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Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)

by Margaret Urban Walker

This is a revised edition of Walker's well-known book in feminist ethics first published in 1997. Walker's book proposes a view of morality and an approach to ethical theory which uses the critical insights of feminism and race theory to rethink the epistemological and moral position of the ethical theorist, and how moral theory is inescapably shaped by culture and history. The main gist of her book is that morality is embodied in "practices of responsibility" that express our identities, values, and connections to others in socially patterned ways. Thus ethical theory needs to be empirically informed and politically critical to avoid reiterating forms of socially entrenched bias. Responsible ethical theory should reveal and question the moral significance of social differences. The book engages with, and challenges, the work of contemporary analytic philosophers in ethics. Moral Understandings has been influential in reaching a global audience in ethics and feminist philosophy, as well as in tangential fields like nursing ethics; research ethics; disability ethics; environmental ethics, and social and political theory. This revised edition contains a new preface, a substantive postscript to Chapter 1 about "the subject of moral philosophy"; the addition of a new chapter on the importance of emotion in practices of responsibility; and the addition of an afterword, which responds to critics of the book.

Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)

by Margaret Urban Walker

This is a revised edition of Walker's well-known book in feminist ethics first published in 1997. Walker's book proposes a view of morality and an approach to ethical theory which uses the critical insights of feminism and race theory to rethink the epistemological and moral position of the ethical theorist, and how moral theory is inescapably shaped by culture and history. The main gist of her book is that morality is embodied in "practices of responsibility" that express our identities, values, and connections to others in socially patterned ways. Thus ethical theory needs to be empirically informed and politically critical to avoid reiterating forms of socially entrenched bias. Responsible ethical theory should reveal and question the moral significance of social differences. The book engages with, and challenges, the work of contemporary analytic philosophers in ethics. Moral Understandings has been influential in reaching a global audience in ethics and feminist philosophy, as well as in tangential fields like nursing ethics; research ethics; disability ethics; environmental ethics, and social and political theory. This revised edition contains a new preface, a substantive postscript to Chapter 1 about "the subject of moral philosophy"; the addition of a new chapter on the importance of emotion in practices of responsibility; and the addition of an afterword, which responds to critics of the book.

The Moral Universe

by Terence Cuneo Russ Shafer-Landau John Bengson

The Moral Universe marks an importance advance in metaethical thinking, offering the most sustained and sophisticated development of nonnaturalistic moral realism to date. Employing a novel philosophical method, it addresses central questions in metaethics concerning the nature of moral reality, its fundamental laws, its relation to the natural world, and its normative authority.The authors advance new ways of answering these questions, contending that moral standards regarding what to do and how to be are not only objectively authoritative, but essentially so.Rather than arising from personal schemes or collective ideals, morality flows from the nature of things. One of the principal aims of the book is to show how this view accommodates and explains a wide range of data concerning the metaphysical and normative dimensions of morality. Along the way, the book offers novel characterizations of moral realism and nonnaturalism, defends and explains the existence of substantive moral conceptual truths, supplies a new treatment of moral supervenience, substantiates the categoricity and importance of moral reasons, and presents a strategy for identifying the source of morality. Exemplifying a commitment to the integrity of moral philosophy,The Moral Universe also tackles fundamental issues in value theory and normative ethics in the service of developing a systematic, explanatorily potent version of nonnaturalist realism.

The Moral Universe

by Terence Cuneo Russ Shafer-Landau John Bengson

The Moral Universe marks an importance advance in metaethical thinking, offering the most sustained and sophisticated development of nonnaturalistic moral realism to date. Employing a novel philosophical method, it addresses central questions in metaethics concerning the nature of moral reality, its fundamental laws, its relation to the natural world, and its normative authority.The authors advance new ways of answering these questions, contending that moral standards regarding what to do and how to be are not only objectively authoritative, but essentially so.Rather than arising from personal schemes or collective ideals, morality flows from the nature of things. One of the principal aims of the book is to show how this view accommodates and explains a wide range of data concerning the metaphysical and normative dimensions of morality. Along the way, the book offers novel characterizations of moral realism and nonnaturalism, defends and explains the existence of substantive moral conceptual truths, supplies a new treatment of moral supervenience, substantiates the categoricity and importance of moral reasons, and presents a strategy for identifying the source of morality. Exemplifying a commitment to the integrity of moral philosophy,The Moral Universe also tackles fundamental issues in value theory and normative ethics in the service of developing a systematic, explanatorily potent version of nonnaturalist realism.

