The abortion debate rages on. Yet the two most popular positions seem to be clearly mistaken. Conservatives maintain that a human life begins at conception and that therefore abortion must be wrong because it is murder. But not all killings of humans are murders. Most notably, self defense may justify even the killing of an innocent person.Liberals, on the other hand, are just as mistaken in their argument that since a fetus does not become a person until birth, a woman (...) may do whatever she pleases in and to her own body. First, you cannot do as you please with your own body if it affects other people adversely. Second, if a fetus is not a person, that does not imply that you can do to it anything you wish. Animals, for example, are not persons, yet to kill or torture them for no reason at all is wrong. (shrink)

A century ago, John Dewey remarked that when home changes radically, school must change as well. With home, family, and gender roles dramatically altered in recent years, we are faced with a difficult problem: in the lives of more and more American children, no one is home. The Schoolhome proposes a solution. Drawing selectively from reform movements of the past and relating them to the unique needs of today's parents and children, Jane Martin presents a philosophy of education that (...) is responsive to America's changed and changing realities. As more and more parents enter the workforce, the historic role of the domestic sphere in the education and development of children is drastically reduced. Consequently, Martin advocates removing the barriers between the school and the home--making school a metaphorical "home," a safe and nuturant environment that provides children with the experience of affection and connection otherwise missing or inconsistent in their lives. In this proposition, the traditional schoolhouse where children are drilled in the three Rs is transformed into a "schoolhome" where learning is animated by an ethic of social awareness. At a time when many school reformers are calling for a return to basics and lobbying for skills education and quick-fix initiatives, Martin urges us to reconsider the distinctive legacies of Dewey and Montessori and to conceive of a school that integrates the values of the home with those of social responsibility. With cultural diversity and gender equality among its explicit goals, the schoolhome expands upon Dewey's edict to educate the "whole child," seeking instead to educate all children in the culture's whole heritage. Martin eloquently challenges reformers to reclaim the founding fathers' vision of the nation as a domestic realm, and to imagine a learning environment whose curriculum and classroom practice reflect not merely an economic but a moral investment in the future of our children. More than a summons to action, this remarkable book is a call to rethink the assumptions we bring to the educational enterprise, and so, to act wisely. (shrink)

We have investigated the emotional profile of dreams and the relationship between dream emotion and cognition using a form that specifically asked subjects to identify emotions within their dreams. Two hundred dream reports were collected from 20 subjects, each of whom produced 10 reports. Compared to previous studies, our method yielded a 10-fold increase in the amount of emotion reported. Anxiety/fear was reported most frequently, followed, in order, by joy/elation, anger, sadness, shame/guilt, and, least frequently, affection/eroticism. Unexpectedly, there was no (...) significant difference in the profiles of emotion reported by men and women. When the reports were scored for bizarreness, a significant correlation was found between the occurrence of bizarreness and major shifts in emotion. These results support the conclusion that dreaming is a mental state whose general emotional features are widely shared across individuals and strongly linked to cognitive features within individual dreams. (shrink)

“Basic research” is often used in science policy. It is commonly thought to refer to research that is directed solely toward acquiring new knowledge rather than any more practical objective. Recently, there has been considerable concern about the future of basic research because of purported changes in the nature of knowledge production and increasing pressures on scientists to demonstrate the social and economic benefits of their work. But is there really something special about basic research? The author argues here that (...) “basic research” is a flexible and ambiguous concept that is drawn on by scientists to acquire prestige and resources. She shows that it is used for boundary work and gives examples of the work it does in different situations by drawing on interviews with scientists and policy makers on the category of basic research and the changes they have seen in it over time. (shrink)

In this paper, we reflect on our experience as science and technology studies researchers who were members of the working group that produced A Synthetic Biology Roadmap for the UK in 2012. We explore how this initiative sought to govern an uncertain future and describe how it was successfully used to mobilize public funds for synthetic biology from the UK government. We discuss our attempts to incorporate the insights and sensibilities of STS into the policy process and why we chose (...) to use the concept of responsible research and innovation to do so. We analyze how the roadmapping process, and the final report, narrowed and transformed our contributions to the roadmap. We show how difficult it is for STS researchers to influence policy when our ideas challenge deeply entrenched pervasive assumptions, framings, and narratives about how technological innovation necessarily leads to economic progress, about public reticence as a roadblock to that progress, and about the supposed separation between science and society. We end by reflecting on the constraints under which we were operating from the outset and on the challenges for STS in policy. (shrink)

