Kym Maclaren, in her article, “Emotional Metamorphoses: The Role of Others in Becoming a Subject,” explores a phenomenological view on emotion as being-in-the-world as well as the ethical implications of understanding emotion in opposition to the moralistic view. In the first part of this paper, I provide an exegetical assessment of Maclaren’s thesis; in the second I introduce a critique of Maclaren’s argument and argue a claim of my own which explores perception and autonomy in the human body along with (...) its implications in the context of Maclaren’s phenomenological account of emotion. I discuss the necessity of both emotion and reason in morality and argue that the traditional definition of autonomy is not plausible when considered through Maclaren’s phenomenological view of emotion. Finally, I work to creatively explore a new definition of autonomy that does cohere with this view. (shrink)

This dissertation offers an account of linguistic practices of Latinx people in the United States through the lens of critical feminist phenomenology. It examines how Latinx people are racialized on the basis of their language use, the normative logics that structure those processes of racialization, and the practices by which Latinx people resist and transform those logics. In this project, I develop a critical feminist phenomenological approach that locates itself within a tradition of Latina feminist phenomenology—a tradition that has prioritized (...) the articulation of situated, embodied experiences of oppressing⇔resisting relations lived by Latinx intersubjectivities in the context of the United States. I propose the concept of “linguistic rupture” in order to name the specific kind of experience at the center of this analysis. The analysis allows for a reconceptualization of language and linguistic practices that constructs Latinx speakers as actively resistant rather than just passively oppressed. While I do argue that linguistic rupture is particularly significant in understanding the racialization of Latinx populations in the United States, the account of linguistic rupture developed in this project has potential for application across a broad range of racializing processes and events not limited to U.S. Latinx experience. It thus invites further examination and critical engagement with the various ways in which ruptures experienced by minoritized and marginalized subjects in general expose hegemonic logics operating in multiple directions, as well as the ways in which linguistic engagements specifically anchor embodied intersubjectivity existentially. (shrink)

This entry offers a critical overview of the contemporary literature on understanding, especially in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Over the last several years a number of leading philosophers – including Catherine Elgin, Linda Zagzebski, Jonathan Kvanvig, and Duncan Pritchard – have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the contemporary focus on knowledge in epistemology and have attempted to “recover” the notion of understanding. According to some of these philosophers, in fact, understanding deserves not just to be recovered, but to supplant knowledge as the focus of epistemological inquiry. This entry considers some of the main reasons why philosophers have taken understanding (...) to be more valuable than knowledge, focusing on claims that it is more transparent, that it better reflects or mirrors the world, and that it is a greater intellectual achievement. (shrink)

In this article, from the 2009 Oxford University Press collection Epistemic Value, I criticize existing accounts of epistemic normativity by Alston, Goldman, and Sosa, and then offer a new view.

In this chapter I will present, in a general way, Millikan's biosemantic theory of the phenomenon of intentionality. For this purpose, the text will take the following path. First, I will present the problem of intentionality and an overview of the dominant theories of intentional content during the twentieth century and part of the twenty-first century. Then, I will present a general version of Millikan's biosemantic theory, appearing in 1984, which will allow us to see what the relevance and originality (...) of his proposal consists in. Finally, in keeping with one of the central purposes of Las filósofas que nos formaron, I will share a brief interview that Millikan very kindly agreed to give for this publication, in which she tells us some non-theoretical aspects of her history as a philosopher. (shrink)