Moral Value and Human Diversity

by Robert Audi

Can the moral fragmentation so prominent in the contemporary world be overcome? Are there ethical standards that deserve everyone's allegiance? Can judgments of value transcend taste and cultural preference? Moral Value and Human Diversity offers a brief but highly comprehensive introduction to ethics and value theory that argues for positive answers in a pluralistic framework.

Moral Values

by Nicolai Hartmann

Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), along with Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, was instrumental in restoring metaphysics to the study of philosophy. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Hartmann was clearly influenced by Plato. His tour-de-force, Ethik, published in English in 1932 as Ethics, may be the most outstanding work on moral philosophy produced in the twentieth century.In the first part of Ethics (Moral Phenomena), Hartmann was concerned with the structure of ethical phenomena, and criticized utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism as misleading approaches. In the second part, Moral Values, the author describes all values as forming a complex and as yet imperfectly known system. The actualization of the non-moral and elementary moral values is a necessary condition for the actualization of the higher values. It is on this account that rudimentary values have a prior claim.Hartmann outlines the main features of the chief virtues, and shows that the moral disposition required in any exigency is always a specific synthesis of various and often conflicting values. Specifically describing fundamental moral values-such as goodness, nobility, and vitality-and special moral values-such as justice, wisdom, courage, self-control, trustworthiness, and modesty-Hartmann takes theoretical philosophy and brings it very much into the realm of the practical.A compelling and insightful volume, Moral Values remains an essential contribution to the moral and ethical literature of the twentieth century. Hartmann offers a self-contained system of ethics that yet offers a conservative outlook on social life.

Moral Values (Ethics Ser.)

by Nicolai Hartmann

Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), along with Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, was instrumental in restoring metaphysics to the study of philosophy. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Hartmann was clearly influenced by Plato. His tour-de-force, Ethik, published in English in 1932 as Ethics, may be the most outstanding work on moral philosophy produced in the twentieth century.In the first part of Ethics (Moral Phenomena), Hartmann was concerned with the structure of ethical phenomena, and criticized utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism as misleading approaches. In the second part, Moral Values, the author describes all values as forming a complex and as yet imperfectly known system. The actualization of the non-moral and elementary moral values is a necessary condition for the actualization of the higher values. It is on this account that rudimentary values have a prior claim.Hartmann outlines the main features of the chief virtues, and shows that the moral disposition required in any exigency is always a specific synthesis of various and often conflicting values. Specifically describing fundamental moral values-such as goodness, nobility, and vitality-and special moral values-such as justice, wisdom, courage, self-control, trustworthiness, and modesty-Hartmann takes theoretical philosophy and brings it very much into the realm of the practical.A compelling and insightful volume, Moral Values remains an essential contribution to the moral and ethical literature of the twentieth century. Hartmann offers a self-contained system of ethics that yet offers a conservative outlook on social life.

Moral Virtue and Nature: A Defense of Ethical Naturalism (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)

by Stephen R. Brown

What make someone a good human being? Is there an objective answer to this question, an answer that can be given in naturalistic terms? For ages philosophers have attempted to develop some sort of naturalistic ethics. Against ethical naturalism, however, notable philosophers have contended that such projects are impossible, due to the existence of some sort of 'gap' between facts and values. Others have suggested that teleology, upon which many forms of ethical naturalism depend, is an outdated metaphysical concept. This book argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. Thus, the answer to the question of what makes a good human being is given in terms both objective and naturalistic. The author shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics. This work is a much needed contribution to the ongoing debate about ethical theory and ethical virtue.

