In the last few decades, the ethics of care as a feminist ethic has given rise to extensive literature, and has affected moral inquiries in many areas. It offers a distinctive challenge to the dominant moral theories: Kantian moral theory, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. This chapter outlines the distinctive features and promising possibilities of the ethics of care, and the criticisms that have been made against it. It then examines the ethics of care’s recognition of human dependency and of the (...) importance of responding to needs; its interpretation of the roles of emotion and reason in moral understanding; and its critique of liberal individualism and development of a conception of the person as relational. The ethics of care contrasts care with justice, tries to integrate them, and reconceptualizes public and private life and morality. (shrink)

In this volume, John Warner grapples with one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s chief preoccupations: the problem of self-interest implicit in all social relationships. Not only did Rousseau never solve this problem, Warner argues, but he also believed it was fundamentally unsolvable—that social relationships could never restore wholeness to a self-interested human being. This engaging study is founded on two basic but important questions: what do we want out of human relationships, and are we able to achieve what we are (...) after? Warner traces his answers through the contours of Rousseau’s thought on three distinct types of relationships—sexual love, friendship, and civil or political association—as well as alternate interpretations of Rousseau, such as that of the neo-Kantian Rawlsian school. The result is an insightful exploration of the way Rousseau inspires readers to imbue social relations with purpose and meaning, only to show the impossibility of reaching wholeness through such relationships. While Rousseau may raise our hopes only to dash them, Rousseau and the Problem of Human Relations demonstrates that his ambitious failure offers unexpected insight into the human condition and into the limits of Rousseau’s critical act. (shrink)

A longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism discusses how the Zen concept of nonduality - the essential unity of all things - forms the basis of Buddhist ethics. The author describes key Buddhist doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, showing their relevance to modern problems.

In his "intimate, funny, conversational style" (Library Journal), Brad Warner stage dives into the Sam Harris, Karen Armstrong, Christopher Hitchens mosh pit of the God or no God debate - and body surfs up with a typically provocative perspective. Warner was initially interested in Zen because he wanted to find God, but Zen Buddhism is usually thought of as godless. Warner travels around the world looking for insight and what he finds, in chapters like "Sam Harris Believes (...) in God," "God Doesn't Have to Be Real to Exist," and "What God Wants," and through visits to places including Israel, Mexico, and Northern Ireland, is the belief that Buddhism "is a way to approach and understand God without dealing with religion." The fact that the book's title is Warner's mis-remembrance of a Zen monk's quote is emblematic of his profoundly engaging and idiosyncratic take on the ineffable power of the "ground of all being.". (shrink)

Introduction. The enimatic case of the Zhongshuo -- Part One. Assessing textual authority -- The transmission history of the Zhongshuo, seventh through eleventh centuries -- Features, problems, and puzzles in the received Zhongshuo -- Part Two. Interpreting cultural authority -- Appropriations of the Master's legacy.

Cosa significa credere? Qual è l’utilità della credenza? Per analizzare il contenuto delle credenze di un popolo possiamo prescindere dallo studio della cultura di quel popolo? I termini da noi adoperati hanno un contenuto semantico unico e unicamente determinato? Per rispondere a tali fondamentali interrogativi, l’Autrice analizza i concetti di credere e di credenza secondo il punto di vista dell’antropologo britannico Rodney Needham e l’attenzione viene rivolta principalmente al suo enorme debito intellettuale nei confronti del filosofo viennese Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Background: Many people participating in dementia research may lack capacity to give informed consent and the relationship between cognitive function and capacity remains unclear. Recent changes in the law reinforce the need for robust and reproducible methods of assessing capacity when recruiting people for research.Aims: To identify numbers of capacitous participants in a pragmatic randomised trial of dementia treatment; to assess characteristics associated with capacity; to describe a legally acceptable consent process for research.Methods: As part of a pragmatic randomised controlled (...) trial of Ginkgo biloba for mild-moderate dementia, we used a consenting algorithm that met the requirements of existing case law and the exigencies of the new Mental Capacity Act. We decided who had capacity to give informed consent for participation in the trial using this algorithm and sought predictors of capacity.Results: Most participants with mild-moderate dementia in this trial were unable to give informed consent according to the legal criteria. When adjusted for confounding, the Mini Mental State examination did not predict the presence of capacity.Conclusion: Cognitive testing alone is insufficient to assess the presence of capacity. Researchers and clinicians need to be aware of the challenging processes regarding capacity assessment. We outline a procedure which we believe meets the ethical and legal requirements. (shrink)

