Life Ought Research Articles

Oppressive Forms of Life

ABSTRACT Rahel Jaeggi argues that forms of life ought to be the main reference point for a critical theory of society because the internal normative structure of life forms allows for immanent critique. In this article, I extend her model by systematically considering the possibility of oppressive forms of life. Oppressive forms of life are clusters of practices in which subordinated groups are systematically excluded or disabled from participating in the social processes of interpretation through which the values and purposes of those very practices are determined. The possibility of oppressive forms of life poses a challenge to the method of immanent critique because it seems that any such critique must rely on immanent norms that are at least partly constituted by interpretations and that can therefore be distorted by oppression. I argue that Jaeggi’s model of immanent critique can be extended to respond to that challenge, either by recovering a constitutive form of freedom within all forms of life or by consciously adopting a partisan stance in favour of oppressed and marginalised self-understandings.

For a real job? Views on the teaching of competence in working life by students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

In this study, twelve young students on the autism spectrum were interviewed on preparation for working life, employment guidance, the challenges and strengths of the autism spectrum, and suitable teaching methods. Interviews were supported by a structured and illustrated questionnaire. The data were analysed using key statistics. The results showed that, from the students’ perspective, the most important issues in preparation for work are familiarisation with different jobs, guidance in searching for a suitable job, evaluation of the suitability of the working environment, integration of occupational safety into work skills, and acquiring conversational skills in the workplace. The selection of a suitable working environment is clearly emphasised before transitioning to work. Acquiring and keeping a job require investing in social situations and skills in studying. The structuring should be flexible and adaptable according to situations and personal needs. Educationally, social interaction, social skills, and communication should form a coherent whole. The main goal for everyday life ought to be communicative and based on a structure for acquiring different skills. The results can be utilised in a vocational education and training (VET) context, because they support the importance of preparatory education as part of these studies. In addition, the results can also be used in on-the-job learning plans for VET.

From rehabilitation to penal communication: The role of furlough and visitation within a retributivist framework

Retributivism is one of the most prevalent theories in contemporary penal theory. However, despite its popularity it is frequently argued that too little attention has been paid to the implications of retributivism for prison management and prison life, including prison visits and furlough. More so, it has been questioned both whether the various forms of retributivism found in the philosophical literature on criminal punishment have anything to say about what prison life ought to be like and whether they are able to criticize deeply contested rules and practices, such as those that deny inmates contact with family-members for the sake of prison discipline. In this paper, we argue that prison visits and furlough have a crucial role in a prison system based on retributivist principles. In particular, we argue that the communicative theory of punishment has important theoretical resources for proving a strong and compelling rationale for both furlough and visitation on retributivist grounds. Besides exploring this rationale, we also discuss the practical implications of this view for the penal policy.

Luck and the Limits of Equality

A recent movement within political philosophy called luck egalitarianism has attempted to synthesize the right’s regard for responsibility with the left’s concern for equality. The original motivation for subscribing to luck egalitarianism stems from the belief that one’s success in life ought to reflect one’s own choices and not brute luck. Luck egalitarian theorists differ in the decision procedures that they propose, but they share in common the general approach that we ought to equalize individuals with respect to brute luck so that differences in distribution are only a consequence of the responsible choices that individuals make. I intend to show that through the application of its own distributive procedures, the interpersonal luck egalitarian approach actually undermines its original motivation by making the lives of individuals subject to brute luck. I propose two alternative methods that the luck egalitarian could use to prevent the problems suffered by the interpersonal luck egalitarian standard.

Neurologists' Duties in Planning for Triage of Critical Care Resources during the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Nothing to report.

Climate Change, Security, Sensors

A concise threefold illustration is given: (i) of climate change on the gigayear (Ga) time scale through the nanosecond (nsec) time scale, (ii) of the role of the performance of solid materials, concerning both manmade and natural structures with reference to security, and (iii) of the exploitation of the electrostatic energy of the atmospheric electrical circuit—which is an enormous reservoir of natural “clean” energy. Several unfortunate misunderstandings are highlighted that bias the present generally agreed beliefs. The typical natural pace of the Earth’s “electrocardiogram”, ~27.4 Ma, is such that, at present, for the first time humankind must challenge an Earth’s “heartbeat”. A correct use of sensors is needed to get an efficient monitoring of the ongoing climate change. Both anthropic and natural drivers are to be considered. A brief reminder is given about sensors that ought to monitor solid materials—with application (i) to every kind of machinery, building, viaduct or bridge, vehicle, aircraft, rocket, etc. and (ii) for a correct (and unprecedented) monitoring of the electric field at ground, which is the prerequisite for the exploitation of the electrostatic energy of the atmosphere. In every case, a systemic approach is always needed. Every specialized investigation often misses the true physics of phenomena. The resulting great complication can be tackled by means of suitable approximate and “simple” models, which always have to be correctly tested. The impact on the biosphere is manifested as a steady regeneration of microorganisms at the deep ocean floors, supplied by endogenous CH4. Microorganisms are thus the beginning of an ever rejuvenating food chain. The natural climate change implies a permanent evolution of living forms. On the longer time-scale, a permanent cycle occurs of species extinction and/or generation. In addition, owing to such a process, some living forms are likely to also exist underground on other planetary objects. That is, life ought to be a ubiquitous intrinsic endogenic feature of matter in the universe, while life’s survival, evolution and/or extinction, ought to depend on the available hosting environment.

