim of developing a commitment to the values of their future profession. Using Rest’s Four Component Model as a framework, this study examines the relationship between the first two components of moral sensitivity and moral judgment. The study utilises two scores from the same cohort of computing undergraduates: a score for ethical sensitivity using a devised (...) dilemma analysis; and a score for change in moral judgment resulting from an educational intervention, using the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Although average DIT scores showed no significant improvement in moral judgment, this study found that levels of ethical sensitivity had a significant impact on the development of moral judgment. The paper provides evidence that ethical sensitivity appears to play a key role in the development of moral judgment. Therefore an initial key objective critical to any ethics course should be to raise student levels of ethical sensitivity as a necessary foundation for development of moral judgment. The paper also highlights the wide range of levels of ethical sensitivity measured within one cohort and suggests targeted learning support should be provided to students who score in the lower part of the scale to raise their levels of moral sensitivity early in the course. (shrink)

The following proposition appears in the context of a discussion about Melanie Klein: By seeing the unconscious as a site of sexual or verbal free fall, the humanities have aestheticized psychoanal...

ABSTRACTBoth auditory and visual emotional memories can be made less emotional by loading working memory during memory recall. Taxing WM during recall can be modality specific (giving an audit...

Most contemporary accounts of dehumanization construe it either as a psychological phenomenon of seeing the other as non-human, or as as an interpersonal phenomenon of failing to treat the other as they are entitled qua moral agent. In this paper I offer an alternative way of thinking about dehumanization. Drawing on recent work in social metaphysics, I argue that we can productively think of the human as a social kind, and correspondingly of dehumanization as a process of excommunication from that (...) social kind. Such an approach, I show, is better equipped to explain the variety of phenomenon that constitute dehumanization, and the range of processes through which dehumanization can occur. (shrink)

'International' and 'internationalisation' are two terms frequently used today in association with the university. In this paper I consider the way in which the notion of internationalisation connects to the contemporary university, which I have termed 'Neo-liberal'. I begin by outlining the main characteristics of the contemporary university and then discuss some of the problems that arise in relation to the notion of internationalisation; it is strongly associated with an economic rather than a cultural imperative. Alternatives to the Neo-liberal model (...) of the university are then considered and rejected. In the final section of the paper I suggest a different interpretation of internationalisation, one that is cultural rather than economic because such an internationalisation degenerates into instrumentalism and robs higher education of what should be essential to it. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether, when teaching professional ethics, the educational interventions have any effect on improving students' moral decisions. One method often used to measure change is the well‐established defining issues test – an American test based on Kohlberg's stage theory.Design/methodology/approachUsing this test, two before‐and‐after studies were carried out on cross‐cultural cohorts of first year computing undergraduates which both received the same lectures, debates and moral‐decision‐making exercises.FindingsOne study showed a significant increase in moral judgment whilst (...) the other showed a decrease. Both studies indicated mean scores far below the American averages.Research limitations/implicationsAs both studies involved relatively small sample sizes, the results are indicative rather than conclusive. However, they bring to light issues associated with the test, in both American and non‐American research, indicating that lower than average mean scores could be due to cross‐cultural and situational variations.Practical implicationsThe paper questions the premise of stage theory as a method for measurement within a cross‐cultural context; and the usefulness of measuring one component of moral development in isolation.Originality/valueThe paper proposes that tests based on more discipline‐specific skills, rather than stage theory, would be of greater use in evaluating student levels of moral development. (shrink)

NGOs can play an important role in the development, implementation, and reform of public health laws. To be effective, NGOs must recognize the critical role law plays in protecting the health of the public and in the public health system’s emergency preparedness. They must be ready to work with federal, state, and local leaders to advance the goals that public health laws were enacted to achieve. NGOs also have technical expertise, which they can utilize to help translate highly complex scientific (...) concepts into public health action steps that regulators, legislators, and members of the public can readily understand.Those who are most often affected by pollution tend to be low income people, the working class, Native Americans, and people of color. Those most affected by pollution issues, however, usually have the least input in the creation of policy. (shrink)