In Philosophy, it is well known that of the total faculty population, the proportion of women is significantly lower than men. This disproportion is odd for a discipline within the humanities; these numbers seem more compatible with what is found in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) careers. These proportions are in turn a product of the low female presence that exists from the previous levels of academic training in philosophy. What happens in the case of the philosophy student body? For (...) example, the report presented by BeeBee and Saul (2011), on women in philosophy in the United Kingdom, in the period 2008 and 2009, points out that in the first degrees of academic training, in the bachelor's degree, women occupy 45% of the student population, in the master's degree 38% and in the doctorate 35%. Thus, "it is notable that there is a reduction in the proportion of women from the bachelor's degree to the doctorate [...]. This has as a consequence that at the professional level women holding positions as professors represent only 19%" (BeeBee & Saul, 2011, p. 11). Recently, Torres González (2018), based on European Union studies, points out that in Spain, with respect to gender disparity in students, "the data yield as a result masculinized studies, where, contrary to what happens in the branch of the humanities to which it [philosophy] belongs, males outnumber females by 28 percentage points" (2018, p. 328). This disparity is reflected in philosophy at the professional level, "the indicators of vertical segregation show a reinforced glass ceiling, which presents one of the worst data of hierarchical discrimination in the university: the percentage of female professors in philosophy is 12% compared to 21% of female professors in higher education" (Idem). Although it is a fact that there are fewer women than men studying philosophy and, therefore, fewer women than men working professionally in this discipline, we do not yet have possible explanations for this phenomenon of gender disparity in the student body in philosophy. In some cases, even if the number of women entering the philosophy degree program is already low, the number of women graduating is even lower, which indicates that there is attrition along the way; the initial numbers of women entering the program tend to decrease by the time they graduate. Thus we come to the question that is the subject of this paper: What causes female students to drop out of the philosophy program? In this article we answer this question from the philosophy of science and supported by local empirical data, so we do not give a complete or even less exhaustive answer. We review two explanatory models that purport to answer the question of why there are fewer women in philosophy, both formatively and professionally. These are the Different Voices Model (DVM) and the Perfect Storm Model (PSM); we opt for the latter and give reasons for it. Regarding the empirical aspect of our research, our source of statistical data belongs to the undergraduate program in philosophy at the Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-UNAM, Mexico (FES Acatlán), obtained in the framework of the SWIP-Analytic Mexico workshops. Our analysis of these data shows that even when female students have better GPAs than male students and take fewer subjects while enrolled, female students graduate less than male students in the FES Acatlan degree program. (shrink)

Five symposia from the 25th annual Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy focus on cognitive suicide, the explanatory role of content, Cartesian error and the objectivity of perception, social content and psychological content, and belief attribution and context.

I explore the extent to which the epistemic state of understanding is transparent to the one who understands. Against several contemporary epistemologists, I argue that it is not transparent in the way that many have claimed, drawing on results from developmental psychology, animal cognition, and other fields.

This paper focuses on Confucian formulations of personhood and the implications they may have for bioethics and medical practice. We discuss how an appreciation of the Confucian concept of personhood can provide insights into the practice of informed consent and, in particular, the role of family members and physicians in medical decision-making in societies influenced by Confucian culture. We suggest that Western notions of informed consent appear ethically misguided when viewed from a Confucian perspective.

CHAPTER ONE THE WORLD AS WILL TO POWER /. What there is for Nietzsche Any philosophical system which claims to be at all comprehensive must answer, ...

Previous research has established that the success of strikes, and social movements more broadly, depends on their ability to garner support from the public. However, there is scant published research investigating the response of the public to strike action by healthcare workers. In this study, we address this gap through a study of public responses to UK nursing strikes in 2022–2023, using a data set drawn from Twitter of more than 2300 publicly available tweets. We focus on negative tweets, investigating (...) which societal discourses social media users draw on to oppose strike action by nurses. Using a combination of corpus‐based approaches and discourse analysis, we identified five categories of opposition: (i) discourse discrediting nurses; (ii) discourse discrediting strikes by nurses; (iii) discourse on the National Health System; (iv) discourse about the fairness of strikers' demands and (v) discourse about potential harmful impact. Our findings show how social media users operationalise wider societal discourses about the nursing profession (e.g., associations with care, gender, vocation and sacrifice) as well as recent crises such as the Covid‐19 pandemic to justify their opposition. The results also provide valuable insights into misconceptions about nursing, strike action and patient harm, which can inform strategies for public communication. (shrink)

