This article discusses ways to operationalise the concept of culturally appropriate computer-mediated communication, utilising information systems (IS) development methodologies and adopting a postmodern and postcolonial perspective. By way of illustration, it describes progress on the participative development of the Ieramugadu Cultural Information System. This project is designed to develop and evaluate innovative procedures for elicitation, analysis, storage and communication of indigenous cultural heritage information. It is investigating culturally appropriate IS design techniques, multimedia approaches and ways to ensure protection of secret/sacred (...) information. Ethical issues are foregrounded. (shrink)

I am persuaded both by the theory of evil advanced by Claudia Card in The Atrocity Paradigm and by the idea that there are evils done to the environment; however, I argue that the theory of evil she describes has difficulty living up to her claim that it "can make sense of ecological evils the victims of which include trees and even ecosystems" (2002, 16). In this paper, I argue that Card's account of evil does not accommodate the kinds (...) of harms inflicted on ecosystems and such nonhuman individuals as trees. I consider the possibility that Card intends a much broader version of evils than the language of the atrocity paradigm lets on, with its attention to sentience and dignity. I'm so persuaded by the atrocity paradigm, however, that I retain the centrality of suffering and introduce the idea that atrocities are intuitively massive, that is, done to groups or generations and not an individual person, animal or tree, so that the paradigm encourages us to think of evil as it relates to far more holistic entities which include the sentient. Evil may require the sort of suffering that only sentience can give rise to, which is not to say we let out trees but says rather that it is impossible to identify wrongs to ecosystems and groups that are not also intertwined with the fates of their sentient dependents. I conclude that Card is right to emphasize victims' suffering as a chief component of evil, and that the ontology of what constitutes a victim must be interpreted broadly, not the notion of suffering. (shrink)

Near the conclusion of the so-called marriage group in the Canterbury Tales sits Chaucer's Squire's Tale, a strange, hybrid narrative of love and betrayal located in the Mongol empire. Surprisingly, however, none of the many modern readers of the tale has made a study of how the Squire's Tale's setting in the East is connected to its view of the subject that dominates Fragments IV and V of the Canterbury Tales: love, power, and the negotiation of a settlement in the (...) prolonged war between the sexes. The omission is especially perplexing when the Squire's Tale is read in combination with its companion narrative, the Franklin's Tale. Indeed, the relation of Squire to Franklin is normally seen as old money to new, aristocrat to parvenu without reference either to the question of female power or to the geographical and cultural oppositions upon which the stories also insist. When the Squire is understood as making a contribution to the conversation initiated by the Wife of Bath and carried on at least through the Franklin's Tale, it is generally on the subject of true nobility, chivalry, or gentillesse—not on the “gentle sex.” Donald Baker even goes so far as to rechristen G. L. Kittredge's marriage group a “gentillesse group” in order to include the Squire in its discussion. (shrink)

Words like well, oh, and you know have long been observed and studied in spontaneous speech. With the proliferation of on-line dialogues, such as instant messaging between friends or back-and-forth postings at websites, there are increasing opportunities to observe them in spontaneous writing. In Experiment 1, the interpretation of discourse markers in on-line debates was compared to proposed functions of those markers identified in other settings. In Experiment 2, the use of discourse markers in spontaneous speech was compared to their (...) uses in spontaneous writing. Results support the conclusion that although they vary in frequency in spoken versus written domains, discourse markers are used similarly across domains, but with particular communicative functions that make them non-interchangeable. (shrink)

The discourse marker use of the word like is considered by many to be superfluously sprinkled into talk, a bad habit best avoided. But a comparison of the use of like in successive tellings of stories demonstrates that like can be anticipated in advance and planned into stories. In this way, like is similar to other words and phrases tellers recycle during story telling. The anticipation of like contrasted with the uses of other discourse markers such as oh, you know, (...) and well, which almost never re-occurred in similar locations across tellings. Um and uh did sometimes re-occur; these uses are contrasted with like. Although discourse markers are generally used on the fly to handle various issues that come up in coordinating talk as it unfolds, like can be used as an integral part of the story -a marked contrast to the prevalent idea that likes are speech tics. (shrink)