Moral Voices, Moral Selves: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Moral Theory

by Susan J. Hekman

This book is an original discussion of key problems in moral theory. The author argues that the work of recent feminist theorists in this area, particularly that of Carol Gilligan, marks a radically new departure in moral thinking. Gilligan claims that there is not only one true, moral voice, but two: one masculine, one feminine. Moral values and concerns associated with a feminine outlook are relational rather than autonomous; they depend upon interaction with others. In a far-reaching examination and critique of Gilligan's theory, Hekman seeks to deconstruct the major traditions of moral theory which have been dominant since the Enlightenment. She challenges the centrepiece of that tradition: the disembodied, autonomous subject of modernist philosophy. Gilligan's approach transforms moral theory from the study of abstract universal principles to the analysis of moral claims situated in the interactions of people in definite social contexts. Hekman argues that Gilligan's approach entails a multiplicity of moral voices, not just one or even two. This book addresses moral problems in a challenging way and will find a wide readership among philosopher's, feminist thinkers and psychologists.

Moral Voices, Moral Selves: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Moral Theory

by Susan J. Hekman

This book is an original discussion of key problems in moral theory. The author argues that the work of recent feminist theorists in this area, particularly that of Carol Gilligan, marks a radically new departure in moral thinking. Gilligan claims that there is not only one true, moral voice, but two: one masculine, one feminine. Moral values and concerns associated with a feminine outlook are relational rather than autonomous; they depend upon interaction with others. In a far-reaching examination and critique of Gilligan's theory, Hekman seeks to deconstruct the major traditions of moral theory which have been dominant since the Enlightenment. She challenges the centrepiece of that tradition: the disembodied, autonomous subject of modernist philosophy. Gilligan's approach transforms moral theory from the study of abstract universal principles to the analysis of moral claims situated in the interactions of people in definite social contexts. Hekman argues that Gilligan's approach entails a multiplicity of moral voices, not just one or even two. This book addresses moral problems in a challenging way and will find a wide readership among philosopher's, feminist thinkers and psychologists.

The Moral Wager: Evolution and Contract (Philosophical Studies Series #108)

by Malcolm Murray

In the following chapters, I offer an evolutionary account of morality and from that extrapolate a version of contractarianism I call consent theory. Game theory helps to highlight the evolution of morality as a resolution of interpersonal conflicts under strategic negotiation. It is this emphasis on strategic negotiation that underwrites the idea of consent. Consent theory differs from other contractarian models by abandoning reliance on rational self-interest in favour of evolutionary adaptation. From this, more emphasis will be placed on consent as natural convergence rather than consent as an idealization. My picture of contractarianism, then, ends up looking more like the relativist model offered by Harman, rather than the rational (or pseudo-rational) model offered by Gauthier, let alone the Kantian brands of Rawls or Scanlon. So at least some of my discussion will dwell on why it is no loss to abandon hope for the universal, categorical morality that rational models promise. In the introduction, I offer the betting analogy that underwrites the remaining picture. There are some bets where the expected utility is positive, though the odds of winning on this particular occasion are exceedingly low. In such cases, we cannot hope to give an argument that taking the bet is rational. The only thing we can say is that those predisposed to take this kind of bet on these kinds of occasions will do better than those with other dispositions, so long as such games occur often enough.

The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide (Corpus Juris: The Humanities in Politics and Law)

by Carolyn J. Dean

The Moral Witness is the first cultural history of the "witness to genocide" in the West. Carolyn J. Dean shows how the witness became a protagonist of twentieth-century moral culture by tracing the emergence of this figure in courtroom battles from the 1920s to the 1960s—covering the Armenian genocide, the Ukrainian pogroms, the Soviet Gulag, and the trial of Adolf Eichmann. In these trials, witness testimonies differentiated the crime of genocide from war crimes and began to form our understanding of modern political and cultural murder.By the turn of the twentieth century, the "witness to genocide" became a pervasive icon of suffering humanity and a symbol of western moral conscience. Dean sheds new light on the recent global focus on survivors' trauma. Only by placing the moral witness in a longer historical trajectory, she demonstrates, can we understand how the stories we tell about survivor testimony have shaped both our past and contemporary moral culture.