Due to the variety of research ethics and integrity training formats it may be challenging to use a common instrument to monitor and evaluate the development of competencies and learning progress as well as determine the effectiveness of the training. The present study scrutinises the use of learning diaries as one possible measure to evaluate the development of ethics competencies. The aim of the study was to increase understanding about how learning diaries capture development of research ethics and integrity competencies (...) of participants and explore the use of diaries as a measure of training effectiveness. In the evaluative case study, a micro-credential programme was used as the context of the study and data was analysed using deductive content analysis. As a result, we outline criteria for analysis to be used in ethics training programmes for learning diaries. Results indicated that learning diaries submitted in the forum format (compared to individual submissions) provide peer support, so learners display more content knowledge on high levels of reflection and understanding. Submitting learning diaries over a longer period and making submissions repeatedly can improve writing and reflection competencies. The quality of learning diary entries may also depend on learner characteristics, such as commitment and motivation. Keeping a learning diary can help retain obtained competencies over a longer period. The article ends with a set of recommendations for implementing learning diaries as one measure of evaluation. (shrink)

En Infancia e historia Giorgio Agamben afirma que en la contemporaneidad asistimos a la “destrucción” de la capacidad para transmitir la experiencia. Ante esto, propone la idea de “infancia” entendida como una “experiencia originaria” en la que residiría la pura potencia del lenguaje. Esta idea presenta una serie de dificultades en tanto posibilidad concreta de volver a transmitir la experiencia ante su destrucción. Por lo tanto, el presente escrito indaga en otros conceptos de Agamben tales como el “montaje de temporalidades”, (...) el “paradigma” y el “testimonio”, conjeturando que allí se encuentran posibles claves para efectivamente volver a transmitir la experiencia. (shrink)

As innovations in the field of vascular composite allotransplantation (VCA) progress, whole-eye transplantation (WET) is poised to transition from non-human mammalian models to living human recipients. Present treatment options for vision loss are generally considered suboptimal, and attendant concerns ranging from aesthetics and prosthesis maintenance to social stigma may be mitigated by WET. Potential benefits to WET recipients may also include partial vision restoration, psychosocial benefits related to identity and social integration, improvements in physical comfort and function, and reduced surgical (...) risk associated with a biologic eye compared to a prosthesis. Perioperative and postoperative risks of WET are expected to be comparable to those of facial transplantation (FT), and may be similarly mitigated by immunosuppressive protocols, adequate psychosocial support, and a thorough selection process for both the recipient and donor. To minimize the risks associated with immunosuppressive medications, the first attempts in human recipients will likely be performed in conjunction with a FT. If first-in-human attempts at combined FT-WET prove successful and the biologic eye survives, this opens the door for further advancement in the field of vision restoration by means of a viable surgical option. This analysis integrates recent innovations in WET research with the existing discourse on the ethics of surgical innovation and offers preliminary guidance to VCA programs considering undertaking WET in human recipients. (shrink)

Among epistemologists and philosophers of science, one often hears that someone with understanding is able to “see” or “grasp” how the elements of a subject “cohere” or “fit together”—but just what is involved in the seeing or the grasping is usually left to the imagination. I argue that the most productive way to make progress on this issue is by first identifying the kind of explanation-seeking why-questions that drive the search for understanding in the first place. In particular, I suggest (...) that if we can get a good grip on why a situation stands in need of explanation for us in the first place, then we will in turn be in a good position to determine how we might satisfy that need. In this respect, I argue that a situation stands in need of explanation for us, and therefore inspires our why-questions, in virtue of our sense that there are various ways that we think the situation might have been. If a situation stands in need of explanation for this reason, moreover, then in order to satisfy the need for explanation our objective will be to identify what the difference between these alternatives depends on. To say only this much still leaves a great deal underdetermined, however, for we might “identify” what the difference depends on in a number of different ways: for example, by having a true belief about what the difference depends on, by knowing this on the basis of testimony, and so on. What is distinctive about the state of understanding, I suggest, is the particular way in which we identify what the difference depends on: namely, by grasping what the difference depends on. I explore at length what exactly this grasping amounts to. (shrink)

Women and men are biologically and reproductively dissimilar. This sexual distinctiveness gives rise to a “sexual asymmetry”—the fundamental reality that the potential consequences of sexual intercourse are far more immediate and serious for women than for men. Advocates of contraception and abortion sought to cure sexual asymmetry by decoupling sex from procreation, relieving women from the consequences of sex, and thus equalizing the sexual experiences of men and women. But efforts to suppress or reject biological difference have not relieved women (...) of the consequences of sex and the vulnerabilities of pregnancy, even as they have further relieved men. Although secular feminist responses to biological difference have served to exacerbate sexual asymmetry, Catholic teaching on abortion, sex, and marriage—even contraception—provides an authentically pro-woman cultural response. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 164-188, June 2022.

