In 2018 Academic Placement Data and Analysis ran a survey of doctoral students and recent graduates on the topics of diversity and inclusivity in collaboration with the Graduate Student Council and Data Task Force of the American Philosophical Association. We submitted a preliminary report in Fall 2018 that describes the origins and procedure of the survey [1]. This is our final report on the survey. We first discuss the demographic profile of our survey participants and compare it to the United (...) States general population, its doctoral students, and APA membership, finding several areas of underrepresentation (i.e. gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic, and veteran status). We then discuss the results of questions regarding diversity and inclusivity. We find, for instance, that participant comfort in philosophy depends on gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, disability, and language status and that participants most often mentioned the theme of diversity when asked how philosophy could be more inclusive. Finally, we discuss the results of questions related to graduate program and placement. We find, for example, that underrepresented graduates are both less likely to recommend their graduate program to others and less likely to prefer an academic job. We close by making some recommendations for the APA and for the discipline based on our findings. (shrink)

Recent research in ethics education shows a potentially problematic variation in content, curricular materials, and instruction. While ethics instruction is now widespread, studies have identified significant variation in both the goals and methods of ethics education, leaving researchers to conclude that many approaches may be inappropriately paired with goals that are unachievable. This paper speaks to these concerns by demonstrating the importance of aligning classroom-based assessments to clear ethical learning objectives in order to help students and instructors track their progress (...) toward meeting those objectives. Two studies at two different universities demonstrate the usefulness of classroom-based, formative assessments for improving the quality of students’ case responses in computational modeling and research ethics. (shrink)

The unique discourse of Confucian ritual practice encompasses a powerful and sophisticated way of talking about individual fulfillment within the context of more substantive or universal conceptions of the good life. To make this case, I will consider both the text of the "Analects" and the influential readings of the "Analects" offered by Fingarette in "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" and by Hall and Ames in "Thinking through Confucius". Though the two interpretive works are helpful in articulating the classical Confucian (...) contribution to the problem of balancing conformity and individuality, I will argue that an alternative reading is required to appreciate fully how values thought to embody and express the fullest humanity might be inculcated in ethical agents without undoing their individuality. Such an alternative is developed here. (shrink)

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

Recent discussions of genomics and international justice have adopted the concept of ‘global public goods’ to support both the view of genomics as a benefit and the sharing of genomics knowledge across nations. Such discussion relies on a particular interpretation of the global public goods argument, facilitated by the ambiguity of the concept itself. Our aim in this article is to demonstrate this by a close examination of the concept of global public goods with particular reference to its use in (...) the context of genomic databases. We contend that the argument for construing genomics as a global public good depends on seeing it as a natural good by focusing on features intrinsic to genomics knowledge. We shall argue that social and political arrangements are relevant and that recognising this opens the door to construing the use of global public goods language as a strategic one. (shrink)

Healthcare workers are often assumed to have a duty to work, even if faced with personal risk. This is particularly so for professionals. However, the health service also depends on non-professionals, such as porters, cooks and cleaners. The duty to work is currently under scrutiny because of the ongoing challenge of responding to pandemic influenza, where an effective response depends on most uninfected HCWs continuing to work, despite personal risk. This paper reports findings of a survey of HCWs conducted across (...) three National Health Service trusts in the West Midlands, UK, to establish whether HCWs’ likelihood of working during a pandemic is associated with views about the duty to work. The sense that HCWs felt that they had a duty to work despite personal risk emerged strongly regardless of professional status. Besides a strong sense that everyone should pull together, all kinds of HCWs recognised a duty to work even in difficult circumstances, which correlated strongly with their stated likelihood of working. This suggests that HCWs’ decisions about whether or not they are prepared to work during a pandemic are closely linked to their sense of duty. However, respondents’ sense of the duty to work may conflict with their sense of duty to family, as well as other factors such as a perceived lack of reciprocity from their employers. Interestingly, nearly 25% of doctors did not consider that they had a duty to work where doing so would pose risks to themselves or their families. (shrink)

Drawing on Protestant scholasticism, Puritan "precisionism," and virtue ethics, "Virtue Reformed" offers a comprehensive rereading of the ethical position of ...

