Pornography refers to sexually explicit media that are primarily intended to sexually arouse the audience‘. Pornography representation of sexual behavior in books, pictures, statues, motion pictures, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornography can be the main source of a young person's sex education. Pornography In many historical societies, frank depictions of sexual behavior, often in a religious context, were common. In the 19th century, the inventions of photography and later motion pictures were quickly put to (...) use in the production of pornography. 21st century there were some four million Web sites devoted to pornography, containing more than a quarter of a billion pages—in other words, more than 10 percent of the Web. Pornography may impact young people‘s adoption of certain sexual behaviors. It is possible that viewing non-mainstream sexual practices can give legitimacy to them, and encourage participation in sexually adventurous behaviors (e.g. heterosexual anal sex). Correlations between adolescent viewing of sexual media and sexual behavior are moderated by parental involvement, including such factors as discussions of television content, communication patterns, and home environments. Pornography as distress (for younger children): Premature or inadvertent exposure to sexually explicit content may be distressing for younger children. First, research on children‘s consumption of sexual content in mainstream media documents that its effects are moderated by such variables as age, gender, sexual experience, physical maturation, and parental involvement. (shrink)

Pornography‘ refers to sexually explicit media that are primarily intended to sexually arouse the audience‘. Pornography representation of sexual behavior in books, pictures, statues, motion pictures, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornography can be the main source of a young person's sex education. Pornography In many historical societies, frank depictions of sexual behavior, often in a religious context, were common. In the 19th century, the inventions of photography and later motion pictures were quickly put to (...) use in the production of pornography. 21st century there were some four million Web sites devoted to pornography, containing more than a quarter of a billion pages—in other words, more than 10 percent of the Web. Pornography may impact on young people‘s adoption of certain sexual behaviours. It is possible that viewing non-mainstream sexual practices can give legitimacy to them, and encourage participation in sexually adventurous behaviors (e.g. heterosexual anal sex). Correlations between adolescent viewing of sexual media and sexual behavior are moderated by parental involvement, including such factors as discussions of television content, communication patterns, and home environments. Pornography as distress (for younger children): Premature or inadvertent exposure to sexually explicit content may be distressing for younger children. First, research on children‘s consumption of sexual content in mainstream media documents that its effects are moderated by such variables as age, gender, sexual experience, physical maturation, and parental involvement. (shrink)

Images of species, sets, and containers, combined with an obsolete positivist theory of meaning and a curiously illogical interpretation of a structuralist understanding of meaning, together have driven feminists and their critics to find unavoidable essentialism and binary totalism in feminist theorists' use of the category WOMEN. This paper explores an enriched imagination for how categories can be structured internally and in relations to other categories, and proposes that we need to think categories simultaneously through multiple and mixed metaphors, including (...) the metaphors of a spun thread and family resemblance, and the image of correlational densities in multidimensional quality spaces. (shrink)

Little is know about factors that influence the development of public self-consciousness. One potential factor is exposure to audiences: being repeatedly aware of one's object status could create a high disposition to focus on public self-aspects. To explore this hypothesis public self-consciousness was assessed in two groups of subjects: 62 professors and actors (high exposure to audiences) and 39 people without audience experience. Analysis show that significant differences exist for public self-consciousness in men only. Also, history of frequent exposure to (...) audience is significantly but weakly correlated with high public self-consciousness in men. This supports previous observations indicating that self-consciousness seems to develop differently for men and women. (shrink)

Depressive disorders have been found to be a significant health issue among industrial workers, resulting from work-related factors and causing serious burdens for the workers as well as their employers. Literature on mental health problems of Vietnamese industrial workers has been limited, despite the rapid foreign investment-fueled industrialization process of the country. This study aimed to fill the gap in literature by examining the prevalence of depressive disorders and their potential associated factors among a cohort of Vietnamese industrial workers. A (...) cross-sectional study was conducted in 3 industrial areas in Hanoi and Bac Ninh. A total of 289 workers agreed to participate in the study. Generalized linear mixed models were applied to identify associated factors with depression status of respondents. 38.6% of participants reported suffering depression. Factors found to be positively associated with the possibility of having depression and higher PHQ9 score were long working hours, suffering more health problems, and health hazards exposure at work. Meanwhile, being females, having more children, living with parents, engaging in smoking, and being local workers were found to correlate with lower likelihood of being depressed. The findings suggested the importance of regular health screening, work safety assurance, and social support outside of workplace on the mental health of the workers. (shrink)

Objective: Long-term C-arm fluoroscopy exposes medical personnel to substantial radiation doses. Preventing this exposure requires protective equipment and radiation safety. This study examined anesthesia students' using fluoroscopy and preventive knowledge. -/- Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study included 139 Vocational High School Anesthesia students. The "Healthcare Professional Knowledge of Radiation Protection" scale and a 13-question survey collected data. The scale was designed with a Likert scale and three sub-factors. If the total and sub-dimension item average score of the scale is (...) below 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge of radiation protection among medical personnel is low, and if it is above 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge is high. -/- Results: More than half of the students (59.8%) heard the radiation from the fluoroscopy device, the vast majority (82.7%) did not receive radiation protection training, 58.3% stayed away from the device while it was operating, and 70.5% stated that it is crucial to stay away from the device while it was operating. It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the "Radiation Physics, Biology, and Radiation Usage Principles" sub-dimension of students who were male, in their second year of education, received radiation protection training, and offered reliable answers to a number of questions measuring their level of radiation knowledge. In addition, the research revealed a positive and highly significant correlation between the scale and its subdimensions. -/- Conclusion: Although the scale scores of the students who received radiation protection training and had a high level of radiation knowledge were substantially higher than those of the other students, the average score of the students was less than 5. This indicates that students have an inadequate understanding of radiation protection. To prevent the negative biological effects of radiation on the human body, it is necessary to conduct epidemiological research, educate health care professionals and anesthesiology students about the effects and processes of this radiation on human cells, and provide frequent training. Radiation, radiation's biological effects, and radiation protection should be included in health students' curricula. (shrink)

