In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article addresses the fundamental question of what is ethical leadership by rearticulating relations between leaders and followers in terms of “affective leadership.” The article develops a Spinozian conception of ethics which is underpinned by a deep suspicion of ethical systems that hold obedience as a primary virtue. We argue that the existing research into ethical leadership tends to underplay the ethical capacities of followers by presuming that they are in need of direction or care by morally superior leaders. In (...) contrast, affective leadership advocates a profoundly political version of ethics, which involves people in the pursuit of joyful encounters that augment our capacity to affect and be affected by others. Instead of being led by people in leadership positions, we are led by active affections that enhance our capacity for moral action. (shrink)

Accustomed as many of us have become in the era of clinical bioethics to the idea of a “hospital philosopher”, on reflection the historical novelty of the role is astonishing, as are its ambiguities. As a result of considering my own experience I found myself writing this miniature intellectual autobiography. In the course of this essay I raise two specific questions: what can the Western philosophical tradition contribute to the clinical setting; and (a question that is rarely asked), what are (...) the implications of this experience for that tradition? (shrink)

After exploring MacIntyre’s (1985) practice—institution distinction, the article demonstrates its applicability to business-as-practice and to corporations as institutions. It then considers the implications of MacIntyre’s schema to ethical schizophrenia, to the claim that themarket is a source of the virtues and to the opposite claim that capitalism corrodes character. A fully worked out modern virtue ethics, based on MacIntyre’s work, is then established and the claim is made and substantiated that such an understanding of MacIntrye’s work revitalises it and makes (...) it directly applicable to business and to corporations. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that although the Aristotelian ideal of leading a virtuous life for its own sake is admirable, conventional Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian accounts of how it might be realised are empirically inadequate: Habituation is unlikely to produce ‘a love of virtue’, practical experience cannot then produce practical judgement or phronesis, and Aristotle's conception of a virtuous life excludes all but an idealised elite. Instead, I argue that two conceptually distinct aspects of moral development can be identified: the (...) ‘Aristotelian’ and the ‘Humean’. In the former, the desire to lead a virtuous life for its own sake is produced through certain forms of challenging experience which, by disturbing and decentring the egoistic self, evoke a personal moral transformation. In the latter, the capacity to act well in specific social situations is the outcome of a process of socialisation, first in upbringing and later through initiation into the practices of adult life. Both aspects should be promoted in moral education for together they produce something akin to full virtue in the Aristotelian sense: Practical wisdom and practical judgement—or phronesis. Moreover, ‘the good life’ is best conceived as encompassing a variety of transcendent goods. To live a virtuous life for its own sake constitutes one good or form of human flourishing; but it is not the only one. (shrink)

In a number of recent papers, I have begun to develop a new theory of character which is conceptually distinct both from traditional Aristotelian accounts as well as from the positive view of local traits outlined by John Doris. On my view, many human beings do have robust traits of character which play an important explanatory and predictive role, but which are triggered by certain situational variables which preclude them from counting as genuine Aristotelian virtues. Like others in this discussion, (...) I have focused on helping behavior in particular, and have gone on to argue that much of the social psychology literature is compatible with this new approach. The goal of this paper is to develop the model as it pertains to helping behavior further by examining how helping-relevant traits can serve as impediments to helping behavior. (shrink)

Recently in environmental ethics some theorists have advocated narrative accounts of value, according to which the value of environmental goods is given by the role that they play in our narratives. I first sketch the basic theoretical features of a narrative accounts of value and then go on to raise some problems for such views. I claim that they require an evaluative standard in order to distinguish the valuable from the merely valued and that the project of constructing such a (...) standard faces significant problems. I conclude by questioning whether narrative accounts of value really offer advantages over other pluralistic and context-sensitive accounts of value. (shrink)

The present organ procurement system in the United States has failed to alleviate the chronic shortage of organs. Neither policies that require request for organ donation, nor increased educational...

Hegel’s theory of freedom is complex and sweeping, and while most interpreters of Hegel will readily agree that it is the centerpiece of his political philosophy, perhaps also of his social philosophy and philosophy of history, they will just as readily disagree about what exactly the theory claims. Such interpretive disagreements have fueled, in large part, the resurgence of interest in Hegelian philosophy over the last few decades.