As philosophers throughout the ages have asked: What is justice? What is truth? What is art? What is law? In _Education Reconfigured_, the internationally acclaimed philosopher of education, Jane Roland Martin, now asks: What is education? In answer, she puts forward a unified theory that casts education in a brand new light. Martin’s "theory of education as encounter" places culture alongside the individual at the heart of the educational process, thus responding to the call John Dewey made over a (...) century ago for an enlarged outlook on education. Look through her theory’s lens and you can see that education takes place not only in school but at home, on the street, in the mall—everywhere and all the time. Look through that lens and you can see that education does not always spell improvement; rather, it can be for the better or the worse. Indeed, you can see that education is inevitably a maker and shaper of both individuals and cultures. Above all, Martin’s new educational paradigm reveals that education is too important to be left solely to the professionals; that it is one of the great forces in human society and, as such, deserves the attention and demands the vigilance of every thoughtful person. (shrink)

Book II of the Treatise minutely anatomizes the passions Hume dubbed “indirect.” As the account of pride, humility, love, and hatred unfolds, principles are uncovered, causes are exhaustively examined, experiments carried out, difficulties presented and solved. The barrage of detailed description and theorizing threatens to overwhelm even the most devoted of readers. By contrast, Hume’s explicit treatment of the direct passions appears perfunctory. Indeed, Hume states: “None of the direct affections seem to merit our particular attention except hope and fear.” (...) Desire and aversion, though usually mentioned first as examples of the direct passions, receive no separate analysis. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Background Central Philosophical Issues in Works on the Passions The Weakness of Reason “Reason Directs and the Affections Execute”19 Hume's Connection to the Earlier Literature Central Philosophical Issues regarding the Passions: Hume's Alternative Analyses Conclusion Notes References and further reading.

Book II of the Treatise minutely anatomizes the passions Hume dubbed “indirect.” As the account of pride, humility, love, and hatred unfolds, principles are uncovered, causes are exhaustively examined, experiments carried out, difficulties presented and solved. The barrage of detailed description and theorizing threatens to overwhelm even the most devoted of readers. By contrast, Hume’s explicit treatment of the direct passions appears perfunctory. Indeed, Hume states: “None of the direct affections seem to merit our particular attention except hope and fear.” (...) Desire and aversion, though usually mentioned first as examples of the direct passions, receive no separate analysis. (shrink)

An emerging view of science rejects an infallible observational given and takes consensus as the starting point for confirmation. Theory and Observation are seen as mutually correcting. I argue that the same is true of ethics, such as Rawls' "reflective equilibrium." Though epistemologically similar, their truth conditions may differ. Ethics may be reducible to physics; but even if it is not, that does not imply that it has no truth conditions. The options for truth in ethics are the same as (...) those of other abstract fields such as mathematics. (shrink)

References to strength of mind, a character trait implying “the prevalence of the calm passions above the violent”, occur in a number of important discussions of motivation in the Treatise and the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Nevertheless, Hume says surprisingly little about what strength of mind is, or how it is achieved. This paper argues that Hume’s theory of the passions can provide an interesting and defensible account of strength of mind. The paper concludes with a brief comparison (...) of Humean strength of mind with autonomy. (shrink)

Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray tackle some important issues raised by the emerging field of synthetic biology. Many of these issues arise pre­cisely because synthetic biology is still emerging, making it hard, if not impossible, to predict how the technology will pan out. In the context of this uncertainty, Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray imply, we may have to change our familiar patterns of thinking and governing. It is this point that I elaborate on here. I argue that if we embrace the (...) distinctive characteris­tics of emerging biotechnologies, we can shift away from attempts to analyze the risks and benefits of technologi­cal developments and toward discussions of the moti­vations and purposes that drive them in the first place. This perspective gives us a solid rationale for public and stakeholder engagement (or “democratic deliberation,” as Kaebnick et al. call it) and helps us address some of the concerns Kaebnick and colleagues raise about how this engagement should be organized. (shrink)

Just over a decade on from a spike of interest in Jacques Rancière’s writing within educational philosophy and theory, I revisit his interventions on democracy and education to make the case for (re)engaging with Rancière’s writing now to address important questions about contemporary education policy, the role of schools in democratic societies and public debate over the curriculum. Specifically, I argue that Rancière’s interventions on the Platonism that characterises both ‘progressive’ and ‘traditional’ arguments about school curricula in such contexts offer (...) a vital tool for understanding the shifts in education policy and educational debate that animate our current political moment. Building on work that has applied Rancière’s writing to analyse neoliberal education policy, I argue that Rancière’s writing provides a distinctive analytical lens for interpreting a recent shift towards neo-conservative education policy agendas, and the imbrication of schools within the ‘culture-wars’ that characterise the contemporary political landscape in several national settings. Taking recent policies concerned with the teaching of values in England as an example, I argue that a Rancierian perspective on such policy is helpful for revitalising research concerned with education and the role of public schooling in societies that wish to maintain some claim to democracy. (shrink)

