Over the past decade, Convergence Research has increasingly gained prominence as a research, development, and innovation (RDI) strategy to address grand societal challenges. However, a dearth of research-based evidence is available to aid researchers, research teams, and institutions with navigating the complexities attendant to the specifics of Convergence Research. This paper presents a multilevel research agenda that accounts for an integral understanding of Convergence Research as a complex adaptive system. Furthermore, by developing a framework that accounts for ancillary, yet essential, (...) systems associated with Convergence Research, we enrich the agenda with a literature-steeped discussion that considers how systems-based practices of collaboration, inquiry, and context interact with the processes and products of Convergence Research. Finally, we synthesize and apply insights from the reviewed literature by providing paths for empirical exploration emphasizing systems-based practices. In so doing, we delineate an extended boundary for a research stream that both clarifies and enlarges our understanding of Convergence Research as a ‘system-of-systems’. (shrink)

Recent publications by several leading philosophers of chemistry have focused on the definition, scope, utility, and nomenclature of issues dealing with acidity and basicity. In this paper, molecular orbital theory is used to explain all acid–base reactions, concluding that the interaction of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of one substrate, “the base,” with the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of a second substrate, “the acid,” determines the reactivity of such systems. This paradigm provides an understanding of all acid–base reactions (...) as well as other reactions which, on the surface, may not seem like acid–base reactions but which have fundamental underpinnings of that kind of chemistry. Rather than being unable to determine a unified understanding of acidity and basicity as suggested in the philosophy of chemistry literature, we propose that acidity and basicity fit securely in a classification of many other reactions that, using classical chemistry knowledge, pre-quantum chemistry, would not be possible. We strongly support the use of all scientific knowledge and experience in the development of the ideas in the philosophy science. We further suggest increased interactions between philosophers of science and scientists, so that all scholars benefit from the values, knowledge, and perspectives of other disciplines. (shrink)

The current study examines the micro-linguistic details of Twitter responses to the whistleblower-initiated publication of the Panama Papers. The leaked documents contained the micro-details of tax avoidance, tax evasion, and wealth accumulation schemes used by business elites, politicians, and government bureaucrats. The public release of the documents on April 4, 2016 resulted in a groundswell of Twitter and other social media activity throughout the world, including 161,036 Spanish-language tweets in the subsequent 5-month period. The findings illustrate that the responses were (...) polyvocal, consisting a collection of overlapping speech genres with varied thematic topics and linguistic styles, as well as differing degrees of calls for action and varying amounts of illocutionary force. The analysis also illustrates that, while the illocutionary force of tweets is somewhat associated with the adoption of a prosaic and vernacular ethical stance as well as with demands for action, these types of voicing behaviors were not present in the majority of the tweets. These results suggest that, while social media platforms are a popular site for collective forms of voicing activities, it is less certain that these collective stakeholder voices necessarily result in forceful accountability demands that spill out of the communication medium and thus serve as an impulse for positive social change. (shrink)

"I am delighted to offer my highest praise to Dean Cocking and Jeroen van den Hoven's brilliant new book, Evil Online. The confrontation between good and evil occupies a central place in the challenges facing our human nature, and this creative investigation into the spread of evil by means of all-powerful new technologies raises fundamental questions about our morality and values. Cocking and Van den Hoven's account of the moral fog of evil forces us to face both the demons within (...) each of us as well as the demons all around us. In the end, we are all enriched by their perceptive analyses." —Phil Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University Principal Investigator, Stanford Prison Experiment "The internet offers new and deeply concerning opportunities for immorality, much of it shocking and extreme. This volume explains with great insight and clarity the corrupting nature of the internet and the moral confusion it has produced. It will play a vital role in the growing debate about how to balance the benefits of the internet against the risks it poses to all of us. Evil Online is an excellent book." —Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford We now live in an era defined by the ubiquity of the internet. From our everyday engagement with social media to trolls on forums and the emergence of the dark web, the internet is a space characterized by unreality, isolation, anonymity, objectification, and rampant self-obsession—the perfect breeding ground for new, unprecedented manifestations of evil. Evil Online is the first comprehensive analysis of evil and moral character in relation to our increasingly online lives. Chapters consider traditional ideas around the phenomenon of evil in moral philosophy and explore how the dawn of the internet has presented unprecedented challenges to older theoretical approaches. Cocking and Van den Hoven propose that a growing sense of moral confusion—moral fog—pushes otherwise ordinary, normal people toward evildoing, and that values basic to moral life such as autonomy, intimacy, trust, and privacy are put at risk by online platforms and new technologies. This new theory of evildoing offers fresh insight into the moral character of the individual, and opens the way for a burgeoning new area of social thought. A comprehensive analysis of an emerging and disturbing social phenomenon, Evil Online examines the morally troubling aspects of the internet in our society. Written not only for academics in the fields of philosophy, psychology, information science, and social science, Evil Online is accessible and compelling reading for anyone interested in understanding the emergence of evil in our digitally-dominated world. (shrink)