This article argues, from a critical realist perspective, that it would be beneficial to extend thinking on how personal and social education could become more central to students’ learning. We explore how constructive-informed arrangements which emphasize cognitive skills and affective qualities could be realized through experiential approaches to learning. Our theorizing is informed by neo-Aristotelian thinking on the importance of identifying mutually acceptable value commitments which can cultivate practical wisdom as well as generally benefit society. Thereafter, we outline how the (...) recent writings of Tiberius could inform thinking on how, epistemologically and ethically, a first person perspective on learning and personal growth could connect with normative decision making on how to make good life choices. We conclude by briefly highlighting the methodological potential of using outdoor learning environments to help students make informed and wise judgements which show evidence of discernment, deliberation and effective decision making. (shrink)

This essay examines the ways that the terms "self and "no-self can illuminate the views of classical Chinese thinkers, particularly Confucians such as Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, and the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi. In particular, the use of the term "no-self" to describe Zhuangzi's position is defended. The concepts of self and no-self are analyzed in relation to other terms within the thinkers' "concept clusters" - specifically temporality, nature, and social roles - and suggestions are given for constructing typologies that sort (...) out the range of meanings of self and no-self based on the characteristics of the relations among terms within the concept clus- ters. The essay focuses on the way that the Confucians and Zhuangzi use concepts of self and no-self, respectively, as soteriological strategies that aim at making connections with larger systems or wholes, and it concludes that different connections are emphasized by the Confucians and Zhuangzi precisely because the various connections are made possible and sustained by different conceptions of self, temporality, nature, and social roles. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I trace out Alasdair MacIntyre’s assessment of managerial capitalism as a uniquely positioned critique occupying an intersection between the sociology of knowledge, ideology critique, and social science metatheory. The first part of this paper outlines MacIntyre’s historical claim that social science principles diffused into an ‘industrial social science’ in the first half of the twentieth century. Tracing out this history allows us to identify four major categories of critique levelled against managerialism, spanning managerialism’s practices to its social (...) location as a discourse of scientific, objective knowledge. That four category typology provides a framework to understand MacIntyre’s specific critique of managerialism as concerned primarily with metatheoretical flaws. MacIntyre's argument provides a valuable sociological account of how flawed presuppositions lend to the creation of flawed descriptions of social reality. These descriptions come to serve as the ‘ideology of bureaucratic control’ when taken up as authoritative knowledge of organizational dynamics. (shrink)

One of the more radical transhumanist proposals for future human being envisions the uploading of our minds to a digital substrate, trading our dependence on frail, degenerating “meat” bodies for the immortality of software existence. Yet metaphor studies indicate that our use of metaphor operates in our bodily inhabiting of the world, and a phenomenological approach emphasizes a “hybridity” to human being that resists traditional mind/body dichotomies. Future scenarios envisioning mind uploading and disembodied artificial intelligence (AI) share an apocalyptic category (...) with more traditional religious eschatologies, though they differ markedly in content; therefore, the insights of embodied cognition and their uptake in technological innovation are considered as they apply to theological concerns. Theology often functions in debates over the technological future to critique or to caution. However, theologians may learn from their technological dialogue partners when it comes to the future of embodiment and its implications for the construction and practice of theology. (shrink)

This article inserts Aldous Huxley's Brave New World into a bioethical conversation about the value of old age and old people. Exploring literary treatments of bioethical questions can supplement conversations within bioethics proper, helping to reveal our existing assumptions and clear the way for more considered views; indeed, as Peter Swirski has argued, literary texts can serve as thought experiments that illuminate the ramifications of philosophical ideas. This essay examines the novel's representation of a society without old people in conjunction (...) with ideas about aging and life narratives put forward by philosophers and bioethicists such as Ezekiel Emanuel, Gilbert Meilaender, and Alasdair MacIntyre. While critics, and Huxley himself, view the Brave New World as dystopian primarily because of its depiction of a totalitarian society where art, truth, and meaning are sacrificed to pleasure and distraction and where the ruled are programmed not to question the values of their rulers, the novel also makes clear that the excision of old age has significant political, moral, and emotional costs. (shrink)

