Comprehension of moral reasoning is important both for successful moral education and for Kohlbergian claims that moral reasoning development is cognitive in nature. Because a psychometrically appropriate moral comprehension instrument does not appear to exist, the Moral Comprehension Questionnaire (MCQ) was constructed in Study 1 and displayed some positive reliability and validity findings. Study 2 used this questionnaire to examine whether the increased Defining Issue Test (DIT) p scores shown by liberals is indicative of increased cognitive development. While liberals displayed (...) slightly greater moral comprehension than conservatives, moral comprehension and political orientation mostly appear to contribute independently to high p scores. Additionally, consistent with Kohlbergian theory, comprehension of Stage 5 moral reasoning is more challenging than comprehension of Stage 3 or 4 reasoning. Consequently, while p scores are somewhat cognitive developmental in nature, they also are independently predicted by political orientation. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have studied sensory perception and, in particular, vision for many years. Increasingly, however, they have become interested in the nonvisual senses in greater detail and the problem of individuating the senses in a more general way. The Aristotelian view is that there are only five external senses—smell, taste, hearing, touch, and vision. This has, by many counts, been extended to include internal senses, such as balance, proprioception, and kinesthesis; pain; and potentially other human and nonhuman senses. This (...) “multisensory turn” has been driven partly by developments in contemporary psychology and neuroscience, which have revealed a host of complex interrelations and interactions between sensory modalities previously thought to be distinct. Contrasts between modalities and other crossmodal phenomena, including multisensory integration, synesthesia, and sensory substitution, have also begun to receive more attention in a burgeoning scientific and philosophical literature on multisensory perception and other crossmodal effects. This article focuses on recent empirically informed contributions to the philosophy of perception, as well as key scientific works that provide important background information and insights into the nature of the senses and sensory perception. Indeed, one of the lessons of the multisensory turn, and of contemporary philosophy of mind more generally, is that philosophers ignore this body of empirical research at their peril because many human and animal senses turn out to be richer and more complex than philosophers and scientists had previously imagined, making this a fruitful area for interdisciplinary interaction and research. (shrink)

When a business owner approaches a bank for a loan for their business they might hope that a well-established bureaucratic procedure would ensure that their application was processed with stipulated rules and impersonal criteria. They might expect that two bank officials, evaluating the same proposal for a loan, would reach the same decision. However, research shows that both quantifiable data and “gut feelings” are used in the decision. In this research, analysis of interviews with senior managers, and both individual and (...) focus group interviews with bank loan officers, reveals that there are no set criteria or stipulated rules. The interviews demonstrate how and why nonquantifiable data is used, and why different bank officials can reach different conclusions on the same loan proposal. While these bank loan officers do not appear to be discriminatory against female business owners, the lending criteria and process allows significant room for discrimination. It appears questionable whether bank lending is seen as an ethical and fair process. (shrink)

We sketch out two basic paradigms informing banking practice: the economistic paradigm focusing on profit maximization and the humanistic one, serving the common good. We then highlight paradigmatic cases to explore how each of these business models fared during the quasi-natural experiment of the financial crisis. We find that many humanistic banks outperformed traditional economistic banks. Despite the uneven playing field humanistic banks fared remarkably well with regard to traditional financial performance judgements, muting criticisms of competitiveness. We find that overall (...) both paradigms can provide a basis for successful banking as long as social and financial value generation are blended. We conclude by providing lessons learned for better banking. (shrink)