The so-called “conciliatory” norm in epistemology and meta-ethics requires that an agent, upon encountering peer disagreement with her judgment, lower her confidence about that judgment. But whether agents actually abide by this norm is unclear. Although confidence is excessively researched in the empirical sciences, possible effects of disagreement on confidence have been understudied. Here, we target this lacuna, reporting a study that measured confidence about moral beliefs before and after exposure to moral discourse about a controversial issue. Our findings indicate (...) that participants do not abide by the conciliatory norm. Neither do they conform to a rival “steadfast” norm that demands their confidence to remain the same. Instead, moral discourse seems to boost confidence. Interestingly, we also find a confidence boost for factual beliefs, and a correlation between the extremity of moral views and confidence. One possible explanation of our findings is that when engaging in moral discourse participants become more extreme in their opinions, which leads them to become more confident about them, or vice versa: they become more confident and in turn more extreme. Although our work provides initial evidence for the former mechanism, further research is needed for a better understanding of confidence and moral discourse. (shrink)

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) weaves together rigor and relevance while it improves student achievement and engagement. The Philippine Department of Education implemented Indigenous People’s education to respond to the demands for culturally responsive teaching. Teacher education graduates are expected to articulate the rootedness of education in sociocultural contexts in creating a learning environment that recognizes respect, connectedness, choice, personal relevance, challenges, engagement, authenticity, and effectiveness. Practice teachers need relevant exposure and immersion to fully develop their competence in CRT. This scenario (...) necessitates attention to assessing the competence of 191 practice teachers in CRT, correlating their competence across dimensions, and verifying the role of gender and degree programs in competence development. This investigation provides evidence on the role of gender in competence development toward culturally responsive teaching. Such competence is vital in practice teachers, especially because they are exposed to learners with diverse backgrounds during their teaching internship. This evidence informs supervising instructors in molding practice teachers. (shrink)

The epidemiologist Bradford Hill famously argued that in epidemiology, specificity of association (roughly, the fact that an environmental or behavioral risk factor is associated with just one or at most a few medical outcomes) is strong evidence of causation. Prominent epidemiologists have dismissed Hill’s claim on the ground that it relies on a dubious `one-cause one effect’ model of disease causation. The paper examines this methodological controversy, and argues that specificity considerations do have a useful role to play in causal (...) inference in epidemiology. More precisely, I argue that specificity considerations help solve a pervasive inferential problem in contemporary epidemiology: the problem of determining whether an exposure-outcome correlation might be due to confounding by a social factor. This examination of specificity has interesting consequences for our understanding of the methodology of epidemiology. It highlights how the methodology of epidemiology relies on local tools designed to address specific inference problems peculiar to the discipline, and shows that observational causal inference in epidemiology can proceed with little prior knowledge of the causal structure of the phenomenon investigated. I also argue that specificity of association cannot (despite claims to the contrary) be entirely explained in terms of Woodward’s well-known concept of “one-to-one” causal specificity. This is because specificity as understood by epidemiologists depends on whether an exposure (or outcome) is associated with a `heterogeneous’ set of variables. This dimension of heterogeneity is not captured in Woodward’s notion, but is crucial for understanding the evidential import of specificity of association. (shrink)

The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the industrialized nations of North and West, between increased hygiene and sanitation, and increased rates of asthma and allergies. Recent studies have added to the scope of the hypothesis, showing a link between decreased exposure to certain bacteria and parasitic worms, and increased rates of depression and intestinal auto- immune disorders, respectively. What remains less often discussed in the research on these links is that women have higher rates than (...) men of asthma and allergies, as well as many auto-immune disorders, and also depression. The current paper introduces a feminist understanding of gender socialization to the epidemiological and immunological picture. That standards of cleanliness are generally higher for girls than boys, especially under the age of five when children are more likely to be under close adult supervision, is a robust phenomenon in industrialized nations, and some research points to a cross- cultural pattern. I conclude that, insofar as the hygiene hypothesis successfully identifies standards of hygiene and sanitation as mediators of immune health, then attention to the relevant patterns of gender socialization is important. The review also makes clear that adding a feminist analysis of gender socialization to the hygiene hypothesis helps explain variation in morbidity rates not addressed by other sources and responds to a number of outstanding puzzles in current research. Alternative explanations for the sex differences in the relevant morbidity rates are also discussed (e.g., the effects of estrogens). Finally, new sources of evidence for the hygiene hypothesis are suggested in the form of cross-cultural and other natural experiments. (shrink)