In her 2003 article in the British Medical Journal, Ruth Macklin provocatively declared dignity to be a useless concept: either a vague restatement of other more precise values, such as autonomy or respect for persons, or an empty slogan. A recent response to Macklin has challenged this claim. Doris Schroeder attempts to rescue dignity by positing four distinct concepts that fall under the one umbrella term. She argues that much of the confusion surrounding dignity is due to the lack of (...) disambiguation among these four concepts, but that once we understand the different values in question dignity becomes a powerful tool in the fields of human rights and bioethics. It is the goal of this paper to build upon Schroeder's insights by reconnecting the multiple strands of dignity she identifies. It will be argued that the usefulness of dignity as a guiding principle in medical ethics can be much improved by identifying the single conceptual link that ties together the various values flying under its banner. That conceptual link is provided by understanding dignity as the capacity to live by one's standards and principles.



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John Henry Newman is probably known best for The Idea of a University. In his most philosophical work, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, however, he undertakes a detailed investigation of different ways of knowing and understanding in a manner that is of clear pertinence for philosophical enquiry into education. He offers many examples and descriptions of particular experiences, from religious and secular life, and on the strength of these he argues that before enquiry can take place (...) there must be a prior attentiveness: in Newman's preferred terms, this involves an ‘assent’, a saying ‘yes’. There is an interesting resonance here with some of the work that occupied Ludwig Wittgenstein, found in his Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough and On Certainty. My purpose in this paper is to look at the place, within the university, of a grammar of assent. What is at stake here is not a question of the relations between the university and religion but rather the question of the ethics that constitutes enquiry in.. (shrink)

‘International’ and ‘internationalisation’ are two terms frequently used today in association with the university. In this paper I consider the way in which the notion of internationalisation connects to the contemporary university, which I have termed ‘Neo‐liberal’. I begin by outlining the main characteristics of the contemporary university and then discuss some of the problems that arise in relation to the notion of internationalisation; it is strongly associated with an economic rather than a cultural imperative. Alternatives to the Neo‐liberal model (...) of the university are then considered and rejected. In the final section of the paper I suggest a different interpretation of internationalisation, one that is cultural rather than economic because such an internationalisation degenerates into instrumentalism and robs higher education of what should be essential to it. (shrink)

A key goal for a professional ethics teacher is to help students improve their moral reasoning within the context of their profession, with the ultimate aim of developing a commitment to the values of their future profession. Using Rest’s Four Component Model as a framework, this study examines the relationship between the first two components of moral sensitivity and moral judgment. The study utilises two scores from the same cohort of computing undergraduates: a score for ethical sensitivity using a devised (...) dilemma analysis; and a score for change in moral judgment resulting from an educational intervention, using the Defining Issues Test. Although average DIT scores showed no significant improvement in moral judgment, this study found that levels of ethical sensitivity had a significant impact on the development of moral judgment. The paper provides evidence that ethical sensitivity appears to play a key role in the development of moral judgment. Therefore an initial key objective critical to any ethics course should be to raise student levels of ethical sensitivity as a necessary foundation for development of moral judgment. The paper also highlights the wide range of levels of ethical sensitivity measured within one cohort and suggests targeted learning support should be provided to students who score in the lower part of the scale to raise their levels of moral sensitivity early in the course. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this research paper is to examine the early stages of a research project aimed at evaluating the pedagogic effectiveness of a teaching module in computing ethics.Design/methodology/approachScores of students' cognitive capabilities to make moral judgements were measured before and after they had taken the module by means of the “Defining Issues Test”. This is a standard test of students' capability to make moral judgement based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. Interviews were then used to help understand the (...) results of the test.FindingsResults revealed low mean scores of post‐conventional thinking skills and wide variation in overall scores of capability for moral judgement. Interviews with the students about the course and the test revealed the importance of understanding students' beliefs about the importance of ethics in interpreting the results.Research limitations/implicationsDifficulties in matching “before and after” results for each subject limited the sample size in what was an early step in the overall research project.Practical implicationsThe results point towards the importance of addressing students' own understanding of the importance of ethics when teaching computing ethics.Originality/valueThe paper reveals some of the limitations of tests of capabilities for moral judgement which rely on strongly individualistic notions of ethics. It enables a new appreciation to be made of the strengths and weaknesses of assessing student moral development in higher education in terms of cognitive factors. (shrink)

