Postmodernism has evoked great controversy and it continues to do so today, as it disseminates into general discourse. Some see its principles, such as its fundamental resistance to metanarratives, as frighteningly disruptive, while a growing number are reaping the benefits of its innovative perspective. In Political Theory and Postmodernism, Stephen K. White outlines a path through the postmodern problematic by distinguishing two distinct ways of thinking about the meaning of responsibility, one prevalent in modern and the other in postmodern (...) perspectives. Using this as a guide, White explores the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, and Habermas, as well as 'difference' feminists, with the goal of showing how postmodernism can inform contemporary ethical-political reflection. In his concluding chapter, White examines how this revisioned postmodern perspective might bear on our thinking about justice. (shrink)

We take a tremendous interest in how other people think of us. We have certain expectations of others, concerning how we are to figure in their thought and judgment. And we often feel wronged if those are disappointed. But it is puzzling how others’ beliefs could wrong us. On the one hand, moral considerations don’t bear on the truth of a belief and so seem to be the wrong kind of reasons for belief. On the other hand, truth-directed considerations (...) seem to render moral considerations redundant. In this paper, we argue that to understand the possibility of doxastic wronging, we need to understand beliefs, no less than actions, as ways of relating to one another. In particular, how we take account of what others think and say will depend on whether we take up what P. F. Strawson calls the participant stance toward them. We show how this helps to make sense of an example Miranda Fricker identifies as a case of epistemic injustice. We then use the example to spell out the ethical significance of Tyler Burge’s idea that we have a default entitlement to accept at face value what we receive from a rational source. (shrink)

This is a survey of recent debates concerning the normativity of belief. We explain what the thesis that belief is normative involves, consider arguments for and against that thesis, and explore its bearing on debates in metaethics.

We are teacher educators trying to recalibrate to the world of Trump. As we search to find our new bearings, we recognize that the markers of meaning that we relied on (such as civility and...

I believe that Tom is the proud father of a baby boy. Why do I think his child is a boy? A natural answer might be that I remember that his name is ‘Owen’ which is usually a boy’s name. Here I’ve given information that might be part of a causal explanation of my believing that Tom’s baby is a boy. I do have such a memory and it is largely what sustains my conviction. But I haven’t given you just (...) any causally relevant information, I’ve given my grounds for my belief. I’ve given reasons that might justify me in supposing that Tom’s baby is a boy. Less naturally, the question might be taken as a request for a broader causal explanation of my holding this belief. Appropriate answers might cite all manner of facts concerning the evolution of the human race, why I chose to pursue philosophy and hence came to know Tom, the mechanisms of email transmission, the firing of various neurons, the circumstances of concept formation as a result of which I’m able to grasp the thought that Tom’s baby is a boy, and so on. It is an interesting question what distinguishes the narrower set of answers that I first suggested. I won’t pursue that here. I assume you have a good enough sense of the distinction I’m drawing. We might call the narrower set of answers justifying reasons, the kind of reasons I might cite in justifying my belief. Answers of the first sort are clearly relevant to epistemological evaluation. In assessing whether you know p or are rational in believing it to the degree you do, I will naturally want to consider what reasons you have for your belief. In deliberating myself about whether to believe p, in seeking an answer to the question of whether p, I will naturally consider what reasons or grounds I have to suppose that p. But what I want to focus on here is how explanations of the broader sort bear on such questions as whether to believe p. From a third-person perspective we can ask, ‘In assessing the epistemic status of S’s belief that p, what is the relevance of causal information that lies outside of the realm of justifying reasons?’ From the first-person standpoint we can ask ‘In seeking to answer whether p, how should such causal information affect my deliberations?’ At first it might seem that such broader causal information could have little relevance if any. Like any belief my belief that p can be traced back to innumerable causes from far and wide.. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that a general norm of truth governs the attitude of believing. In a recent and influential discussion, Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi raise a number of serious objections to this view. In this paper, I concede that Bykvist and Hattiangadi's criticisms might be effective against the formulation of the norm of truth that they consider, but suggest that an alternative is available. After outlining that alternative, I argue that it is not vulnerable to objections parallel to those (...) Bykvist and Hattiangadi advance, although it might initially appear to be. In closing, I consider what bearing the preceding discussion has on important questions concerning the natures of believing and of truth. (shrink)