This paper attempts to recast Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream within the larger normative context of the 'Inner Chapters' and early Daoism in terms of its moral significance, particularly in the way that it prescribes how a Daoist should live through the 'significant symbol' of the butterfly. This normative reading of the passage will be contrasted with two recent interpretations of the passage - one by Robert Allinson and the other by Harold Roth - that tend to focus more on the epistemological (...) and mystical concerns of the text. As will be argued, the undue emphasis on the epistemological and mystical significance of the passage not only comes to grief when considered in light of philosophical and textual concerns but also obscures the moral dimensions of the passage that are more congruent with the 'Inner Chapters' as a whole. (shrink)

Debates about moral judgments have raised questions about the roles of reasoning, culture, and conflict. In response, the cognitive prototype model explains that over time, through training, and as a result of cognitive development, people construct notions of blameworthy and praiseworthy behavior by abstracting out salient properties that lead to an ideal representation of each. These properties are the primary features of moral prototypes and include social context interpretation, intentionality, consent, and outcomes. According to this model, when the properties are (...) uniform and coherent, they depict a promoral or immoral prototype, relative to the orientations of the properties. A promoral prototype is represented by an action that is supported by the culture, intentionally benevolent or other-regarding, consensual, and resulting in positive outcomes. An immoral prototype is an action that is condemned by the culture, intentionally malevolent or self-serving, lacking consent, and resulting in negative outcomes. It is hypothesized that moral prototypes will result in a high level of agreement and require effortless processing. Alternatively, when properties conflict or the situation deviates from the prototype, a nonprototype will result. It is hypothesized that nonprototypical situations will act as a source of moral disagreement and may require more effortful processing. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe ubiquity of digital communication channels such as social media platforms, video sites, and mobile apps has transformed the relational experience between audiences and brand entities. Whether engaging within a consumer goods market, a professional services industry, or a news and infotainment source, audiences and brand entities have inhabited a new ecosystem that has challenged the acceptance of the classic purchase funnel model pioneered by Elias St. Elmo Lewis. This article reviews the conception of a postpurchase funnel media environment and (...) seeks to moralize its transaction-driven expediency in 3 ways. First, it explores the legitimacy of an audience-centric ecosystem as a theoretical substitute for the purchase funnel model. Second, it introduces MacIntyre’s concept of virtue ethics as a grounding moral philosophy in the postpurchase funnel environment. Finally, it reviews two cases of postpurchase funnel marketing abuses and recommends strategies that commit brand entities to a bilatera... (shrink)

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main (...) advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply. (shrink)

I explore the possible meanings that the notion of the common morality can have in a contemporary communitarian approach to ethics and public policy. The common morality can be defined as the conditions for shared pursuit of the good or as the values, deliberations, traditions, and common construction of the narrative of a people. The former sense sees the common morality as the universal and invariant structures of morality while the second sense is much more contingent in nature. Nevertheless, the (...) communitarian sees both aspects as integral in devising solutions to public policy problems. I outline how both meanings follow from communitarian philosophical anthropology and illustrate how they work together when addressing a question such as that of providing universal health insurance in the United States. The common morality forms the basis of building an implicit consensus that is available to and reaffirmed by the shared reflections of the citizenry. (shrink)

Narrative theories currently dominate our understanding of how selfhood is constituted and concretely individuated throughout personal history. Despite this success, the narrative perspective has recently been exposed to a range of critiques. Whilst these critiques have been effective in pointing out the shortcomings of narrative theories of selfhood, they have been less willing and able to suggest alternative ways of understanding personal history. In this article, I assess the criticisms and argue that an adequate phenomenology of personal history must also (...) go beyond narrative. Drawing on a distinction between history and narrative, I outline an account of historical becoming through a process of sedimentation and a rich notion of what I call historical selfhood on an embodied level. Five embodied existentials are suggested, sketching a preliminary understanding of how selves are concretely individuated on a pre-narrative level. (shrink)

A brain death case is presented and reinterpreted using the narrative approach. In the case, two Japanese parents face a dilemma about whether to respect their daughter’s desire to donate organs even though, for them, it would mean literally killing their daughter. We argue that the ethical dilemma occurred because the parents were confronted with two conflicting narratives to which they felt a “narrative responsibility,” namely, the responsibility that drives us to tell, retell, and coauthor the (often unfinished) narratives of (...) loved ones. We suggest that moral dilemmas arise not only from conflicts between moral justifications but also from conflicts between narratives and human relationships. (shrink)

