How Porous are the Walls that Separate Us?: Transformative Service-Learning, Women’s Incarceration, and the Unsettled Self

In this article, we refine a politics of thinking from the margins by exploring a pedagogical model that advances transformative notions of service learning as social justice teaching. Drawing on a recent course we taught involving both incarcerated women and traditional college students, we contend that when communication among differentiated and stratified parties occurs, one possible result is not just a view of the other but also a transformation of the self and other. More specifically, we suggest that an engaged feminist praxis of teaching incarcerated women together with college students helps illuminate the porous nature of fixed markers that purport to reveal our identities (e.g., race and gender), to emplace our bodies (e.g., within institutions, prison gates, and walls), and to specify our locations (e.g., cultural, geographic, socialeconomic). One crucial theoretical insight our work makes clear is that the model of social justice teaching to which we aspired necessitates re-conceptualizing ourselves as students and professors whose subjectivities are necessarily relational and emergent.

The Art of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Quest for an Ontology of Social Existence in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by an evaluation of a corresponding search for an “ontology of social existence” undertaken by Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962). Ultimately, the philosophico-religious writings of Watsuji Tetsurō allow for the “return” of aesthesis as a modality of social being that is truly dimensionalized, and thus falls prey neither to the verticality of topicalism nor the limiting objectivity of criticalism.

Engineering Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward

The eight pieces constituting this Meeting Report are summaries of presentations made during a panel session at the 2011 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) annual meeting held between March 3rd and 6th in Cincinnati. Lisa Newton organized the session and served as chair. The panel of eight consisted both of pioneers in the field and more recent arrivals. It covered a range of topics from how the field has developed to where it should be going, from identification of issues needing further study to problems of training the next generation of engineers and engineering-ethics scholars.

ARISTOTLE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS AND ITS RELATION TO TODAY

While much of Aristotle's works are preserved in various volumes, two of his famous works are the Nichmachean Ethics and the Politics, both of which contain a rich compilation of ethical and political thought. In the Ethics, Aristotle describes a thorough understanding of ethical and intellectual virtue. By pursuing these virtues, Aristotle argues that a person can achieve a life of fulfilling happiness. The ideal polis as described in the Politics serves as a place where the virtuous life is attained in the best manner.Citizens who pursue virtue make the polis better, and the rulers that guide the polis ensure that the citizens have every opportunity to pursue the virtuous life. In this thesis, I see how relevant Aristotle's theory is by laying out the basic principles of the Ethics and the Politics and the connections between the two works. Indoing so, I found that Aristotle's ideal theory points out a significant flaw in our political system: the fact that we do not share a common moral conception such as the one concerned with the virtuous life as Aristotle proposes. This does not suggest thatAristotle's view was actualized during his time period, but that Aristotle conceives of an ideal life and an ideal polis that could be realized. Certainly there are issues with Aristotle's thesis concerning the inferiority of slaves and women. But what is morepoignant is the impracticality of instituting a shared common conception when today's political system permits various ideas about ethics and morality.

The Impact of Parental Psychological Control on College Students’ Relational Aggression and Friendship Quality

The present study investigated the relationships between parental psychological control and college students’ relational aggression and friendship quality. Based on previous research, it was expected that parents’ use of psychological control would be associated with students’ increased use of relational aggression with peers and lower friendship quality. Students completed a series of survey measures assessing their mothers’ and fathers’ use of psychological control, behavioral control, and warmth/acceptance. Students also completed a series of survey measures assessing their friendship quality, social skills, relational aggression, self-esteem, and social desirability. The study’s findings revealed that parental psychological control was associated with and predicted students’ increased use of relational aggression with peers. Parental psychological control was also associated with students’ lower friendship quality. However, parents’ use of psychological control did not predict students’ friendship quality after accounting for the influence of students’ personal and peer relationship variables. This finding suggests that characteristics of peer relationships may play a larger role than parenting behaviors in shaping college students’ friendships. The study also found that students who displayed higher levels of relational aggression had lower quality friendships. Other findings revealed that the relationship between parental psychological control and students’ friendship quality can be partially explained by students’ use of relational aggression with peers. Students’ friendship quality can also help to explain the influence of parental psychological control on students’ relational aggression. In addition, the study found that combinations of parenting behaviors were more informative predictors of students’ relational aggression and friendship quality than psychological control alone. Finally, this study revealed the importance of assessing participants’ social desirability when measuring sensitive personal qualities such as relational aggression, friendship quality, and self-esteem. Overall, this study contributes to the field of research on parental psychological control by revealing its effects on college students’ relational aggression and friendship quality.

Transnational Marriage: Modern Imaginings, Relational Realignments, and Persistent Inequalities

In the context of shifting cultural anchors as well as unstable global economic conditions, new practices of intimacy and sexuality may become tactics in an individual’s negotiation of conflicting desires and potentials. This article offers reflection on the interface between global forces, powerful transcultural narratives, and state policies, on the one hand, and local, even individual, constructions and tactics in regard to sexuality, marriage, migration, and work, on the other. The article focuses on the life trajectory of Gudiya, an ambitious young Hindu woman who started out life with little social capital and few economic resources in a dusty corner of what was then the tiny kingdom of Nepal. Gudiya’s story highlights the ways in which she has engaged in relational realignments aimed at bringing her closer to the life she imagines, even as she has encountered new and persistent forms of inequality both local and transnational in scale.