“Studies on the emotions became popular in the analytically oriented philosophy of mind in the 1980s” , the author begins, but the status of emotion as reason’s rival or complement in the directing of human nature is, of course, of perennial interest to philosophy per se. True, the topic has acquired a certain prominence in recent decades, and this has led to useful historical investigations, although, as the author says, many more of them have been on emotions in ancient than (...) in medieval philosophy . In four chapters, he presents a continuous history of philosophical reflection on emotion from Plato to the fourteenth-century Franciscan Adam Wodeham, and late medieval compendia. Along the way he summarizes and comments on a large number of texts in whole or in part, regularly quotes from them in English translation, and often supplies the more significant Greek and Latin terms. For discussion of ancient theories, he acknowledges reliance on works by Martha Nussbaum and Richard Sorabji, but his scholarship extends to a wide range of primary sources and other historical studies. His recognition of the bearing of both theological and medical works on his subject is noteworthy: it is a mark of the singularity of emotion—or, as it is. (shrink)

This volume assesses how far the ideas and achievements of the 19th century British Idealist philosophical reformers are still important for us today when considering fundamental questions about the structure and objectives of the education system in England and Wales. Part 1 examines those ideas of the Idealists, especially T. H. Green, which had most bearing on the educational reforms carried out between 1870 and the 1920s and traces their connection with the philosophy and educational theory of Hegel and other (...) post-Kantians. Part 2 is an historical survey, concentrating on the innovations in the organization and contents of education in England and Wales brought about by the administrators and educationists educated in philosophical idealism. Part 3 considers what relevance the philosophical and practical ideas of this interconnected group of reformers have to education today. (shrink)

Call the view that it is possible to acquire aesthetic knowledge via testimony, optimism, and its denial, pessimism. In this paper, I offer a novel argument for pessimism. It works by turning attention away from the basis of the relevant belief, namely, testimony, and toward what that belief in turn provides a basis for, namely, other attitudes. In short, I argue that an aesthetic belief acquired via testimony cannot provide a rational basis for further attitudes, such as admiration, and that (...) the best explanation for this is that the relevant belief is not itself rational. If a belief is not rational, it is not knowledge. So, optimism is false. After addressing a number of objections to the argument, I consider briefly its bearing on the debate concerning thick evaluative concepts. While the aim is to argue that pessimism holds, not to explain why it holds, I provide an indication in closing of what that explanation might be. (shrink)

A major contention of our bookHellenism in the Eastwas that the most profitable way for making progress in understanding the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires was to try to evaluate, sensitively, the very disparate types of evidence within their own social and cultural contexts, however difficult this might be in practice. In the case of the Antiochus I cylinder we are confronted by an inscribed object whose significance lies as much in its physical form as in the content of the text (...) it bears. These aspects are inextricably intertwined as part of a tradition specific to Mesopotamian culture—object and text combined are the physical representation of a major, longstanding, sociopolitical institution for which a mass of earlier evidence exists. It is all too understandable that Greco-Roman scholars, who have been the primary students of the hellenistic world, should find it hard to know how to approach such material emanating from an unfamiliar cultural milieu. Yet, for once, this text isnotfragmentary—it is a long, well-preserved document, easy to read and readily accessible in translation which in itself demonstrates an acknowledgment by hellenistic historians of the potential importance of this non-Greek text for understanding Seleucid history. (shrink)

First-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a proposition is true. Higher-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a person is able to assess her evidence for or against a proposition. A widespread view is that higher-order evidence makes a difference to whether it is rational for a person to believe a proposition. In this paper, I consider in what way higher-order evidence might do this. More specifically, I consider whether and how higher-order evidence plays a role in (...) determining what it is rational to believe distinct from that which first-order evidence plays. To do this, I turn to the theory of reasons, and try to situate higher-order evidence within it. The only place I find for it there, distinct from that which first-order evidence already occupies, is as a practical reason, that is, as a reason for desire or action. One might take this to show either that the theory of reasons is inadequate as it stands or that higher-order evidence makes no distinctive difference to what it is rational to believe. I tentatively endorse the second option. (shrink)

