prison
Philosophers On The Syrian Refugees
Since 2011, over 10 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, and over 4 million have fled their homeland, seeking refuge from the violence and chaos of the civil war wracking their country. The war has reportedly left between 140,000 and 340,000 dead, including (by some estimates) up to 12,000 children. Prisoners, including children, have been tortured ..
Stubblefield Convicted of First-Degree Aggravated Sexual Assault
Anna Stubblefield, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers-Newark, was found guilty of two counts of felony first-degree aggravated sexual assault for raping a mentally disabled man she was introduced to in order to help him learn to communicate (previously). NJ.com reports:
The jury… convicted the 45-year-old philosophy professor of sexually assaulting a 34-year-..
Bentham’s Cookbook
Jeremy Bentham’s Prison Cooking is a real book. Need I say more?
The book is based on a collection of Bentham’s papers marked “Panopticon – cookery, errors of present practice” and was put together as part of the Transcribe Bentham initiative at University College London. “The book features beautiful original illustrations by Jake Lamerton, and contains images, r..
Philosophers On Prostitution’s Decriminalization
This past Tuesday, Amnesty International representatives from 60 countries voted on which stance the influential non-governmental organization should take regarding the legal status of prostitution, ultimately deciding to support its full decriminalization, including both the selling and buying of sex.
The position is highly controversial—particularly the decri..
Philosopher and Activist
Lisa Guenther (Vanderbilt) is profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education (paywalled) for both her teaching of philosophy in prisons and her activism regarding “the carceral state.”
She had been researching “the politics of confinement and the ethics of torture,” and their connection to academia, when “suddenly I realized that I really can’t do this work by sim..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Each week, the folks at Philosophical Percolations put together a massive list of philosophically relevant links they call the “Saturday Linkorama.” These include updates and new additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, which app..
Recent and Ongoing Discussions
While there’s always something new to talk about, there are some recent posts here at Daily Nous that would benefit from further comments, including:
“The Best Students I Have Are Inmates”
Christia Mercer (Columbia) reports on her experiences teaching philosophy to inmates as part of the new Justice-in-Education Initiative, sponsored by Columbia University’s Center for Justice, and calls for greater attention to the educational needs of prisoners, in an op-ed in The Washington Post. She writes:
My incarcerated students differ radically from the one..
Turing Manuscript to be Auctioned (updated)
Bonhams, an auction house, is selling an Alan Turing manuscript in New York on April 13th. From the Bonham’s site:
A key handwritten scientific document by Alan Turing, in which he works on the foundations of mathematical notation and computer science, is to be sold in the Fine Books & Manuscripts sale at Bonhams New York on 13 April. The manuscript is expected t..
Philosophy of Police Violence and Mass Incarceration
Lisa Guenther, associate professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, has developed a new philosophy course, “Police Violence and Mass Incarceration,” which she will be teaching this coming term. I think it is a great way of showing students a way in which philosophy can interact with current events. I asked her about the course, and in an email she writes:
..
Bye, 2014
I wasn’t quite sure how to wrap up the year. A parody of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”? Too cheesy. A video montage of action sequences from a year of blogging (me, staring at phone; me, sitting in front of laptop; etc.)? Too boring. An ironic play in which an enormous baby keeps whining about infantilism? Too realistic. A grandiose statement about progress in the p..
Heap of Links
1. “I’m not sure, for example, what the philosophy REF panel would make of Berkeley’s research on tar-water, or even Bentham’s on prisons, for that matter.” That’s Jonathan Wolff on exciting scholarship and whether disciplinarity is just a blip in the history of academia.
2. The History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh has launch..
The Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement
Prisoners who are subjected to solitary confinement show symptoms and describe a phenomenology that is not equivalent to either autism or induced autism, but reflect similar motor problems, and often times more extensive and serious disruptions of experience. Guenther (2013), looking at the phenomenology associated with solitary confinement, describes it as becomin..
Moral Injury
These issues have sparked a relatively new area of research among military ethicists known as “moral injury.” It emerges from experiences when “you apply your judgment of right and wrong to an experience and find that your expectations of ‘what is right’ clash jarringly with reality,”
The story of prisoner of war Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was exchanged for five ..
Heap of Links
1. Matthew Burstein has a blog, thought.o.matt, on “academia, media, philosophy, social institutions, teaching, and technology.” Included among the posts are his annotated syllabi for courses on queer theory, philosophy and film, and the moral dimensions of power.
2. Some updates on that class photo of Wittgenstein and Hitler (scroll down).
3. Chimps perform more ra..
Should Publishers Pay Referees and Authors?
If academic work is to be commodified and turned into a source of profit for shareholders and for the 1 percent of the publishing world, then we should give up our archaic notions of unpaid craft labor and insist on professional compensation for our expertise, just as doctors, lawyers, and accountants do.
This does not mean we would never referee articles free. Jus..
Judges Citing Philosophers, Kant Edition
Last week we had a judge citing Mill in a rather complicated case in England. This week we have a judge citing Kant in a rather straightforward case in the United States. The judge apparently needed Kant to weigh in on the sentencing of a tire slasher:
Instead of sending David Toledo, 46, to state prison for the recommended five to 10 years, Common Pleas Judge Edwa..
Way Too Much Going On Here, Mill Edition
In England, a judge who relied explicity on the writings of John Stuart Mill in his ruling granted an imprisoned mentally ill Jehovah’s Witness sex offender the right to refuse a blood transfusion after a suicide attempt.
The judge was told that had been moved to hospital from prison after cutting his arm with a razor blade and opening an artery. Specialists said ..
Would We Be Better Off Without Blame?
The reality is that we are all at best compromised agents, whether by biology, social circumstance, or brute luck. The differences among us are differences of degree that do not admit of categorical division into the normal and the abnormal. A morally serious inquiry into the requisite meaning of free will needs to face some basic facts….
We have gotten nothing f..
The Philosophy of the Technology of the Future of Punishment
Rebecca Roache, a philosopher at Oxford and a fellow at its Future of Humanity Institute, is interviewed at Aeon Magazine about the ways in which emerging and future technologies could be used to change how we punish criminals. An article about the interview appears in the Telegraph. Roache also discusses technology and punishment in a blog post here.