Marquette University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh
University of Texas at Arlington
CUNY Graduate Center
Georgia State University
Singapore Management University
Harding University
Sacred Heart University
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Allyship And Affect: Qualitative Investigations Into Social Transformation,
2026
CUNY Graduate Center
Allyship And Affect: Qualitative Investigations Into Social Transformation, Michael Lucinda Jane Greer
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Allies have faced several critiques in feminist philosophy. Some have argued that they lack the requisite political interests to be motivated to dismantle the social structures from which they stand to benefit. Others have argued that the epistemic limitations resulting from their social privilege are insurmountable. Yet others have argued that allyship is too individualistic a concept, preferring a more collectivist concept like solidarity. However, there remain privileged individuals who understand themselves as complicit in perpetuating oppressive forms of life, and who wish to transform themselves and work in coalition across difference to dismantle structural oppression. How ought these individuals …
Navigating The Edge Of Sentience Without A Scientific Meta-Consensus,
2026
CUNY Graduate Center
Navigating The Edge Of Sentience Without A Scientific Meta-Consensus, Daniel West
Animal Sentience
In The Edge of Sentience (2024, 2025), Birch develops a precautionary framework for crafting public policies about potentially sentient systems. Underlying this framework is a commitment to the democratic principle that the public should authorize all significant moral judgments that arise during the policymaking process. In this commentary, I suggest that Birch’s framework fails to live up to this commitment by requiring scientists without public accountability to make consequential moral judgments. I suggest a friendly amendment to Birch’s framework by replacing the idea of a scientific meta-consensus with the method of formal expert elicitation, a well-tested method of gathering expert …
The Thousand Mysteries That Bind Us: The Multiverse As Spiritualverse And The Holism Of Mystery,
2026
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
The Thousand Mysteries That Bind Us: The Multiverse As Spiritualverse And The Holism Of Mystery, Giovanni Rossini
Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education
While we exist historically within evolving worldviews, we live amid the paradoxical necessity of mystery; one shared by scientists and non-scientists, theologians and atheists, and artists and philosophers alike. A thousand mysteries bind us with their imperative presence. While pre modern astronomers pondered the mysterious randomness of the night sky, today our sense of cosmological awe is fuelled not only by its randomness, but by a new scientific theory that says multiple skies inhabit the creation. The multiverse — a thesis emerging from cosmological science, wherein parallel worlds are posited to coexist — augments mystery. In this paper, I explore …
From Insect Cognition To Sentience: Exploring The Edge,
2026
Sorbonne University
From Insect Cognition To Sentience: Exploring The Edge, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa
Animal Sentience
What does The Edge of Sentience tell us about insect sentience and consciousness? In this commentary, we reflect on Jonathan Birch’s framework for defining and scientifically investigating sentience in animals. We discuss the methodological challenges of studying subjective experience in evolutionary distant species, and consider trace conditioning, affective states, and neural architectures as potential windows into consciousness in insects. We argue that uncertainty, whether concerning definitions or methodology, should not prevent experimental investigation; rather it should motivate new approaches and experimental designs for exploring the diversity of conscious experience.
The Varieties Of Precaution: Which Risks, Whose Attitudes?,
2026
Jagiellonian University, Poland
The Varieties Of Precaution: Which Risks, Whose Attitudes?, Tomasz Żuradzki
Animal Sentience
The Edge of Sentience offers an ambitious and timely institutional framework for proportionate precaution under uncertainty about sentience. Its systematic treatment of empirical and theoretical uncertainty across diverse cases is a major contribution. Focusing on the problem of identifying and weighing different risks when designing proportionate precautions, this commentary suggests three areas in which Birch’s framework could be developed further: a more domain-sensitive justification of the priority given to avoiding under-attribution; a clearer distinction among competing forms of risk aversion and their divergent policy implications; and a fuller explanation of how the framework generates different recommendations across cases.