This study aims to identify the following factors that affect the physical inactivity of the students in saint joseph college aged 12- 16 years old. It aims to understand the impact of this crisis and how to address this pressing issue. A descriptive- survey research design was utilized to document the respondents' behavior, demographics, and experiences correlated to the questions provided. The questionnaire includes 15-item questions that seek to gather information on their basic profile, current experiences, and behavior towards physical (...) activities. The study discovers that teenagers aged 12-16 years old are inactive in physical activities and sports due to some reasons like exposure to too much time to gadgets, whether the activity provides a fun and offers socialization, lack of motivation, occupied schedules for other matters, the covid- 19 pandemic, costly sports equipment on the sports of their interest, the unavailability of playing area, and lastly health concerns. Therefore, physical inactivity only alleviates certain issues, physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially. Physical inactivity is the result of demotivated individuals, physical illiteracy, prolonged screen time, and health issues. (shrink)

TB human challenge studies could accelerate TB vaccine development by reducing uncertainty in early-stage vaccine testing, selecting promising vaccine candidates for large-scale field trials, and identifying an immune correlate of protection. However, ethical concerns regarding the exposure of trial participants and bystanders to significant risk have been a limiting factor for TB human challenge models. We analyze the expected social value and risks of different types of TB human challenge models, and conclude that given the massive public health burden of (...) TB, challenge models with even scant probabilities of expediting TB vaccine authorization have enormous expected humanitarian value, saving between 33,000 and 1,375,000 lives over the next ten years. We argue that attenuated M.tb challenge trials can be conducted ethically, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of conducting virulent M.tb challenge trials. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years, once staunchly film history scholars such as Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Gaines, Siegfried Zielinski, André Gaudreault and Benoît Turquety (to name just a few) have abandoned history for historiography and film studies for media archaeology. Considering the heightened attention given to kulturtechnik (Siegert), the database as a dominant symbolic metaphor,1 and the decentered networked tenants of the postmodern global present, cinema is taking on the characteristics of new media, existing in increasingly intertextual space. Thus, the term (...) “post-cinema” has been co-opted as a viable intermediary that accounts for new media conditions, as cinema is no longer emblematic of our cultural climate. It was once presaged in 1992 that “[t]he end of the cinema truly sounds the death knell of the ultimate metaphysical adventure of Dasein. In the twilight of post-cinema, of which we are seeing the beginning, human quasi-existence, now stripped of any metaphysical hypostasis and deprived of any theological model, will have to seek its proper generic consistency elsewhere.” Accordingly, we are no longer “moviegoing animals” who seek images of ourselves among a collective in the dark but, rather, users interfacing within a network of moving images. By locating post-cinema within the semblance of social media, we are allocated a newfound series of theoretical interventions, the most marked of which is that of media archeology vis-à-vis dialectical materialism. This is a lens through which Brian Winston has recently deftly decried Virtual Reality’s “empathy machine” utopic illusionism, bolstered by Chris Milk and a slew of neurohumanities researchers, steadily maintaining that the fundamental myth of “technologies of seeing” is in disguising “their artifice, their cultural formation and their ideological import.” However, this approach, which illuminates the bifurcation between Max Horkheimer/Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, neglects what Benjamin identified as occurring to the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility—a shift from a technology’s “cult value,” associated with the unique work, to its “exhibition value,” associated with the social act of viewing as part of a mass. Speaking to this divarication, Benjamin Barber, in Strong Democracy, foresaw new media’s two-fold potential—as they are organized and networked, new media and communications technologies possess the possibility to both energize citizen information and political participation but, simultaneously, to supplement the deterioration of public debate. As evinced by Mark Adrejevic’s concept of Infoglut, this two-pronged possibility has only been exacerbated by the interlocking relationship between the advent of a “glut” of information, post-truth politics, the demise of symbolic efficiency, and a renewed focus on the role of affect and emotion as “alternative modalities for thinking about the role of communication in a post-referential era.” Manuel Castells qualifies Barber’s pessimism, noting that the Internet can “be an appropriate platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation.. […] beyond the closed doors of political institutions,” but that the Internet, like any technology, “is shaped by its uses and users.” Thus, if there exists a positive correlation between exposure to post-cinema media artifacts and political participation, then I seek to explore the revelatory political possibilities of “exhibition value” by way of a particular “post-cinema” case study: the Marxist-Leninist Turkish hacktivist group Redhack’s YouTube-circulated documentary RED! (2013), a project that demanded—by way of the moving-image—to galvanize cyberprotest and democratize a “hacktivist commons. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Clinicians, researchers and the informed public have come to view addiction as a brain disease. However, in nature even extreme events often reflect normal processes, for instance the principles of plate tectonics explain earthquakes as well as the gradual changes in the face of the earth. In the same way, excessive drug use is predicted by general principles of choice. One of the implications of this result is that drugs do not turn addicts into compulsive drug users; they retain (...) the capacity to say ?no?. In support of the logical implications of the choice theory approach to addiction, research reveals that most addicts quit using drugs by about age 30, that most quit without professional help, that the correlates of quitting are the correlates of decision making, and, according to the most recent epidemiological evidence, the probability of quitting remains constant over time and independent of the onset of dependence. This last result implies that, after an initial period of heavy drug use, remission is independent of any further exposure to drugs. In short, there is much empirical support for the claim that addiction emerges as a function of the rules of everyday choice. (shrink)