It has become quite common for people to develop `personal'' relationships nowadays, exclusively via extensive correspondence across the Net. Friendships, even romantic love relationships, are apparently, flourishing. But what kind of relations really are possible in this way? In this paper, we focus on the case of close friendship. There are various important markers that identify a relationship as one of close friendship. One will have, for instance, strong affection for the other, a disposition to act for their well-being and (...) a desire for shared experiences. Now obviously, while all these features of friendship can gain some expression through extensive correspondence on the Net, such expression is necessarily limited –you cannot, e.g., physically embrace the other, or go on a picnic together. The issue we want to address here however, is whether there might be distinctive and important influences on the structure of interaction undertaken on the Net, that affect the kind of identity ``Net-friends'''' can develop in relation to one another. In the normal case, one develops a close friendship, and in doing so, one''s identity, in part, is shaped by the friendship. To some extent, through extensive shared experience, one comes to see aspects of the world (and of oneself) through the eyes of one''s friend and so, in part, one''s identity develops in an importantly relational way, i.e., as the product of one''s relation with the close friend. In our view, however, on account of the limits of, and/or the kind of, shared contact and experience one can have with another via correspondence on the Net, there are significant structural barriers to developing the sort of relational identity that is a feature of close friendship. In arguing our case here, and by using the case of Net ``friendship'''' as our foil, we aim to shed light on the nature and importance of certain sorts of self-expression and relational interaction found in close friendship. (shrink)

This study examines the 3.5 m+ English-language original tweets that occurred during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. Starting from previous research, we analyze how character terms such as “the banker,” “politician,” “the teaparty,” “GOP,” and “the corporation,” as well as concept terms such as “ethics,” “fairness,” “morals,” “justice,” and “democracy” were used by individual participants to respond to the Occupy Wall Street events. These character and concept terms not only allowed individuals to take an ethical stance but also accumulated (...) into a citizen’s narrative about social accountability. The analysis illustrates how the centrality of the different concepts and characters in the conversation changed over time as well as how the concepts ethics, morals, fairness, justice, and democracy participated within the conversation, helping to amplify the ethical attributes of different characters. These findings contribute to our understanding of how demands for social accountability are articulated and change over time. (shrink)

The AdS/CFT duality has been a source of several strong conceptual claims in the physics literature that have yet to be explored by philosophers. In this paper I focus on one of these: the extent to which spacetime geometry and locality can be said to emerge from this duality, so that neither is fundamental. I argue: that the kind of emergence in question is relatively weak, involving one kind of spacetime emerging from another kind of spacetime; inasmuch as there is (...) something conceptually interesting to say about the emergence of spacetime and locality , it is no different from that already well known to those within canonical quantum gravity; that at the core of AdS/CFT is an issue of representation and redundancy in representation. (shrink)

The dominance of string theory in the research landscape of quantum gravity physics (despite any direct experimental evidence) can, I think, be justified in a variety of ways. Here I focus on an argument from mathematical fertility, broadly similar to Hilary Putnam’s ‘no miracles argument’ that, I argue, many string theorists in fact espouse in some form or other. String theory has generated many surprising, useful, and well-confirmed mathematical ‘predictions’—here I focus on mirror symmetry and the mirror theorem. These predictions (...) were made on the basis of general physical principles entering into string theory. The success of the mathematical predictions are then seen as evidence for the framework that generated them. I shall attempt to defend this argument, but there are nonetheless some serious objections to be faced. These objections can only be evaded at a considerably high (philosophical) price. (shrink)

