Obedient Autonomy

Obedient Autonomy PDF Author: Erika E.S. Evasdottir
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774829710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In the west, the idea of autonomy is often associated with a sense of freedom – a self-interested state of being unfettered by rules or obligations to others. This original anthropological study explores a type of “obedient” autonomy that thrives on setbacks, blossoms as more rules are imposed, and flourishes in adversity. Obedient Autonomy analyzes this model, and explains its precepts through examining the specialized and highly organized discipline of archaeology in China. The book follows Chinese students on their journey to becoming full-fledged archaeologists in a bureaucracy-saturated environment. Often required to travel in teams to the countryside, archaeologists are uniquely obliged to overcome divisions among themselves, between themselves and their peasant-workers, and between themselves and bureaucratic officials. This analysis reveals how these interactions provide teachers of archaeology with stories used to foster obedient autonomy in their students. Moreover, it demonstrates how this form of autonomy enables a person to order and control their future careers in what appears to be a disorderly and uncertain world. A masterly contextualization of archaeology in China, Obedient Autonomy shows how the discipline has accommodated itself to a Chinese social structure, and uncovers the moral, ethical, political, and economic underpinnings of that context. It will be accessible to students of anthropology even as it will provoke Euro-American archaeologists and interest social theorists of science, philosophers, gender theorists, and students of Chinese society.

Obedient Autonomy

Obedient Autonomy PDF Author: Erika E.S. Evasdottir
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774829710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the west, the idea of autonomy is often associated with a sense of freedom – a self-interested state of being unfettered by rules or obligations to others. This original anthropological study explores a type of “obedient” autonomy that thrives on setbacks, blossoms as more rules are imposed, and flourishes in adversity. Obedient Autonomy analyzes this model, and explains its precepts through examining the specialized and highly organized discipline of archaeology in China. The book follows Chinese students on their journey to becoming full-fledged archaeologists in a bureaucracy-saturated environment. Often required to travel in teams to the countryside, archaeologists are uniquely obliged to overcome divisions among themselves, between themselves and their peasant-workers, and between themselves and bureaucratic officials. This analysis reveals how these interactions provide teachers of archaeology with stories used to foster obedient autonomy in their students. Moreover, it demonstrates how this form of autonomy enables a person to order and control their future careers in what appears to be a disorderly and uncertain world. A masterly contextualization of archaeology in China, Obedient Autonomy shows how the discipline has accommodated itself to a Chinese social structure, and uncovers the moral, ethical, political, and economic underpinnings of that context. It will be accessible to students of anthropology even as it will provoke Euro-American archaeologists and interest social theorists of science, philosophers, gender theorists, and students of Chinese society.

Practical Autonomy and Bioethics

Practical Autonomy and Bioethics PDF Author: James Stacey Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135255318
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book develops a unique account of autonomy in which its attribution to agents is dependent in part on their relationships with others and not merely upon their mental states. This is then applied to bioethical issues—e.g., informed consent and patient confidentiality—in which autonomy plays a central role.

Well-being

Well-being PDF Author: Neera Kapur Badhwar
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195323270
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life, Neera K. Badhwar offers a new argument for the ancient claim that well-being as the highest prudential good - eudaimonia - consists of happiness in a virtuous life. Virtue is a source of happiness, but happiness also requires external goods. The argument takes into account recent work on happiness, well-being, and virtue, and defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of virtue as an integrated, but limited, intellectual-emotional-action disposition. These conceptions of well-being and virtue are argued to be widely-held and compatible with experimental psychology. Badhwar's main argument for the thesis that well-being as the highest prudential good requires virtue is as follows: (i) well-being as the highest prudential good requires an objectively worthwhile life; (ii) such a life entails realism as a character trait; (iii) realism entails a life of virtue; (iv) hence well-being as the highest prudential good requires a life of virtue. A realistic person understands important aspects of her own life and human life in general, and is disposed to act on her understanding. Her understanding springs from her autonomy and reality-orientation, i.e., her disposition to think for herself and seek truth or understanding. But the demands of virtue in the face of our emotional and cognitive limitations make complete virtue impossible, and this is one reason why complete well-being is also impossible.

The Different Faces of Autonomy

The Different Faces of Autonomy PDF Author: M. Schermer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401599726
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Patient autonomy is a much discussed and debated subject in medical ethics, as well as in healthcare practice, medical law, and healthcare policy. This book provides a detailed and nuanced analysis of both the concept of autonomy and the principle of respect for autonomy, in an accessible style. The unique feature of this book is that it combines empirical research into hospital practice with thorough philosophical analyses. As such, it is an example of a new movement in applied ethics, that of 'empirical ethics'. The key themes are informed consent and medical decision making, personal well-being, competence, paternalism and decision making for incompetent patients. Much attention is also devoted to autonomy in non-decision making situations - patient control over small everyday aspects of care, authenticity and existential aspects of illness, autonomy and the 'ethics of care', and the relationship between autonomy and trust in the physician-patient relationship. This book will be of interest to those working or studying in the field of medical ethics and applied ethics but also to healthcare professionals and health policy makers.