Is there progress in art? The question is one which most people would answer vehemently in the negative without giving it much thought. And yet, how is one to account for changes in artistic style? And what is one to think about modern art, which still seems baffling to many in comparison with traditional figurative art? Suzi Gablik's challenging argument is that art, like science, has a history, order and structure which can be called progressive. Progress, however, is not a (...) question of moral or esthetic improvement but involves a cognitive 'growth' of artistic styles and is related to transformations in modes of thinking. The model used for the argument is based on principles of developmental psychology advanced by the famous and revolutionary Swiss experimental psychologist Jean Piaget. By demonstrating the way in which art is linked with the acquisition of stages of development: increasingly complex perceptual and logical structures lead to mental organizations which are increasingly dominated by scientific, rationalistic and conceptual modes of thinking in contrast to earlier more mystical ones. In this light, an attempt is made to explain the shift in art from figurative or iconic representation, where the image resembles the object to which it refers, towards non-representational art which is abstract and conceptual in organization. Three sections of illustrations demonstrate, through revealing juxtapositions, the course of artistic development from ancient and medieval times, through the Renaissance, to contemporary art. -- from dust jacket. (shrink)

The majority of current attention on the question of autonomy has focused on the internal reflection of the agent. The quality of an agent’s reflection on her potential action (or motivating desire or value) is taken to determine whether or not that action is autonomous. In this paper, I argue that there is something missing in most of these contemporary accounts of autonomy. By focusing overwhelmingly on the way in which the agent reflects, such accounts overlook the importance of what (...) the agent is reflecting upon. Whichever of these current formulations of autonomy we accept, reflection could be undertaken in full accordance with the conditions set, and yet the action fail to be autonomous. This will occur, I argue, if the agent is mistaken about the object of her reflection. More precisely, if she has a particular kind of false belief about the action she is contemplating undertaking, then no amount of reflection can render that action autonomous. This suggests the need for externalist conditions to be incorporated into an account of autonomy. (shrink)

All too often, social kinds function as sites of oppression. To be a woman, to be Black, to be trans – each, in its own way, situates someone at the lower end of a social hierarchy. Membership in such groups thus constitutes a liability: notwithstanding the goods people draw from sharing in these identities, they also stand at perpetual risk of those same identities exposing them to significant harm. What, if anything, can members of oppressed groups do to counter that (...) oppression? In this article I explore one possible strategy: people can – and do – strategically invoke their membership in what I call ‘anti-oppressive kinds’, in order to contest the oppression they face qua members of oppressed groups. Focusing on one particularly salient anti-oppressive kind, the human, I first offer an explanation as to how and why its invocation might be politically effective, before considering some hazards with its use. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a novel conception of dignity. I begin by offering three desiderata that a theory of dignity should be able to satisfy: it should be able to explain why all human beings are owed respect, and what kind of respect we are owed; it should be able to explain how acts such as torture damage dignity, and what kinds of harms this brings about; and finally, it should be able to explain (...) why dignity is held to a higher degree by certain individuals. After demonstrating that the dominant, Kantian-inspired conception of dignity cannot fulfill these desiderata, I develop a novel conception of dignity that centers around the role of normative standards. Dignity, on this conception, involves being subject to, and then upholding, relevant normative standards; to violate someone’s dignity is to prevent them from upholding those standards. Importantly, these standards can have either a subjective or a communal source, which in turn explains both the agential and social harms that accompany dignity violations. I then draw on the idea of social dignity to explain human dignity. Unlike the dominant philosophical conception, I take human dignity to be a status that is conferred, rather than a status that is inherent. (shrink)

One of the more intractable problems in the debate over autonomy is how we should distinguish autonomy-enhancing from autonomy-compromising forms of socialization. In this paper I first survey a range of theories of autonomy, from the procedural through to the substantive, and argue that none offers sufficient resources to resolve the problem of socialization. In the second half of the paper I develop an alternative theory that can both differentiate benign from pernicious socialization and, more importantly, provide an explanation for (...) the means by which pernicious socialization compromises autonomy. (shrink)