‘Quantum Gravity’ does not denote any existing theory: the field of quantum gravity is very much a ‘work in progress’. As you will see in this chapter, there are multiple lines of attack each with the same core goal: to find a theory that unifies, in some sense, general relativity (Einstein’s classical field theory of gravitation) and quantum field theory (the theoretical framework through which we understand the behaviour of particles in non-gravitational fields). Quantum field theory and general relativity seem (...) to be like oil and water, they don’t like to mix—it is fair to say that combining them to produce a theory of quantum gravity constitutes the greatest unresolved puzzle in physics. Our goal in this chapter is to give the reader an impression of what the problem of quantum gravity is; why it is an important problem; the ways that have been suggested to resolve it; and what philosophical issues these approaches, and the problem itself, generate. This review is extremely selective, as it has to be to remain a manageable size: generally, rather than going into great detail in some area, we highlight the key features and the options, in the hope that readers may take up the problem for themselves—however, some of the basic formalism will be introduced so that the reader is able to enter the physics and (what little there is of) the philosophy of physics literature prepared. I have also supplied references for those cases where I have omitted some important facts. Hence, this chapter is intended primarily as a catalyst for future research projects by philosophers of physics, both budding and well-matured. (shrink)

Speculations about the role of consciousness in physical systems are frequently observed in the literature concerned with the interpretation of quantum mechanics. While only three experimental investigations can be found on this topic in physics journals, more than 800 relevant experiments have been reported in the literature of parapsychology. A well-defined body of empirical evidence from this domain was reviewed using meta-analytic techniques to assess methodological quality and overall effect size. Results showed effects conforming to chance expectation in control conditions (...) and unequivocal non-chance effects in experimental conditions. This quantitative literature review agrees with the findings of two earlier reviews, suggesting the existence of some form of consciousness-related anomaly in random physical systems. (shrink)

The most well-known arguments for the simplicity of the soul - i.e., for the thesis that the subject of psychological states must be an unextended substance -are based upon the logical possibility of disembodiment. Descartes introduced this sort of argument into modern philosophy, and a version of it has been defended recently by Richard Swinburne. Some of the underlying assumptions of both arguments are examined and defended, but a closer look reveals that each depends upon unjustified inferences from the conceivability (...) of a certain state of affairs to the logical possibility of that state of affairs. (shrink)

This study examines how the American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) uses character and concept words to communicate normative narratives to different internal audiences. Our analysis of 552 editorials published in the AICPA’s Journal of Accountancy during the 1916–1973 period illustrates how the AICPA communicated similar yet different normative narratives to firm partners and students. During this time period, the centrality of ethically infused words such as ethics, conduct, and independence not only varied across different time periods but also (...) across different target audiences. The findings draw attention to the importance of considering the audiences for ethical narratives as well as the ways that the intra-textual positioning of concepts and characters allow organizations to speak to slightly different audiences within the same communication medium. (shrink)

Since its inception in the years following World War II, the green revolution has been defended, not just as a technical program designed to alleviate world hunger, but on moral grounds as a program to achieve world peace. In this paper, I dispute the moral claim to a politics of peace, arguing instead that the green revolution is warist in its treatment of the environment and indigenous communities, and that the agricultural practices that the green revolution was designed to supplant—principally (...) indigenous women’s agriculture—are forms of ecological peacemaking, akin to pacifism. I argue, as well, that the warist intentions of the green revolution are characteristic of a form of domination called developmentalism. A complete understanding of domination necessitates linking developmentalism with other forms of domination such as racism, sexism, and naturism. (shrink)

Violence is an extremely prevalent problem in the United States and throughout the world, and it is a major contributing factor to increased mortality and mortalityty. These facts are well documented in the recent Report on violence and Health published by the World Health Organization. This report, which is likely to become a landmark document in the public health community, defines violence broadly as: The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against (...) a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. This World Health Organization definition encompasses three types of violence: 1) suicide and selfharm, 2) collective violence, and 3) interpersonal violence.Interpersonal violence is defined asviolence inflicted by an individual or small group of individuals and includes youth violence, violence between intimate partners, other forms of family violence such as abuse of children and the elderly, rape and sexual assault by strangers, and violence in institutional settings such as schools, workplaces, nursing homes and prisons. (shrink)