This book explores the persistence of Pythagorean ideas in theoretical physics. It shows that the Pythagorean position is both philosophically deep and scientifically interesting. However, it does not endorse pure Pythagoreanism; rather, it defends the thesis that mind and mathematical structure are the grounds of reality. The book begins by examining Wigner's paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. It argues that, whilst many issues surrounding the applicability of mathematics disappear upon examination, there are some core (...) issues to do with the effectiveness of mathematics in fundamental physics which remain. The core issues are the existence of the laws of nature and our minds ability to fathom them, the use of formal mathematics in discovering things about the quantum world, the fact that deep mathematics is needed to describe fundamental physics, and the asymptotic nature of the quest for knowledge. These issues are the focus of the book. The author seeks to explain them within a metaphysical framework that takes mind and mathematical structure as its fundamental principles. The framework - called quantum monadology - combines ideas from Leibnizian monadology, set theory, and consistent histories quantum theory. (shrink)

In mainstream discussion, violent crimes against women frequently are presented as inexplicable and their perpetrators as social deviants. Feminists have argued for an awareness of the sexually political and conformist nature of such crimes and have invented the word gynocide to name the range of systematic violence against women by men. I look at the issues raised by three recent manifestations of gynocide in the United States: the battering of Hedda Nussbaum and murder of Lisa Steinberg by Joel Steinberg, the (...) execution of serial killer Ted Bundy, and a series of murders of “prestigeless” women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:55. FURTHER REMARKS ON THE CONSISTENCY OF HUME'S ACCOUNT OF THE SELF Philosophers no longer discuss Hume's account of the self solely in order to attack it. In separate comments prompted by my paper "Is Hume's Self Consistent?" Biro and Beauchamp join the camp of the defenders of Hume's view. As another member of this group, I share their desire to give a sympathetic interpretation of Hume's discussion of (...) the self and personal identity. This general agreement notwithstanding, there are some substantial points concerning the nature of Hume's problems with his account of the self and his method of resolving them about which we do not agree. These disagreements will be the focal point of this paper. I wish to emphasize, however, that they occur within a broader framework of agreement that Hume's account of the self does not suffer from the defects that are so frequently attributed to it. Discussions of personal identity frequently focus on the role played by memory in personal identity. The view that personal identity is based on memory (that is, that memory creates the connections between various sets of experiences that make them the experiences of one person) has been the subject of much criticism. Happily, it is no longer naively assumed that accounts of personal identity based on memory must be circular, but the problems of developing an adequate account of personal identity based en memory are not minor ones. It is for this reason that I am uneasy about Biro's attempt to solve Hume's problems about personal identity by an appeal to the function of memory in personal identity. Biro contends that my reconstruction of the bundle theory of persons, which involves a partial overlap of non-identical bundles, is unnecessary. He argues that the intentionality of memory is sufficient to explain the connections that give a person the imperfect identity that it possesses through time. But I believe that Biro is 56. mistaken, and that considerations of a basic sort about the relationship between memory and personal identity suggest that a non-circular Humean account of personal identity based on memory would not be possible apart from my reconstruction of the bundle theory, or something like it. I will begin by presenting this argument, after which I will clarify some points about my own view. However, I must immediately point out, as Biro does not, that Biro is not in disagreement with me when he argues for the view that Hume's theory of the self can be made consistent without going beyond the view that the self is a bundle of perceptions. We agree that Hume's apparent references to a "non-Newtonian" type of association are not basic, and can be eliminated. We disagree on the question of how this can be done. Biro states, It is memory, or, to be more specific, the presence of memory perceptions among the series of collections of perceptions, that, on Hume's view, i£ the mind or self, which makes it possible for such a series to be a self, a single entity which can be individuated and of which I can be aware. and, The intentionality of memories (as well as that of anticipations) is, I have argued, just the bond required for cementing perceptions without the aid of an additional agency such as a mind whose perceptions, on the alternative model, they would be said to be. On Biro's account, therefore, memory, in virtue of its intentionality, creates a self out of distinct perceptions. Memories point to, (or represent, or refer to) impressions of past events, creating a bond between the bundle in which the memory occurs and the bundle in which the original impression occurred. No further link is necessary, and my "overlap theory" (as Biro calls it) is at best redundant. What problems would arise for Hume, if this were his view? Accounts of personal identity based on memory face 57. the following difficulty. If we restrict the term 'memory' to a person's representations of his past experiences, then memory presupposes personal identity and an account of personal identity based on memory would be circular. It might... (shrink)

This case study examines the ethical dimensions of isolation for patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in Australia. It seeks to explore the issues of resource allocation, liberty, and public safety for wider consideration and discussion.

A preeminent philosopher of education in the United States, Jane Roland Martin challenges conventional wisdom that education consists of small, incremental changes. Using case studies of personal transformations, or metamorphoses, Martin examines Malcolm X, Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, Victor of Aveyron and others to demonstrate how education is a fundamental determinant of the human condition.