This dissertation is a collection of three papers – “Knowing Oneself for Others,” “Stereotype Threat and the Value of Self-Knowledge,” and “Self-Knowledge, Epistemic Work, and Injustice” – in which I address the connections between self-knowledge production and social inequality. I explain, using a variety of contemporary political and cultural examples, that marginalized individuals are more likely to be required to know certain things about themselves than socially privileged individuals, especially about those aspects of their lives and identities which are essential (...) to their being marginalized. I argue that this should make us rethink our basic understanding of epistemic injustice, which is typically thought of as involving the prevention of marginalized individuals from producing knowledge. More specifically, in “Knowing Oneself for Others,” I introduce the notion of “compulsory self-disclosure,” a social phenomenon in which an individual is forced to reveal things about themselves, often in ways that further contribute to their oppression. “Stereotype Threat and the Value of Self-Knowledge” addresses how self-ignorance can actually be desirable for individuals facing stereotype threat, and I argue that treating stereotype threat as an epistemic injustice issue can actually harm rather than help individuals in certain cases. Finally, in “Self-Knowledge, Epistemic Work, and Injustice,” I assess the reasoning behind the assumption that marginalized people are self-ignorant; I argue that we need to appreciate the central role that epistemic work plays in self-knowledge production to understand why the standard assumption about marginalized self-ignorance is misguided. Ultimately, I would have us think of self-knowledge production as not just epistemic work but as work that is often emotionally difficult and even metaphysically transformative – coming to have self-knowledge in certain ways can quite literally change who you are. In light of this, the overarching aim of this work is to argue for there being an inextricable link between an individual’s knowledge of themselves and their social status, as well as to discourage readers from thinking of the production of self-knowledge as inherently desirable or as a wholly epistemic issue. (shrink)

To generate empathy in the care of vulnerable older persons requires care providers to reflect critically on their care practices. Ethics education and training must provide them with tools to accomplish such critical reflection. It must also create a pedagogical context in which good care can be taught and cultivated. The care-ethics lab ‘sTimul’ originated in 2008 in Flanders with the stimulation of ethical reflection in care providers and care providers in training as its main goal. Also in 2008, sTimul (...) commenced the organization of empathy sessions as an attempt to achieve this goal by simulation. The empathy session is a practical and fairly straightforward way of working to provoke care providers and care providers in training to engage in ethical reflection. Characteristic of the empathy session in the care-ethics lab is the emphasis on experience as a basis for ethical reflection. (shrink)

We explored the differential impact of auditory information and written contextual information on the recognition of verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Based on relevance theory, we predicted that speakers would provide acoustic disambiguation cues when speaking in situations that lack other sources of information, such as a visual channel. We further predicted that listeners would use this information, in addition to context, when interpreting the utterances. People were presented with spontaneously produced ironic and nonironic utterances from radio talk shows in (...) written or auditory form, with or without written contextual information. When the utterances were read without written contextual information, all utterances were rated as equally ironic. But when they were heard as opposed to read, or when they were presented in irony-biasing contexts, originally ironic utterances were rated as more sarcastic than originally nonironic utterances. This evidence suggests both acoustic and contextual information are used when inferring ironic intent in spontaneous speech, and validates previous manipulations of intonation in studies of irony understanding. (shrink)

Observing others in conversation is a common format for comprehending language, yet little work has been done to understand dialog comprehension. We tested whether overhearers use addressee backchannels as predictive cues for how to integrate information across speaker turns during comprehension of spontaneously produced collaborative narration. In Experiment 1, words that followed specific backchannels were recognized more slowly than words that followed either generic backchannels or pauses. In Experiment 2, we found that when the turn after the backchannel was a (...) continuation of the narrative, specific backchannels prompted the fastest verification of prior information. When the turn after was an elaboration, they prompted the slowest, indicating that overhearers took specific backchannels as cues to integrate preceding talk with subsequent talk. These findings demonstrate that overhearers capitalize on the predictive relationship between backchannels and the development of speakers’ talk, coordinating information across conversational roles. (shrink)