Violence is an extremely prevalent problem in the United States and throughout the world, and it is a major contributing factor to increased mortality and mortalityty. These facts are well documented in the recent Report on violence and Health published by the World Health Organization. This report, which is likely to become a landmark document in the public health community, defines violence broadly as: The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against (...) a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. This World Health Organization definition encompasses three types of violence: 1) suicide and selfharm, 2) collective violence, and 3) interpersonal violence.Interpersonal violence is defined asviolence inflicted by an individual or small group of individuals and includes youth violence, violence between intimate partners, other forms of family violence such as abuse of children and the elderly, rape and sexual assault by strangers, and violence in institutional settings such as schools, workplaces, nursing homes and prisons. (shrink)

Since its inception in the years following World War II, the green revolution has been defended, not just as a technical program designed to alleviate world hunger, but on moral grounds as a program to achieve world peace. In this paper, I dispute the moral claim to a politics of peace, arguing instead that the green revolution is warist in its treatment of the environment and indigenous communities, and that the agricultural practices that the green revolution was designed to supplant—principally (...) indigenous women’s agriculture—are forms of ecological peacemaking, akin to pacifism. I argue, as well, that the warist intentions of the green revolution are characteristic of a form of domination called developmentalism. A complete understanding of domination necessitates linking developmentalism with other forms of domination such as racism, sexism, and naturism. (shrink)

This book debates competing approaches to ethical decision-making for members of the armed forces of liberal-democratic states. In this volume, four prominent thinkers propose and debate competing approaches to ethical decision-making for military personnel. Deane-Peter Baker presents and expounds the 'Ethical Triangulation' model, an ethical decision-making method he has employed through much of his career as an applied military ethicist. Rufus Black advocates for a natural law-based approach, one which has heavily influenced the framework formally adopted by the Australian (...) Defence Force. Roger Herbert outlines the 'Moral Deliberation Roadmap', the moral reasoning framework recently adopted by the US Naval Academy. Iain King then sets out a model of quasi-utilitarian decision-making developed in several post-conflict settings and refined at the UK's Royal College of Defence Studies. After the opening chapters in which each author outlines their favoured decision-making approach, the four contributors then evaluate each other's proposals, often critically. Philosopher David Whetham offers some concluding thoughts in which he summarises areas of agreement between the authors, identifies key areas of difference, and suggests directions for future research. This book will be of great interest to students of military ethics, the ethics of war, moral philosophy, and International Relations, as well as military professionals. (shrink)

Can war be morally justified? What is the philosophy behind armed conflict? How do you conduct an ethical war? And what guides military action as the nature of conflict changes over time? Based on a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) designed for both military personnel and non-specialists across the globe, Key Concepts in Military Ethics is structured as a series of 'mini-chapters' that cover a huge range of topics and issues: moral dilemmas, military and civilian interactions, freedom of the press, (...) peacekeeping, terrorism, and humanitarian intervention. Written by a team of academic experts, many with military experience, the book contains scenarios and case studies, including the Gulf War, the Falklands War, 'Ground Zero' in New York City and more conventional theatres of war through history, as well as cyber-terrorism, the role of military contractors and unmanned weapons systems. (shrink)

We address how the leaders of a Catholic business school can articulate and assess how well their schools implement the following six principles drawn from Catholic social teaching : produce goods and services that are authentically good; foster solidarity with the poor by serving deprived and marginalized populations; advance the dignity of human work as a calling; exercise subsidiarity; promote responsible stewardship over resources; and acquire and allocate resources justly. We first discuss how the CST principles give substantive content and (...) meaning to the Good Goods, Good Work, and Good Wealth framework in The Vocation of the Business Leader and then discuss their congruencies and tensions with the UNGC and UNPRME principles. Next, we describe the Catholic Identity Matrix, an assessment tool that provides a quantitative and qualitative portrait of how well a Catholic business school integrates, within the scope of its mission and capacities, the three goods and related CST principles in its strategies, policies, activities, and processes. The concluding section discusses implications for ongoing UNGC and UNPRME assessment, reporting, and development efforts, and addresses the generalizability of our approach to business schools who draw their inspiration and moral principles from other faith-based or secular traditions. (shrink)

During its forty year lifespan, string theory has always had the power to divide, being called both a 'theory of everything' and a 'theory of nothing'. Critics have even questioned whether it qualifies as a scientific theory at all. This book adopts an objective stance, standing back from the question of the truth or falsity of string theory and instead focusing on how it came to be and how it came to occupy its present position in physics. An unexpectedly rich (...) history is revealed, with deep connections to our most well-established physical theories. Fully self-contained and written in a lively fashion, the book will appeal to a wide variety of readers from novice to specialist. (shrink)

