BackgroundHealth research often uses health information, a subcategory of personal information, collected during clinical encounters. Conditions under which such health information can be used for the secondary purpose of research are set out in state, national and international law. In Australia, consent is required or the relevant conditions for a waiver of consent must be met and approved by a human research ethics committee (HREC). Consent for use of health information for research is rarely sought at an emergency department (ED) (...) presentation. Research often occurs after the index visit and gaining consent can be difficult. Waiver of consent provisions are frequently used, but acceptability of this approach to patients is unclear.ObjectiveTo identify ED patients’ knowledge and attitudes towards the use of health information for research, consent preferences and acceptability of waiver of consent.MethodsAn online, anonymous survey of adult patients attending two large EDs in Melbourne, Australia.Results103 patients completed the survey. We found that 52% were unaware that health information might be used for research. A majority (77%) felt that HREC approval for use of health information without consent was acceptable. However, 36% would prefer to be contacted regarding consent.ConclusionThese findings suggest a lack of awareness that health information can be used for research and that waiver of consent is acceptable, but not necessarily preferred, in most of the ED patient population. Efforts to increase awareness and provide opportunities to express preferences about health information use for research are needed. (shrink)

Case-based instruction is a stable feature of ethics education, however, little is known about the attributes of the cases that make them effective. Emotions are an inherent part of ethical decision-making and one source of information actively stored in case-based knowledge, making them an attribute of cases that likely facilitates case-based learning. Emotions also make cases more realistic, an essential component for effective case-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional case content, and complementary (...) socio-relational case content, on case-based knowledge acquisition and transfer on future ethical decision-making tasks. Study findings suggest that emotional case content stimulates retention of cases and facilitates transfer of ethical decision-making principles demonstrated in cases. (shrink)

Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation-analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foundational tenets of conversation-analytic theory and method – including the relationship (...) between position and composition, and the making of collections – as these appear to be primary sources of confusion for many of the contributors to the Lynch et al. Special Issue. We then target some of the specific arguments presented in the Special Issue, including the alleged ‘over-hearer’s’ writing of metrics, the provision of so-called ‘alternative’ analyses and the supposed ‘crafting’ of generalizations in epistemics research. In addition, in light of Lynch’s more general assertion that conversation analysis has recently been experiencing a ‘rapprochement’ with what he disparagingly refers to as the ‘juggernaut’ of linguistics, we discuss the specific expertise that linguists have to offer in analyzing particular sorts of interactional detail. The article as a whole thus illustrates that, rather than being produced ‘at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail’, conversation-analytic findings – including its work in epistemics – are unambiguously anchored in such detail. We conclude by offering our comments as to the link between CA and linguistics more generally, arguing that this relationship has long proven to be – and indeed continues to be – a mutually beneficial one. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the implications of Grace de Laguna and Joel Katzav's work for the charge of conservatism against the analytic tradition. We differentiate that conservatism into three kinds: starting place; path dependency; and modesty. We also think again about gender in philosophy, consider the positive account of speculative philosophy presented by de Laguna and Katzav in comparison to some other naturalist trajectories, and conclude with a brief Australian addendum that reflects on a similar period in our own (...) country which was also associated with the professional institutionalisation of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Higher order cognitive processes, including ethical decision making (EDM), are influenced by the experiencing of discrete emotions. Recent research highlights the negative influence one such emotion, anger, has on EDM and its underlying processes. The mechanism, however, by which anger disrupts the EDM has not been investigated. The current study sought to discover whether cognitive appraisals of an emotion-evoking event are the driving mechanisms behind the influence of anger on EDM. One primary (goal obstacle) and one secondary (certainty) appraisal of (...) anger were examined. Study results suggest that appraisals of certainty are the driving mechanism behind the negative relationship between anger and EDM. Certainty appraisals led to less application of EDM-promoting strategies and more unethical social motives. Findings further highlight the value of investigating appraisals of emotional events, given their cognitive nature, for their potential effects on cognitive operations, such as EDM. Future directions and implications are discussed. (shrink)

An epistemic duty would be a duty to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from a proposition, and it would be grounded in purely evidential or epistemic considerations. If I promise to believe it is raining, my duty to believe is not epistemic. If my evidence is so good that, in light of it alone, I ought to believe it is raining, then my duty to believe supposedly is epistemic. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no (...) epistemic duties. Though people do sometimes have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations. (shrink)