The psychologically rich life

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the notion of a “psychologically rich life”: a life characterized by complexity, in which people experience a variety of interesting things, and feel and appreciate a variety of deep emotions via firsthand experiences or vicarious experiences. A psychologically rich life can be contrasted with a boring and monotonous life, in which one feels a singular emotion or feels that their lives are defined by routines that just aren’t that interesting. Our discussion considers how it is that the psychologically rich life compares to other leading theories of the good life discussed within both philosophy and psychology, and it argues that a psychologically rich life ought to be recognized as a distinct and compelling form of the good life.

Enemies, For My Sake

AbstractThis response to Jason A. Springs’s Healthy Conflict in Contemporary Society praises Springs for his recommendations for improving the discourse found in ethical conflicts in public life. Springs’s main prescription is for culture to stop repressing conflict. But if Springs ought to be praised for desiring to give conflict its due in public life, Healthy Conflict in Contemporary Life ought also to be criticized for not always being clear on whether there are criteria that authorize excluding some people (e.g. white supremacists) from participating in nonviolent cultural conflict. The essay concludes by suggesting a rehabilitation in religious ethics of the category of the enemy.

Science, Technology and Food Security: An Introduction

After the 2008 food price crisis, food security once again became a priority on the international political agenda. This introduction to the special issue tackles the links between this reprioritisation of food security on the one hand, and science and technology on the other hand. First, this special issue introduces the new controversies emerging around food security. Trying to articulate food security with other global issues, actors involved into these debates have elaborated at least two new food security frames, global food security and food sustainability. Second, this issue highlights the role played by knowledge infrastructures in shaping debates on food security. The formal constraints of models or foresights tend to format our ability to assess and act upon food insecurity. A sociological analysis of knowledge infrastructures thus helps to democratise food policies. Third, technosciences are embedded in dense fields of meaning, moral values and contribute to the making of sociotechnical imaginaries. The articles in this issue show that food security research is not just about knowledge, but also about how life ought to be lived. Last, food security articulates science with politics and policies. In particular, the debates about technologies are complemented by disputes about the regulations that should encourage or oppositely restrict their implementation.

A Defense of Robert Nozick’s Theory of the Meaning of Life

Robert Nozick argues that the problem of the meaning of life is caused by limitations, especially death. Consequently, attaining meaning in one’s life requires connecting to something larger than oneself. Since anything can be conceived of as meaningless from a wide enough perspective, meaning will ultimately depend on connecting to “the unlimited.” Although initially plausible, this theory of meaning is vulnerable to a number of objections. One is that “the unlimited” is an incoherent notion due to the necessity that it include ideas that are contradictory to each other, and another is that the meaning of life ought to include internal goods, which Nozick ignores. I will defend Nozick’s theory against these two objections by bringing in elements of the thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas.

Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758–1848 by Siobhán McIlvanney