Moralische Kollektive: Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Einsichten (Wissen, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft)

by Stefan Joller Marija Stanisavljevic

Ob Terroranschläge, Flüchtlings- oder Finanzkrisen – die Herausforderungen der globalisierten Moderne legen jene Bereiche frei, die Durkheim als anomisch bezeichnete und deren Bearbeitung nach wie vor die zentrale Stellung moralischer Kommunikation verdeutlicht. Einiges spricht dafür, dass die fortschreitende funktionale Differenzierung die Moral nicht erodieren lässt, sondern durch die zunehmende kommunikative Vernetzung geradezu eine Remoralisierung der Gesellschaft befördert. Überall dort, wo Missstände zu Tage treten und nicht abzusehen ist, wie diese im modus operandi befriedigend gelöst werden könnten, gibt die Moral ein verheißungsvolles Instrument zur Hand, das in Gestalt moralischer Kollektive den Alltag zu durchdringen und die Gesellschaft zu formen vermag. Der Sammelband widmet sich in diesem Sinne einer sowohl theoretischen wie auch empirischen Analyse der Moral, die als genuin soziale Größe über moralische Kollektive Form annimmt.

Moralisches Risikomanagement: Strategien zum risikoorientierten Umgang mit Konflikten zwischen Gewinn und Moral

by Christian Schiel

​Unternehmen stehen vor der Herausforderung, moralische Erwartungen der Gesellschaft unter harten Wettbewerbsbedingungen zu erfüllen. Diese Erwartungen verschiedenster Stakeholder, beispielsweise an Vertriebsmethoden, Umweltschutzmaßnahmen oder Vergütungsregeln von Unternehmen, sind dabei häufig gegensätzlich, interessengeleitet und situationsabhängig. Sowohl ihre Erfüllung als auch ihre Nichterfüllung können zu Chancen und Risiken für Unternehmen und Gesellschaft führen. Basierend auf dem international etablierten Risikomanagementstandard COSO stellt Christian Schiel einen alltagstauglichen Managementansatz zum Umgang mit moralökonomischen Spannungsfeldern vor und unterlegt ihn mit konkreten Beispielen für den Einsatz im Unternehmen.

Moralising Global Markets: The Creativity of International Business Discourse

by Annette Cerne

Investigating how international market actors create market morality on a global level, this book reflects on the unresolved questions and debates regarding the relationship between business and society. The author explores how market actors in international business communication are unified in their attempts to make markets moralised. Providing detailed case studies and empirical evidence based on interviews with practitioners, Moralising Global Markets is a useful read for anyone interested in international business, and for those researching morality, ethics and corporate social responsibility.

Moralistics and Psychomoralistics: A Unified Cognitive Science of Moral Intuition (Routledge Focus on Philosophy)

by Graham Wood

This book brings together three distinct research programs in moral psychology – Moral Foundations Theory, Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange and the Linguistic Analogy in Moral Psychology – and shows that they can be combined to create a unified cognitive science of moral intuition. The book assumes evolution has furnished the human mind with two types of judgement: intuitive and deliberative. Focusing on moral intuitions (understood as moral judgments that were not arrived at via a process of conscious deliberation), the book explores the origins of these intuitions, examines how they are produced, and explains why the moral intuitions of different humans differ. Providing a unique synthesis of three separate established fields, this book presents a new research program that will further our understanding of the various different intuitive moral judgements at the heart of some of the moral tensions within human society.

Moralistics and Psychomoralistics: A Unified Cognitive Science of Moral Intuition (Routledge Focus on Philosophy)

by Graham Wood

This book brings together three distinct research programs in moral psychology – Moral Foundations Theory, Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange and the Linguistic Analogy in Moral Psychology – and shows that they can be combined to create a unified cognitive science of moral intuition. The book assumes evolution has furnished the human mind with two types of judgement: intuitive and deliberative. Focusing on moral intuitions (understood as moral judgments that were not arrived at via a process of conscious deliberation), the book explores the origins of these intuitions, examines how they are produced, and explains why the moral intuitions of different humans differ. Providing a unique synthesis of three separate established fields, this book presents a new research program that will further our understanding of the various different intuitive moral judgements at the heart of some of the moral tensions within human society.