We might suppose it is not only instrumentally valuable for beliefs to be true, but that it is intrinsically valuable – truth makes a non-derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. Some intrinsic goods are better than others, though, and this article considers the question of how good truth is, compared to other intrinsic goods. I argue that truth is the worst of all intrinsic goods; every other intrinsic good is better than it. I also suggest the best explanation (...) for truth's inferiority is that it is not really an intrinsic good at all. It is intrinsically neutral. (shrink)

Whenever the name Edmund Husserl appears in the context of nursing research, what correctly comes to mind is the phenomenological approach to qualitative methodology. Husserl is not only considered the founder of phenomenology, but his broad concept development also contributed to the demise of positivism and inspired fruitful approaches to the social sciences. In this spirit of inspiration, it must be expressed that Husserl's theory of wholes and parts, and particularly his differentiation of parts into ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’, is very (...) helpful in guiding the selection of research methods across the board in nursing science. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a frame of reference for nursing researchers to use in examining the essential nature of that which is being studied. This frame of reference is the Husserlian philosophy of ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’ in relation to the whole. ‘Pieces’ are independent parts of the whole that are subject to isolability in study, whereas ‘moments’ are nonindependent parts, which cannot be detached, presented, or studied apart from the whole. The intent is to propose this frame of reference as a philosophical base from which nursing researchers may better select among paradigms and methodological approaches in regard to the essential nature (‘pieces’ or ‘moments’) of that which they are researching. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Epistemic duties would be duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgement from propositions, and they would be grounded in purely evidential considerations. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no epistemic duties. Though people may have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgement from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations. Rather, allegedly epistemic duties are a species of moral duty.RÉSUMÉ: Les fonctions épistémiques sont censées désigner le fait de croire ou de (...) ne pas croire des propositions, ou de suspendre notre jugement, et seraient fondées uniquement sur la prise en compte de l’évidence. Je présente un nouvel argument soutenant que les fonctions épistémiques n’existent pas. Bien que nous devions recourir aux fonctions de croire ou de ne pas croire des propositions, ou de suspendre notre jugement, ces fonctions ne sont jamais fondées sur d’uniques considérations épistémiques. Ce que l’on reconnaît comme des fonctions épistémiques appartient plutôt à l’espèce des fonctions morales. (shrink)

While it is generally agreed that companies need to manage their relationships with their stakeholders, the way in which they choose to do so varies considerably. In this paper, it is argued that when companies want to communicate with stakeholders about their CSR initiatives, they need to involve those stakeholders in a two-way communication process, defined as an ongoing iterative sense-giving and sense-making process. The paper also argues that companies need to communicate through carefully crafted and increasingly sophisticated processes. Three (...) CSR communication strategies are developed. Based on empirical illustrations and prior research, the authors argue that managers need to move from ‘informing’ and ‘responding’ to ‘involving’ stakeholders in CSR communication itself. They conclude that managers need to expand the role of stakeholders in corporate CSR communication processes if they want to improve their efforts to build legitimacy, a positive reputation and lasting stakeholder relationships. (shrink)

The following four assumptions plausibly describe the ideal rational agent. (1) She knows what her beliefs are. (2) She desires to believe only truths. (3) Whenever she desires that P → Q and knows that P, she desires that Q. (4) She does not both desire that P and desire that ~P, for any P. Although the assumptions are plausible, they have an implausible consequence. They imply that the ideal rational agent does not believe and desire contradictory propositions. She neither (...) desires the world to be any different than she thinks it is, nor thinks it is any different than she desires it to be. The problem of preserving our intuitions about desire, without embracing the implausible conclusion, is what I call “the Wishful Thinking Puzzle.” In this paper, I examine how this puzzle arises, and I argue that it is surprisingly difficult to solve. Even the decision theoretic conception of desire is not immune to the puzzle. One approach, the contrastive conception of desire, does avoid the puzzle without being ad hoc, but it remains too inchoate to win our full confidence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to a prominent objection, deflationist theories of truth can’t account for the explanatory connection between true belief and successful action [Putnam 1978]. Canonical responses to the objection show how to reformulate truth-involving explanations of particular successful actions, so as to omit any mention of truth [Horwich 1998]. According to recent critics, though, the canonical strategy misses the point. The deflated paraphrases lack the generality or explanatory robustness of the original explanatory appeals to truth [Kitcher 2002; Lynch 2009; Gamester (...) 2018]. This article diagnoses the canonical response’s failure and shows how deflationists can make sense of appeals to truth in explaining practical success, in all of their generality and robustness, without construing truth as a substantial property. (shrink)