Beyond Better Conditions: Seaweed Farming And The Number Of Sentient Animals In Aquaculture,
2026
Ethical Seafood Research
Beyond Better Conditions: Seaweed Farming And The Number Of Sentient Animals In Aquaculture, Shrilaxmi Patil, Matthew Unerman, Wasseem Emam
Animal Sentience
Oldfield & Bonano (2024) (O&B) document how far fish welfare research lags behind welfare research in other animals. We share O&B’s feelings-based concept of welfare and agree that aquaculture seeded this field; but research volume has not scaled with animal numbers: Welfare attention per farmed fish or decapod remains negligible. Along the lines of preceding commentaries (Maia 2024, Mather 2024), we treat farmed aquatic animals as individuals rather than tonnage. We then raise a point so far absent from the commentary on O&B so far: reducing the number of sentient animals entering intensive systems. Coastal seaweed farming, which cultivates non-sentient …
The Existential Ambiguity Of Authentic Love In Alice Diop's Saint Omer,
2026
Chapman University
The Existential Ambiguity Of Authentic Love In Alice Diop's Saint Omer, Kelli Fuery
CCI Articles and Research
Using Simone de Beauvoir's and Frantz Fanon's existentialist phenomenology, this article examines an existentialist ethics of recognition as an act of authentic love in Alice Diop's Saint Omer (2022). Loosely based on a true story, Saint Omer tells a story of filicide: Laurence Coly leaves her baby on a beach to die and we follow the subsequent courtroom drama as it unfolds. The film also follows Rama, a literature professor intending to write up the case as a contemporary version of the Medea myth. I suggest Saint Omer presents an ethics of recognition in its avoidance of the superficial question …
Syllabus: Political Philosophy (Philo 24600 / Polsc 20401),
2026
CUNY Graduate Center
Syllabus: Political Philosophy (Philo 24600 / Polsc 20401), Georgie Malone
Open Educational Resources
This syllabus was created for Political Philosophy (PHILO 24600) (POLSC 20401) at Hunter College. It is an intermediate/advanced introduction to key texts in the history of political philosophy. Course description: In this course, we will journey through the major contributions of those thinkers that have shaped the field we call political philosophy. We will begin with Plato and Aristotle, followed by the social contract theorists of the early modern period—Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau—before turning to the critical perspectives of Fanon and Marx. We will then turn to the vastly influential work of 20th century liberal philosopher John Rawls and …
Why Do We Need To Prove That Pigs Feel?,
2026
Instituto Humanista de Psicoterapia Gestalt
Why Do We Need To Prove That Pigs Feel?, Aranza Vera-Espinoza, Nancy Harlet Esquivel-Marín
Animal Sentience
Birch's framework manages uncertainty but overlooks the likelihood that citizen panels have speciesist biases that reduce precaution to mere harm-management even in species that undoubtedly feel.
Jing (敬) And Respect,
2026
San Jose State University
Jing (敬) And Respect, Wenyang Gao
Comparative Philosophy
Jing (敬) is often translated as “respect”. Some scholars argue for a “perception of worth” reading, conceiving jing as a deontic normative attitude akin to “respect” in the Western tradition. Others propose a “directing attention” reading, holding that jing is a virtue. This article clarifies the meaning and normative structure of jing, arguing that it has three dimensions: (1) a state of mind characterized by seriousness, (2) an intentional, respectful feeling, and (3) respectful conduct aligned with ritual propriety (Li禮). While the “directing attention” reading correctly identifies jing as a virtue, insisting that jing does …
A Constructive Engagement With Confucian Gender Ethics: Reinterpreting The Three Obediences And Four Virtues In Contemporary Vietnam,
2026
San Jose State University
A Constructive Engagement With Confucian Gender Ethics: Reinterpreting The Three Obediences And Four Virtues In Contemporary Vietnam, Vo Van Dung
Comparative Philosophy
This paper examines the influence of the doctrines of the Three Obediences and Four Virtues on the moral thought of Vietnamese women in contemporary society. The study addresses the central question of whether and how these doctrines remain relevant within current social and cultural contexts. It traces the historical introduction and transformation of these doctrines in Vietnam. It analyses their dual impact on women’s moral values, highlighting both their enduring ethical contributions and their role in sustaining gendered constraints. The findings suggest that while certain elements of the Four Virtues have been reinterpreted and selectively integrated into modern ethical frameworks, …
The Ambivalent Wisdom Of Moral Disgust,
2026
Singapore Management University
The Ambivalent Wisdom Of Moral Disgust, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper has two aims. First, to provide a positive account of moral disgust. I suggest that moral disgust is a response to acts that are socially corrosive, namely, acts that undermine the normative structure to which an agent is attuned. I support this analysis with two lines of evidence: (1) moral disgust serves the important function of guarding normative structures from socially corrosive actions and (2) the analysis provides an illuminating explanation of moral disgust in a wide variety of cases. The secondary aim of this paper is to probe the normative implications of my positive account. I suggest …
Towards Confucian Economic Democracy: A Relational Alternative To Possessive Individualism,
2026
Singapore Management University