Animals, like humans, experience different levels of well-being depending on decisions made by others. As a result, the well-being of animals must be included in any full accounting of the well-being consequences of decisions. However, this is almost never done in large-scale policy and investment analyses, even though it is common to quantify the consequences for human welfare in these decision analyses. This is partly due to prejudice, but increasingly also because we do not currently have good methods for quantifying (...) animal well-being consequences and putting them on the same scale as quantified human well-being consequences. We might call this ‘the problem of interspecies comparisons.’ This important barrier to including animal well-being in decision-making is the result of an insufficiently developed theory and practice of animal well-being and its relation to human well-being. This chapter explains the problem of interspecies comparisons, explains recent research that develops methods to overcome this problem. (shrink)

This paper extends the discussion of business ethics by examining the issue of corruption, its definition, the solutions being proposed for dealing with it, and the ethical perspectives underpinning these proposals. The paper’s findings are based on a review of association, think-tank, and academic reports, books, and papers dealing with the topic of corruption, as well as the pronouncements, websites, and position papers of a number of important global organizations active in the fight. These organizations include the World Bank, the (...) International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Transparency International, USAID, the United Nations, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. Our discussion departs from prior analyses by adopting a Foucaultian theoretical framing and by incorporating insights found in the virtue ethics literature. Implications are provided for international business organizations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Materialities of CommunicationEric DeanThe Materialities of Communication, edited by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer; xvi & 447pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $52.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.In closing this collection, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht outlines the common purpose which makes it more than a random assortment. There has been, as he characterizes it, a theoretical shift in the humanities “from interpretation as identification of given meaning-structures to (...) the reconstruction of those processes through which structures of articulated meaning can at all emerge” (p. 398). He motivates this shift by suggesting that theorists should no longer pursue final and therefore unchanging explanations, but rather should create provocations for changes in perspective. Focusing on the processes through which meaning can emerge—the materialities of communication rather than the insubstantialities of interpretation—stimulates the constant change, the perpetual “renegotiation of self-reference,” which Gumbrecht recommends as the rightful role of theory.The breadth of these ambitions is reflected in the scope of the collection. There are twenty-five essays from twenty-six writers, predominately German, including two from each editor—a context piece and a separate contribution. The range of subjects is enormous. There is one essay on ancient Egyptian signs and another on how the immune system creates the self it both recognizes and preserves. One touches on Nietzsche’s abortive attempt to save his eyesight by using an early version of the typewriter, another interprets the fall of the Roman Empire as the corruption of the postal system (Egyptian in origin) used to deliver the command, imperium, which constituted the Empire in the first place. The scholarly contexts range widely as well—from sociological communication theory to media history to biology to art criticism.There are some delightful curiosities the writers bring to light. For example, at one point in “The Early History of German Television,” the authors, M. Elsner, T. Muller, and P. Spangenberg are describing how fantasies about the new technology outran practicalities. They cite an illustration from a 1928 German magazine in which a man is shown lying in bed, “with a fragmented dashboard in front of him—he seems to steer some technical apparatus and, at the same time, to look at a mountain panorama, which is seen from a bird’s eye view on a kind of projection screen. The caption deciphers the illustration for us: ‘Marvels that we might still experience: viewing the world from bed through [End Page 395] television. The apparatus above the bed serves to operate, by remote control, an airplane that carries the filming apparatus...’” (p. 117).In other places too the writing evades the risk of self-absorption implicit, for all its purportedly exterior focus, in Gumbrecht’s theoretical project. Vivian Sobchack, for instance, closes an interesting meditation on film and electronic technologies this way: “Within the context of this material and technological crisis of the flesh, one can only hope that the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding it is strategic—and that through it the lived-body has, in fact, managed to reclaim its existence and against our attention, to forcefully argue for simulation. For there are other subjects of electronic culture out there who prefer the simulated body and a virtual world...” (pp. 105–6).By the end, though, I found myself wondering whether it was really possible to put this diversity together as a whole, whether the purportedly redeeming concreteness of a program focused on The Materialities of Communication wasn’t at odds with the idea that there is much in common among all these different materials. Coeditor K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, may have inadvertently provided the epigraph for the book. “Iago incites Othello to the greatest nonsense,” he writes, “because Othello no longer differentiates between manipulated sensual certainty and credibility” (p. 59). I wonder about a theoretical perspective that calls Othello’s torment his “nonsense,” and I wonder whether the advocates of such a perspective might not be manipulating sensual certainty to perhaps equally bleak, though in this case unintended, ends.Eric DeanChicago, IllinoisCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Proof-theoretic reflection principles are schemas which attempt to express the soundness of arithmetical theories within their own language, e.g., ${\mathtt{{Prov}_{\mathsf {PA}} \rightarrow \varphi }}$ can be understood to assert that any statement provable in Peano arithmetic is true. It has been repeatedly suggested that justification for such principles follows directly from acceptance of an arithmetical theory $\mathsf {T}$ or indirectly in virtue of their derivability in certain truth-theoretic extensions thereof. This paper challenges this consensus by exploring relationships between reflection principles (...) and principles of mathematical and transfinite induction as well as the status of the latter with respect to various foundational characterizations of number theory. (shrink)