This paper argues against the almost universally held view that truth is an instrumentally valuable property of beliefs. For truth to be instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed, it must play a causal role in the satisfaction of our desires. As it happens, truth can play no such role, because it is screened off from causal relevance by some of the truth-like properties first discussed by Stephen Stich. Because it is not causally relevant to the success of our actions, (...) truth is not instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher has argued for a causal correspondence view of truth, as against a deflationary view, on the grounds that the former is better poised than the latter to explain systematically successful patterns of action. Though Kitcher is right to focus on systematically successful action, rather than singular practical successes, he is wrong to conclude that causal correspondence theories are capable of explaining systematic success. Rather, I argue, truth bears no explanatory relation to systematic practical success. Consequently, the causal correspondence (...) view is not in a better position to explain success than the deflationary view; theories of truth are the wrong place to look for explanations of systematic practical success. (shrink)

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is responsible for the Code of Professional Conduct that governs the actions of CPAs. In 1988, the Code was revised by the AICPA, but a number of issues still remain unresolved or confounded by the new Code. These issues are examined in light of the profession''s stated commitment to the public good, a commitment that is discussed at length in the new Code.Specifically, this paper reviews the following issues: (1) client confidentiality and (...) whistleblowing, (2) limited liability, and (3) auditor independence. We argue that, in each of these areas, the AICPA promotes a position that is potentially harmful to the public good. (shrink)

This paper argues against the realization principle, which reifies the realization relation between lower-level and higher-level properties. It begins with a review of some principles of naturalistic metaphysics. Then it criticizes some likely reasons for embracing the realization principle, and finally it argues against the principle directly. The most likely reasons for embracing the principle depend on the dubious assumption that special science theories cannot be true unless special science predicates designate properties. The principle itself turns out to be false (...) because the realization relation fails the naturalistic test for reality: it makes no causal difference to the world.Footnote11This paper resulted from work done at John Heil's 2006 Mind and Metaphysics NEH Summer Seminar at Washington University in St. Louis. An early version of it was presented in a special symposium on realization at the 2007 meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. I owe thanks to all the participants in both events for helpful discussions, and I owe particular thanks to Ken Aizawa, Torin Alter, Jason Ford, Carl Gillett, John Heil, Nicholas Helms, Pete Mandik, John Post, Gene Witmer, Michelle Wrenn, Tad Zawidzki, and two anonymous referees for the AJP. (shrink)

While it is generally agreed that companies need to manage their relationships with their stakeholders, the way in which they choose to do so varies considerably. In this paper, it is argued that when companies want to communicate with stakeholders about their CSR initiatives, they need to involve those stakeholders in a two-way communication process, defined as an ongoing iterative sense-giving and sense-making process. The paper also argues that companies need to communicate through carefully crafted and increasingly sophisticated processes. Three (...) CSR communication strategies are developed. Based on empirical illustrations and prior research, the authors argue that managers need to move from ‘informing’ and ‘responding’ to ‘involving’ stakeholders in CSR communication itself. They conclude that managers need to expand the role of stakeholders in corporate CSR communication processes if they want to improve their efforts to build legitimacy, a positive reputation and lasting stakeholder relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider an argument of Harvey Siegel's according to which there can be no hypothetical normativity anywhere unless there is categorical normativity in epistemology. The argument fails because it falsely assumes people must be bound by epistemic norms in order to have justified beliefs.

According to a common objection to epistemological naturalism, no empirical, scientific theory of knowledge can be normative in the way epistemological theories need to be. In response, such naturalists as W.V. Quine have claimed naturalized epistemology can be normative by emulating engineering disciplines and addressing the relations of causal efficacy between our cognitive means and ends. This paper evaluates that "engineering reply" and finds it a mixed success. Based on consideration of what it might mean to call a theory "normative," (...) seven versions of the normativity objection to epistemological naturalism are formulated. The engineering reply alone is sufficient to answer only the four least sophisticated versions. To answer the others, naturalists must draw on more resources than their engineering reply alone provides. (shrink)