The leadership development industry regularly claims to aid in developing effective, ethical leaders, using 360-degree psychometric assessments as key tools for so doing. This paper analyses the effects of such tools on those subjected to and subjectivised by them from a Foucauldian perspective. We argue that instead of encouraging ethical leadership such instruments inculcate practices and belief systems that perpetuate falsehoods, misrepresentations and inequalities. ‘Followers’ are presumed compliant, malleable beings needing leaders to determine what is in their interests. Such techniques (...) pursue productivity and profitability, rather than ethical leadership. We examine the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, a widely used 360-degree tool that measures transformational leadership, as an illustrative case study to substantiate these criticisms. (shrink)

Depression is a widespread concern in the United States. Neuromodulation treatments are becoming more common but there is emerging concern for racial disparities in neuromodulation treatment utilization. This study focuses on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a treatment for depression, and the structural and attitudinal barriers that racialized individuals face in accessing it. In January 2023 participants from the Twin Cities, Minnesota engaged in focus groups, coupled with an educational video intervention. Individuals self identified as non-white who had no previous TMS (...) exposure but had tried at least one treatment for their depression. Results revealed that the intervention did not notably change knowledge or stigma about TMS, but attitudes surrounding traveling for treatment changed. Notably, barriers like affordability, frequency of treatment, and lack of knowledge persist. Participants expressed a desire for more information, personal connection, and a tailored educational approach. The study suggests a need for multifaceted strategies to reduce disparities, focusing on education, community-based resources, and policy interventions. Immediate actions that can be taken include the creation of a TMS education program focused on patient engagement and awareness about TMS. (shrink)

A debate has emerged in the bioethics literature about the use of biotechnology to modify human nature. A failure to define humanness has produced conceptual confusion in this debate. We draw upon recent social psychological work on folk concepts of humanness and dehumanization to analyse the understandings of humanness that underpin the rival positions. We argue that advocates and opponents of human nature modification employ distinct conceptions of humanness, and that their differing evaluations of modification make sense in light of (...) these conceptions. Advocates view modification as the enhancement of a non-essentialist sense of humanness that takes us further from animal nature. Opponents view it as the loss of an essentialist sense of humanness that takes us closer to a robotic state. Recognition that humanness has multiple senses implies that there is no mutually exclusive choice between seeing the outcome of modification as a quantitative gain in humanness or a fundamental, qualitative loss of it. (shrink)

This book is the first clear and unproblematic account of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s method and its consequences for good thinking. It has radical implications for conceptual investigation, analysis, value judgment, political ideology, ethics, and even religion.

An elegant introduction to Bataille's major concepts and concerns, "Bataille: A Critical Reader" underlines the powerful impact his work has had, in different ...

In recent decades, debate on the quality and safety of healthcare has been dominated by a measure and manage administrative rationality. More recently, this rationality has been overlaid by ideas from human factors, ergonomics and systems engineering. Little critical attention has been given in the nursing literature to how risk of harm is understood and actioned, or how patients can be subjectified and marginalised through these discourses. The problem of assuring safety for particular patient groups, and the dominance of technical (...) forms of rationality, has seen the word ‘unavoidable’ used in connection with intractable forms of patient harm. Employing pressure injury policy as an exemplar, and critically reviewing notions of risk and unavoidable harm, we problematise the concept of unavoidable patient harm, highlighting how this dominant safety rationality risks perverse and taken‐for‐granted assumptions about patients, care processes and the nature of risk and harm. In this orthodoxy, those who specify or measure risk are positioned as having more insight into the nature of risk, compared to those who simply experience risk. Driven almost exclusively as a technical and administrative pursuit, the patient safety agenda risks decentring the focus from patients and patient care. (shrink)

This paper is part of a larger project designed to examine and ameliorate the underrepresentation of female-identified students in the philosophy department at Elon University. The larger project involved a variety of research methods, including statistical analysis of extant registration and grade distribution data from our department as well as the administration of multiple surveys. Here, we provide a description and analysis of one aspect of our research: focus groups. We ran three focus groups of female-identified undergraduate students: one group (...) consisted of students who had taken more than one philosophy class, one consisted of students who had taken only one philosophy class, and one consisted of students who had taken no philosophy classes. After analyzing the results of the focus groups, we find evidence that: one philosophy class alone did not cultivate a growth mindset among female-identified students of philosophy, professors have the potential to ameliorate students’ perceptions of philosophy; and students who have not taken philosophy are likely to see their manner of thinking as being at odds with that required by philosophy. We conclude by articulating a series of questions worthy of further study. (shrink)