Featuring chapters by emerging and established scholars as well as by leading practitioners in the field, this Handbook both describes the state of algorithmic composition and also set the agenda for critical research on and analysis of algorithmic music.

Building on recent developments in radical democratic theory, in this article we articulate and explore a fresh perspective for theorists and activists of radical democracy: a ‘living critique of domination’. Characterized by a two-fold analytical effort, a ‘living critique of domination’ calls for a radical critique of contemporary forms of power and control coupled with a reappraisal of emancipatory political experiences created by the political action of the Many. We demonstrate that this project responds to the theoretical and practical challenges (...) faced by a politics of emancipation today. Our article offers a first articulation of this living critique through a discussion of three recent political experiences, namely, the 2016 French uprising, Nuit Debout, as well as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. (shrink)

There are complex considerations when planning to disclose an attenuated psychosis syndrome diagnosis. In this review, we evaluate ethical, legal, and clinical perspectives as well as caveats related to full, non- and partial disclosure strategies, discuss societal implications, and provide clinical suggestions. Each of the disclosure strategies is associated with benefits as well as costs/considerations. Full disclosure promotes autonomy, allows for the clearest psychoeducation about additional risk factors, helps to clarify and/or correct previous diagnoses/treatments, facilitates early intervention and bolsters communication (...) between providers but there are important considerations involving heritability, comorbidity, culture, and stigma. Non-disclosure advances nonmaleficence by limiting stigma and stress, and confusion in a sensitive developmental period but is complicated by varying patient preferences and the possibility that, as new treatments without adverse effects become available, the risk with false positives no longer justifies the accompanying loss of autonomy. Partial disclosure balances ethical considerations by focusing on symptoms instead of labels, but evidence that laypersons may interpret this information as a pseudo-diagnosis and that symptoms alone also contribute to stigma limits the efficacy of this approach. In addition, there are notable societal considerations relating to disclosure involving conservatorship, the reach of insurance companies, and discrimination. We advocate a hybrid approach to disclosure and recommend future research aimed at understanding the effects of stigma on clinical course and a renewed focus on those help-seeking cases that do not transition but remain clinically relevant. (shrink)

This paper describes a flaw in the teaching of issues related to market economics and social justice at American institutions of higher learning. The flaw we speak of is really a gap, or an educational disconnect, which exists between those faculty who support market-based economies and those who believe capitalism promotes economic injustice. The thesis of this paper is that the gap is so wide and the ideas that are promoted are so disconnected that students are trapped into choosing one (...) or the other position (or neither) and are left unable to link the two sides of the discussion. Such an educational process is not one that produces free and reasoned discernment. In this paper, we briefly relate how we came to be aware of the disconnect and its harms. We present evidence that a pedagogical gulf exists within the teaching of markets and capitalism at American universities - faculty interviews, course syllabi, portions of the corpus of material generally referred to as Catholic Social Thought, as well as references to traditional, mainstream economic theory. Further, we give evidence of the confusion and frustration among students this gulf causes. We suggest possible reasons for the gulf-primarily through an investigation of the differences in underlying assumptions and misperceptions that exist between two divisions within universities. We conclude by suggesting a set of curricular changes designed to improve teaching. The authors' aim is not to change people's minds. It is to change their teaching. The authors believe that these curricular changes will leave students less frustrated and better prepared for a life of significant service - with improved critical thinking skills. (shrink)

