Aesthetic Freedom and Democratic Ethical Life: A Hegelian Account of the Relationship between Aesthetics and Democratic Politics

This paper presents a novel Hegelian view of the relationship between aesthetics and democratic politics. My account avoids the drawbacks associated with approaches that (like Rancière’s) reconceive all of the political in aesthetic terms or (like Rockhill’s) reduce the aesthetic to art. Instead, I maintain that the aesthetic is best understood as a distinct relationship of individual freedom. My argument proceeds by highlighting shortcomings of Honneth’s account of democratic Sittlichkeit and then addressing these impasses by integrating aesthetic freedom into the picture. The first two steps of my argument concern the fact that the form of life outlined by Honneth aspires to be a form of free life, yet his account of democratic Sittlichkeit gives rise to two dimensions of unfreedom. The first problem of unfreedom pertains to the scope of freedom. The relationships of freedom incorporated into Honneth’s account fail to turn given social roles into the subject matter of a sufficiently unrestricted practice of freedom. The second problem of freedom concerns conformism. In a final step, I complete my argument that Honneth’s account is unsatisfactory and incomplete by showing that aesthetic freedom is socially valid and thus ought to form part of our accounts of democratic ethical life

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes

As a Conclusion, to the Future: A Discussion on Trust, Agency and the Semantics of Rights in Intergenerational Relationships

One of the characteristics of modernity of European societies, as much as its global ramifications, is a socio-cultural process commonly known as ‘the discovery of the child’. Since the XVII century, a construct called ‘childhood’, has appeared, gradually but irresistibly, as a structural component of all social systems (Ariés, 1962, Cunningham, 2005). Social systems such as the arts, families, law, health, politics, economics and science have contributed, each one from its specific perspective and language, to the generation of a multidimensional, complex, often contradictory but nevertheless solid semantics of ‘childhood in society’. Professional practices and discourses have been crossing, clashing, converging and diverging within and across social systems, mixing and overlapping. The result is a panoply of portraits of the same subject, the child, painted with a wide range of ideas and beliefs concerning its capabilities, the value of its agency and the possibility for its self-determination