This article introduces a Special Issue comprising four papers emerging from the Beauty Demands Network project, and maps key issues in the beauty debate. The introduction first discusses the purpose of the Network; to consider the changing demands of beauty across disciplines and beyond academia. It then summarises the findings of the Network workshops, emphasising the complex place of notions of normality, and the different meanings and functions attached to ‘normal’ in the beauty context. Concerns are raised here about the (...) use of normal to justify and motivate engaging in beauty practices such as cosmetic surgery and ‘non-invasive’ procedures. Other workshop findings included the recognition of beauty as increasingly a global value rather than a culturally distinct ideal, and the understanding that there is no clear distinction between beauty practices that are considered standard and those that are considered extreme. These themes, especially the concerns around understanding of normal, are reflected in the recommendations made by the Network in its Briefing Paper, which are presented next in this introduction. A further theme picked up by these recommendations is the extent to which individuals who are not traditionally vulnerable may be so in the beauty context. Finally, the introduction highlights the key matters covered in the four papers of the Special Issue: regulatory concerns around cosmetic surgery tourism; the impact of digitally altered images from psychological and philosophical perspectives; the ethics of genetic selection for fair skin; and the attraction and beauty of the contemporary athletic body. (shrink)

This two-part article summarizes the major arguments of Lynne Huffer’s 2010 book, Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory. The second part of the piece is a dialogue between Huffer and feminist theorist Elizabeth Wilson about the implications of the book’s arguments about rethinking queer theory, interiority, psychic life, lived experience and received understandings of Michel Foucault’s work.

Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form (...) their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind. (shrink)

It appears that spouses have less reason to hold each other to a norm of monogamy than to reject the norm. The norm of monogamy involves a restriction of spouses' aeeess to two things of value: sex and erotic love. This restriction initially appears unwarranted but can be justified. There is reason for spouses to aeeept the norm of monogamy if their marriage satisfies three conditions. Otherwise, there is reason to permit non-monogamy. Some spouses have reason to accept the norm (...) of monogamy because this will avoid reasonable hurt and prevent diversion of resourees needed to sustain the marriage. Other spouses have reason to permit non-monogamy to allow the spouses access to aspects of a well-rounded life. The choice to be either monogamous or non-monogamous ean also be non-instrumentally valuable if chosen for the right reasons. (shrink)

The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) off-line cognition is body (...) based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims. (shrink)

This paper introduces the special theme on management and political philosophy, following a call for papers in the journal Philosophy of Management. The scope of this introduction is to emphasize the importance of political philosophy as a subtheme in the discipline of philosophy of management by shedding light on a cornerstone conversation: the role of the state in fostering corporate accountability for social injustice. For doing so, we present the papers invited to this special theme and show how they contribute (...) to this conversation. Inspired by the arguments that the articles in this special theme develop, we also provide further thoughts for the directions that future research should pursue for enriching the discussions in the political philosophy of management. (shrink)

Biodiversity studies comprise the systematic examination of the full array of different kinds of organisms together with the technology by which the diversity can be maintained and used for the benefit of humanity. Current basic research at the species level focuses on the process of species formation, the standing levels of species numbers in various higher taxonomic categories, and the phenomena of hyperdiversity and extinction proneness. The major practical concern is the massive extinction rate now caused by human activity, which (...) threatens losses in the esthetic quality of the world, in economic opportunity, and in vital ecosystem services. (shrink)

Reports of children participating in hunger strikes while detained in offshore detention centres raise interrelated ethical issues and recognizable challenges for the medical decision-makers at these sites. A composite case study, informed by reports in the public domain, is employed to explore the unique challenges of consent and decision-making in these circumstances and the perennial issues inherent in adolescents’ developing capacity and autonomy. We present an amalgamated case of a fourteen-year-old adolescent who refused to consent to medical reversal of her (...) hunger strike protest. The medical team became the final arbiter when her parents, who were also in detention, could not agree with each other even after mediation. The case explores the complexity of evaluating the adolescent’s capacity to provide informed consent while influenced by the opinions of co-detainees in this extreme setting. We argue that the parents and the child had compromised decisional capacity due to the effects of detention. The challenges to the medical team are recognized and discussed. The team members faced a difficult dilemma and considered the competing values of the multiple cultural and ethical factors. Each team member integrated his or her own roles, duties, and discipline-specific professional guidelines with the primary goal of mitigating potential harms. (shrink)