Increased attention to the relationship between democracy and education in the UK has been accompanied over the past thirteen years by an interest in how art can be used to promote democratic citizenship.While this approach has led to increased funding for the arts, it is not without its problems,and has often entailed an apolitical and instrumentalist view of both art and education. This paper turns to the political philosophy of Mouffe and Rancière, the work of Rancière in aesthetics, and Biesta’s (...) educational philosophy to develop an alternative way of understanding the significance of art for democracy and education. Building on their work, I take a performative and collective view of democratic subjectivity as the basis on which to construct this alternative understanding. I further argue that this conceptualisation can aid our understanding of democratic learning and our ability to provide opportunities for it through art and educational practice. (shrink)

Policymakers use financial incentives to achieve a wide variety of public objectives, from pollution reduction to the employment of welfare recipients. Combining insights from economic theory with lessons learned from actual implementation, this article analyzes the implications of two such policies: first, subsidizing contraception, and second, offering financial incentives to individuals for sterilization or for using a long-term, semipermanent method of contraception such as the Intra-Uterine Device, Depo-Provera or Norplant. These subsidy and incentive policies achieve their goals through a myriad (...) of individuals who make their reproductive choices in response to particular costs and benefits. Such programs are ethically and politically controversial. In this paper, I address the question of whether they can be justified either economically or ethically.The first section of this article presents an economic theory to assess whether a subsidy, tax, or incentive is economically efficient, both generally and in the context of contraception. (shrink)

Policymakers use financial incentives to achieve a wide variety of public objectives, from pollution reduction to the employment of welfare recipients. Combining insights from economic theory with lessons learned from actual implementation, this article analyzes the implications of two such policies: first, subsidizing contraception, and second, offering financial incentives to individuals for sterilization or for using a long-term, semipermanent method of contraception such as the Intra-Uterine Device, Depo-Provera or Norplant. These subsidy and incentive policies achieve their goals through a myriad (...) of individuals who make their reproductive choices in response to particular costs and benefits. Such programs are ethically and politically controversial. In this paper, I address the question of whether they can be justified either economically or ethically.The first section of this article presents an economic theory to assess whether a subsidy, tax, or incentive is economically efficient, both generally and in the context of contraception. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an analysis, reconstruction and defense of Locke's account of personal identity. I begin with a detailed analysis of Locke's use of the term 'conscious' in its historical context. This term, which plays a central role in Locke's theory, had senses in the seventeenth century which it does not have today. In the light of this analysis, an interpretation of continuity of consciousness as the ancestral of memory is given. It is argued that this interpretation of (...) Locke's theory of personal identity does not involve an ontological commitment to immaterial substances, and Locke is defended against the historically important criticisms of Butler and Reid. In the conclusion I suggest that the account of the individuation of persons implicit in Locke's discussion of personal identity is similar to the account of contextual individuation given by Hintikka. (shrink)

Terence Penelhum has written extensively about the role of the idea of the self in Hume's account of the emotional and moral life of persons. Penelhum fails to notice, however, a change that takes place in the way that the idea of the self functions in Hume's account of the passions as that account evolved after the Treatise. This paper charts part of that evolution, and reflects on its significance for Hume's moral psychology.

Scholarly focus on the political relationship between monasteries and the state has obscured other dynamics in the post-Mao revival and development of dGe-lugs-pa monasticism in China and led to its marginalization in wider discussions about Buddhism in the contemporary world. The present article seeks to broaden our understanding by examining economic reforms at a monastery in A-mdo. Based on fieldwork conducted 2008-2009, it argues that while recent monastic economic developments converge with state policies, monks’ narratives place agency for reforms within (...) the monastic community and present impetus for reform as a moral issue. Consideration of the moral dimension of reforms, drawing on Sayer’s conception of moral economy, allows for a thicker understanding of contemporary monastic development which takes into account dynamics that extend beyond monastic interactions with the political and hegemonic power of the Chinese state. (shrink)

In several works Teresa Brennan examines how, contrary to social notions of the separate and contained self, all that exists in the natural world is connected energetically. She identifies a “foundational fantasy” whereby the ego comes into existence and is maintained by the notion that it controls the mother. The effects of this fantasy are socially oppressive and, in the technological era, environmentally disastrous. M;y examination of narratives and images in ancient myth, popular culture, literature, and art suggest ways to (...) counteract the destructive fantasy through re-symbolization of the relation to what Brennan understands as the original/living nature, which is correlated to the mother's body. (shrink)

The examination of cultural productions with nuclear themes reveals the regular recurrence of the theme of incestuous fatherhood. Connections include a nuclear-father figure, one who threatens dependents while purportedly protecting them; the desecration of the future; the betrayal of trust; insidious long-term effects after initial harm; the shattering of safety; the cult of secrecy, aided by psychological defenses of denial, numbing, and splitting (in both survivor and perpetrator); the violation of life-preservative taboos; and survival.