: Catholic teaching has no moral difficulties with research on stem cells derived from adult stem cells or fetal cord blood. The ethical problem comes with embryonic stem cells since their genesis involves the destruction of a human embryo. However, there seems to be significant promise of health benefits from such research. Although Catholic teaching does not permit any destruction of human embryos, the question remains whether researchers in a Catholic institution, or any researchers opposed to destruction of human embryos, (...) could participate in research on cultured embryonic stem cells, or whether a Catholic institution could use any therapy that ultimately results from such research. This position paper examines how such research could be conducted legitimately in a Catholic institution by using an ethical analysis involving a narrative context, the nature of the moral act, and the principle of material cooperation, along with references to significant ethical assessments. It also offers tentative guidelines that could be used by a Catholic institution in implementing such research. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued against Singer’s claim that all animals are equal. However, none of these responses have demonstrated an appreciation of the complexity of his position. The result is that all of these responses focus on one of his arguments in a way that falls victim to another. This paper is a critical examination of a possible response to the full complexity of Singer’s position that derives from the work of Carl Cohen, Kathleen Wilkes, and F. Ramsey. On this (...) response, a being’s moral status depends not on the capacities and abilities she does in fact have, but instead on the capacities and abilities normal for the members of her species. However, this response is ultimately unacceptable, for it depends on a faulty conception of loss and misfortune and its underlying moral principle is irrational at best and morally objectionable at worst. The failure of even this response to Singer gives us good reason to conclude with Singer that all animals are equal. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Father as Protector and the Baby Product Industry Fatherhood During Infancy Father as Gender Enforcer The Role of the Father in Developing the Moral Child Fatherhood and Parenting Styles Child Temperament and Fathering Style Teaching Our Boys to Be Fathers.

Several recent systematic and targeted reviews have highlighted limitations in our understanding of talent in sport. However, a comprehensive profile of where the scientific research has focused would help identify gaps in current knowledge. Our goal in this scoping review was to better understand what others have done in the field of research, to summarize the constituent areas of research in a meaningful way, to help identify gaps in the research, and to encourage future research to address these gaps. Peer-reviewed (...) articles written in English that met several inclusion criteria were analyzed. A total of 1,899 articles were identified, and the descriptive findings revealed a relatively narrow focus of research on talent in sport. Specifically, the majority of examined articles focused on males only, the sport of soccer, perceptual cognitive variables, developing athletes, adult samples, and cross-sectional designs. For better or worse, the concept of talent remains a central element of how coaches, practitioners, and scientists think about athlete development. Findings from this scoping review highlight the continued need to explore issues related to talent identification, selection, and development in more diverse samples and contexts. There is also a clear necessity to focus on under-researched areas using alternative methodologies. (shrink)

This article interrogates postmodern and Levinasian conceptions of ethics with recourse to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and certain psychoanalytical concepts formulated in Jacques Lacan's Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Since Levinas, ethical thinking has, in some quarters, moved away from conventional questions about moral agency, rights and social justice, on to a concern towards the ultimate unknowability of `the other'. Ethics depends, for Levinas, on an unpredictable, accidental encounter with something Other, that, in its singularity, demands a response; it is precisely the (...) contingency of the encounter that constitutes the ethical difference from the realm of morality and law. Tarantino's movie narratives are also structured around accidents, disclosing the pain and jouissance of accidental expenditures that lie at the heart of any relation to the Other. In the midst of trauma, the Thing emerges, around which goods and signification circulate, that both delimits the identification of the Good and marks a space beyond moral law that becomes the site of radical ethical questioning. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe Spatial Learning Task of Lhermitte and Signoret is an object-location arbitrary associative learning task. The task was originally developed to evaluate adults with severe amnesia. It is currently used in populations where the memory system either is not yet fully developed or where it has been compromised (e.g. epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, electroconvulsive therapy, cerebrovascular disease and dementia). Normative data have been published for paediatric cohorts and for older adults, however no data exist for the intervening adult years.MethodHere, we (...) address this gap, collecting normative data from 101 adults aged 18–45.ResultsOur data indicate that performance on the Spatial Learning Task is not influenced by age, gender, level of education or overall IQ. Less than 10% of the variance in learning scores is associated with variability in verbal memory. Ninety percent of participants achieved perfect scores on two successive trials (T2Cr) within five or fewer trials on the Spatial Learning Task. A T2Cr score of 6 is suggestive of impairment and a T2Cr score of 7 or more is statistically abnormal.ConclusionThese data expand the clinical utility of the Spatial Learning Task in the adult population. Future work should examine performance in lower IQ cohorts, including intellectual disability, and explore sensitivity to disease factors such as laterality of mesial temporal lobe damage. (shrink)