In this introduction, I explain the notion of higher-order evidence and explore its bearing on aesthetic judgement. I start by illustrating how reflection on cases involving higher-order evidence engages with well-established concerns in aesthetics—specifically, how it might reveal tensions within and between widely recognized aesthetic ideals governing aesthetic judgement. Next, I show how attention to higher-order evidence in relation to aesthetic judgement might expose limitations or assumptions of theories in epistemology, where the nature and significance of higher-order evidence with respect (...) to belief is the focus of much recent attention. The aim is not to resolve the issues but to demonstrate the significance of higher-order evidence in aesthetics and, in doing so, encourage work on the topic in and across aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., (...) as merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

This volume assesses how far the ideas and achievements of the 19th century British Idealist philosophical reformers are still important for us today when considering fundamental questions about the structure and objectives of the education system in England and Wales. Part 1 examines those ideas of the Idealists, especially T. H. Green, which had most bearing on the educational reforms carried out between 1870 and the 1920s and traces their connection with the philosophy and educational theory of Hegel and other (...) post-Kantians. Part 2 is an historical survey, concentrating on the innovations in the organization and contents of education in England and Wales brought about by the administrators and educationists educated in philosophical idealism. Part 3 considers what relevance the philosophical and practical ideas of this interconnected group of reformers have to education today. (shrink)

Rather than think about citizenship in minimal terms, I argue for a more aspirational “bearing” of the public self, one appropriate for the challenges of globalizing, late-modern political life. For left democratic theory this is hardly an abstract issue, given how successful groups like the Tea Party have been in articulating a right-leaning aspirational portrait. What might a counter-portrait look like that was comparably scripted for the middle classes in affluent liberal democracies? An answer is not immediately clear, given that (...) left democratic theory’s attention has been traditionally focused on an overly simple, two-entity social ontology: elites and demos. The question I consider is what script might be articulated for middle segments of society in relation to how they should bear themselves toward less advantaged segments of society? This does not replace thinking about the demos, but rather supplements it with reflection on the complex alignments of contemporary political life. (shrink)

How, if at all, does one's intention to realize an end bear on the justification for taking the means to that end? Theories that allow that intending an end directly provides a reason to take the means are subject to a well-known "bootstrapping" objection. On the other hand, "anti-psychologistic" accounts—which seek to derive instrumental reasons directly from the reasons that support adopting the end itself—have unacceptable implications where an agent faces multiple rationally permissible options. An alternative, predictive, role for (...) intention in means-end reasoning is considered and rejected. A new proposal is then developed, according to which instrumental reasons are not merely reasons to perform an act necessary for a given end, but to perform the act for the sake of that end. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive later writings are dominated by remarks on language. However, while the textual analysis of Wittgenstein's writings is presently a booming industry, the tendency is to focus narrowly on exegetical matters with little attention to their bearing on philosophy at large. Moreover, one finds in contemporary philosophy of language various ideas with a distinctively Wittgensteinian ring to them but whose pedigree is uncertain. This volume brings together distinguished Wittgenstein scholars and renowned philosophers of language in order to (...) examine just what Wittgenstein has to say about language and to assess its significance for current philosophy. The topics discussed include the connection between the meaning of a word and its use, the bearing the context of utterance has on how words are to be understood, the role of rules in the employment of language and whether Wittgenstein's reflections on these issues encourage sceptical or relativist thoughts."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

The politics of interpretation should not be confused with interpretive practices such as political theory, political commentary, or histories of political institutions, parties, and conflicts that have politics itself as a specific object of interest. In these other interpretive practices, the politics that informs or motivates them—“politics” in the sense of political values or ideology—is relatively easily perceived and no particular meta-interpretive analysis is required. The politics of interpretation, on the other hand, arises in those interpretive practices which are ostensibly (...) most remote from overtly political concerns, practices which are carried out under the aegis of a purely disinterested search for the truth or inquiry into the natures of things which appear to have no political relevance at all. This “politics” has to do with the kind of authority the interpreter claims vis-à-vis the established political authorities of his society, on the one side, and vis-à-vis other interpreters in his own field of study or investigation, on the other, as the basis of whatever rights he conceives himself to possess and whatever duties he feels obligated to discharge as a professional seeker of truth. This politics which presides over interpretive conflicts is difficult to identity because traditionally, in our culture at least, interpretation is thought to operate properly only as long as the interpreter does not have recourse to the one instrument which the politician per vocationem utilizes as a matter of course in his practice—the appeal to force as a means of resolving disputes and conflicts.11. I have followed the lead of Max Weber in defining the phrase “politics of interpretation.” In “Politics as Vocation,” Weber wrote that “ ‘politics’ means for us striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state” . Rather than discuss the age-old problem of the professional interpreter’s political responsibilities, I will consider that politics which is endemic to the pursuit of truth—the striving to share power amongst interpreters themselves. The activity of interpreting becomes political at the point where a given interpreter claims authority over rival interpreters. As long as this claim is not reinforced by appeal to the power of the state to compel conformity of belief or conviction, it is “political” only in a metaphorical sense. Of course, interpretation becomes political when a given point of view or finding is taken as orthodoxy of belief by those holding political power, as in the Soviet Union, Germany under Hitler, or any number of religiously puritanical regimes. But these are the easy cases. It is much more difficult to determine the political nature of interpretive practices which, as in literary criticism or antiquarian scholarship, appear to have no bearing upon political policies or practices.Hayden White is a professor and director of the program in the history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is coeditor of Representing Kenneth Burke and is currently working on a book on the rhetoric of realism. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality" and "The Narrativization of Real Events". (shrink)

