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41. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Sagar Sanyal US Military and Covert Action and Global Justice
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US military intervention and covert action are significant contributors to global injustice. Discussion of this contributor to injustice is relatively common in social justice movements. Yet it has been ignored by the global justice literature in political philosophy. This paper aims to fill this gap by introducing the topic into the debate. While the global justice debate has focused on inter-national and supra-national institutions, I argue that an adequate analysis of US military and covert action must focus on domestic institutions of the US. I describe many such institutions including industry lobbying, the ubiquity of US military bases abroad, US programs for training foreign militaries, secrecy of the intelligence and military agencies, pliant news media and government propaganda.
42. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Ned Dobos From Revolution to Regime Change: Consequentialist Barriers to the Transfer of Rights
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The fact that armed revolution would be justified under certain circumstances does not guarantee the legitimacy of foreign intervention in aid of, or in place that revolution, even where the means employed and the ends sought are similar. One commonly given reason for this is that foreign intervention might fall short of the prudential constraints on war—proportionality, last resort, likelihood of success—where rebellion would live up to them. But those who make this argument often seem to assume that the prudential constraints on war apply asymmetrically, or demand more of humanitarian interveners than they do of rebels. I suggest that this double-standard is inconsistent with a basic principle of moral reasoning, and may need to be revised or abandoned. If we reject the asymmetry, however, can we still maintain that consequentialist considerations block the right of revolution from transferring across national boundaries and becoming a right of military intervention and regime change?
43. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
About the Contributors
44. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
David N. McArthur, Elaine E. Englehardt, Jill O. Jasperson Progress toward the Rule of Law in China
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A small sample of sitting Chinese judges was each asked to describe a difficult case, what ethical issues were involved in the case, and how ethics hampered the case, among other questions. The narratives of the cases from family settings suggest—rising from the stew of Chinese social, political, and legal history, the mix of socialist and Confucian ethics, and case facts—that future research on the influence of Confucian ethics may well show that Chinese judges moderate (“democratize”) the rigors of a rule-based legal system, or that they feel pressure to do so by their ethics (which, for disputes and crimes in a family setting their ethics, are Confucian ethics). We argue that “democratizing” the legal system by including society’s ethics is allowable but unless there is a regular discourse on the role of Confucian ethics in legal decisions judges will continue to feel ethical tension as they go about their work. We recommend that ethics discourse be included along with the Chinese government’s structural reforms such as increasing legal education, mandating codes of judicial ethics, and other measures calculated to align the legal system with the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 2002.
45. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Robert Scott Stewart, Sue A. Korol De-Signing Fat: Re-Constructing the Global Obesity Epidemic
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This paper argues first that claims that we are in the midst of a global obesity epidemic are vastly overblown and hardly new since we can find such calls to alarm for over a century at least. Second, we suggest that claims made about the possibility of losing weight are, for most people, simply false. Bluntly stated, there is lots of evidence to suggest that diets don’t work for the vast majority of people: even for those who lose weight, their reprieve from fat tends to be short lived with 90% regaining their lost weight. Third, we maintain that claims made that obesity is either itself a disease or is causally and directly linked to harmful and sometimes lethal diseases are also misguided. Finally, we discuss the ways in which the construction of obesity as an epidemic disease has affected various parties, including fat people themselves. In particular, we discuss two approaches that have been made to the general anti-fat attitudes of contemporary western societies: the ‘fat and fit’ and ‘fat and proud’ movements.
46. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Monday Lewis Igbafen The Existentialist Philosophy of Albert Camus and Africa’s Liberation
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This paper examines the practical utility of Albert Camus’ existentialist philosophy, especially in the context of the contemporary effort to improve the condition of human life and existence in Africa. The paper is a departure from prevailing mindset among some scholars and people of Africa that nothing good can be derived from Camus’ philosophy. In particular, the paper argues that the task of socio-political and economic transformation in today’s Africa has a lot to benefit from a critical and pragmatic engagement with the existentialist philosophy of Camus. The paper maintains that the practical benefit of Camus’ existentialist philosophy appears most clearly in the value it assigns to revolt/resistance, and ideals of friendship, commitment, solidarity and brotherhood to solve the cumulative problems of life. The obvious lack of all this has exasperated the human condition in modern African states.
47. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Fritz Allhoff What Is Modesty?
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This paper examines the virtue of modesty and provides an account of what it means to be modest. A good account should not only delimit the proper application of the concept, but should also capture why it is that we think that modesty is a virtue. Recent work has yielded several interesting, but flawed, accounts of modesty. Julia Driver has argued that it consists in underestimating one’s self-worth, while Owen Flanagan has argued that modesty must entail an accurate—as opposed to underestimated or inflated—conception of one’s self worth. Neither of these accounts provides a satisfactory characterization of modesty as a virtue. Driver leaves us wondering why modesty, understood, at least in part, as misunderstanding one’s merits, should earn the status of virtue, whereas Flanagan’s characterization does not adequately and uniquely pick out the concept of modesty. These criticisms have been presented by G. F. Schueler who goes on to defend the doctrine that modesty is, roughly, the lack of one’s desire for other people to be impressed by one’s accomplishments. My goal is to provide an account of modesty that improves upon those currently before us. My own positive account will draw off of Schueler’s account as well as work done by Jean-Paul Sartre and Gabriele Taylor on the moral emotion of shame.
48. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Carol V. A. Quinn On Integrity
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In this paper I develop a social conception of integrity while still holding onto the original meaning of the term. To that end I build mainly on the works of Cheshire Calhoun, whose view of integrity, developed over a decade ago, I consider to be one of the best, Charles Taylor, who has an insightful understanding of the self, which helps provide a richer conception of integrity than I believe Calhoun developed, and Lawrence Langer, who gives an instructive critique of Taylor, which I use to provide the foundation for an integrity richly grounded in community. Finally I discuss how community can contribute to or diminish one’s integrity and how it can help restore one’s integrity if it has been diminished or lost.
49. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
George R. Lucas, Jr. Nerds Gone Wild: Can Moore’s Law Remain Valid Indefinitely?
50. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
John W. Lango Is There a Just Cause for Current U.S. Military Operations in Afghanistan?
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The current armed conflict in Afghanistan (briefly, the Afghan conflict) is viewed through the lens of a just war theory. In particular, the question stated by the title is explored by means of a generalized just cause principle. For brevity, empirical, practical, and legal issues about the Afghan conflict are mostly set aside. Hence a definite answer to the question is not proposed. Instead, the main aim is to clarify the question. Specifically, the question is amplified, by distinguishing putative just causes of countering terrorism, countering an insurgency, and countering extreme violations of basic human rights. Apparently, however, U.S. government officials (e.g., President Barack Obama) and U.S. military commanders (e.g., General Stanley McChrystal) have mixed goals or motives concerning current U.S.military operations in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, from the standpoint of a just war theory, it is instructive to analytically distinguish these putative just causes, and to consider them separately. Additionally, it is instructive to consider how they might be combined. Consequently, a fourth putative just cause is considered: countering violent spoilers of peacebuilding. (This paper was completed on March 31, 2010.)
51. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
George R. Lucas, Jr. Ethics and the ‘Human Terrain’: The Role of Academics in the Afghan War
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Against the backdrop of the current “ethics controversy” within the American Anthropological Association over the U.S. Army’s “Human Terrain Systems” project, this article evaluates the moral obligations of scholars and academics asked by their governments to contribute their unique expertise toward the waging or ending of wars of which those scholars morally disapprove. Citing the examples of moral dilemmas occasioned by conflicts between duties of scholarship and duties of citizenship from past wars, together with examples like “Doctors without Borders” at present, I argue that it is not automatically, or in principle, morally objectionable for scholars and academics to provide assistance to their governments or militaries, even in what they regard as unjustifiable wars, nor would suchassistance necessarily involve an inherent violation of professional principle (as the AAA Executive leadership has claimed in recent public proclamations). Rather, the permissibility, or in some cases even obligation, to assist one’s government when requested depends critically upon the government’s intention in lodging this request, as well as upon both what the scholar is being asked to do, and whether those specific activities would result in violations of accepted canons of professional practice. I illustrate the resulting decision dilemmas with cases of anthropologists or psychologists asked to assist in humanitarian military interventions or in mitigating or helping to end misguided or mistaken campaigns of counter-terrorism.
52. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Jane Duran Slavery in Global Context: Rights and Violations
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The work of Cox, Bales, Dingwaney, and others is cited in an effort to construct an argument about the special rights violations of contemporary slavery. It is contended that two forms, debt bondage and sexual slavery, are related and bear close examination.
53. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Griffin Trotter, M.D., Ph.D. Review of Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Physicians at War: The Dual-Loyalties Challenge
54. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Sarah Roberts-Cady Conflict of Interest in Industry-Sponsored Clinical Research
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Private industry funds more than half of all medical research in the United States. While industry involvement in research has benefits, it can also create conflicts of interest. The most common policies adopted to address conflict of interest in medical research are focused primarily on the ways in which industry sponsorship may undermine a clinician’s judgment regarding patient care. Insufficient attention has been given to the ways in which industry sponsorship may undermine judgment relative to the goal of scientific integrity in research. The most common conflict of interest policies do not adequately address this problem. Disclosure policies alone will not remove or ameliorate all conflicts. Further, severing or monitoring ties between clinicians and industries will not adequately address the problem, since in many cases it is not the clinicians who are making the relevant research judgments. In order to address the problem of conflict of interest inindustry-sponsored research, fundamental changes in strategy and practice must be adopted which either remove the power to make research decisions from industry employees, or increase the review of those decisions by independent investigators.
55. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Michael Davis The Poverty of Medical Ethics: An Argument Missing in Discussion of the “Problem of Dual Loyalties of Military Physicians”
56. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Daniel A. Dombrowski Just War Theory, Afghanistan, and Walzer
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In this short article I call into question the view that the current United States war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity. In this effort I am primarily engaged with the thought of the famous just war theorist Michael Walzer as it has developed from 1977 until 2009.
57. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
About the Contributors
58. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Eric Patterson Ethics and US Af-Pak Policy: Order, Justice, and Conciliation
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Just war thinking applies to the conflict Afghanistan, particularly that underdeveloped part of the just war tradition that deals with war’s end and post-conflict (jus post bellum). This essay considers the some of the fundamental ethical challenges of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, arguing that by considering a jus post bellum framework of Order, Justice, and Conciliation we can address some of the great ethical issues faced by the US government in Afghanistan today. More specifically, this essay will focus on three ethical challenges:• The moral imperative of establishing and enduring political order.• The conflict between our ideals of justice and those of many Afghans.• Establishing a foundation for conciliation among warring parties.
59. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Aine Donovan Military Physicians: The Myth of Divided Loyalties
60. International Journal of Applied Philosophy: Volume > 24 > Issue: 1
Fritz Allhoff Physicians at War: Reply to Critics