How Doctors Think defines the nature and importance of clinical judgment. Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science but rather an interpretive practice that relies on clinical reasoning. A physician looks at the patient's history along with the presenting physical signs and symptoms and juxtaposes these with clinical experience and empirical studies to construct a tentative account of the illness. How Doctors Think is divided into four parts. Part one introduces the (...) concept of medicine as a practice rather than a science; part two discusses the idea of causation; part three delves into the process of forming clinical judgment; and part four considers clinical judgment within the uncertain nature of medicine itself. In How Doctors Think, Montgomery contends that assuming medicine is strictly a science can have adverse side effects, and suggests reducing these by recognizing the vital role of clinical judgment. (shrink)

Small talk plays a big role in conversational perception. In the study here, pairs of conversational participants engaged in three iterations of an ecologically valid task-break dialogue where the break was either small talk via videoconferencing or waiting the same amount of time with cameras and mics turned off. Small talk increased conversational participants’ enjoyment of conversations, their willingness to engage in future conversations with their addressees, and their actual engagement in unprompted conversations with their addressees. Dyads who were instructed (...) to engage in small talk conversation during breaks were approximately three and a half times more likely to have conversations in the sixty second unprompted conversation period at the end of the study compared to dyads whose cameras and mics were off during the earlier break periods. Reciprocity effects previously observed in audio-only and text-only communication were not observed in this study. The findings presented here demonstrate that not only can the positive influence of small talk be replicated and extended to videoconferencing interactions, but such talk can also lead to an increased desire for continued interactions with conversational partners. (shrink)

In Moral Passages, Kathryn Pyne Addelson presents an original moral theory suited for contemporary life and its moral problems. Her basic principle is that knowledge and morality are generated in collective action, and she develops it through a critical examination of theories in philosophy, sociology and women's studies, most of which hide the collective nature and as a result hide the lives and knowledge of many people. At issue are the questions of what morality is, and how moral theories (...) (whether traditional or feminist) are implemented. Addelson takes up a large number of historical cases and contemporary social problems, including teen pregnancy, contraception and abortion, and gay rights. These cases allow her to see how the knowledge and lives of some people are declared deviant or immoral, while those of others appear to show the public consensus. One case she uses throughout the book is Margaret Sanger's early work on birth control with the anarcho-syndicalist movement--a revisionist history that reveals rather than hides the collective nature of morality and knowledge. Addelson shows how the usual individualist philosophies promote theories which hide the authority of the professionals who make them. A collectivist approach, she argues, must show the part professionals play in collective action. Her aim is to allow professional knowledge makers to be morally and intellectually responsible. Based on Addelson's twenty years of work in feminist philosophy and interactionist sociology as well as her long-standing involvement in women's community organization, Moral Passages investigates how morality and knowledge are collectively enacted in today's world. (shrink)

While acknowledging Hannah Arendt's keen philosophical and political insights, Kathryn T. Gines claims that there are some problematic assertions and oversights regarding Arendt’s treatment of the "Negro question." Gines focuses on Arendt's reaction to the desegregation of Little Rock schools, to laws making mixed marriages illegal, and to the growing civil rights movement in the south. Reading them alongside Arendt's writings on revolution, the human condition, violence, and responses to the Eichmann war crimes trial, Gines provides a systematic analysis (...) of anti-black racism in Arendt’s work. (shrink)

The paper identifies the phenomenal rise of increasingly invasive forms of elective cosmetic surgery targeted primarily at women and explores its significance in the context of contemporary biotechnology. A Foucauldian analysis of the significance of the normalization of technologized women's bodies is argued for. Three "Paradoxes of Choice" affecting women who "elect" cosmetic surgery are examined. Finally, two utopian feminist political responses are discussed: a Response of Refusal and a Response of Appropriation.