Abstract: According to deflationism, grasp of the concept of truth consists in nothing more than a disposition to accept a priori (non-paradoxical) instances of the schema:(DS) It is true that p if and only if p.According to contextualism, the same expression with the same meaning might, on different occasions of use, express different propositions bearing different truth-conditions (where this does not result from indexicality and the like). On this view, what is expressed in an utterance depends in a non-negligible way (...) on the circumstances. Charles Travis claims that contextualism shows that ‘deflationism is a mistake’, that truth is a more substantive notion than deflationism allows. In this paper, I examine Travis's arguments in support of this ‘inflationary’ claim and argue that they are unsuccessful. (shrink)

There is a very interesting phenomenon which takes place in philosophy. Theories which appeared ten or fifteen years ago in the literature of, say, the philosophy of language or the philosophy of mind, often make a reappearance in current discussions of problems in the philosophy of religion. As Yogi Berra once remarked, ‘It's déjà vu all over again’. However, there is always a possibility that the transition from the earlier context to the later one will be less than smooth. For (...) sometimes the theory reappears in a slightly distorted form, and, as a result, its bearing on the current discussion is somewhat misconceived. In this paper, an example of this phenomenon, and its potential problems, will be considered. Our purpose is not, of course, to discourage such intra-disciplinary dialogue in philosophy of religion, but rather to recommend that it be undertaken with a considerable measure of care. (shrink)

This short book is an interdisciplinary critique of conventional school examinations for older secondary students. -/- Chapter 1 is about their multiple shortcomings. -/- Chapter 2 asks why they have existed for so long, given that their deficiencies have been well-known for a century and more. It suggests that one factor in the UK has been their value to upper echelons of society as stepping stones to interesting careers; and documents attempts since 1900 to prevent other parts of society from (...) using them for the same purpose, except children allowed as a safety valve to climb the ‘ladder’. The chapter attempts to show continuities between the Coalition’s schools policies and these earlier developments, bearing in mind today’s greater need to attend to democratic legitimation. -/- This chapter continues the theme of social advantage and the protection of privilege concludes by looking at how nineteenth-century enthusiasm for exams was exported from the West to South and East Asia, leading to the so-called ‘examination hells’ that blight schooling there today. -/- Chapter 3 looks at suggestions for replacing school exams with something more educationally defensible. (shrink)

Consisting of fewer than two hundred verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is today extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and guide to yoga practice. As David Gordon White demonstrates in this groundbreaking study, both of these assumptions are incorrect. Virtually forgotten in India for hundreds of years and maligned when it was first discovered in the West, the Yoga Sutra has been elevated to its present iconic status--and (...) translated into more than forty languages--only in the course of the past forty years. White retraces the strange and circuitous journey of this confounding work from its ancient origins down through its heyday in the seventh through eleventh centuries, its gradual fall into obscurity, and its modern resurgence since the nineteenth century. First introduced to the West by the British Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the Yoga Sutra was revived largely in Europe and America, and predominantly in English. White brings to life the improbable cast of characters whose interpretations--and misappropriations--of the Yoga Sutra led to its revered place in popular culture today. Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today. (shrink)