Towards Confucian Economic Democracy: A Relational Alternative To Possessive Individualism, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article offers a Confucian conception of ownership and a different approach to equality based on a concept of relational person that could provide an alternative philosophical framework for economic democracy. The Confucian concept of nonexclusive and nonabsolute co-ownership, conditional on owners fulfilling their social responsibilities and sustained in networks of relationships mitigates the drive to appropriation and resistance to redistribution even without formalizing legal rights of equal ownership. Confucian texts’ condemnation of wide disparities between rich and poor corresponds with distributive ideas that balance equal satisfaction of needs with merit-based incentives for productivity constrained by social harmony. Without advocating …
Confronting Founding Injustices: Reconstructive Constitutional Adjudication And Constitutional Legitimacy In Postcolonial States,
2026
Chapman University
Confronting Founding Injustices: Reconstructive Constitutional Adjudication And Constitutional Legitimacy In Postcolonial States, Mutasim Abuzeid
International Studies (MA) Theses
Why do some postcolonial constitutions achieve higher constitutional legitimacy than others? Across the Global South, constitutions have proliferated while legitimacy remains uneven and contested. Existing scholarship explains variation in constitutional legitimacy in postcolonial states through three dominant paradigms. Institutionalist theories equate legitimacy with procedural design and endurance, presuming that stable institutions generate compliance and, over time, diffuse support. Transformative constitutionalism locates legitimacy in social justice, emphasizing judicial doctrines such as proportionality and reasonableness to advance equality and material inclusion. Transitional justice approaches, by contrast, locate moral repair largely outside constitutional law—through truth commissions, reparations, and memory projects—often leaving the constitutional …
The Calculation Debate In A New Century: A Conversation Between An Austrian School Economist And A Socialist Philosopher,
2026
Grove City College
The Calculation Debate In A New Century: A Conversation Between An Austrian School Economist And A Socialist Philosopher, Tegan L. Truitt, Larry Alan Busk
Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis
No abstract provided.
Building Legal Dwelling: An Existential Analysis Of The Phenomenon Of Law,
2026
Duquesne University
Building Legal Dwelling: An Existential Analysis Of The Phenomenon Of Law, Thomas Gambino
Graduate Student Research Symposium
This paper explores the necessity of law for the existence of Dasein in the thinking of Martin Heidegger. It begins by analyzing our everyday experience of the phenomenon of law, concluding that the being of law reveals itself to us, at different times, as present-at-hand and ready-to-hand. From this realization, it grounds the being of law in the being of Dasein, describing law essentially as Dasein’s own existence, projected into the world and shown back to it as a seemingly independent phenomenon. Finally, it characterizes this projection as an act of building and concludes that Dasein dwells in the law …
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient,
2026
New York University
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient, Lori Marino
Animal Sentience
Sentience evolved to allow organisms to move through their environment avoiding harms and achieving benefits. Sentience did not evolve from computation. It evolved from valenced feelings. AI (even robots) are not embodied and are not the kind of thing that needs to be sentient. There is no way to get from computations to feelings. They are qualitatively different things. We should avoid being lulled into thinking that an inanimate object designed to engage our propensity for anthropomorphism, like AI, is actually a mind.
Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”,
2026
University of Cambridge
Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”, Willa M. Lane, Nicola S. Clayton
Animal Sentience
Birch's (2024) The Edge of Sentience identifies sentience candidates primarily through the pain-focused LSE Criteria. Yet, as Birch himself notes in Proposal 17, sentience is not pain. We argue that statutory welfare protections must therefore reach beyond pain, and that the right tool for doing so is Birch et al.’s (2020) dimensionality framework, which characterises conscious experience across five domains. Used together, the LSE Criteria establish that welfare is at stake, while the dimensionality framework maps what is at stake beyond pain to provide a taxon-specific profile of where captivity impoverishes experience. We apply this approach to invertebrate welfare and …
Animal Ethics And The Lowest Common Denominator,
2026
University of London - Queen Mary and Westfield College
Animal Ethics And The Lowest Common Denominator, John O. Adenitire
Animal Sentience
This commentary assesses the pragmatic framework proposed in Jonathan Birch’s The Edge of Sentience (2024). Celebrating the book's exceptional clarity, scientific rigor, and profound real-world impact on UK legislation, I nevertheless have some questions about the method by which Birch arrives at his policy recommendations for animal protection. In seeking an overlapping consensus between deeply divergent ethical and credal viewpoints, the framework risks defaulting to a minimalist, lowest-common-denominator standard of protection for animals. Birch also risks drawing the standard even lower by including serious academic positions in animal ethics that deny moral status for animals altogether. A rights-based approach offers …
On The Edge Of Science?,
2026
University of Plymouth
On The Edge Of Science?, Mark Briffa, Lynne U. Sneddon
Animal Sentience
In The Edge of Sentience, Jonathan Birch (2024) provides a thought-provoking synthesis of current perspectives on animal (and artificial) sentience. He addresses the question from conceptual, ethical, regulatory and empirical viewpoints. Here we focus on some of the scientific issues raised, including defining and operationalising the concept of sentience and the implications for policy and regulation. Despite unresolved conceptual challenges, the book makes a compelling case for the continued scientific investigation of animal sentience.