From Ancient Greek times, music has been seen as a mathematical art, and the relationship between mathematics and music has fascinated generations. This collection of wide ranging, comprehensive and fully-illustrated papers, authored by leading scholars, presents the link between these two subjects in a lucid manner that is suitable for students of both subjects, as well as the general reader with an interest in music. Physical, theoretical, physiological, acoustic, compositional, and analytical relationships between mathematics and music are unfolded and explored (...) with focus on tuning and temperament, the mathematics of sound, bell-ringing and modern compositional techniques. (shrink)

This study extends regulatory capture theory to investigate how and to what extent a firm’s political and nonpolitical ties jointly influence corporate regulatory participation. In the context of regulatory standards setting, although firms with political ties are better able to promote firm standards into industry regulations, it remains unclear whether the coexistence of firms’ nonpolitical ties (i.e., university ties and interlocked firms in our study) is more or less likely to reduce the effect of political ties. Although corporate leaders with (...) political and nonpolitical ties may provide complementary resources, they may follow different mechanisms to drive firm actions. We, thus, argue that nonpolitical ties likely reduce the effect of political ties on regulatory standards setting. Using a sample of public manufacturing firms in China, we find evidence that supports our predictions. Our study contributes to the regulatory capture literature by redirecting attention to the dynamics of political versus nonpolitical ties. (shrink)

This article by Curtis Wilson is an account of the origin of Hansen’s powerful systematic method for finding contributions of higher order perturbations in celestial mechanics. Hansen’s method was developed in the course of improving on Laplace’s treatment of the mutual perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn. This method, an entirely new way of doing celestial mechanics when it first appeared, later made possible the successful treatment of the complicated motions of our moon (see Wilson 2010). In this paper (...) Wilson gives a brief historical introduction followed by an account of relevant technical details of the Laplacian background, an account illustrating technical details in Hansen’s initial development in his Disquisitions of 1829, and a treatment illustrating details contributing to the achievement of Hansen’s more refined development in his Untersuchung of 1831. These details include conditional equations Hansen provides for checking the accuracy of calculations. Wilson also includes a detailed assessment showing the extraordinary improvement in empirical accuracy of Hansen’s treatment over the best earlier treatment of the Jupiter-Saturn interactions. (shrink)

PurposeTo present a generic empowerment ecology framework to guide the operation of Future Centers and to empower Future Center visitors to respond to the challenges facing them and develop and implement innovative solutions.Design/methodology/approachAn in‐depth case study was conducted in Be'er Sheva PISGA Future Center in the educational sector in Israel. Visits to a further 20 Future Centers around the world and a literature review helped to generalize the key findings and develop and validate the framework further.FindingsAlthough empowerment is not always (...) explicitly discussed in Future Centers, it is an important underlying philosophy. The framework developed in this research helps to ensure empowerment issues are systematically addressed and contains four perspectives: operating principles; resources; supporters and processes. These combine to form the empowerment ecology.Research limitations/implicationsThe empowerment ecology framework has been developed from observation predominantly in one Future Center. It should now be more fully tested and validated in other Future Centers.Practical implicationsThis paper provides a framework to help Future Center practitioners and other future oriented working environments stakeholders to explicitly address empowerment issues.Originality/valueThis paper provides a detailed description of the operation of a regionally focused Future Center in the educational sector. The paper presents a novel empowerment ecology framework for use in facilitated user‐centered collaborative working environments, such as Future Centers. (shrink)