The work of the eye has a powerful influence across culture and philosophy—not least in Goethe's approach to understanding. Aligned to aesthetic appreciation, seeing has the potential to offer an authorial gift of ‘other-ness’ when brought to bear on evaluative relationships. Yet this penetrating gaze might also be seen as limiting when put to work in the services of ‘other’. From the subtle sideways glance, to the lingering gaze of lovers, a look can mean many things. But the eye (...) does not work alone—what can be seen is directly impacted by the ideologies that influence interpretation, the time and space of its origin, and the genre of its capture. But it is only later, through post-modern eyes, that the image finally falls victim to its subjective stance and can be thus rendered obsolete. As such, the work of the eye far exceeds literal notions of visuality. These same tensions are evident in the work of the early Bakhtin Circle through their engagement with neo-Kantism, Russian formalism, phenomenology and Russian Avant-Gardes. In this article the art of seeing is reconciled in educational practice for the early years as a relational event through Goethian-inspired interpretations of visual surplus and aesthetics. Through this lens seeing is brought to life as an encounter of authorship—implicating the ‘I’—as a potential relationship of meaning and accountability at the centre of visuality. (shrink)

How should inquiry into ethical-political life come to terms with “depth experience”? I mean by this extraordinary experience that breaks into the familiar frames of meaning and reasoning that undergird everyday life, bringing some sort of transformation of commitments or identity. I speculate broadly about such experience, expanding the focus beyond theistic experiences, such as being “born-again.” When one does this, depth experience need not be thought, as it often is, anathema to political theory. I show rather that it can (...) be cultivated so as to animate an admirable “bearing” on the part of citizens of affluent, late-modern societies. (shrink)

“Studies on the emotions became popular in the analytically oriented philosophy of mind in the 1980s” , the author begins, but the status of emotion as reason’s rival or complement in the directing of human nature is, of course, of perennial interest to philosophy per se. True, the topic has acquired a certain prominence in recent decades, and this has led to useful historical investigations, although, as the author says, many more of them have been on emotions in ancient than (...) in medieval philosophy . In four chapters, he presents a continuous history of philosophical reflection on emotion from Plato to the fourteenth-century Franciscan Adam Wodeham, and late medieval compendia. Along the way he summarizes and comments on a large number of texts in whole or in part, regularly quotes from them in English translation, and often supplies the more significant Greek and Latin terms. For discussion of ancient theories, he acknowledges reliance on works by Martha Nussbaum and Richard Sorabji, but his scholarship extends to a wide range of primary sources and other historical studies. His recognition of the bearing of both theological and medical works on his subject is noteworthy: it is a mark of the singularity of emotion—or, as it is. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate what I call “ecological value cognition,” a term designating a cognitive process by which one understands: (1) a value or set of values which pertain to the environment, (2) that such values are morally relevant, and (3) that these values may invite or even require virtues, attitudes or actions with respect to them and the entities which bear them. I seek, in this paper, to elucidate the nature of ecological value cognition and suggest specific (...) challenges that the American capitalist ethos poses for understanding these values and therefore for developing a sound environmental ethics and policy. (shrink)

This article argues that one of the reasons that the unethical character of much human-dolphin contact is not more apparent to ethicists is that discussion of central issues has been colored with unintentional species bias. This article points out weaknesses in the traditional approach to discussing topics that bear on the question of whether dolphins have moral standing. It demonstrates that discussions of the cognitive abilities of dolphins by Steven Wise and Alasdair MacIntyre are unintentionally but fundamentally anthropocentric-largely because (...) the authors are not familiar with enough of the scientific literature about dolphins to draw the conclusions that they do. (shrink)

Hare's important book Freedom and Reason has arguments applying the thesis of universalizability (a kind of neutrality principle) to a variety of cases. The procedure involves considering persons in different roles. I argue from a consideration of Hare's multilateral case (judge and thief) that the thesis by itself cannot enable one to reach the conclusion Hare intends. I argue that Hare's arguments require additional principles or premises to reach their desired conclusion. All of this bears on the possibility of extracting (...) utilitarianism from rather formal principles about neutrality of judgments. My arguments suggest this is not the case. (shrink)

There are two basic objections to Plato's account of love in the Phaedrus, both raised by Gregory Vlastos, both metaphysically important in their own right, and both still unanswered. The first is that the Phaedrus sees men as mere images of another world, making it folly or even idolatry to treat them as worthy of love for their own sakes. The other is that it considers the love that we bear for our fellow men to be the result of (...) human, temporal deficiency. If only we could be free of this deficiency, the objection runs, we would have no reason to love anything or anyone except the Forms: seen face to face, these by themselves would absorb all our love. (shrink)