Reviewed by: Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758–1848 by Siobhán McIlvanney Kate M. Bonin McIlvanney, Siobhán. Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758–1848. Liverpool UP, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78694-188-6. Pp. 270. The period 1758 to 1848 spans ninety of the most turbulent years in French history. One of this period's important—but under-studied—cultural innovations is the advent of a French women's press: journals published for—and often by—French women. These publications ranged widely in subject and intended readership, often in tune with changing political regimes and the waxing or waning of press censorship laws. McIlvanney's study shows that there were daring (if only briefly in print) demands for women's rights in the early days of the 1789 and the 1848 revolutions. There were also longer periods during which the women's press was primarily occupied with the "unserious" topics of fashion, marriage, and homemaking, as women were consigned to domesticity and excluded from active participation in public life. Notwithstanding the limited scope of this "womanly" subject matter, it is McIlvanney's provocative thesis that "feminist tenets have always been present in the women's press alongside feminine ones" (15). Even during the misogynistic years of the Empire and the Restoration, the French women's press contained what McIlvanney terms "feminist elements" (11), in spite of its valorization of political passivity, domesticity, and consumerism. This is an eyebrow-raising thesis for those of us who grew up secure in the Woolf-inspired belief that one of women writers' chief occupations is to kill the [End Page 226] Angel in the House. However, McIlvanney argues that creating a journal specifically for women readers, with women-authored articles, was in itself an act with political repercussions: endowing women readers, writers (and even some women editors) "with a sense of social engagement which could not be erased" (73). In an era when female literacy was not a given, the fact that women's journals solicited and published correspondence from their readers created an important space for dialogue, encouraging readers to articulate and express their opinions in a public forum. Some of the arguments which McIlvanney marshals in support of this thesis feel a bit strained. For instance: the upper-class reader could find in fashion journals "the intellectual sustenance and supportive sense of sorority to aid her in her journey toward self-realization" (99–100). McIlvanney's best case for a common denominator linking these disparate journals across the decades lies in their shared, vocal desire for improved education for girls and women: from practical training for running a household, to the promotion of classes where girls and women could study subjects such as botany and natural history. As McIlvanney convincingly demonstrates, a clear realization that the available forms of instruction left women under-prepared for adult life—whatever they believed such a life ought to entail—subtends these publications: whether conservative, radical, or frivolous; whether aimed at a patrician, bourgeois, or working-class readership. In short, Figurations of the Feminine is a detailed, solidly useful contribution to women's history as well as cultural studies, spanning the end of the Ancien Regime through the rise of the Second Republic. Highly recommended. Kate M. Bonin Arcadia University (PA) Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

Sociologies of Personal Relationships and the Challenge of Climate Change

The substantive concerns and theoretical insights of sociologies of family, intimate and personal life ought to place this body of work in closer dialogue with environmental sociology over the ‘big issue’ of climate change. However, its research active practitioners typically have a narrower repertoire of engagement with global issues and those who are outside the topic area often miss the value of its contributions. This article discusses common ground between this specialist area and sociologies of environmental issues in unpacking processes of social change through empirically grounded theoretical work. This includes the renewed theoretical emphasis on relationality, empirically based critique of the ‘individualisation thesis’, uses of ‘practice’ to transcend ‘micro’–‘macro’ and ‘social’–‘natural’ divisions, and interest in I/we boundary shifts. More fully recognising the potential of this overlapping territory may help leverage more effective sociological responses to the global challenge of climate change.

Suffering at the end of life.

In the end-of-life context, alleviation of the suffering of a distressed patient is usually seen as a, if not the, central goal for the medical personnel treating her. Yet it has also been argued that suffering should be seen as a part of good dying. More precisely, it has been maintained that alleviating a dying patient's suffering can make her unable to take care of practical end-of-life matters, deprive her of an opportunity to ask questions about and find meaning in and for her existence, and detach her from reality. In this article, I argue that the aims referred to either do not support suffering or are better served by alleviating it. When the aims would be equally well served by enduring suffering and relieving it, the latter appears to be the preferable option, given that the distress a patient experiences has no positive intrinsic value. Indeed, as the suffering can be very distressing, it may not be worth bearing even if that was the best way to achieve the aims: the distress can sometimes be bad enough to outbalance the worth of achieving the goals. Having considered an objection to the effect that a patient can have a self-regarding moral duty to endure the distress she faces at the end of life, I conclude that the burden of proof is on the side of those who maintain that the suffering experienced at the end of life ought to be endured as a part of dying well.

An African ethic of hospitality for the global church: a response to the culture of exploitation and violence in Africa

Barely seventeen years into the twenty-first century, our world continues to be plagued by endless wars and violence. Africa is not immune from these crises. As many countries in Africa celebrate more than fifty years of independence from colonial rule, Africa is still the poorest continent in the world. Religious wars, genocides, ethnic and tribal cleansings have come to define the continent’s contemporary history. Corruption, nepotism, dictatorship, disregard for human life, tribalism, and many social vices are normalized realities in many parts of the continent. Rather than despair, a radical refocusing on Africa’s rich history of hospitality that affirms the flourishing of all life ought to be embraced. This article aims to do exactly this by exploring Africa’s role and place in the history of three Abrahamic religions; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. While celebrating Africa’s unique role as the gateway for the realization of divine hospitality, this article aims to serve as a witness to an ethic of life that is relevant for the global church’s vision and mission to a pluralistic world and for the mission of the churches of Africa to addressing the social, cultural, and political crises faced by the continent. To achieve these, this work appropriates a comparative theological method that sheds light on the centrality of Africa in these three Abrahamic religions with a bias for the flourishing of life.Keywords: Africa, Hospitality, Life, Christianity, Islam, Judaism