All societies have to balance privacy claims with other moral concerns. However, while some concern for privacy appears to be a common feature of social life, the definition, extent and moral justifications for privacy differ widely. Are there better and worse ways of conceptualising, justifying, and managing privacy? These are the questions that lie in the background of this thesis. -/- My particular concern is with the ethical issues around privacy that are tied to the rise of new information and (...) communication technologies (henceforth “ICT”). The focus here is on technologies involved in processing personal data in its broadest sense, including “any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.” The issue of moral concern is commonly designated as that of 'data privacy'. -/- The first step is to consider why privacy matters, or ought to matter, in the first place. And here we run into our first difficulty, since both the conceptualisation of privacy and the justification for the right to privacy are matters for contention. On the one hand, we are animated by a moral concern for privacy in some sense; on the other, we lack the conceptual and moral resources for making sense of this concern or for promoting particular social policies and criticising others. This often-cited dichotomy and its ensuing confusion have been the central motivation for most of the philosophical literature on privacy – including this thesis. -/- In what follows, I will suggest a way out of the confusion that pervades the current debate on data privacy. I will essentially argue two claims: one, that the concept of (data) privacy is uniquely characterised by a particular context within which we exchange information; two, that because (data) privacy constitutes an intrinsic value, its moral concerns and justifications ought to be deliberated as such. -/- The first chapter sketches the current data privacy landscape by introducing a number of concepts and arguing the unique nature of the landscape. I argue that the traditional distinction between four kinds of privacy (physical, mental, decisional and informational) is no longer accurate, given the technological context that reduces, unifies and processes all aspects of people’s lives by means of digital data. In fact, to hold on to the distinction leads to a fundamental misconception of data privacy. I further argue that today’s distinction between data protection and data privacy runs the risk of ignoring the fact that the former is an inherent aspect of the latter. These arguments allow me to settle on a (provisional) definition of data privacy: controlling how data about identifiable people is processed by ICT. -/- Next, I draw a line between descriptive and normative accounts of data privacy, and explain why this book belongs to the latter category. After a brief discussion of the coherence and distinctiveness theses, and of the difference between instrumental and intrinsic theories of privacy, I introduce the problem of data privacy as a distinct, coherent, and intrinsic moral concern. Three arguments support this position: one, data privacy is a coherent moral concern because it is motivated by a singular moral concept; two, data privacy is a distinct moral concern because the privacy challenges we face today are of a fundamentally new nature – distinct from any moral concerns we’ve faced in the past; and three, data privacy is an intrinsic moral concern that is predominantly justified, not by what it instrumentally protects us from, but by what it intrinsically constitutes. -/- Chapter Two makes the case against a harm-based, consequentialist approach to data privacy. After a brief introduction to the basic tenets of consequentialism I discuss harm-based arguments in favour as well as against privacy. I explain how privacy may protect us against psychological distress, but at the same time constitute the source of that distress; how privacy may be necessary for the proper functioning of democratic societies, but at the same time provide a cloak for anti-social and immoral behaviour; and how privacy protects us against the improper use of our personal data by others, but at the same enables us to conceal information or spread false information about ourselves in ways that are harmful to others. Next, I argue that consequentialism essentially relies on two flawed presumptions – that we know what harm is, and that we know how to predict it – and discuss the controversies surrounding definitions and predictions of harm. This argument becomes especially pertinent in today’s rapidly changing technological context: we may guess, and make assumptions, perhaps even find correlations, but don’t really know or understand (yet) with any degree of certainty the harmful consequences today’s data privacy violations are causing or will eventually cause – if any. -/- I illustrate this with examples of recent data privacy violations, and with a brief overview of consequentialist arguments for and against data privacy. Those who invoke consequentialist arguments against data privacy claim that personal data is nothing more than a raw material that can be turned into something useful and valuable without harming anyone. Choosing to move fast and break things – a popular mantra that promotes the benefits of technological “permissionless innovation” over and above its risks and costs – they draw our attention to the many benefits free data flows generate. Those who rely on consequentialist arguments in favour of data privacy, on the other hand, insist on actual and potential misuse of personal data. Rather careful than sorry, they draw our attention to the urgent need to take back control and protect ourselves against data privacy violations – precisely because we don’t know which harm they may cause in the future. Others go one step further and argue that these violations are part of a broader ideology of power. -/- What Chapter Two demonstrates is that vague definitions, unreliable predictions and inconclusive allegations of harm from both sides of the debate perpetuate a stalemate that fails to produce morally defensible answers to our growing data privacy concerns. Deliberating about data privacy from a consequentialist perspective is a dead end. -/- Chapter Three proposes an alternative to the harm-based approach, namely that privacy is an intrinsic value that deserves moral protection for its own sake. After a brief account of what I take values to be, and why we have a need to protect them, I introduce the foundational value of respect for persons, and lay out my main argument in two steps. The conceptual component of my argument returns to the definition of data privacy I had temporarily settled on in Chapter One, but now with the added consideration of the particular context, and particular circumstances and attitudes, within which information is exchanged. This addition is crucial, as it reveals the fundamental value that is at stake in our data privacy concerns, namely the inherent value of each and every person, which we protect by upholding an ethical principle commonly known as the principle of respect for persons. It is for this reason that the violation of privacy cannot (only) be expressed in terms of harm. I further argue that the principle of respect for persons is consistent with, and in fact unthinkable without, some degree of privacy. -/- I reply to potential challenges to a value-based approach to data privacy by showing that (i) values and value trade-offs are fundamentally different from consequential benefits and cost-benefit analyses; (ii) the suspension of one value in favour of another is not inherently contradictory; what matters is morally defensible deliberation about values and valid individual consent; (iii) data privacy concerns cannot be reduced to other moral concerns and therefore deserve a specific, distinct protection. -/- Finally, because this is a thesis in applied ethics, I attempt an answer to the question as to how we ought to apply a value-based approach to practical data privacy concerns. I argue that a revised, three-pronged version of John Rawls’ reflective equilibrium, founded on the non-negotiable principle of respect for persons, is the best possible procedure to deliberate data privacy concerns in relation to other moral values. (shrink)