The year 2012, in one sense, marks the 40th Anniversary of our Society, for it was in 1972 that John Lachs suggested to some of his colleagues interested in American Philosophy that they consider starting a new organization. The following year, this "American Philosophy" group held a symposium on "Possibilities for American Philosophy" at the Western Philosophy Association meeting. At that time the group's name was changed to "Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy," and in 1974 the first independent (...) annual meeting of the Society was held at Vanderbilt University.1The Society's name has stimulated contention for various reasons, but reflecting on forty years of this group, I want to say "we have come a .. (shrink)

In Between Facts and Norms Habermas both accepts the place of distinctively ethical considerations about ‘the good’ in political deliberation, and advances a particular view of the nature and justification of ethical judgments. Whilst welcoming the former, this paper criticises the latter, with its focus on issues of identity and self-understanding, and suggests instead a broadly Aristotelian alternative. The argument proceeds, first, through a detailed engagement with Habermas’s theoretical claims about ethical reasoning in politics, in which it is argued that (...) he fails to show how different ethical possibilities can be critically evaluated, and second, through the analysis of a practical example, that of a political choice being made between different kinds of capitalism. Here the paper draws on recent work in comparative political economy on the institutional differences between varieties of capitalism, and uses this to contrast the implications of Habermas’s conception of ethics, according to which what would matter is the congruence between economic institutions and a political community’s historically shaped identity, with those of its preferred alternative, which requires a comparison between the different conceptions of the good that each kind of capitalism institutionally favours, and collective judgments about their respective contributions to human well-being. (shrink)

The relation between art and law is not limited to the scope of censorship or constitutional protection of works of art. The endless tension between State censorship and freedom of expression, even if it highlights the justifiable need to secure the autonomy of art vis-à-vis law, leads us to ignore the common philosophical matrix of the two normative phenomena. The article aims at illuminating the ontological, aesthetic and political parameters of the production of art/law, through the analysis of two important (...) films, Prova d’Orchestra by Federico Fellini and Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni. (shrink)

This paper examines eight publicly available critical care triage protocols intended for use during an influenza pandemic. These protocols place an emphasis on objective measures of survivability as the primary criterion for assigning priority for lifesaving critical care during a pandemic. Triage would then be undertaken without consideration of the relational or social characteristics of patients who need critical care. We argue that enacting these protocols could result in the denial of lifesaving care to oppressed and disadvantaged groups. The lens (...) of relational theory reveals this ethical flaw in the triage protocols we examine, and suggests ways of improving these protocols. (shrink)

An economic agenda, characterized by the mastery of subject knowledge or expertise, increasingly dominates higher education. In this article, I argue that this agenda fails to satisfy the full range of students’ aspirations, responsibilities and needs. Neither does it meet the needs of society. Rather, the overall purpose of higher education should be the morphogenesis of the agency of students, considered on an individual and on a collective basis. The article builds on recent critical realist theorizing to trace the generative (...) mechanisms that affect the morphogenesis of such agency. I argue that reflexive deliberation shapes the agency of students as they engage in teaching–learning interactions. It may be possible to enhance the agency of students if approaches are used that consider curricular knowledge, the presence of supportive social relations and the dedication of students. The article offers ways to promote the flourishing of students rather than their dehumanization. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the possibility of advancing a modern conception of social justice under neo-Aristotelian lights, focussing primarily on conceptions that assert a fundamental connection between social justice and eudaimonia. After some preliminary remarks on the extent to which a neo-Aristotelian account must stay close to Aristotle’s own, I focus on Martha Nussbaum’s sophisticated neo-Aristotelian approach, which I argue implausibly overworks the aspects of Aristotle’s thought it appeals to. I then outline the shape of a deeper and more (...) general, and as yet unanswered, problem facing neo-Aristotelian accounts: how to justify the claim that the point of a just society is to assist or enable its members to flourish. (shrink)

It is sometimes held that modern institutionally-focussed conceptions of social justice are lacking in one essential respect: they ignore the importance of civic friendship or solidarity. It is also, typically simultaneously, held that Aristotle’s thought provides a fertile ground for elucidating an account of civic friendship. I argue, first, that Aristotle is no help on this score: he has no conception of distinctively civic friendship. I then go on to argue that the Kantian distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is (...) more useful than talk of civic friendship in capturing the non-institutional demands of social justice. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that contemporary democratic theory gives insufficient attention to the important contributions dissenting citizens make to democratic life. Guided by the dissident practices of activist women, I develop a more expansive conception of citizenship that recognizes dissent and an ethic of political courage as vital elements of democratic participation. I illustrate how this perspective on citizenship recasts and reclaims women's courageous dissidence by reconsidering the well-known story of Rosa Parks.

