Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral Psychology and Psychopathology

Interesting stuff right here.

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Whatever Makes a Person Human Seemed Somehow Missing*

JJ at Feminist Philosophers posted a recent case of a child who appears to have had little social contact for the first five or six years of her life. As JJ notes, feral children, while thankfully rare, are interesting to theorists for a variety of reasons. Questions about the nature of language, human capacity for [...]

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What’s Wrong with Polygamy?

Martha Nussbaum wants to know.
UPDATE: For more on religion and political philosophy, click here for a video lecture by Nussbaum entitled, “Equal Respect for Conscience: The Roots of a Moral and Legal Tradition.”

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ya tusahyatekhwahlakhwa tslatok^hti tslata•sé•

And you thought translating German was hard!
According to this article, the title of this post is a single Oneida word that means, “the two of them went around to the other side of the altar again.”
The word is formed, according to linguist Cliff Abbot, by “add[ing] nine prefixes to the simple root verb “-tase-“, which [...]

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“Indians, in their nature and habits, are like other animals.”

That’s a quote from United States vs. Lucero (1869). As is this:
“The idea that a handful of wild, half-naked, thieving, plundering, murdering savages should be dignified with the sovereign attributes of nations, enter into solemn treaties, and claim a country five hundred miles wide by one thousand miles long as theirs in fee simple, because [...]

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Muslim Girls reach out

Here is a good link for educators who want to help shape a global understanding of religion and cultural diversity and who are looking for new tools.
The magazine is clever, hot, fun, and contemporary. It is targeted for college age young female adults. You can get it free at:
http://www.muslimgirlworld.com/mgmag/2class.cfm

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Two Notes on Indigenous Boarding Schools

I’ve mentioned boarding schools* before with regard to forced assimilation policies.
The Canadian Government is issuing compensation to survivors of the schools. As I’ve noted, many of the people who went to those school experienced atrocious abuses. Survivors are eligible for additional compensation on top of what’s called a collective experience sum if they experienced exceptionally [...]

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Yankton Sioux Hog Farm Protest

Here’s an issue going on right now that’s relevant to my sporadic ongoing series on American Indian political issues.
You can listen to this recent broadcast of Native America Calling to get a sense of the issues. (And there are many: tribal borders, jurisdiction, and environmental impacts, to name a few.)
From the Native America Calling website:
More [...]

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Sweet Deal

Via the wonderful SWIP-L list, I’m informed of a new collection of essays called Global Ethics: Seminal Essays (Eds. Pogge and Horton). Here’s a blurb from the publisher:
In recent decades, there has been an explosion of interest in global ethics — the study of ethical issues with significant global dimensions. This book, a companion volume [...]

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Nussbaum Interview: Liberty of Conscience

Here’s a link to an interview with Martha Nussbaum about her recent book Liberty of Conscience.
(Hat Tip!)

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Don’t know much about tribal sovereignty?

Well, read this, then!

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New Era of Indigenous Rights

Off blog obligations have kept me from writing about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples here. But fear not, dear readers! I shall not miss the opportunity to pass along this article discussing the new era of indigenous rights.
Here’s a snippet:
Over the past 30 years, indigenous peoples around the world have expressed greater [...]

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Article 10

In my most recent writing on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, I looked at Articles 1 and 2. Today, I’m going to jump down a little bit to Article 10 simply because forced relocation has been on my mind lately.
Article 10 is this:
Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands [...]

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Very Good News!

We are very pleased to announce that Chloe Taylor (Ph.D., Toronto; Post-Doc McGill) will be joining the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at UNF next fall. Professor Taylor’s research interests are in social and political philosophy, more generally, and in the areas of 20th century French philosophy as well as race and gender, more specifically. [...]

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Articles 1 and 2

All of the commentary on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples I have read says that the Declaration creates no new rights. For now, I’m going to assume that’s true.
What does the Declaration do then, if not create new rights? Well, it affirms that rights that exist elsewhere (like in other UN documents [...]

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Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Forced Assimilation

In comments, I mentioned the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was adopted by the United Nations this past September. For those unfamiliar with a document of this sort, it is not legally binding but sets a minimum standard that States should aim at and could be the foundation for future law.
The Declaration [...]

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Reserved Rights

I know what you’ve been thinking. You’ve been staying up at night tossing and turning, wondering to yourself, “What is a reserved right in a treaty?”
Well, say goodbye to sleepless nights for I shall tell you what a reserved right is. Not only will you then be able to sleep, you will also understand why [...]

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The Importance of Treaties

Last week I blogged about the Lakota Freedom Delegation’s attempt at treaty withdrawal. This week I thought I’d blog about why treaties are important to native people.
Most people know that treaties are important to American Indians—somehow. Most people also know the stories of how the US has failed throughout the years to honor treaty obligations [...]

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Happy Belated Birthday: Simone de Beauvoir

January 9th marked Simone de Beauvoir’s 100th birthday.
(HT: SWIP-List)

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American Indian Political Issues: A Blogger’s Resolution

In mid-December, Russell Means and a group of Lakota people declared they are withdrawing from treaties entered into with the United States, including but not limited to the Fort Laramie treaties. This declaration made some headlines, but apparently wasn’t widespread news.
At the time Means made the declaration I did some internet searches to see how [...]

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December 29th 1890

Today, December 29, is the anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee. As Tim Giago reports, in an article earlier this month:
December 29, 2007 will mark the 117th anniversary of the slaughter of innocents at Wounded Knee. As is their custom, the Lakota people will gather at the mass grave where the bodies of men, women [...]

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Martha Nussbaum Interview

While searching for something related to research on Bernard Williams, I got sidetracked by this interview with Martha Nussbaum (from last year, Sept 2006) that I hadn’t seen before. I thought I’d link it here for those who are interested; it has a transcript and webcast.

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Kate Lindemann: The Interview

The Florida Student Philosophy Blog warmly welcomes Kate Lindemann to the blog to chat about her new website, Women-Philosophers.com.
FSPB: Hi, Kate, welcome to the blog!
You have just launched a website called Women-Philosophers.com. What exactly is the idea behind it? What, in other words, is the website about and what information can be found there?

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Philosophy Soup, the Second Helping

With the Fall semester fully in swing there are great articles and discussions abound. Here are some for your consideration:
In his most recent post, Efficiency and Value, Richard from Philosophy, Etc. wonders whether supporting high-efficiency superstores provides more value than less efficient craft oriented systems.
Over at Brains, the most recent post is a [...]

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Against Gay Marriage

In the article “Gay Marriage” in Philosophy and Sex[1] Frederick Elliston, dissects several arguments against gay marriage. I would like to revisit a few of them in this essay, and will begin with the argument from shared morality. Elliston describes two arguments of Devlin, an “a posteriori argument to establish that the law is and [...]

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