According to strong pluralist theories of truth, ‘true’ designates different properties depending on which sentences it’s applied to. An influential objection to strong pluralism claims it can’t make sense of logically complex sentences whose components have different truth-properties. For example, if ‘true’ designates correspondents for ‘Tabby is a cat’, and it designates coherence for ‘Tabby is beautiful’, what does it designate for ‘Tabby is a beautiful cat’ (Tappolet 1997)? Will Gamester (2019) has proposed a novel pluralist theory meant to avoid (...) the problem. The theory construes ‘true’ as designating a different property for each possible logical structure, and he has challenged monists to identify shortcomings of the theory in virtue of its pluralism. This paper answers Gamester’s challenge and identifies three such shortcomings. (1) The theory can’t make sense of the idea that all true conjunctions share the property of having true conjuncts, in virtue of which they are true. (2) The theory imposes unmotivated syntactic constraints on the language in which the theory of truth is formulated. (3) Avoiding the second shortcoming requires arbitrary choices among equally good candidates for “the” logical form of sentences and hence the designation of ‘true’ as applied to them. (shrink)

Laurence BonJour has recently proposed a novel and interesting approach to the problem of induction. He grants that it is contingent, and so not a priori, that our patterns of inductive inference are reliable. Nevertheless, he claims, it is necessary and a priori that those patterns are highly likely to be reliable, and that is enough to ground an a priori justification induction. This paper examines an important defect in BonJour's proposal. Once we make sense of the claim that inductive (...) inference is "necessarily highly likely" to be reliable, we find that it is not knowable a priori after all. (shrink)

One of his six introductions to philosophy, widely used by students in Alexandria, Ammonius' lecture on Porphyry was recorded in writing by his students in the commentary translated here. Along with five other types of introductions (three of which are translated in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle volume Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy with Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic) it made Greek philosophy more accessible to other cultures. These introductions became standard in Ammonius' school and included a popular set of (...) five or more definitions of philosophy, some of them drawn from commentaries on quite different works. Ammonius' lecture expounded the most celebrated and discussed previous introduction written by Porphyry 200 years earlier, which was devoted to five main technical terms of Aristotle's logic. Ammonius was sympathetic to Porphyry because they both sought to harmonise the views of Plato and Aristotle with each other, arguing in different ways that the two philosophers did not disagree about the nature of universals. Porphyry's introduction was a hugely influential work for centuries after its composition, and this commentary by Ammonius served to maintain its position at the centre of later schools of philosophy. This English translation of Ammonius' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe science does not or should not aim at the truth. Sometimes they say scientists do not really care much about truth. Sometimes they say truth is an outdated Enlightenment hand-me-down, full of confusion and rhetoric but empty of explanatory or normative importance. And sometimes they argue that it is irrational to pursue the truth. This last claim is the target of the present paper.

This paper considers Salman Rushdie’s location as a migrant writer of the postcolonial generation while looking at criticism on his writing style by foregrounding ways in which Rushdie writes about history, reality and identity in Midnight’s Children. Underlying Rushdie’s deconstructive playfulness is a radical political spirit envisioning a humanism beyond the rigid constructions of a self/other duality, Hindu/Muslim identity, or Eastern/Western dichotomy. Furthermore, Rushdie opens up a discourse on being and belonging as a legitimate place/space for those stranded in that (...) “strange middle ground, trapped between belief and disbelief.” According to Rushdie, this space, this middle ground, which he terms the “third principle,” could be tapped to decolonize place as well as minds. The paper also analyzes how Rushdie uses the metaphors of the “whole” and “hole” in Midnight’s Children to show he writes the story of the colonial, national and postcolonial condition from the place of the personal, where personal body politics meets the geographic body politics of a whole Indian sub-continent. (shrink)

This paper considers Salman Rushdie’s location as a migrant writer of the postcolonial generation while looking at criticism on his writing style by foregrounding ways in which Rushdie writes about history, reality and identity in Midnight’s Children. Underlying Rushdie’s deconstructive playfulness is a radical political spirit envisioning a humanism beyond the rigid constructions of a self/other duality, Hindu/Muslim identity, or Eastern/Western dichotomy. Furthermore, Rushdie opens up a discourse on being and belonging as a legitimate place/space for those stranded in that (...) “strange middle ground, trapped between belief and disbelief.” According to Rushdie, this space, this middle ground, which he terms the “third principle,” could be tapped to decolonize place as well as minds. The paper also analyzes how Rushdie uses the metaphors of the “whole” and “hole” in Midnight’s Children to show he writes the story of the colonial, national and postcolonial condition from the place of the personal, where personal body politics meets the geographic body politics of a whole Indian sub-continent. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is widely recognized as a management theory, yet very little research has considered its implications for individual managerial decision-making. In the two studies reported here, we used stakeholder theory to examine managerial decisions about balancing stakeholder interests. Results of Study 1 suggest that indivisible resources and unequal levels of stakeholder saliency constrain managers’ efforts to balance stakeholder interests. Resource divisibility also influenced whether managers used a within-decision or an across-decision approach to balance stakeholder interests. In Study 2 we (...) examined instrumental and normative implications of these two approaches. We conclude by considering the contributions of this research. (shrink)