The public’s actions will likely have a significant effect on the course of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Human behavior is conditioned and shaped by information and people’s perceptions. This study investigated the impact of risk perception on trust in government and self-efficacy. It examined whether the use of social media helped people adopt preventive actions during the pandemic. To test this hypothesis, the researchers gathered data from 512 individuals (students and academics) based in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our (...) results suggested that risk perception had a significant effect on trust in government and self-efficacy. Moreover, these correlations were stronger when social media was used as a source for gathering information on COVID-19. In some cases, it even helped users avoid exposure to the virus. This study assessed the relationship between risk perception and the awareness gained from using social media during the pandemic and highlighted how social media usage influences trust in government and self-efficacy. -/- . (shrink)

Consciousness is a natural phenomenon, the object of a flourishing area of research in the natural sciences – research whose primary goal is to identify the neural correlates of consciousness. This raises the question: why is there need for a philosophy of consciousness? As we see things, the need for a philosophy of consciousness arises for two reasons. First, as a young and energetic science operating as yet under no guiding paradigm, the science of consciousness has been subject to considerable (...) confusion regarding its methodological, conceptual, and philosophical foundations, and it is philosophy’s mandate to address such confusion in an attempt to regiment scientific practice. Secondly, the identification of a neural feature that correlated perfectly with consciousness would still leave open a certain metaphysical question: is the relation between consciousness and the relevant neural feature merely correlation, or is that correlation indicative of a deeper, more intimate relation between the two? In this paper, we offer an opinionated overview of the philosophy of consciousness as it addresses these two dimensions of consciousness research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In ‘Scorekeeping in a Pornographic Language Game’, Rae Langton and Caroline West borrow ideas from David Lewis to attempt to explain how pornography might subordinate and silence women. Pornography is supposed to express certain misogynistic claims implicitly, through presupposition, and to convey them indirectly, through accommodation. I argue that the appeal to accommodation cannot do the sort of work Langton and West want it to do: Their case rests upon an overly simplified model of that phenomenon. I argue further (...) that, once we are clear about why Langton and West's account fails, a different and more plausible account of pornography's influence emerges. (shrink)

Claims that pornography cannot be art typically depend on controversial claims about essential value differences (moral, aesthetic) between pornography and art. In this paper, I offer a value-neutral exclusionary claim, showing pornography to be descriptively at odds with art. I then show how my view is an improvement on similar claims made by Jerrold Levinson. Finally I draw parallels between art and pornography and art and advertising as well as show that my view is consistent with our typical usage of (...) the term “pornographic art.”. (shrink)

One striking feature of pornographic images is that they emphasize what is depicted and underplay the way it is depicted: the experience of pornography rarely involves awareness of the picture’s composition or of visual rhyme. There are various ways of making this distinction between what is depicted in a picture and the way the depicted object is depicted in it. Following Richard Wollheim, I call these two aspects, the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of pictorial representation ‘recognitional’ and ‘configurational’, respectively. Some pictures (...) emphasize one of these aspects while underplaying the other. Pornographic pictures try to trigger as little attention to the ‘configurational’ aspect as possible. Instead of examining pornography, where the ‘configurational’ aspect of experience is underplayed, I focus on a historical attempt to create images of the female body where the ‘recognigional’ element is the one that is underplayed and the ‘configurational’ elements of the picture form an essential part of our experience. The pictures I have in mind are André Kertész’s series of photographs from 1933, called Distortions. I argue that Kertész’s Distortions are in this respect the counterpoint of pornography: they may be the least pornographic representations of the female nude. Instead of ignoring the ‘configurational aspects of the picture, making the picture transparent and fully at the service of showing the female body and thus to trigger arousal, Kertész aims to achieve the exact opposite. His photographs strip the female body of all its sexual connotations and draw our attention to the formal features of the picture – which is quite a feat in the light of the subject matter of these pictures that normally draw our attention away from the formal features of pictures. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

We refine a line of feminist criticism of pornography that focuses on pornographic works' pernicious effects. A.W. Eaton argues that inegalitarian pornography should be criticized because it is responsible for its consumers’ adoption of inegalitarian attitudes toward sex in the same way that other fictions are responsible for changes in their consumers’ attitudes. We argue that her argument can be improved with the recognition that different fictions can have different modes of persuasion. This is true of film and television: a (...) satirical movie such as Dr. Strangelove does not morally educate in the same way as a realistic series such as The Wire. We argue that this is also true of pornography: inegalitarian depictions of sex are not invariably responsible for consumers' adoption of inegalitarian attitudes toward sex in reality. Given that pornographic works of different genres may harm in different ways, different feminist criticisms are appropriate for different genres of pornography. (shrink)