Endurance athletes work at creating habits and lifestyles which correspond to Aristotle’s notion of eudomania. They spend time and energy dedicating themselves to their craft. They relinquish other interests in pursuit of excellence. They fully accept William James’ notion of precipitousness as they create goals and work toward achievement. In this paper, we examine normative issues related to endurance sport participation, the potential dark side of this pursuit of excellence. Our overriding concern is how best to work toward and experience (...) human flourishing while simultaneously remaining attentive to relationships and responsibilities. In terms of potential perils associated with endurance sport, we address questions of autonomy, authenticity and identification. We contend that endurance athletes concerned with these questions benefit from transcendental and pragmatic notions of the good life. (shrink)

In the late 1740s a young man who had just returned from Oxford to his native Scotland gave a series of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres in Edinburgh. This man was no other than Adam Smith, who would soon become famous for his writings about moral philosophy and, most of all, economic issues. Smith the moral philosopher and Smith the economist quickly overshadowed Smith the theoretician of rhetoric. Even in today’s scholarly perception the curious fact that the founder of (...) economics made his first public appearance as a lecturer on rhetoric is not given the attention it deserves. This means that an important resource for understanding Smith’s self-conception as an author and the society he envisaged is .. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore the complex and unappreciated relationship between the moral and political thought of Cicero and Adam Smith. Cicero’s views about justice, propriety, and the selfish love of praise find new expression in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. I illustrate the important ways in which Smith adopts – often without attribution – Cicero’s precepts and moral judgments. I then go on to demonstrate how Smith strips those Ciceronian conclusions from their original justifying grounds in teleology and natural (...) law. In their place, Smith injects his own psychology based in sentiments as a new account of why it is that we prefer virtue and justice to their opposites. By exploring this relationship, I hope to shed light on an important dynamic whereby modern thought has creatively adapted classical moral and political concepts. (shrink)

This article discusses the ordinary, the existentialist, and the virtue‐ethics senses of the word ‘authenticity’. The term ‘authentic’ in ordinary usage suggests the idea of being ‘original’ or ‘faithful to an original’, and its application implies being true to what someone (or something) truly is. It is important to see, however, that the philosopher who put this technical term on the map in existentialism, Martin Heidegger, used the word to refer to the human capacity to be fully human, not to (...) being true to one's unique inner nature. Authenticity might also be thought of as a virtue, and interesting questions arise whether such a virtue should be regarded primarily as a personal or as a social virtue. (shrink)

Though many scholars have made claims as to the nature of sport, this article argues that these claims tend to narrowly focus on modern ideas derived primarily from Western competitive sport. Thus, most notions of sport fail to capture how various historical and non-Western cultures valued sport. In an attempt to provide a broader and more durable description of the nature of sport, this article argues that sports are fundamentally about telling a story about ourselves. These stories are meaningful narratives. (...) Meaningful narratives, the article argues, exist in three ways: the individual, the collaborative, and the collective. By seeing sport as inherently about ‘a story we tell ourselves about ourselves’, the article concludes that not only do philosophers realize a more complete understanding of what sport is about but also receive and apply this understanding to normative debates within sport ethics. (shrink)

Sporting communities remain entangled in debate over whether and how to include transgender and intersex athletes in competition with cisgender athletes. Of particular concern is that transgender and intersex athletes may have unfair physiological advantages over their cisgender opponents. Arguments for inclusion of transgender and intersex athletes in sport attempt to demonstrate that such inclusion does not threaten the presumed physiological equivalence among competitors and is therefore fair to all. This article argues that the physiological equivalency rationale has significant limitations, (...) including an inordinate emphasis on sport as a comparative test. Instead, this article contends that arguments for narrativity rather than physiological equivalency show that exclusion is not only misguided but also undesirable: it is detrimental not only to the excluded athletes but to sport itself. The article yields several important consequences including calls for revisions to policies on transgender... (shrink)

My view on what I see as the predicament of Christian philosophy in ethics has been shaped by a number of experiences. I will first share with you some of these experiences, to give you an impression of the background against which this article has been written.