In this book, the author examines the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence systems as they integrate and replace traditional social structures in new sociocognitive-technological environments. She discusses issues related to the integrity of researchers, technologists, and manufacturers as they design, construct, use, and manage artificially intelligent systems; formalisms for reasoning about moral decisions as part of the behavior of artificial autonomous systems such as agents and robots; and design methodologies for social agents based on societal, moral, and legal values. Throughout (...) the book the author discusses related work, conscious of both classical, philosophical treatments of ethical issues and the implications in modern, algorithmic systems, and she combines regular references and footnotes with suggestions for further reading. This short overview is suitable for undergraduate students, in both technical and non-technical courses, and for interested and concerned researchers, practitioners, and citizens. (shrink)

Elements of Moral Experience in Clinical Ethics Training and Practice: Sharing Stories with Strangers is a philosophical and professional memoir of the education, training, and professional development of becoming a clinical ethics consultant. Utilizing a phenomenological and narrative lens, this book offers a fresh and energizing window into the field of healthcare ethics by pairing compelling clinical narratives of what it is like to do clinical ethics consultation with clear reflections and accessible introductions to key philosophical, professional, and humanistic roots (...) for responsible practice. (shrink)

The authors of the articles in this special section discuss an array of psychological perspectives on emotion. The articles provide only a limited consideration of status and power processes, however, which play a larger role in sociological theories of emotion than in psychological ones. Here, I examine the ways in which the theories account for status and power and suggest opportunities for greater inclusion of these key facets of social structure.

The main argument of the article regards Aristotle’s anti-realistic account, which presents a different viewpoint from that which simply fulfils or negates the truth-values of our statements on Mixed Constitutions. In modern times, the idea of a Constitution of many minds or of many individuals is proposed by Sunstein and by Hart, who maintain that neither intentions in juridical procedure nor Constitutional provisions can produce an ideal Constitution. Thus any interpretative procedure assigning to legal reality any definite, once-and-for-all meaning is (...) precarious, according to Aristotle who asks whether we can gain epistemic access to the real essences of Constitutions and their structure. These ideas respond to a challenge in the Works of Contiades, who will help us to turn the ideal Constitution into a realisable model in the situation in which we live nowadays. This is the main challenge to be met by the institutions of Europe in order to safeguard the nature of historical and intellectual values. (shrink)

An ongoing challenge facing emotion researchers is finding appropriate measurement tools. Many of our theories focus on emotion in the context of dynamic interaction, yet many of our most relied-upon measures either interrupt or alter interaction. New research suggests that infrared thermography may be useful as a nonintrusive way to measure emotion. Here we discuss the viability of thermography for studying emotion response and advancing emotion theory.

Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. It is relevant to global and political matters as well as to the personal relations that can most clearly exemplify care. This book clarifies just what the ethics of (...) care is: what its characteristics are, what it holds, and what it enables us to do. It discusses the feminist roots of this moral approach and why the ethics of care can be a morality with universal appeal. Held examines what we mean by "care," and what a caring person is like. Where other moral theories demand impartiality above all, the ethics of care understands the moral import of our ties to our families and groups. It evaluates such ties, focusing on caring relations rather than simply on the virtues of individuals. The book proposes how such values as justice, equality, and individual rights can "fit together" with such values as care, trust, mutual consideration, and solidarity. In the second part of the book, Held examines the potential of the ethics of care for dealing with social issues. She shows how the ethics of care is more promising than Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism for advice on how expansive, or not, markets should be, and on when other values than market ones should prevail. She connects the ethics of care with the rising interest in civil society, and considers the limits appropriate for the language of rights. Finally, she shows the promise of the ethics of care for dealing with global problems and seeing anew the outlines of international civility. (shrink)

Investigating Animal Abuse Crime Scenes: A Field Guide is designed for first responders-such as animal control officers and police officers-as well as forensic scientists and other criminal justice professionals who are who are tasked with processing and analyzing animal crime scenes and evidence. The book serves equally as a useful resource for those in the field and laboratory, in addition to those professionals who are further along in the investigative and judicial process.