Recollections from My Life: An Autobiography by Adolph Bernhard Marx trans. by Stephen Thomson Moore

Reviewed by: Recollections from My Life: An Autobiography by Adolph Bernhard Marx trans. by Stephen Thomson Moore Floyd Grave Recollections from My Life: An Autobiography by Adolph Bernhard Marx. Translation by Stephen Thomson Moore, introduction and notes by R. J. Arnold. Lives in Music Series, no. 14.) Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2016. [xxi, 230 p. ISBN 9781576472491 (paperback), $70.] Illustrations, bibliography. Adolph Bernhard Marx (1795–1866) was nearing the end of an illustrious career as a music theorist, journalist, critic, biographer, and composer when he wrote his Erinnerungen: Aus meinem Leben in late 1864. Undertaken while he was recuperating from illness, the project offered him an opportunity to reflect on successes, failures, hopes, and disappointments, and to ponder deeply the life experiences that informed his outlook and self-knowledge. As he describes in an afterword, dated 4 March 1865, the effort gave rise to impressions so vivid that it seemed he was living his life "a second time" (p. 229). The document that resulted, published by the Berlin firm of Otto Janke in 1865, comprises two volumes of sixteen chapters each. Marx begins as one might expect, with childhood images and accounts of personal development involving family, friends, school, music lessons, and the like, but eventually the chronological thread loosens, especially in the second volume, where the succession of chapters—with titles such as "The Mendelssohn House," "Travel and Recreation," "The Wide World," and "Friedrich Wilhelm IV"—suggests something more akin to an album of snapshots ("pictures of my past" [p. 229]) than a cohesive autobiographical narrative. [End Page 296] Exercising a phenomenal memory, in language that is sometimes more spontaneous than polished, often verbose, and nearly always colorful and engaging, Marx presents himself as a tirelessly wide-eyed observer, a shrewd and inquisitive portraitist, an avid limner of cities and landscapes, and an active participant in the cultural life of his times, eager to enjoy the artistic and intellectual companionship of contemporaries. He takes due pride in his stature and accomplishments, but the spotlight shines brightly on the author himself only on special occasions, most notably when he describes the hugely successful 1843 performance of his oratorio Mose in Erfurt (p. 207). Otherwise, instead dwelling extensively on his own achievements, he invites us to join him as spectators in a ramble through the stations of his career and to see through his eyes the people, places, and events that impressed or influenced him most deeply. Prominent names pass in review, including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Robert Schumann, Niccolò Paganini, Angelica Catalani, Ignaz Moscheles, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and Franz Liszt; facets of artistic activity in early nineteenth-century Berlin come into sharp focus, most notably in the realms of opera, spoken theater, and ballet. Marx also expounds in revealing detail on his acquaintance with two major figures of the time: Gaspare Spontini, whose tenure as music director in Berlin was marked by turbulence and ultimate disgrace, and Felix Mendelssohn, with whom he enjoyed, for at least a time, a warm working relationship. Marx's reminiscences naturally concentrate on the urban environments in which he flourished. Yet some of the most heartfelt, evocative passages in the book concern memories of escape to the countryside. Displaying a finely tuned, romantic sensitivity to the natural world, his commentary on days spent wandering through Thuringia, and eventually as far south as Innsbruck, includes passages that leap off the page as fragments of a veritable pastoral symphony in prose. Given the scarcity of biographical material on Marx in any language, Stephen Thomson Moore's translation of the Erinnerungen makes a welcome addition to Pendragon's Lives in Music series; its value is enhanced by the contributions of Moore's collaborator, R. J. Arnold, who provides not only a wealth of explanatory footnotes but also an informative introduction that supplies historical perspective and cultural orientation. Arnold observes that the very concept of a musician's autobiography was still a novel idea in Marx's day, inspired by "a belief that one's inner life ought to be at least as important as the events that take place externally" (p. x). He classifies Marx as a "thoroughgoing Hegelian" (p. xvi), noting his "groping towards, grasping of, and eventually...

Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right? Theodicies inWatchmen

While the apocalyptic elements of the graphic novel Watchmen have previously been explored, the theodical elements of that text remain to be studied. This article does so by focusing on the figure of Dr. Manhattan, the almost all-powerful super “hero” who is the equivalent of God in the Watchmen universe. When the world is threatened by a nuclear holocaust, it is Dr. Manhattan who can defuse the threat. For much of the comic, appeals to him to intercede come up against his inhuman ethic and aesthetic, attitudes that are presented as an outgrowth of his capacity to experience the universe at a subatomic level. This theodicy challenges and is challenged by other perspectives in the book, such as anthropocentric perspectives voiced by the Silk Spectre and Rorschach, namely that life ought to be “fair,” or that, in the moral vacuum left by the absent God, humans must impose their own meaning and morality. Rorschach also offers the alternative theodicy that evil arises from human acts, and the demigod Ozymandias suggests that all human suffering is part of a secret, but just, “higher plan.”

THE INFLUENCE OF FOOD SYMBOLISM ON FOOD INSECURITY IN SOUTH AFRICA: HOW RELEVANT IS THE EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION?

Various research results point out poverty, inadequate food production and inadequate distribution as the main culprits for food insecurity in many African countries. This article wishes to contribute to the existing knowledge on food insecurity and concentrate on South Africa and investigate whether food symbolism can also lead to systematic food insecurity and discrimination of some people. Since the official end of political apartheid in 1994, there have been great improvements in terms of grants, aid, increase in food production and change of structures. Nevertheless, food insecurity still persists. This research seeks to uncover new facts concerning the cause for food insecurity in South Africa. It brings to the fore that instead of focusing on structural changes only, researchers need to re-evaluate some of the cultural and religious beliefs attached to food production, distribution and consumption. The article also hopes to highlight that the Eucharist which is a centre of Christian life ought to unite the faith-based communities and confront the vice of injustice in all its forms which exacerbates the problem of food insecurity. Christian encounter with Christ through the Eucharist forms the believers into a community of brothers and sisters and empowers people to participate in the liberating mission of the Lord. This solution would go to the roots of the moral problem of food insecurity and put institutions and structures on a new, more humane and beneficial foundation.

Does valuation research provide a credible basis for cost-benefit analysis of safety measures?

Many studies have been made to obtain a monetary valuation of reduced risk of death, usually given as the value of a statistical life (VSL), which is a reduction in risk corresponding to the prevention of one fatality. This paper asks whether valuation research provides a credible basis for cost-benefit analysis of safety measures. A cost-benefit analysis is credible, if its results cannot be criticised by reference to the valuation studies forming its basis. It is argued that a credible basis for cost-benefit analysis in this sense does not exist. The monetary valuations of a statistical life vary enormously. The enormous diversity in values is increasingly accepted by researchers working in the field as inevitable and consistent with individual utility maximisation and thus not necessarily anomalous. Some recent contributions argue that the value of a statistical life ought to vary depending on, for example, income. Such reformulations of the theory underlying valuation studies mean that the choice of a particular value of a statistical life within the huge range of such values is not necessarily more justified than the choice of a different value.

Disabled by Design: Justifying and Limiting Parental Authority to Choose Future Children with Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis.

Often, ethical analysis of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis occupies one of two positions in a moral dichotomy. On the one hand, we have a deep suspicion of the technology as directly leading to eugenics, which is assumed to be a negative consequence; and on the other, we have a vigorous enthusiasm for the technology as a means toward creating better offspring, where "better" is assumed to mean, at minimum, non-disabled. For my part, I eschew both of these positions and attempt to break this dichotomy wide open by maintaining that future parents are not morally required to use PGD to select some vision of an objectively "best" child, but should be permitted to use PGD to select embryos according to their own conception of the good life, even if that conception of the good life includes disability. Yet, I still would not argue that any use of PGD to select a future child to correspond with a particular view of the good life is morally permissible and so we need some way to identify which conceptions of the good life ought to be allowed to motivate prenatal selection without defaulting to a flawed concept of disability as a convenient measuring stick. To achieve this, I will invite moral judgments regarding a future child's likely range of life opportunity that would result from her parents' acting according to their conception of the good life in the context within which she will be raised. However, I reject the notion that this opportunity range should itself be defined only in terms of a socially decontextualized, purely medicalized conception of disability that is so often defined in terms of species normal functioning, so as to be considered equal or normal. Instead, an acceptable opportunity range should include a variety of modes of functioning that can contribute to a broad enough opportunity range if they are reasonably accommodated. In summary, this paper attempts to carve out a position that acknowledges the danger of PGD encouraging simplistic, stigma-based reproductive decision making while also justifying parents' use of PGD to choose embryos that will develop into children with and without disabilities who will flourish in the context in which they are raised.

Does Democracy Require Metaphysics? A Review of Franklin Gamwell's Religion among We the People

Does Democracy Require Metaphysics? A Review of Franklin Gamwell's <i>Religion among We the People</i>