The growing emphasis on the importance of publishing scientific findings in the academic world has led to increasing prevalence of potentially significant publications in which scientific and ethical rigour may be questioned. This has not only hindered research progress, but also eroded public trust in all scientific advances. In view of the increasing concern and the complexity of research misconduct, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was established in 1997 to manage cases with ethical implications. In order to review the (...) outcomes of cases investigated by COPE, a total of 408 cases that had been managed by COPE were successfully extracted and analysed with respect to 7 distinct criteria. The results obtained indicate that the number of ethical implications per case has not changed significantly (p > 0.01) since the year COPE was instigated. Interestingly, the number of ethical cases, and to some extent, research misconduct, is not diminishing. Therefore, journal editors and publishers need to work closely together with COPE to inculcate adoption of appropriate research ethics and values in younger researchers while discouraging others from lowering standards. It is hoped that with a more concerted effort from the academic community and better public awareness, there will be fewer incidences of ethically and scientifically challenged publications. The ultimate aim being to enhance the quality of published works with concomittant public trust in the results. (shrink)

This is a major collection of essays examining the legacy of Friedrich Kittler in the turn towards Media Philosophy.

The form of Western mainstream film is the crux of its ideological efficiency: by using established formal techniques, films ensure audiences un- derstand that aesthetic decisions support and clarify the narrative to ensure maximum spectatorial satisfaction. However, some films exploit their formal aesthetics in order to prevent clarification, thwarting satisfaction in favour of viewing practices that can be considered perverse in that they withhold, suspend or obstruct immediate pleasure. Contemporary Western filmmaking in the mid-1990s witnessed the emergence of a distinct (...) group of filmmakers and films that, in the popular discourse of cinematic criticism, were together coded as “difficult” or “perverse.” These films were, as a result of the characteristics we identify below, situated obliquely in relation to the larger economic and artistic struc- tures of a commercially oriented “mainstream” cinema. Included in this new form of cinematic production were films from directors such as Tim Burton: Edward Scissorhands ; David Cronenberg: eXistenZ ; David Fincher: Se7en ; Peter Greenaway: The Baby of Maçon ; David Lynch: Lost Highway ; Quentin Tarantino: Pulp Fiction and Lars von Trier: Breaking the Waves . Whilst Western cinema as a whole has a long history of exploring “difficult” or “perverse” material within the overt or covert content of narrative, plot and story, such films demonstrate a particular relationship between the content being explored and the specific formal characteristics utilised in the delivery of that content. Thus where previous examples would utilise standardised formal techniques as a way of both delivering and containing the difficult or objectionable material, the films instead offer instances where the material of the narrative content seems to bleed backwards, affecting the form and rendering the very materiality of the film itself suspect and problematic. (shrink)

These sixty contributions from researchers in ethology, ecology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related fields delve into the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow animals and, potentially, robots to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. They focus in particular on simulation models in order to help characterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real or artificial animals. Jean-Arcady Meyer is Director of Research at CNRS, Paris. Stewart W. Wilson is a Scientist at The (...) Rowland Institute for Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (shrink)

Argument is a critical component in policy deliberations. In this study, negotiation is viewed as a type of policy deliberation, one characterized by attack and defense of proposals, interdependence between disputants, and mixed motives of cooperation and competition. Argument in negotiation, then, functions as a reason-giving activity to enact policy. Employing a category system based on rhetorical stasis, the researchers examine whether bargainers specialize in their use of argument types and whether this specialization remains consistent throughout a teacher-school board negotiation (...) and whether it differs for the type of settlement of agenda items. Results of the study suggest that bargainers specialize in argument types at different times during the bargaining. In the early stages of negotiation, teachers center on harm and workability arguments to prepare their case and justify the merits of their proposals, but in the latter phases of bargaining they switch to arguments on implementation to reaffirm their demands and to prioritize issues. Board members, in the early stages, rely on disadvantage, workability, and implementation arguments to establish resistance points and to refute appeals for change, but in the latter stages of negotiation they employ harm-inherency and disadvantage arguments to weigh the costs of concessions and to rationalize the settlement. This study, then, supports the existence of phase variation in bargaining and argues for a developmental approach in deciphering how negotiators who hold antithetical positions reach mutually satisfactory settlements. (shrink)