: The main contribution of this paper to current philosophical and sociological studies on modeling is to analyze modeling as an object-oriented interdisciplinary activity and thus to bring new insights into the wide, heterogeneous discourse on tools, forms and organization of interdisciplinary research. A detailed analysis of interdisciplinarity in the making of models is presented, focusing on long-standing interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in infectious diseases, mathematicians and computer scientists. The analysis introduces a novel way of studying the elements of the (...) models as carriers of interdisciplinarity. These elements, being functionally interdependent building blocks, evolve during the modeling work and carry the disciplinary tensions in the process. This shows how the long and challenging process of defining and reformulating the object of research is crucial for understanding the dynamics of interdisciplinarity in the making. (shrink)

This paper is going to explore the adverse effects of exposure to combat death on medics’ holistic well-being, which, if ignored could decrease individual readiness and negatively impact the mission. We rely on the experience of United States Air Force Special Operation Surgical Teams (AF SOST) whose exposure to mass casualty scenarios in austere environments could serve as approximations of conditions of future battlefields. Over the past two decades, the ability to deliver advanced medical care on and off the battlefield (...) along with a rapid casualty evacuation platform has allowed for unprecedented survival rates exceeding 90%. While laudable, these medical achievements have also set up a casualty management paradigm in which medical decision-making singularly focuses on life-saving care. Confronting peer-peer adversaries in large scale combat operations (LSCO) on a multi-domain battlefield will make casualty management frighteningly more complex by introducing major infrastructural, personnel, and resource constraints. When considering the high number of casualties expected in LSCO alongside enormous limitations in medical resource and resupply capability, the current casualty management paradigm will not be sustainable. The resource constrained environment in LSCO will shift medical decision-making away from a singular focus on life-saving care to triage, which hinges on the ability to determine futile medical interventions—a skill that has been lost in the past two generation of combat medics. As such, a broad ethical challenge that arises in preparation for LSCO is the need to set new expectations concerning dying and death. However, medical decision-making focused on death and dying has not been explicitly addressed in military medical training, research, or policy. Relying on a body of literature known as terror management theory (TMT) and ethnographic data from our study with AF SOST medics, we are going to argue that it is important to expose medics to death in mass casualty and triage training. (shrink)

Existing whistle-blowing models rely on “cold” economic calculations and cost-benefit analyses to explain the judgments and actions of potential whistle-blowers. I argue that “hot” cognitions – value conflict and emotions – should be added to these models. I propose a model of the whistle-blowing decision process that highlights the reciprocal influence of “hot” and “cold” cognitions and advocate research that explores how value conflict and emotions inform reporting decisions. I draw on the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions and on the (...) social-functional value pluralism model to generate propositions. (shrink)

Once common, therapeutic privilege—the practice whereby a physician withholds diagnostic or prognostic information from a patient intending to protect the patient—is now generally seen as unethical. However, instances of therapeutic privilege are common in some areas of clinical psychiatry. We describe therapeutic privilege in the context of borderline personality disorder, discuss the implications of diagnostic non-disclosure on integrated care and offer recommendations to promote diagnostic disclosure for this patient population. There are no data in this work.

The increasing concern about ethics and integrity in research communities has brought attention to how students and junior academics can be trained on this regard. Moreover, it is known that ethical behaviour and integrity not only involve individual but also group norms and considerations. Thus, through action research and participant observation, this research investigates the learning processes through which 64 students collaboratively develop research ethics and integrity competencies. The aim was to understand how bachelor, master and PhD students approach ethical (...) dilemma cases through a collaborative process. The data consisted of recorded group work on ethics cases, student group reports, and post-training questionnaires. Later, the analyses considered groups as the unit of analysis. These data were analysed through content analysis utilizing the SOLO taxonomy to identify levels of understanding and assess evolvement of ethical sensitivity during a case-based training session. The results show that all groups reached the level of understanding where the groups demonstrated that concepts had been understood appropriately, but occasionally struggled to make connections between them. Students perceived working collaboratively as beneficial. The results help teachers of research ethics and integrity to make pedagogically justified choices in their teaching. Drawing on the results of this study, we propose a tool for the formative assessment of student learning of research ethics and integrity. (shrink)