In this monograph, I offer feminist reasons to develop a multidimensional account of forgiveness as a moral, and therefore at least partially deliberative, action or set of actions, which functions as a remedy in responding to blame or condemnation, releasing offenders from the fullness of their blameworthiness, in relational contexts which therefore require considerations of power between relata. I rely on feminist philosophical account of the relational self in order to contextualise these power relations. I provide accounts of forgiveness as (...) a performative utterance, third-party forgiveness, and self-forgiveness based upon this feminist and multidimensional model of forgiveness. (shrink)

This paper provides an argument for a more socially relevant philosophy of science (SRPOS). Our aims in this paper are to characterize this body of work in philosophy of science, to argue for its importance, and to demonstrate that there are significant opportunities for philosophy of science to engage with and support this type of research. The impetus of this project was a keen sense of missed opportunities for philosophy of science to have a broader social impact. We illustrate various (...) ways in which SRPOS can provide social benefits, as well as benefits to scientific practice and philosophy itself. Also, SRPOS is consistent with some historical and contemporary goals of philosophy of science. We’re calling for an expansion of philosophy of science to include more of this type of work. In order to support this expansion, we characterize philosophy of science as an epistemic community and examine the culture and practices of philosophy of science that can help or hinder research in this area. (shrink)

Although the American Philosophical Association has more than 11,000 members, there are still fewer than 125 Black philosophers in the United States, including fewer than thirty Black women holding a PhD in philosophy and working in a philosophy department in the academy.1The following is a “musing” about how I became one of them and how I have sought to create a positive philosophical space for all of us.

This book places the philosophy of Simone Weil into conversation with contemporary environmental concerns in the Anthropocene. The book offers a systematic interpretation of Simone Weil, making her ethical philosophy more accessible to non-Weil scholars. Weil's work has been influential in many fields, including politically and theologically-based critiques of social inequalities and suffering, but rarely linked to ecology. Kathryn Lawson argues that Weil's work can be understood as offering a coherent approach with potentially widespread appeal applicable to our ethical (...) relations to much more than just other human beings. She suggests that the process of 'decreation' in Weil is an expansion of the self which might also come to include the surrounding earth and a vast assemblage of others. This allows readers to consider what it means to be human in this time and place, and to contemplate our ethical responsibilities both to other humans and also to the more-than-human world. Ultimately, the book uses Weil's thought to propose a decreative ecological ethics that decenters the human being by cultivating human actions towards an ecological ethics. This book will be useful for Simone Weil scholars and academics, as well as students and researchers interested in environmental ethics in departments of comparative literature, theory and criticism, philosophy, and environmental studies. (shrink)

Christians share a common concern for the earth. Evangelicals emphasize creation care; mainline Protestants embrace the green movement; the Catholic Church lists "10 deadly environmental sins;" and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch has declared climate change an urgent issue of social and economic justice. This textbook examines seven contemporary environmental challenges through the lens of classical Christian virtues. Authors Kathryn Blanchard and Kevin O'Brien use these classical Christian virtues to seek a "golden mean" between extreme positions by pairing each virtue (...) with a pernicious environmental problem. Students are thus led past political pitfalls and encouraged to care for other creatures prudently, to develop new energy sources courageously, to choose our food temperately, to manage toxic pollution justly, to respond to climate change faithfully, to consider humanity's future hopefully, and to engage lovingly in advocacy for God's earth. Readers will emerge from this text with a deeper understanding of contemporary environmental problems and the fundamentals of Christian virtue ethics. (shrink)

Ethical sensitivity was introduced to caring science to describe the first component of decision making in professional practice; that is, recognizing and interpreting the ethical dimension of a care situation. It has since been conceptualized in various ways by scholars of professional disciplines. While all have agreed that ethical sensitivity is vital to practice, there has been no consensus regarding its definition, its characteristics, the conditions needed for it to occur, or the outcomes to professionals and society. The purpose of (...) this article is to explore the meaning of the concept of ethical sensitivity based on a review of the professional literature of selected disciplines. Qualitative content analysis of the many descriptors found within the literature was conducted to enhance understanding of the concept and identify its essential characteristics. Ethical sensitivity is considered to be an emerging concept with potential utility in research and practice. (shrink)