Moralities: A Diachronic Evolutionary Approach (Philosophical Studies Series #100)

by Paul Ziff

This essay is the product of years of distaste for, and dissatisfaction with, the efforts of moral philosophers. It can be tiresome to attend to details, to spell out the obvious, but moral philosophy is such an abysmally difficult subject that faster than a creeping slug is breakneck reckless speed. One simply must content oneself with a slow slimy trail painfully drawn and cautiously constrained. Generally speaking, philosophy, and, in particular, moral philosophy, is too hard fot philosophers. Even though publishing is spitting in the ocean, and even though my sour sweet spittle will not alter the ocean's salinity, I am somehow inclined to publish this essay. Acknowledgments: I began this essay in 1956. During the years, I have discussed many of the topics in this volume with a great many philosophers. I am indebted to all of them, especially those with whom I disagreed and those who disagreed with me. One learns nothing from agreement, whereas disagreement provokes one to look more closely and more carefully at what is at issue: if a philosopher is to profit from discussion, someone must be disagreeable.

Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (Continuum Compact Ser. #Vol. 1990)

by Jonathan Sacks

We are living through a period of cultural climate change. We have outsourced morality to the markets on the one hand, and the state on the other. The markets have brought wealth to many, and the state has done much to contain the worst excesses of inequality, but neither is capable of bearing the moral weight of showing us how to live. This has had a profound impact on society and the way in which we interact with each other. Traditional values no longer hold, yet recent political swings show that modern ideals of tolerance have left many feeling rudderless and adrift. In this environment we see things fall apart in unexpected ways - toxic public discourse makes true societal progress almost unattainable, a more divisive society is fuelled by identity politics and extremism, and the rise of a victimhood mentality calls for 'safe spaces' but stifles debate. The influence of social media seems all-pervading and the breakdown of the family is only one result of the loss of social capital. Many fear what the future may hold.Delivering a devastatingly insightful critique of our modern condition, and assessing its roots and causes from the ancient Greeks through the Reformation and Enlightenment to the present day, Sacks argues that there is no liberty without morality, and no freedom without responsibility.If we care about the future of western civilisation, all of us must play our part in rebuilding our common moral foundation. Then we will discover afresh the life-transforming and counterintuitive truths that a nation is strong when it cares for the weak, and rich when it cares for the poor.Here is an inspiring vision of a world in which we can all find our place, and face the future without fear.

Morality and Agency: Themes from Bernard Williams

by András Szigeti and Matthew Talbert

Bernard Williams (1929-2003) was one of the great philosophical figures of the second half of the 20th century and remains deeply influential. This edited volume brings together new articles from prominent scholars that focus on the innovative ideas and methods that Williams developed as part of his distinctive "outlook" in ethics. The chapters in the first section examine Williams's attempts to explore theoretical options beyond the confines of what he called the "morality system." The contributors show how, through a critical confrontation with this system, Williams found new ways to think about moral obligation, morally relevant emotions such as shame, the relevance of the history of philosophy, and also how these new ways of thinking are linked to Williams's novel metaethical ideas concerning the possibility and limits of moral knowledge. In the second section, contributors explore Williams's discussions of freedom and responsibility, the role of luck in our moral lives, and the reasons that agents can be said to have. Williams's concerns about the morality system still loom large here. For example, Williams was skeptical about the prospects of putting our responsibility practices, and the conception of free will with which they are associated, on a firm footing. But as more than one contributor shows, Williams's skepticism is largely confined to conceptions of free will and responsibility that are conditioned by the morality system's uneasiness with luck. Williams has a more vindicatory story to tell about the prospects for freedom and responsibility once these concepts have been untethered from the assumptions of this system. With a cast of well known contributors, and an introduction by the editors placing Williams's work in broad context, this volume should appeal to a wide range of ethicists and moral philosophers.