The study focused on university students' understanding and conceptions of ethical issues in research. Domain-specific and domain-transcending measures were developed to gauge the students' awareness of ethical issues. Responses were obtained from 269 undergraduate and graduate students at a U.S. regional university. Participant withdrawal, the debriefing of research participants, the dissemination of findings, and giving credit to co-contributors were the most challenging ethical issues for the students. Ethical awareness was predicted by professional and organizational socialization, and perspective taking. Contextualization greatly (...) improved the students' ability to recognize ethical issues. Simulations and role-taking are suggested as the means with which to teach students about the ethical issues perceived as challenging. (shrink)

The paper is replaced by a new version (12-2019): DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3572846 -/- Physical phenomena emerge from the quantum fields everywhere in space. However, not only the phenomena emerge from the quantum fields, the law of the conservation of energy must have its origin from the same spatial structure. This paper describes the relations between the main law of physics and the mathematical structure of the “aggregated” quantum fields.

The focus of this article is university teachers’ and students’ views of plagiarism, plagiarism detection, and the use of plagiarism detection software as learning support. The data were collected from teachers and students who participated in a pilot project to test plagiarism detection software at a major university in Finland. The data were analysed through factor analysis, T-tests and inductive content analysis. Three distinct reasons for plagiarism were identified: intentional, unintentional and contextual. The teachers did not utilise plagiarism detection to (...) support student learning to any great extent. We discuss the pedagogical implications and suggest that the contextual reasons for plagiarism require focus primarily on study strategies, whereas the intentional reasons require profound discussion about attitudes and conceptions of good learning and university-level study habits. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate harm to racialized communities and increased public attention to the deaths of Black people at the hands of police (Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, George F...

Separation-based accounts of privacy define privacy as being left alone and unaccessed. Pyrrho et al. propose a more control-based account where privacy is about having the age...

Current advances in assisted reproductive technologies aim to promote the health and well-being of future children. They offer the possibility to select embryos with the greatest potential of being born healthy (eg, preimplantation genetic testing) and may someday correct faulty genes responsible for heritable diseases in the embryo (eg, human germline genome modification (HGGM)). Most laws and policy statements surrounding HGGM refer to the notion of ‘serious’ as a core criterion in determining what genetic diseases should be targeted by these (...) technologies. Yet, this notion remains vague and poorly defined, rendering its application challenging and decision making subjective and arbitrary. By way of background, we begin by briefly presenting two conceptual approaches to ‘health’ and ‘disease’: objectivism (ie, based on biological facts) and constructivism (ie, based on human values). The basic challenge under both is sorting out whether and to what extent social and environmental factors have a role in helping to define what qualifies as a ‘serious’ disease beyond the medical criteria. We then focus on how a human rights framework (eg, right to science and right to the highest attainable health) could integrate the concepts of objectivism and constructivism so as to provide guidance for a more actionable consideration of ‘serious’. Ultimately, it could be argued that a human rights framework, by way of its legally binding nature and its globally accepted norms and values, provides a more universal foundation for discussions of the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging or disruptive technologies. (shrink)

Abstract:Many scientists argue that the world is becoming increasingly dominated by human activity, much to the detriment of the natural world. In what scholars have dubbed the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch during which time human activity has been the dominating force over climate and the environment, many questions of environmental ethics have arisen. Who does the earth belong to? What is the relationship between humans and the environment? What is the moral standing of non-human life? Locke and Rousseau provide (...) varying answers to these questions, which are central to discussions of environmental ethics. In many ways, Locke and Rousseau's answers are opposed to each other, suggesting a differing world view when it comes to environmental ethics. Locke's understanding of environmental ethics seems to dominate, and perhaps even cause, the onset of the Anthropocene, but Rousseau's response, and a potential turn toward his understanding of environmental ethics marks an ideological shift in the way that humans understand their relationship with the world around them. This paper argues that the writings of Locke and Rousseau correspond to different stages of the Anthropocene with significant effects on both environmental ethics and environmental governance and policy. (shrink)

Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) face many difficult, timing-sensitive decisions over the course of their illness, weighing present versus future harms and benefits. Supplemented by interviews with people with ALS, we argue for a relational approach to understanding these decisions and their effects on identity. We highlight two critical aspects of the patient–caregiver relationship: (1) the extent to which each may rely on the other leaves their wellbeing intimately intertwined and (2) patients often require others to help with the (...) imaginative task of considering possible futures for each therapeutic option. We show why family involvement in decisionmaking practices can be so critical, and shed light on the ways intimate others help preserve and protect people’s identities amidst the destabilizing uncertainty illness and treatment can bring. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone una lectura de la VIII de las Tesis sobre la historia, de Benjamin que la “emplea”, en el sentido en que el propio Benjamin sostenía que una exposición materialista de la historia debía emplear los fragmentos del pasado para interrogar radicalmente el presente y resistir a las opresiones. Se pone en relación esta tesis con las palabras de las mujeres zapatistas, pronunciadas con motivo de la inauguración del Segundo encuentro internacional de mujeres que luchan, para argumentar que (...) el “estado de excepción” que Benjamin había advertido era en verdad la regla, lo sigue siendo hoy específicamente (aunque no únicamente) para las mujeres y otros cuerpos, individuales y colectivos, feminizados. Se argumenta también que la tradición de lucha de las mujeres indígenas producida por una colonialidad capitalista que sigue en curso es la que hoy nos muestra la normalidad del “estado de excepción” contemporáneo. Finalmente se propone que las luchas de las mujeres son, también, ejercicios críticos y prácticas de resistencia e invención, para una justicia por-venir. (shrink)

An absolute decline in US life expectancy in low education whites has alarmed policy makers and attracted media attention. Depending on which studies are correct, low education white women have lost between 3 and 5 years of lifespan; men, between 6 months and 3 years. Although absolute declines in life expectancy are relatively rare, some commentators see the public alarm as reflecting a racist concern for white lives over black ones. How ought we ethically to evaluate this lifespan contraction in (...) low education whites? Should we care, or is it racist to care? Does it constitute an injustice or reflect justice being done? I argue that the lifespan contraction in low education whites violates key normative criteria used to make determinations of health justice, and that these judgments do not vitiate concerns about racism. I conclude with reflections on US population health policy and building an inclusive health equity movement. (shrink)

Consequentialism is a moral philosophy that maintains that the moral worth of an action is determined by the consequences it has for the welfare of a society. Consequences of model design are a part of the model lifecycle that is often neglected. This paper investigates the issue using system dynamics modeling as an example. Since a system dynamics model is a product of the modeler’s design decisions, the modeler should consider the life cycle consequences of using the model. Seen from (...) a consequentialist perspective, the consequences of policies developed from system dynamics models determine the model’s moral value. This concept is explored by discussing model uncertainty from an engineering perspective. In this perspective, the ethical considerations shift from the behavior of the modeler to the model itself and the model’s inherent uncertainty. When the ethical considerations are taken away from the modeler and directed to what the model does, the ethical boundaries extend beyond the proximity of the model. This discussion renews the ethics conversation in system dynamics by considering this shift in philosophical perspective, and investigates how consequentialist moral philosophy applies to the modeling process and in communicating with decision-makers. A model of social assistance in Norway in the context of immigration pressures illustrates some possibilities for addressing these ethical concerns. This paper argues for an ethical framework, or at the very least, an ethical conversation within the field of system dynamics.Article first published online: 25 FEB 2017. (shrink)

Through qualitative surveys, a team of law students, law professors, physicians, and residents explored the perceptions of neurology residents towards referral to appropriate legal resources in an academic training program. Respondents reported feeling uncomfortable screening their patients for health-harming legal needs, which many attributed to a lack of training in this area. These findings indicate that neurology residents would benefit from training on screening for social factors that may be impacting their patients’ health.