Since the dawn of the internet, pornography has effectively become ubiquitous, pervasive, and increasingly normalised. Study findings show remarkable similarities in how the brain reacts to pornography, and other known addictive substances, and indicate that consuming pornography is comparable to consuming other known addictive substances. Moreover, two of the biggest risk factors for addiction are the substance’s availability and its easy accessibility, particularly in the case of younger persons. To date, pornography addiction has been conceptualised as a behavioural addiction. However, (...) the body of research data on pornography addiction does not provide conclusive support for behavioural addiction. The aim of this thesis is to put forward the idea that pornography can, and should, be conceptualised as an addictive substance, and, that when pornography is consumed, an addictive substance is consumed. In order to support this claim, there are many factors that must be addressed. I first clarify what pornography entails by exploring how it is conceptualised, what pornography ‘does’, and what it means to be a pornography consumer. Secondly, I examine the conceptualisations of substances, substance consumption and addiction, respectively, as well as the subsequent difference between substance and behavioural addiction. Thirdly, I give an inclusive overview of pornography addiction by not only examining the most recent perspectives of researchers, but also of pornography consumers. I conclude by suggesting how we should go about conceptualising pornography addiction, and then propose how the set of diagnostic criteria for pornography use disorder should be formulated for a future iteration of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I argue that, given the abundance of academic research on substance addiction, compared to the scarcity of research on behavioural addiction, conceptualising pornography as an addictive substance is more likely to create a sense of urgency for the future research of pornography addiction than would be the case if it is considered a potential behavioural addiction. Furthermore, I argue that the classification of pornography as an addictive substance, and the inclusion of pornography use disorder in a future iteration of the DSM, will raise awareness of the potential adverse effects of pornography consumption and, therefore, the harmful consequences of pornography use disorder. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the existence of moral distress among nurses in Lilongwe District of Malawi. Qualitative research was conducted in selected health institutions of Lilongwe District in Malawi to assess knowledge and causes of moral distress among nurses and coping mechanisms and sources of support that are used by morally distressed nurses. Data were collected from a purposive sample of 20 nurses through in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. Thematic analysis of qualitative (...) data was used. The results show that nurses, irrespective of age, work experience and tribe, experienced moral distress related to patient/nursing care. The major distressing factors were inadequate resources and lack of respect from patients, guardians, peers and bosses. Nurses desire teamwork and ethics committees in their health institutions as a means of controlling and preventing moral distress. There is a need for creation of awareness for nurses to recognize and manage moral distress, thus optimizing their ability to provide quality and uncompromised nursing care. (shrink)

The centerpiece of the scientific study of consciousness is the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. Yet science is typically interested not only in discovering correlations, but also – and more deeply – in explaining them. When faced with a correlation between two phenomena in nature, we typically want to know why they correlate. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. The first half attempts to lay out the various possible explanations of the correlation between consciousness and its neural (...) correlate – to provide a sort of “menu” of options from which we probably would ultimately have to choose. The second half raises considerations suggesting that, under certain reasonable assumptions, the choice among these various options may be in principle underdetermined by the relevant scientific evidence. (shrink)

Considering the short history of the feminist philosophy of language, Rae Langton’s article “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” was highly influential as one of the first positive research programs in the movement. In that paper, Langton – using John L. Austin’s speech act theory – tries to interpret Catharine MacKinnon’s thesis: pornography is a speech that subordinates and silences women. Despite the importance of the subject, those unfamiliar with certain historical and contextual features of the topic would hardly understand it. (...) My paper aims to introduce some of the major accounts in this special area in the intersection of speech act theory and feminist philosophy. Rather than just reconstructing Langton’s arguments and the most common objections against it, I will take a more holistic approach, examining its surrounding literature as well. This article has six sections. In Section 1, I contrast the conservative and liberal arguments against pornography and sketch MacKinnon’s liberal critique. In Section 2, I give alternative interpretations of MacKinnon’s thesis, “pornography is harm.” In Section 3, I try to make sense of the prima facie implausible assumption that pornography is speech. In Section 4 and 5, I will analyze the Langtonian theories about subordination and silencing. Finally, in Section 6, I will mention the most challenging problems for Langton’s approach, considering the verbal nature or pornography, the limits of the protection of free speech, and the different positions on sexual consent. (shrink)

Section 1 proposes a new philosophical account of melancholy. Section 2 examines the reasons why one might think that pornography and melancholy are incompatible. Section 3 discusses some successful examples of melancholic pornography and makes the case that feminist pornographers are particularly well-placed to produce such material.

Making sense of MacKinnon’s claim that pornography silences women requires attention to the discursive and interpretive frameworks that pornography establishes and promotes. Treating pornography as a form of hate speech is promising, but also limited. A close examination of a legal case, in which pornographic images were used to sexually harass, focuses on the hate speech analogy while illustrating the broad and lasting impact of such depictions when targeted at an individual. Applying the distinction between Absolutist and Reclaimer approaches to (...) hate speech and derogatory terms, the article concludes with a discussion of the possibility of creative development of discursive practices within a context that undermines the semantic authority of members of certain groups. (shrink)

Contemporary egalitarian liberals—unlike their classical counterparts—have lived through many contentious events where the right to freedom of expression has been tested to its limits—the Skokie, Illinois, skinhead marches, hate speech incidents on college campuses, Internet pornography and hate speech sites, Holocaust deniers, and cross-burners, to name just a few. Despite this contemporary tumult, freedom of expression has been nearly unanimously affirmed in both the U.S. jurisprudence and philosophical discourse. In what follows, I will examine Ronald Dworkin's influential contemporary justification for (...) freedom of expression, which claims that a thoroughgoing right to freedom of expression is justified by the fact that it guarantees and preserves liberalism's commitment to equality by offering everyone an opportunity to speak, whereas any other policy, such as state regulation, would fail to offer this equal opportunity. This justification has been challenged by feminists and critical race theorists, who find the cases of pornography and hate speech to be sufficient threats to the freedom of expression and equality of their targets—women and minorities—to warrant limiting freedom of expression in these cases. I will argue that if Dworkin is to take equality as seriously as he claims to, then, by his own lights, he must back away from an unrestricted freedom of expression, in light of these distinctly contemporary challenges of the harms of systemic racism and sexism, which underlie hate speech and pornography. (shrink)