In this paper the principle that the boundary of a boundary is identically zero (∂○∂≡0) is applied to a skeleton geometry. It is shown that the left-hand side of the Regge equation may be interpreted geometrically as the sum of the moments of rotation associated with the faces of a polyhedral domain. Here the polyhedron, warped though it may be, is located in a lattice dual to the original skeleton manifold. This sum is related to the amount of energy-momentum (E-p) (...) associated to the edge in question. In the establishment of this equation the ordinary Bianchi identity is rederived by applying the principle that the (∂○∂≡0) in its (1–2–3)-dimensional formulation to polyhedral domain. Steps toward the derivation of the contracted Bianchi identity using this principle in its (2–3–4)-dimensional form are discussed. Preliminary results in this direction indicate that there should be one vector identity per vertex of the skeleton geometry. “Space acts on matter, telling it how to move. In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve.”—Ref. 3, Chap. 1. (shrink)

How is feminism changing the way women and men think, feel, and act? Virginia Held explores how feminist theory is changing contemporary views of moral choice. She proposes a comprehensive philosophy of feminist ethics, arguing persuasively for reconceptualizations of the self of relations between the self and others and of images of birth and death, nurturing and violence. Held shows how social, political, and cultural institutions have traditionally been founded upon masculine ideals of morality. She then identifies a distinct (...) feminist morality that moves beyond culturally embedded notions about motherhood and female emotionality. Examining the effects of this alternative moral and ethical system on changing social values, Held discusses its far-reaching implications for altering standards of freedom, democracy, equality, and personal development. Ultimately, she concludes, the culture of feminism could provide a fresh perspective on--even solutions to--contemporary social problems. Feminist Morality makes a vital contribution to the ongoing debate in feminist theory on the importance of motherhood. For philosophers and other readers outside feminist theory, it offers a feminist moral and social critique in clear and accessible terms. (shrink)

Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. It is relevant to global and political matters as well as to the personal relations that can most clearly exemplify care. This book clarifies just what the ethics of (...) care is: what its characteristics are, what it holds, and what it enables us to do. It discusses the feminist roots of this moral approach and why the ethics of care can be a morality with universal appeal. Held examines what we mean by "care," and what a caring person is like. Where other moral theories demand impartiality above all, the ethics of care understands the moral import of our ties to our families and groups. It evaluates such ties, focusing on caring relations rather than simply on the virtues of individuals. The book proposes how such values as justice, equality, and individual rights can "fit together" with such values as care, trust, mutual consideration, and solidarity. In the second part of the book, Held examines the potential of the ethics of care for dealing with social issues. She shows how the ethics of care is more promising than Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism for advice on how expansive, or not, markets should be, and on when other values than market ones should prevail. She connects the ethics of care with the rising interest in civil society, and considers the limits appropriate for the language of rights. Finally, she shows the promise of the ethics of care for dealing with global problems and seeing anew the outlines of international civility. (shrink)

As members of the fetal surgery advisory board at a large tertiary care center, we read with great interest Hendriks’ et al. target article proposing a new ethical framework for fetal therap...

Nearly two hundred years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote what is considered to be the first major work of feminist political theory: A Vindication of the Rights of Women . Much has been written about this work, and about Wollstonecraft as the intellectual pioneer of feminism, but the actual substance and coherence of her political thought have been virtually ignored. Virginia Sapiro here provides the first full-length treatment of Wollstonecraft's political theory. Drawing on all of Wollstonecraft's works and treating them (...) thematically rather than sequentially, Sapiro shows that Wollstonecraft's ideas about women's rights, feminism, and gender are elements of a broad and fully developed philosophy, one with significant implications for contemporary democratic and liberal theory. The issues raised speak to many current debates in theory, including those surrounding interpretation of the history of feminism, the relationship between liberalism and republicanism in the development of political philosophy, and the debate over the canon. For political scientists, most of whom know little about Wollstonecraft's thought, Sapiro's book is an excellent, nuanced introduction which will cause a reconsideration of her work and her significance both for her time and for today's concerns. For feminist scholars, Sapiro's book offers a rounded and unconventional analysis of Wollstonecraft's thought. Written with considerable charm and verve, this book will be the starting point for understanding this important writer for years to come. (shrink)