The core of alethic pluralism is the idea that truth is a different property in some discourses from others. Orthodox pluralists such as Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch share three commitments that motivate their view. One is Ecumenicalism, the view that scientific and moral claims are both truth-apt. The second is Occasional Realism, the view that truth in science is a matter of justification-independent, accurate representation, while truth in ethics is a matter of ideal epistemic justifiability. The third is Normativism, (...) the view that truth-attributions are normative in a way deflationary theories cannot accommodate. This paper articulates the “aletheiological dilemma” for orthodox pluralists. The dilemma arises when we ask whether the truth-property relevant to truth-attributions is epistemic. Occasional Realism requires it not be, but Normativism and the pluralists’ other commitments require truth for truth-attributions to be a matter of ideal justifiability. The paper also considers some ways around the dilemma, none of which looks very promising for pluralists. (shrink)

Organizational leaders face environmental challenges and pressures that put them under ethical risk. Navigating this ethical risk is demanding given the dynamics of contemporary organizations. Traditional models of ethical decision-making (EDM) are an inadequate framework for understanding how leaders respond to ethical dilemmas under conditions of uncertainty and equivocality. Sensemaking models more accurately illustrate leader EDM and account for individual, social, and environmental constraints. Using the sensemaking approach as a foundation, previous EDM models are revised and extended to comprise a (...) conceptual model of leader EDM. Moreover, the underlying factors in the model are highlighted—constraints and strategies. Four trainable, compensatory strategies (emotion regulation, self-reflection, forecasting, and information integration) are proposed and described that aid leaders in navigating ethical dilemmas in organizations. Empirical examinations demonstrate that tactical application of the strategies may aid leaders in making sense of complex and ambiguous ethical dilemmas and promote ethical behavior. Compensatory tactics such as these should be central to organizational ethics initiatives at the leader level. (shrink)

C. S. Peirce once defined pragmatism as the opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension: ‘Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.’ (Peirce 1982a: 48) More succinctly, Richard Rorty has described the position in this way.

The active ‘doing’ of gender and sexuality in and through social interaction has been a topic of academic inquiry for several decades. This study examines the cultural reproduction of that ‘doing’ through the onscreen discourse of the animated television sitcom. A conversation-analytic approach to various excerpts from two popular series reveals the ways in which the situated interactions of these programs make gender and sexuality overtly relevant to viewers through polarization of ‘the norm’ versus deviations from it at the level (...) of talk. In temporarily deviating from their everyday, normative speech practices, characters tap into viewers’ preconceived notions of the behaviors of different gendered and sexual identities in interaction. These non-normative actions are then oriented to as such in the onscreen discourse, thereby making gender, sexuality, and the conduct associated with those identities simultaneously salient for the at-home viewer. It is hypothesized that, while these gender-/sexuality-based associations can be used as a tool through which to offer critiques of the social stereotypes that they parody, they can also serve to re-create those hegemonic divisions at a discursive level through homogenization of the complex range of human identities being represented. (shrink)

Some of Herder's most striking ideas stemmed from his early evaluation of German literary publicity, which to his mind stood in stark contrast to conditions in the sociable world. Such a predicament bespeaks the importance of considering the relationship between printed text and lived sociability in the Enlightenment. By charting the heady twists and turns in his intellectual development from 1765 to 1769, this essay treats the young Herder in what for him became an aesthetically charged field between the two. (...) The public which he came to envision would be manifest to the senses, at least to the extent that it might be by the reader of print, but it also amounted to a surrogate for the more tangibly sensual experience of face-to-face community. (shrink)