Professional providers of mental health services are motivated to help people, including, or especially, vulnerable people. We analyse the ethical implications of mental health providers accepting employment at detention centres that operate out of the normal regulatory structure of the modern state. Specifically, we examine tensions and moral harms experienced by providers at the Australian immigration detention centre on the island of Nauru. Australia has adopted indefinite offshore detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat as part of a deterrence strategy that (...) relies on making detainment conditions harsh. This has known deleterious mental health effects. As a token to fiduciary care obligations, Australia employs mental health professionals to work on Nauru. These providers are often motivated to make a positive difference for detainees’ lives. We examine the overall impact of the providers’ work with detainees and the implications of their presence. The strongest evidence supports that the small mitigation of harms offered by these providers does not outweigh the harms of supporting a system designed to perpetuate human suffering. For mental health professionals considering working in offshore detention, we offer specific topics to scrutinise and weigh prior to employment. Because optimising detainee’s mental health is beyond the capacity of individual providers, we call for the organisations standardising and supporting mental health professionals to oppose employment of their associates in offshore detention. Lessons from this case study are generalisable to other jurisdictions to help inform organisations that licence and support mental health providers and individual providers considering work in similar settings. (shrink)

Are new democracies with divided government and volatile parties politically ill fated? The literature suggests so, but cases of emergent democracies such as Taiwan and Brazil that face both conditions defy the prediction. This paper explains why: party volatility follows from pursuing distinct executive and legislature agendas under divided government; the political ambition that underlies these conditions sustains democratic and even political performance. We evaluate the argument through government spending in Taiwan. The results corroborate our expectations: they show more parties (...) composing the legislature as government spending favors an executive agenda and neglects a legislative welfare-spending agenda. The findings make three contributions to the literature: first, they reveal a political divide between executive and legislature rather than ideological parties to undercut concerns regarding performance. Second, they demonstrate that the strategic use of government spending to institutionalize party development along an executive agenda fuels party fragmentation. Third, they show that legislators split, switch, or create alternative routes to office in reaction to strategic spending to underscore that ambition underlies party volatility and divided government. (shrink)

These sixty contributions from researchers in ethology, ecology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related fields delve into the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow animals and, potentially, robots to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. They focus in particular on simulation models in order to help characterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real or artificial animals. Jean-Arcady Meyer is Director of Research at CNRS, Paris. Stewart W. Wilson is a Scientist at (...) The Rowland Institute for Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Social Function of Religious Belief And these conclusions, that religion is both coeval and coex tensive with the race, are strengthened by a, consideration of the obscure problem of religious origins, using the Word origin not in the sense of a starting point in time, but as cause or ground. In other words, the enquiry at this point is not historical, but psychological. The temporal origin of religion is veiled in the thick darkness of the prehistoric ages. (...) The genetic-causal ground of religion is, however, always open to investigation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The unified treatment of the Dirac monopole, the Schwinger monopole, and the Aharonov-Bohm problem by Barut and Wilson is revisited via a path integral approach. The Kustaanheimo-Stiefel transformation of space and time is utilized to calculate the path integral for a charged particle in the singular vector potential. In the process of dimensional reduction, a topological charge quantization rule is derived, which contains Dirac's quantization condition as a special case. “Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is (...) made for the eye of one who sees.” Jelaluddin Rumi,Mathnawi [I, 2383]. (shrink)

How would you feel about your husband, wife, or partner masturbating using pornography or erotica? For many, this would be a betrayal – a kind of cheating. I explore whether monogamous relationships should forbid solo masturbation using erotica and pornography, considering two possible objections: (1) the objection that such activity is a kind of infidelity; (2) the objection that such activity involves attitudes, usually attitudes towards women that are incompatible with an equal, loving relationship. I argue that the use of (...) erotic material in solo masturbation should not count as cheating. Solo use of pornography differs significantly from interpersonal sexual activity. Thus, unlike causal interpersonal sex, it does not undermine the role of sex within the relationship. Additionally, freedom to explore sexual fantasy through masturbation is an important element of sexual autonomy. Objection (2) holds against some but not all erotic material. Sexual enjoyment of pornography that depicts, or is produced by, suffering or degradation involves a way of seeing others that has implications for the user’s relationships with others, particularly sexual relationships. However, not all erotic material involves objectionable attitudes towards others. Thus partners should allow moderate use of some types of erotica in solo-masturbation. (shrink)