The primary purpose of depictive works of pornography, we take it, is sexual arousal through sexually explicit representations; what we callprototypical pornography satisfies those aims through the adoption of a ceteris paribus maximally realistic depictive style. Given that the purpose of sexual arousal seems best fulfilled by establishing the most robust connections between the viewer and the depictive subject, we find it curious that not all works of pornography aspire to prototypical status. Accordingly, we target for philosophical scrutiny several non-standard (...) but putatively pornographic forms: Tijuana Bibles, hentai manga, and slash-fiction. We find that works of these genres possess certain depictively or fictively oriented properties that appear at least prima facie incompatible with prototypical pornography, and thereby to pose two pressing questions that anyprima facie viable analysis of pornography must answer: the depiction question and the fiction question. By answering these questions, we can not only arrive at a deeper understanding of the aims of pornography and the reasons for which significant sub-genres of pornography might diverge from the prototypical ideal, but also perhaps better understand what lies at pornography’s edge, and so better understand the ways in which pornography might relate to what lies beyond. (shrink)

Moral distress is the sense that one must do, or cooperate in, what is wrong. It is paradigmatically faced by nurses, but it is almost a universal occupational hazard.

Ong, Caroline As health systems become more complex, moral distress is increasingly being recognised as a significant phenomenon amongst health professionals. It can be described as the state of being distressed when one is unable to act according to what one believes to be morally right. It may compromise patient care, the health professional involved and the organisation. Cumulative experiences of incompletely resolved moral distress - a phenomenon which is called moral residue - may leave us susceptible to (...) more frequent and more severe moral distress. Clear open communication, respect, inclusivity, openness to differences, compassion, support, education and the capacity to grow in self-awareness are key aspects in minimising moral distress. Early recognition of its symptoms and addressing both personal and external constraints of actions can also minimise moral residue and build resilience to further distress. (shrink)

When the cluster on “Sexual Expressions” began to take shape, one of the first people I thought of to serve as a referee was Joan Mason-Grant, given her longstanding philosophical and activist interest in pornography. It was with great sorrow that I learned, when I contacted her, that she had been diagnosed with a fast moving cancer. Joan was most interested to hear about this emerging “found cluster”; “it sounds like an interesting issue of Hypatia to look forward to, but (...) unfortunately my own academic work has had to be suspended” (May 17, 2009). She died just four days later. (shrink)

Catharine MacKinnon argues that pornography is action, rather than speech. She argues further that the speech/action distinction is what delineates the scope of the First Amendment. It follows, she thinks, that pornography does not fall within the scope of the First Amendment. I argue that the legal distinction between speech and action on which MacKinnon relies is unstable and therefore cannot determine which utterances fall within the scope of the First Amendment. Indeed, attempting to sort utterances by means of the (...) speech/action distinction in order to make this determination can lead to a paradox, which I call the “viewpoint paradox”. That an utterance expresses a particular viewpoint is typically sufficient for its qualifying as speech; yet MacKinnon’s argument that pornography is not speech pivots are her claim that it is an act of subordination because it expresses a particular viewpoint about women. (shrink)

Rae Langton and Caroline West famously argued that pornography operates like a language game, in that it introduces certain views about women into the common ground via presupposition accommodation. While this pragmatic model explains how pornography has the potential to change its viewers’ beliefs, it leaves open how pornography changes people’s desires. Our aim in this paper is to show how Langton and West’s discourse theoretic account of pornography can be refined to close this lacuna. Using tools from recent developments (...) in discourse theory, we propose that pornography issues implicit directives, and thereby introduces bouletic components into the discourse. (shrink)

This paper has three goals. The first is to defend Tristan Taromino and Erika Lust (or some of their films) from criticisms that Rebecca Whisnant and Hans Maes make of them. Toward that end, I will be arguing against the narrow conceptions that Whisnant and Maes have of what `feminist' pornography must be like. More generally, I hope to show by example why it is important to take pornographic films seriously as films if we're to understand their potential to shape, (...) or mis-shape, socio-sexual norms. (shrink)

It has been argued that some recent experimental findings about the mere exposure effect can be used to argue for aesthetic antirealism: the view that there is no fact of the matter about aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is to assess this argument and point out that this strategy, as it stands, does not work. But we may still be able to use experimental findings about the mere exposure effect in order to engage with the aesthetic realism/antirealism debate. (...) However, this argument would need to proceed very differently and would only support a much more modest version of aesthetic antirealism. (shrink)

How sexuality should be regulated in a liberal political community is an important, controversial theoretical and empirical question—as shown by the recent criminalization of possession of some adult pornography in the United Kingdom. Supporters of criminalization argue that Mill, often considered a staunch opponent of censorship, would support prohibition due to his feminist commitments. I argue that this account underestimates the strengths of the Millian account of private conduct and free expression, and the consistency of Millian anticensorship with feminist values. (...) A Millian contextual defense of liberty, however, suggests several other policy approaches to addressing the harms of pornography. (shrink)