Morality and Agency: Themes from Bernard Williams


Bernard Williams (1929-2003) was one of the great philosophical figures of the second half of the 20th century and remains deeply influential. This edited volume brings together new articles from prominent scholars that focus on the innovative ideas and methods that Williams developed as part of his distinctive "outlook" in ethics. The chapters in the first section examine Williams's attempts to explore theoretical options beyond the confines of what he called the "morality system." The contributors show how, through a critical confrontation with this system, Williams found new ways to think about moral obligation, morally relevant emotions such as shame, the relevance of the history of philosophy, and also how these new ways of thinking are linked to Williams's novel metaethical ideas concerning the possibility and limits of moral knowledge. In the second section, contributors explore Williams's discussions of freedom and responsibility, the role of luck in our moral lives, and the reasons that agents can be said to have. Williams's concerns about the morality system still loom large here. For example, Williams was skeptical about the prospects of putting our responsibility practices, and the conception of free will with which they are associated, on a firm footing. But as more than one contributor shows, Williams's skepticism is largely confined to conceptions of free will and responsibility that are conditioned by the morality system's uneasiness with luck. Williams has a more vindicatory story to tell about the prospects for freedom and responsibility once these concepts have been untethered from the assumptions of this system. With a cast of well known contributors, and an introduction by the editors placing Williams's work in broad context, this volume should appeal to a wide range of ethicists and moral philosophers.

Morality and Citizenship in English Schools: Secular Approaches, 1897–1944 (Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000)

by Susannah Wright

This book sheds new light on early twentieth-century secularism by examining campaigns to challenge dominant Christian approaches to the teaching of morality and citizenship in English schools, and to offer superior alternatives. It brings together, for the first time, the activities of different educators and pressure groups, operating locally, nationally and internationally, over a period of 47 years. Who were these activists? What ideological and organisational resources did they draw on? What proposals did they make? And how did others respond to their views? Secularist activists represented a minority, but offered a recurrent challenge to majority views and shaped ongoing educational debates. They achieved some, albeit limited, influence on policy and practice. They were divided among themselves and by 1944 had failed to supplant majority views. But, with the place of religious and secular ideals in schools remaining a subject of debate, this analysis has resonance today.

Morality and Corporate Governance: Firm Integrity and Spheres of Justice

by Giulio Sapelli

Firms, the most significant nucleus of modern economic activity, are very special social organisations with economic purposes and also a responsibility for pursuing the welfare of all ranks of society. This requires moral commitment at a subjective and collective level, i.e. ethics. In this book, a renowned author with long experience as a consultant to large firms explores the relationship between moral action and economic action with particular reference to the firm. Diverse aspects of corporate responsibility – social, civil, political, and environmental – within a rapidly changing world are investigated from a philosophical perspective. Prerequisites for self-regulation are considered and aspects of responsibility beyond the law, such as charters of values and codes of ethics, are discussed. Particular attention is paid to firm integrity and different spheres of justice, each of which has its own criteria for the distribution of goods.

Morality And Cultural Differences

by John W. Cook

The scholars who defend or dispute moral relativism, the idea that a moral principle cannot be applied to people whose culture does not accept it, have concerned themselves with either the philosophical or anthropological aspects of relativism. This study shows that in order to arrive at a definitive appraisal of moral relativism, it is necessary to understand and investigate both its anthropological and philosophical aspects. Carefully examining the arguments for and against moral relativism, Cook exposes not only that anthropologists have failed in their attempt to support relativism with evidence of cultural differences, but that moral absolutists have been equally unsuccessful in their attempts to refute it. He argues that these conflicting positions are both guilty of an artificial and unrealistic view of morality and proposes a more subtle and complex account of morality.

Morality and Cultural Differences

by John W. Cook

The scholars who defend or dispute moral relativism, the idea that a moral principle cannot be applied to people whose culture does not accept it, have concerned themselves with either the philosophical or anthropological aspects of relativism. This study shows that in order to arrive at a definitive appraisal of moral relativism, it is necessary to understand and investigate both its anthropological and philosophical aspects. Carefully examining the arguments for and against moral relativism, Cook exposes not only that anthropologists have failed in their attempt to support relativism with evidence of cultural differences, but that moral absolutists have been equally unsuccessful in their attempts to refute it. He argues that these conflicting positions are both guilty of an artificial and unrealistic view of morality and proposes a more subtle and complex account of morality.

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