Is there progress in art? The question is one which most people would answer vehemently in the negative without giving it much thought. And yet, how is one to account for changes in artistic style? And what is one to think about modern art, which still seems baffling to many in comparison with traditional figurative art? Suzi Gablik's challenging argument is that art, like science, has a history, order and structure which can be called progressive. Progress, however, is not a (...) question of moral or esthetic improvement but involves a cognitive 'growth' of artistic styles and is related to transformations in modes of thinking. The model used for the argument is based on principles of developmental psychology advanced by the famous and revolutionary Swiss experimental psychologist Jean Piaget. By demonstrating the way in which art is linked with the acquisition of stages of development: increasingly complex perceptual and logical structures lead to mental organizations which are increasingly dominated by scientific, rationalistic and conceptual modes of thinking in contrast to earlier more mystical ones. In this light, an attempt is made to explain the shift in art from figurative or iconic representation, where the image resembles the object to which it refers, towards non-representational art which is abstract and conceptual in organization. Three sections of illustrations demonstrate, through revealing juxtapositions, the course of artistic development from ancient and medieval times, through the Renaissance, to contemporary art. -- from dust jacket. (shrink)

Moral equality—the idea that ‘we’ all have equal moral worth, our interests ought to count for the same, and we possess the same bundle of basic rights—is one of the most central principles of liberal thought, being regularly drawn on as a presupposition of moral and political inquiry. Perhaps because it is so often relied on as a presupposition, however, moral equality is more often assumed than argued for. When moral equality is argued for, the most common tactic is to (...) appeal to some inherent property. As is well established, however, such property-based defenses of moral equality face two significant challenges: the problem of exclusion and the problem of inequality. In light of these challenges, in this article I put forward a new, revisionist account of moral equality. Taking inspiration from recent work in the social metaphysics of human kinds, I argue that moral equality ought to be seen as a component of a status that we confer on one another, rather than (grounded in) a property inherent in certain individuals. Conceiving of moral equality this way, I argue, side-steps both the problem of exclusion and the problem of natural equality. (shrink)

Since Plato’s Symposium, romantic, sexual love has been characterized as a movement in desire that seeks wholeness and identity since it is, at heart, broken.1 The yearning for sexual consummation is predicated upon the idea that love completes the self. Copulation provides lovers with a moment of rapture, relief, and oneness, but once satisfied it is again wanting in reawakening the desire to pledge and to make love again. Love operates much like a promise whose constant and insistent offerings seek (...) to recover again and again its inherent brokenness. The promise of love and the many promises of love are divided further by the dual possibility of being fulfilled or unfulfilled, sincere or insincere, true or false... (shrink)

This volume makes available for the first time an encounter between Ricoeur and Castoriadis on questions of human creation, social imaginaries, history, and the imagination to an English speaking audience. As such it represents a highly significant resource for scholars, and a lively introduction to each of their thought for newcomers.

The nature of warfare is changing. Increasingly, developments in military technology are removing soldiers from the battlefield, enabling war to be waged from afar. Bombs can be dropped from unmanned drones flying above the range of retaliation. Missiles can be launched, at minimal cost, from ships 200 miles to sea. Micro Air Vehicles, or 'WASPS', will soon be able to lethally attack enemy soldiers. Though still in the developmental stage, progress is rapidly being made towards autonomous weaponry capable of selecting, (...) pursuing, and destroying targets without the necessity for human instruction. These developments have a profound — and as yet under-analysed — impact on just war theory. I argue that a state under attack from remote weaponry is unable to respond in the traditional, just war sanctioned, method of targeting combatants on the battlefield. This restriction of options potentially creates a situation whereby a state is either coerced into surrender, or it must transgress civilian immunity. Just war theory in conditions of remote warfare therefore either serves the interests of the technologically advanced by demanding the surrender of targeted states, or else it becomes redundant. (shrink)