Jennifer Saul has argued that the speech acts approach to pornography, where pornography has the illocutionary force of subordinating women, is undermined by that very approach: if pornographic works are speech acts, they must be utterances in contexts; and if we take contexts seriously, it follows that only some pornographic viewings subordinate women. In an effort to defend the speech acts approach, Claudia Bianchi argues that Saul focuses on the wrong context to fix pornography’s illocutionary force. In response, I defend (...) Saul arguing that Bianchi doesn’t show Saul has focused on the wrong context. (shrink)

It has been argued that an adequate feminist response to sexist pornography demands not just efforts to eradicate sexist beliefs, but also aesthetic counter-intervention at the level of taste. This view motivates support for feminist pornography. This paper takes the feminist pornography suggestion seriously by unpacking difficulties for the project. I begin by spelling out two views about what makes feminist pornography feminist: the ‘content view,’ and the ‘context view,’ and discuss what I take to be existing arguments for the (...) latter. I then present two objections to the context view: the first focuses on how we characteristically interact with pornography (as a masturbatory aid), the second challenges the value of authenticity upon which much feminist pornography rests. If these arguments are correct, then there are serious flaws with feminist pornography as it is commonly conceived. I close with a brief suggestion of an alternative approach rooted in feminist solidarity. (shrink)

When our nearest and dearest experience medical crises, we may need to step into caregiving roles. But in doing so, some people find that their new caregiving relationship is actually in tension with the loving relationship that motivated us towards care. What we owe and are entitled to as friends, spouses and family members, can be different from what we owe and are entitled to as caregivers. For this reason, caregiving carries with it the risk of a type of moral (...) distress that I call ‘role conflict distress’. Rather than view role conflict distress as a sign that we are falling short, I suggest that it actually speaks to the commitment that we have to the loving relationship that grounds our duty of care. (shrink)

This paper provides an in-depth review of Jerrold Levinson’s most recent work in aesthetics, focusing especially on his account of the incompatibility of art and pornography. The author argues that this account does not fit well with Levinson’s own intentional-historical definition of art and his Wollheimian account of depiction.

Mengzi 孟子 6A2 contains the famous water analogy for the innate goodness of human nature. Some evaluate Mengzi’s reasoning as strong and sophisticated; others, as weak or sophistical. I urge for more nuance in our evaluation. Mengzi’s reasoning fares poorly when judged by contemporary standards of analogical strength. However, if we evaluate the analogy as an instance of correlative thinking within a yin-yang 陰陽 cosmology, his reasoning fares well. That cosmology provides good reason to assert that water tends to flow (...) downward, not because of available empirical evidence, but because water correlates to yin and yin correlates to naturally downward motion. Substantiating these contentions also gives occasion to better understand the nature of correlative reasoning in classical Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

During the hundred years following its discovery, Adolph Harnack and, after him, his successors succeeded in giving a determined direction to Didache research. In so doing, the Didache took on a discernible identity and was valued as contributing to the pressing academic discussions of the day. During the last forty years, Harnack and his successors have been largely marginalized. As a result, the field of Didache studies has been caught up in a confusing diversity of scholarly opinions. There is no (...) single origination hypothesis, no single methodology, and no single research program to guide our way. The field of Didache scholarship is thus in disarray and unable to substantially contribute to the academic questions of our day. (shrink)

Interval bipolar neutrosophic set is a significant extension of interval neutrosophic set where every element of the set comprises of three independent positive membership functions and three independent negative membership functions. In this study, we first define correlation coefficient, and weighted correlation coefficient measures of interval bipolar neutrosophic sets and prove their basic properties. Then, we develop a new multi-attribute decision making strategy based on the proposed weighted correlation coefficient measure. Finally, we solve an investment problem with interval bipolar neutrosophic (...) information and comparison is given to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed strategy. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic epithets) have long played various roles and achieved diverse ends in works of art. Focusing on basic aspects of an aesthetic object or work, this article examines the interpretive relation between point of view and content, asking how aesthetic contextualization shapes the impact of such terms. Can context, particularly aesthetic contexts, detach the derogatory force from powerful epithets and racist and sexist images? What would it be about aesthetic contexts that would make this possible? The (...) article puts into aesthetic contexts both Absolutist and Reclaimer views about the power of derogatory terms, applying an inferential role semantics, developed for language, to both words and images. The Reclaimer’s position, that derogation is a matter of pragmatics, of use, emphasizes the context-sensitivity of the term, that is matters who says it, to whom, when, where, and why. Understanding derogatory terms used as hate speech helps to make this position clear. The Absolutist’s position, that no contextual variations can detach the derogation from these deeply derogatory terms, is developed here through attention to subordinating images in pornography. The article argues that art may be able to achieve the deviant interpretations that the Reclaimer needs to undermine the derogations while maintaining sensitivity and awareness of the history of oppression. (shrink)

To continue the project of explicating Pacific values and worldviews, this paper focuses on correlative thinking in some of the cultural philosophies of the Pacific islands, especially Micronesia. Correlative thinking differs, in degree, from scientific and academic logic that emphasize the truth-value of statements. After examining aspects of correlative thinking in Bali and the Philippines, I extract some characteristics of Pacific philosophies from cultural practices, myths, and beliefs. Unlike William Alkire (Alkire, 1972), I find that Pacific islanders use correlative thinking, (...) not dualism, to fill their canoes and baskets of wisdom, so that they can navigate between contemporary logic or scientific thinking, and their cultural knowledge systems and ways of reasoning. (shrink)