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the social practice of taste in the wake of Pierre Bourdieu¿s sociology of taste. For the first time, this book unites sociologists and other social scientists with artists and curators, art theorists and art educators, and art, design and cultural historians who engage with the practice of taste as it relates to encounters with art, cultural institutions and the practices of everyday life, in national and transnational contexts. The volume is divided into four (...) sections. The first section on ¿Taste and art¿, shows how art practice was drawn into the sphere of ¿good taste¿, contrasting this with a post-conceptualist critique that offers a challenge to the social functions of good taste through an encounter with art. The next section on ¿Taste making and the museum¿ examines the challenges and changing social, political and organisational dynamics propelling museums beyond the terms of a supposedly universal institution and language of taste. The third section of the book, ¿Taste after Bourdieu in Japan¿ offers a case study of the challenges to the cross-cultural transmission and local reproduction of ¿good taste¿, exemplified by the complex cultural context of Japan. The final section on ¿Taste, the home and everyday life¿ juxtaposes the analysis of the reproduction of inequality and alienation through taste, with arguments on how the legacy of ideas of ¿good taste¿ have extended the possibilities of experience and sharpened our consciousness of identity. As the first book to bring together arts practitioners and theorists with sociologists and other social scientists to examine the legacy and continuing validity of Pierre Bourdieu¿s sociology of taste, this publication engages with the opportunities and problems involved in understanding the social value and the cultural dispositions of taste ¿after Bourdieu¿. It does so at a moment when the practice of taste is being radically changed by the global expansion of cultural choices, and the emergence of deploying impersonal algorithms as solutions to cultural and creative decision-making. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Tyranny of the BureaucratsSimon Wilson (bio) and Gwen Adshead (bio)Keywordsviolence, mental health, bureaucracyWe are grateful for the opportunity to respond to the two kind and thoughtful commentaries on our paper. Sadler suggests irrationality may be the key to distinguishing psychiatric from nonpsychiatric violence. We are not so sure that this is necessarily as helpful as it might at first seem. Who gets to decide what is rational? Much (...) “normal” violence, committed in the heat of the moment, impulsively, and drunkenly, may not appear that rational, even to the perpetrator, in the cold light of day. We are not sure one would wish to bring this sort of violence within the province of psychiatric explanations. Likewise, a point we made in our paper: Even delusionally driven violence often has its own internal coherence and rationality within an irrational framework.We found much to agree with in McCallum’s commentary, and perhaps his alternative approach is more helpful. He proposes a more sociological model of understanding what is going on in these complex cases, one that starts with societal dividing practices. Our present times have been described as the tyranny of the bureaucrats. Professional approaches are devalued. Diagnosis is only relevant in terms of its bureaucratic utility in moving people from one category to another. Since the writing of our paper, the criminal law has changed further in England and Wales. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 brought with it new sentences of indeterminate detention for public protection for those offenders categorized as “dangerous.” The presence or absence of psychiatric disorder being largely irrelevant for these purposes. This would seem to fit nicely with McCallum’s analysis, and in principle rather takes the wind out of our sails when we argued about the discrimination against psychiatric violence—now a diagnosis is not necessary for the state to intervene in a probabilistic fashion to prevent future violence. Deciding between what sort of violence counts as psychiatric and what does not, does not have quite the same drastic differential effect on the individual as perhaps it did. Its importance is now, as predicted by McCallum’s model, more to do with bureaucracy: Which government department will be paying for the individual’s preventive detention (Department of Health or Ministry of Justice)? [End Page 75]Related ArticlesFeature Article: When Violence Becomes a Psychiatric SymptomCommentary: The Contingent Object of PsychiatryCommentary: Reasons CountResponse: The Tyranny of the BureaucratsSimon Wilson Simon Wilson is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. He qualified at Leeds University and trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital. He was previously Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at HM Prison, Brixton, UK. He has particular interests in prisons, philosophical, and ethico-legal issues in psychiatry. He can be contacted via e-mail at:[email protected] Adshead Gwen Adshead is a Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist. She works as a psychotherapist in a high-security hospital. She is a group analyst and researcher in attachment theory as it relates to offenders. She has a Master’s degree in Medical Law and Ethics, and is a founder member of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She can be contacted via e-mail at:[email protected] © 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Psychiatrists are increasingly expected to be involved in violence assessment, prediction, and prevention. For some psychiatrists this sits uncomfortably with their conception of themselves as doctors. Is violence (ever) a medical/psychiatric symptom? If so, what is the role of medicine/psychiatry in preventing violence? What are the consequences of an interventionist stance? We attempt to explore some of these questions in this paper.

The incompleteness of the task of integrating the influences made upon Jonathan Edwards by Calvinism and the moral sense leaves open a great many questions central to identifying his ethical position with any detail. This should worry ethicists, theologians, and church historians alike. For the puzzle of what Edwards meant by virtue is at the heart not only of his ethics but of a great many strands of his thought. It must be pieced together from diverse sources; and there are (...) multiple meanings to be sifted through. But it is nevertheless possible to bring the concepts made available by the diverse moral traditions upon which Edwards drew into a generally coherent counterpoise. Such a counterpoise is not merely of antiquarian interest. Lacking a precise account of Edwards's ethical position, it is awkward to talk about applying it to the problems of the twenty-first, or any, century. (shrink)