There are two basic objections to Plato's account of love in the Phaedrus, both raised by Gregory Vlastos, both metaphysically important in their own right, and both still unanswered. The first is that the Phaedrus sees men as mere images of another world, making it folly or even idolatry to treat them as worthy of love for their own sakes. The other is that it considers the love that we bear for our fellow men to be the result of (...) human, temporal deficiency. If only we could be free of this deficiency, the objection runs, we would have no reason to love anything or anyone except the Forms: seen face to face, these by themselves would absorb all our love. (shrink)

A political and intellectual biographical study of Lenin which focuses on those aspects of his thought and political activities that had a bearing on the accession of the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917 and the creation of the Soviet state. The book places Lenin in the context of his times and shows his relationship to other socialist thinkers. In particular it locates Lenin within the development of Marxist thought in Russia. Its historiographical chapter reveals the political factors which (...) influenced the way biographies of Lenin were written in the Soviet Union. The book makes use of first hand materials including sources from the Russian archives. (shrink)

A plausible scenario for the future of electronic mass media news goes something like this. On the one hand, there will be the nightly television news, some of it brought to us by public entities and some by private, increasingly concentrated, corporate entities. On the other hand, there will be continually streaming sources of news available over the internet; and each of us will be able to construct, in effect, a tailor-made, continually revisable package of news. What I want to (...) do in this paper is reflect on the normative ideals in terms of which we ought to assess developments along these two paths. I will be assuming, along with the conference organizers, that these ideals must draw upon our notion of democratic dialogue. But what exactly is our notion of democratic dialogue? And how exactly should we bring it to bear on the two media paths? (shrink)

I reply to criticisms of my book, _A Democratic Bearing: Admirable Citizens, Uneven Injustice and Critical Theory_ from Simone Chambers, Rainer Forst, and Sharon Krause.

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and extent to which cultural differences bear on perceptions of ethical Organizational Development consulting behaviors. U.S. (n=118) and Taiwanese (n=267) business students evaluated eleven vignettes depicting potential ethical dilemmas. Respondents judged the ethicality of each vignette, the likelihood of the event's occurrence and the party responsible for the event's occurrence. Multivariate Analyses of Variance revealed significant cultural differences in perceptions of ethicality, and group differences in perceptions of the events' (...) likelihood of occurrence. U.S. subjects provided higher ethicality ratings than the Taiwanese, and lower ratings on the likelihood of occurrence. Response distributions resulting from the identification of the responsible party were similar for six of the eleven vignettes. When differences did occur, it appeared that the Taiwanese were more inclined than the U.S. subjects to view responsibility as shared by the client and the consultant. The results suggest the need for the incorporation of cultural differences in a code of ethics for the profession and the need for cross-cultural ethics training for partitioners. (shrink)

Every day, Victoria Skillane wakes up bewildered. She has no idea where she is, but nevertheless has to run for her life from masked assailants while zombielike onlookers refuse to intervene. We later learn that she's the centerpiece of ‘White Bear Justice Park.’ The question is, what about this could be called just? In this chapter, we look to different theories of punishment in order to discern whether or not Victoria's punishment is justified. Does she deserve it? Does (...) her sentence deter people? Beyond these questions, we confront the most unsettling question raised by this episode of Black Mirror: why do people enjoy watching her suffer so much? (shrink)

Drawing on theories of William James, Freud, and Dewey, as well as on studies in mood control, cognitive therapy, and artificial intelligence, this...

The present study examined the effects of thought suppression on sleep-onset mentation. It was hypothesized that the decrease of attentional control in the transition to sleep would lead to a rebound of a suppressed thought in hypnagogic mentation. Twenty-four young adults spent two consecutive nights in a sleep laboratory. Half of the participants were instructed to suppress a target thought, whereas the other half freely thought of anything at all. To assess target thought frequency, three different measures were used in (...) the wake state and mentation reports were repeatedly prompted by a computer at sleep onset. In support of the hypothesis, results revealed a reversal of target thought frequency at sleep onset: Participants instructed to suppress reported fewer target thoughts than did controls before falling asleep, but more target thoughts afterwards. (shrink)

This article explores how the TV series Black Mirror is evidence that entertaining TV series can provide us with highly elaborated critical thinking about crime and punishment. Based on the premise that society owns social imaginaries to guide our individual orientation, we explore the connection between screen technologies and our criminal imaginaries in this TV series. The article relates the aims of punishment according to criminal theory – prevention, retribution and rehabilitation – with two images that appear in episode 2.2 (...) ‘White Bear’: the monster and its lynching. (shrink)

Kia kaha Aotearoa, be strong New ZealandTo bear witness to the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity as a national outpouring of grief and a memorialising of those who have passed away is a very touchi...