China in an Era of Transition

China in an Era of Transition PDF Author: R. Hasmath
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230620159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Given the dominance of the Chinese state in so many aspects of society, this collection considers factors such as urbanization, the marginalization of social groups, the emergence of the business elites and the dissent of internet users, to resituate understanding of the social challenges facing China.

The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology

The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology PDF Author: Robert Merrihew Adams
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195364783
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Robert Merrihew Adams has been a leader in renewing philosophical respect for the idea that moral obligation may be founded on the commands of God. This collection of Adams' essays, two of which are previously unpublished, draws from his extensive writings on philosophical theology that discuss metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical issues surrounding the concept of God--whether God exists or not, what God is or would be like, and how we ought to relate ourselves to such a being. Adams studies the relation between religion and ethics, delving into an analysis of moral arguments for theistic belief. In several essays, he applies contemporary studies in the metaphysics of individuality, possibility and necessity, and counterfactual conditionals to issues surrounding the existence of God and problems of evil.

A Companion to Milton

A Companion to Milton PDF Author: Thomas N. Corns
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470998628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
The diverse and controversial world of contemporary Milton studies is brought alive in this stimulating Companion. Winner of the Milton Society of America's Irene Samuels Book Award in 2002. Invites readers to explore and enjoy Milton's rich and fascinating work. Comprises 29 fresh and powerful readings of Milton's texts and the contexts in which they were created, each written by a leading scholar. Looks at literary production and cultural ideologies, issues of politics, gender and religion, individual Milton texts, other relevant contemporary texts and responses to Milton over time. Devotes a whole chapter to each major poem, and four to Paradise Lost. Conveys the excitement of recent developments in the field.

Of Human Bonding

Of Human Bonding PDF Author: Peter Peter Henry Rossi
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202367552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
This life-course analysis of family development focuses on the social dynamics among family members. It features parent-child relationships in a larger context, by examining the help exchange between kin and nonkin and the intergenerational transmission of family characteristics.

China's Transformations

China's Transformations PDF Author: Lionel M. Jensen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742538634
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
Trouble-makers or truth-sayers? : the peculiar status of foreign correspondents in China / Martin Fackler -- The political roots of China's environmental degradation / Judith Shapiro -- Fueling China's capitalist transformation : the human cost / Timothy B. Weston -- Qigong, Falun Gong, and the body politic in contemporary China / David Ownby -- Narratives to live by : the century of humiliation and Chinese national identity today / Peter Hays Gries -- The Internet : a force to transform Chinese society? / Xiao Qiang -- The politics of filmmaking and movie watching / Sylvia Li-chün Lin -- Fictional China / Howard Goldblatt -- Of rice and meat : real Chinese food / Susan D. Blum -- Herding the masses : public opinion and democracy in today's China / Tong Lam -- Sex tourism and lure of the ethnic erotic in Southwest China / Sandra Teresa Hyde -- Welcome to paradise! : a Sino-U.S. joint-venture project / Tim Oakes -- The new Chinese intellectual : globalized, disoriented, reoriented / Timothy Cheek -- Reporting China since the 1960s / John Gittings -- Afterword: China, the United States and the fragile planet / Lionel M. Jensen.

The Circular Structure of Power

The Circular Structure of Power PDF Author: Torben Bech Dyrberg
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9781859848463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Few concepts in social theory have been used so extravagantly in recent years as the notion of power. Yet despite its inflated presence, the term is still unclear and undertheorized. In The Circular Structure of Power, Torben Dyrberg rises to the challenge of conceptualizing power through a philosophical examination of its uses in contemporary social theory. Drawing on the insights of Michel Foucoult, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Dyrberg brings this continental tradition into a creative dialogue with the Anglo-American tradition represented by figures such as Steven Lukes, William Connolly, Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz. Moreover, Dyrberg moves from such abstract considerations to their implications for political and democratic theory through an examination of the work of thinkers as diverse as Robert Dahl, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas and Nicos Poulantzas. Simultaneously engaging with and defying many of the dominant definitions of power, Torben Dyrberg destabilizes and undermines the conventional distinctions and polarities through which power is usually understood. The new perspective offered to us by this investigation is one which goes beyond the assumption that power can be based on and derived from either agency or structure, as if these categories themselves were not somehow constituted by power.