Deontological (as opposed to consequentialist) liberals treat freedom of action as an end in itself, not a means to other ends. Yet logically, when one makes a deliberate choice, one treats freedom of action as if it were not an end in itself, for one uses this freedom as a means to the ends one hopes to achieve through one's action. The tension between deontology and the logic of choice is reflected in the paradoxical nature of the ?right to do (...) wrong?; and in Rawls's unsuccessful attempts to justify to acting agents their interest in such a right, embodied in his conception of agents as ?self-validating sources of claims.? A self-validating source of claims is akin to God as envisioned by voluntarist theologians such as Ockham. Leibniz's critique of voluntarism, then, is applicable to the Rawlsian subject: like the voluntarist God, she would be unable to act if it were indeed the case that her action validated itself. (shrink)

Every day around the country, patients are discharged from hospitals without difficulty, as the interests of the hospital and the patient tend to align: both the hospital and the patient want the patient to leave and go to a setting that will promote the patient’s continued recovery. In some cases, however, this usually routine process does not go quite as smoothly. Patients may not want to leave the hospital, or they may insist on an unsafe discharge plan. In other cases, (...) there may simply be no good place for the patient to go. These complex hospital discharge situations often involve ethical, legal, financial, and practical considerations, but the ethical issues inherent in these dilemmas have received only sporadic attention from clinical ethicists at best, leaving patients, providers, administrators, and caregivers unsure about what to do. When the ethical issues are in fact brought to light, analysis usually proceeds based on a consideration of the principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. However, principled analysis often fails to present patients and providers with a satisfactory solution, as the principles inevitably conflict. In this paper, I argue that difficult discharges are ethical dilemmas worthy of scholarly attention that goes beyond principlism, and I argue that providers and those involved in discharge planning ought to cultivate what philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre calls “virtues of acknowledged dependence” in order to care for these patients and their families. I first trace the current conversation about difficult discharge and show that the principled approach to resolving discharge dilemmas is not sufficient. I then argue that a new approach is needed, and to that end, I offer practical ways in which MacIntyre’s account of the virtues of acknowledged dependence may help patients, providers, and family members to navigate issues of difficult discharge. (shrink)

Can doctors maintain good character? This paper shifts the focus from patient care to ethical considerations that bear on the physician and impact her as a person. By decentering patient care, the paper highlights certain factors that habituate a particular way of reasoning that is not conducive to inculcating good character. Such factors include, standards of professionalism, being influenced by external monitors, and emphasis on adherence to guidelines. While such factors may benefit patients, they often adversely affect the character of (...) physicians. (shrink)

The Canadian province of Alberta has experienced phenomenal growth in its oil and gas industry. As the petroleum-industrial complex expands it has sparked a number of community-based conflicts over noxious facilities that are seen by some to be the cause of a number of health problems. The research reported here used two case studies to examine siting conflicts involving natural gas extraction facilities in rural Alberta. We found that the stories shared by citizens involved in these conflicts functioned as 'moral (...) tales'. These moral tales were political in the way they challenged implicit and institutionalized rationales for redistributing benefits and burdens of oil and gas development. They also created a space for collective action by articulating spatial transgressions and by constructing a type of moral citizenship. (shrink)

This paper examines a remarkable document that has escaped critical attention within the vast literature on John Rawls, religion, and liberalism: Rawls's undergraduate thesis, "A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: An Interpretation Based on the Concept of Community" (1942). The thesis shows the extent to which a once regnant version of Protestant theology has retreated into seminaries and divinity schools where it now also meets resistance. Ironically, the young Rawls rejected social contract liberalism for reasons that (...) anticipate many of the claims later made against him by secular and religious critics. The thesis and Rawls's late unpublished remarks on religion and World War II offer a new dimension to his intellectual biography. They show the significance of his humanist response to the moral impossibility of political theology. Moreover, they also reveal a kind of Rawlsian piety marginalized by contemporary debates over religion and liberalism. (shrink)

This article draws out two implications for cosmopolitan or global friendship from an examination of a recent work on civic friendship in the domestic sphere: Insofar as it is the case that civic friendship, as defined by Schwarzenbach is necessary for justice in the state, it is also the case that the absence of global justice can be partially explained by the absence of what might be called cosmopolitan friendship. If we consider the practicalities of civic friendship, we find that (...) cosmopolitan friendship is an even more difficult and demanding project than we might have imagined. (shrink)