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and (...) cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness. (shrink)

It is argued that the question of whether or not one is required to be or become a strict vegetarian depends, not upon a rule or ideal that endorses vegetarianism on moral grounds, but rather upon whether one's own physical, biological nature is adapted to maintaining health and well-being on a vegetarian diet. Even if we accept the view that animals have rights, we still have no duty to make ourselves substantially worse off for the sake of other rights-holders. Moreover, (...) duties to others, such as fetuses and infants, may require one to consume meat or animal products. Seven classes of individuals who are not required to be or become vegetarians are identified and their examption is related to nutritional facts; these classes comprise most of the earth's population. The rule of vegetarianism defines a special or provisional duty rather than any general or universal rule, since its observance it based upon the biological capacities of individual humans whose genetic constitution and environment makes them suitably herbivorous. It is also argued that generalizing the vegetarian ideal as a social goal for all would be wrongful because it fails to consider the individual nutritional needs of humans at various stages of life, according to biological differences between the sexes, and because it would have the eugenic effect of limiting the adaptability of the human species. The appeal to the natural interests of omnivores will not justify any claim that humans may eat amounts of meat or animal products in excess of a reasonable safety margin since animals have rights-claims against us. (shrink)

The vegan ideal is entailed by arguments for ethical veganism based on traditional moral theory (rights and/or utilitarianism) extended to animals. The most ideal lifestyle would abjure the use of animals or their products for food since animals suffer and have rights not to be killed. The ideal is discriminatory because the arguments presuppose a male physiological norm that gives a privileged position to adult, middle-class males living in industrialized countries. Women, children, the aged, and others have substantially different nutritional (...) requirements and would bear a greater burden on vegetarian and vegan diets with respect to health and economic risks, than do these males. The poor and many persons in Third World nations live in circumstances that make the obligatory adoption of such diets, where they are not already a matter of sheer necessity, even more risky.Traditional moral theorists (such as Evelyn Pluhar and Gary Varner whose essays appear in this issue) argue that those who are at risk would beexcused from a duty to attain the virtue associated with ethical vegan lifestyles. The routine excuse of nearly everyone in the world besides adult, middle-class males in industrialized countries suggests bias in the perspective from which traditional arguments for animal rights and (utilitarian) animal welfare are formulated. (shrink)

Challenges current claims that humans ought to be vegetarians because animals have moral standing.

The authors examine the nature of the relationship between social science and philosophy and address the sort of work social science should do, and the role and sorts of claims that an accompanying philosophy should engage in. In particular, the authors reintroduce the question of ontology, an area long overlooked by philosophers of social science, and present a cricital engagement with the work of Roy Bhaskar. The book argues against the excesses of philosophising and commits itself to a philosophical approach (...) more deeply grounded in the social sciences. (shrink)

The inclusion of more women’s works on introductory syllabi in philosophy has been suggested as one possible strategy to increase the proportion of philosophers that are female. Objections to this strategy often reflect the assumption that attention to the identity of authors is irrelevant to philosophy and detrimental to other pedagogical goals such as fairly and accurately representing the canon, and offering selections on the basis of their philosophical quality rather than the identities of their authors. I suggest the extent (...) to which one perceives it important to include women on introductory syllabi, one’s “gender perception,” may be affected by one’s largely unconscious, and unchosen, habits of moral perception; I appeal to Peggy DesAutel’s distinction between two types of moral perceiver to suggest that the differences between advocates and critics of more inclusive curriculum are not merely differences in values, but reflect fundamental and unchosen biases which result in receptivity to different considerations as to the reasons to change the way we introduce philosophy to newcomers. I provide evidence that inclusive curriculum may benefit all students, and suggest alternative approaches to representing the importance of those benefits to philosophers whose habits of moral perception may incline them to receptivity to principled rules and fairness rather than affective considerations. (shrink)