An investigation of the views on space and time of the Russian polymath Pavel Florensky. After a brief account of his life, I study Florensky’s conception of time in The Meaning of Idealism, where he first confronts Einstein’s theory of special relativity, comparing it to Plato’s metaphor of the Cave and Goethe’s myth of the Mothers. Later, in his Analysis of spatiality and time, Florensky speaks of a person’s biography as a four-dimensional unity, in which the temporal coordinate is examined (...) in sections. In On the Imaginaries in Geometry, Florensky argues that the speed of light is not, as in Relativity, an absolute speed limit in the universe. When bodies approach and then surpass the speed of light, they are transformed into unextended, eternal Platonic forms. Beyond this point, time runs in reverse, effects precede their causes, and efficient causality is transformed into final or teleological causality, a concept on which Florensky elaborates in his Iconostasis. Florensky thus transformed the findings of Einsteinian relativity in order to make room for Plato’s intelligible Ideas, the Aristotelian distinction between a changing realm of earth and the immutable realm of the heavens, and the notion of teleology or final causation. His notion that man can approximate God’s vision of past, present and future all at once, as if from above, is reminiscent of Boethius’ ideas. (shrink)

"Simplicius starts with a survey of previous commentators and an introductory set of questions about Aristotle's philosophy and about the Categories in particular. The commentator, he says, needs to present Plato and Aristotle as in harmony in most things."-- Publisher description.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 567-568 [Access article in PDF] Georgios Varouxakis. Mill on Nationality. New York: Routledge, 2002. Pp. ix + 169. Cloth $80.00. Georgios Varouxakis is a leader in the new generation of Mill scholars, and his work is exciting and provocative. Well-versed in recent debates over nationalism, colonialism, orientalism, and racism, he aims to address rather than avoid questions about Mill's supposed imperialistic (...) and racist leanings.Although slim and rather costly, Mill on Nationality marks an important statement of Varouxakis's extensive research on Mill. It "offers a study of Mill's attitudes and pronouncements on nationality, patriotism, national character, national self-determination, and related issues, based on a great range of writings, from his major works through his innumerable journalistic articles to his voluminous correspondence. Writings that prove particularly useful and illuminating are those related to France and his constant Franco-British or Franco-English comparisons, as well as his writings on Ireland and the Irish question, the Celtic peoples more generally, India, and, last but far from least, his pronouncements on Englishness, the "English national character," and his recipes and subtle strategies aimed at its education and "improvement" (5).The book delivers. If the prose at times suggests a lightly reworked dissertation, Varouxakis does nonetheless cheerfully maul scores of commentators on Mill whose works betray a less-than-intimate familiarity with the Mill corpus—e.g., everyone from Will Kymlicka to Bhiku Parekh. Varouxakis's criticisms reflect his methodology; he aims to trounce "misinterpretation due to lack of adequate contextualization and to insufficient conversance with Mill's overall thought" (8). But as with so many champions of this approach, he plainly adores the subject of his hermeneutical efforts, who emerges as a very bright light amid the dimness of later commentary on him. Referring to a passage from Mill's Inaugural Address to the University of St. Andrews, he writes that this "is impressive indeed: the thinker who is associated (wrongly) with so-called elitism, asserts that as complex an area of policy as foreign and international policy should be under the close scrutiny of the citizens and that it is a gross dereliction of duty if citizens fail to scrutinize their country's foreign policy and international comportment using as an excuse that international law is too complicated to understand. This is a very demanding conception of citizenship and a very lofty and high-minded perception of what constitutes a good citizen and a good patriot" (125-6). That it remains a relevant one is clear—indeed, "Mill's conception of the relationship between obligations to country and obligations to mankind was close to that of [Martha] Nussbaum" (118). For both, patriotism is commendable only when it conduces "to the interests of the whole of humanity" (116).As for racism, one of the most explosive issues in Mill studies, Varouxakis helpfully urges that discussions "about national and... cultural characteristics were, in Victorian Britain, inextricably associated with discussions about 'race,' and the term, 'race,' was often substituted for nation, nationhood, or national character" (39). Mill often used the term "race" in a loose way, discussing national characteristics "without reference as to whether they were biologically inherited or simply cultural traits occurring in these groups" (41). Moreover, "while accepting vaguely that racial origin is one of the factors influencing the formation of national character, Mill went further to establish that racial predisposition in itself could prove nothing and was liable to be modified out of any recognition through the agency of circumstances such as institutions, historical accidents and human effort" (43). In fact, for all his criticisms of the historical naiveté of the Enlightenment, Mill, in such mature works as The Subjection of Women, offered "not only a theoretical rejection of biological determinism, but also... an unequivocal belief in the malleability of human nature and therefore in the improvability of the character of various nations" (47).To be sure, disturbing questions remain. Although Mill "made strenuous efforts during the last three decades of his life to depreciate the importance of physical factors in the formation... (shrink)