In this paper I pose two questions for Stephen White and his aspirational model of citizenship. The first is to ask what ethical sources do citizens need to oppose the presence of Nazis in our public sphere. The second is to question White’s deep suspicion of foundationalism and theism as sources of an open and democratic bearing and indeed as sources from which we can build strong opposition to Nazis.

In this article, I comment on Stephen White’s version of critical theory as presented in A Democratic Bearing. I specifically focus on his version of the “colonization thesis” and the social analysis this leads to. I also scrutinize his normative framework, especially the claim of non-foundationalism and the difference between his view and Kantian discourse theory.

In this paper I explore some possible reasons why white feminists philosophers have failed to engage the radical work being done by non-Western women, U.S. women of color and scholars of color outside of the discipline. -/- Feminism and academic philosophy have had lots to say to one another. Yet part of what marks feminist philosophy as philosophy is our engagement with the intellectual traditions of the white forefathers. I’m not uncomfortable with these projects: Aristotle, Foucault, Sartre, Wittgenstein, (...) Quine, Austin, and countless others have provided us with some very powerful conceptual tools.. However, as Sandra Harding observes, conventional standards for what counts as “good science” (or in this case “good philosophy”) always bear the imprint of their creators. So, I think about whether the tools my discipline hands me ever serve as strategies for exclusion. -/- My conversation begins with intersectionality, which for feminists working outside of philosophy, is a predictable point of departure; but as a white feminist philosopher I have specific reasons for starting here. The fact that intersectionality is, at once, such a widely recognized strategy for making visible women of color’s issues and concerns in academic and policy discussions, and so neglected by philosophers is telling. I want to invite philosophers to think more seriously about intersectionality and other pluralist approaches as strategies for calling attention to whiteness of philosophy in general and feminist philosophy in particular. I want us to consider what feminist philosophy would be like if women of color’s writing, experiences, and communities drove philosophical inquiry. -/- Since most philosophers are unfamiliar with intersectional methodologies, I begin with a basic explanation of the foundational claims of this approach. Next, I explore some reasons why white feminists working in philosophy may be resistant to this method. I identify both disciplinary and personal reasons for this hesitancy and argue that intersectionality serves as a useful strategic tool for examining white authority in the emergent feminist canon. Finally, I explore the role intersectional thinking might play in creating a feminist critical race philosophy by outlining four projects that I think will challenge and enrich feminist work in the discipline. (shrink)

I shared Raanan Gillon’s1 surprise at Robert Veatch’s criticism of the white coat ceremonies,2 and I think that the points raised by Veatch were quite adequately countered by Gillon’s response. The provocative points raised by Veatch do stimulate some valuable critical thinking about the process, although I think Veatch was carried away a bit by hyperbole. To label the drama of the ceremony as “ominous” goes a bit far by any criterion.I should like to describe an oath taking initiation (...) ceremony in use at the Ben Gurion University Faculty of Health Sciences for almost three decades, its history, features, current practice, and conclusions. I believe that Veatch’s specific objections are addressed by our process and merit consideration by other institutions as well.When the medical school was founded in 1974 the then dean , Professor Moshe Prywes, met with the just entering class several weeks before the onset of the academic year during a summer preliminary orientation period . Professor Prywes, an imaginative, charismatic innovator with a flair for public relations and the dramatic, suggested to the entering class that they take the physician’s oath during the first weeks of the academic year, coinciding with their first exposure to patients . He explained that he wanted the students to regard themselves as already bearing responsibilities and duties, and not just rights. He saw them as “change agents” working to upgrade the medical care and the health of the patients and community, right from the first days of their schooling.I had just arrived in Israel as a new immigrant to assume the foundation professorship of medicine, coming from …. (shrink)