The publication of 'Animal Rights and Souls in the 18th Century' will be welcomed by everyone interested in the development of the modern animal liberation movement, as well as by those who simply want to savour the work of enlightenment thinkers pushing back the boundaries of both science and ethics. At last these long out-of-print texts are again available to be read and enjoyed - and what texts they are! Gems like Bougeant's witty reductio of the Christian view of animals (...) are included together with path-breaking works of ethics such as Primatt's A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals . There are works I have never seen before, including the remarkable Cry of Nature by the Scottish revolutionary Jacobin, John Oswald. In this set, everyone will find something novel, delightful and truly enlightening. - Peter Singer The discussion of animal rights and the moral status of animals, so prevalent in the late twentieth century, has its roots in the mid to late eighteenth century. Some of the themes we consider of recent invention - the legal standing of animals, the ethical status of vegetarians, cruelty towards animals, ultimately resulting in cruelty to humans - are of long standing. But in the eighteenth-century literature they are interconnected with theological issues surrounding animal souls, the birth of the life sciences, the great chain of being and other peculiarly eighteenth-century problems. This collection explores the exciting early discussions of moral theories concerning animals, placing them within their historical and social context. It reveals that issues such as vivisection, animal souls and vegetarianism were very much live philosophical subjects 200 years ago. The six volumes reprinted here includes complete works and edited extracts from such key eighteenth-century thinkers as Oswald, Primatt, Smellie, Monboddo and Jenyns. Many of the materials are extremely rare and never previously reprinted. The collection, edited with a new introduction and bio-bibliography by Aaron V. Garrett provides valuable original source material to supplement contemporary discussions of animal rights. --18th-century material on the theme of animal rights and practical ethics --an important supplement to contemporary animal rights discussions --provides a broader account of early discussions of the 'science of human nature' through animals --widens our understanding of 18th-century ethics through an important area of practical ethics --includes many scarce texts, most of which have never been reprinted before. (shrink)

It was proposed that ethical evaluation of insurance claim padding behavior would be affected by characteristics of the policyholder, insurance agent, and company. These three factors were manipulated in written scenarios and the premise was tested in a factorial experimental design. No significant support was found for an effect of any of the three factors on ethical perceptions of claim padding. However, females found claims padding to be significantly less ethical than males. Given a claim scenario where the actual loss (...) was $500 and the claimed amount was $3000, subjects awarded an average of $986.91 on the claim. Many respondents were willing to compensate victims for intangible losses as well as tangible losses. (shrink)

The challenges public comprehensive universities face today are expanding—they have been challenged to enroll and graduate more students, adopt new technologies that lower cost without sacrificing quality, and align program and curricular offerings with the skills that employers require. While these universities have a long history of adapting to change, today’s environment will likely test the capabilities of even the most adaptive institutions. This volume assembles a team of experts from a variety of disciplines to examine both the history of (...) the comprehensive university and what lies ahead. Overall, the book grapples with such questions as: How do these institutions adapt to serve the growing population of non-traditional students? How well do they prepare graduates for the labor market? Can partnerships between community colleges and comprehensive universities bolster student success? The University Next Door draws much-needed attention to a set of institutions that has historically received little notice, yet play an important role in meeting our new attainment goals and helping the American economy grow. Book Features: Examines the role of comprehensive universities from start to finish—their history and future. Uses empirical analysis to explore complex questions about which students choose these universities and why. Explores how these institutions might struggle under a federal ratings system such as the one proposed by President Obama. Discusses how these institutions can better monitor the needs of the economy and better educate students to fill those needs. Provides recommendations to inform future decisions about higher education policy. (shrink)

At the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES, University of Oslo), a group of biologists has been working for decades to disentangle the complex mechanisms of plague epizootics and epidemics in places where extant wild rodent reservoirs are present. These questions have been approached through ecological and climatic studies, mathematic modeling, as well as genomics and epidemiology. In 2013-2018, the Centre hosted the ERC-project MedPlag, which explored past pandemics through the lenses of additional disciplines, like archaeogenomics (ancient DNA), anthropology, (...) archaeology, and evolution, always against the background of historical information. Here, we reflect on the end of plague in Europe based on the most recent studies on plague carried out in these different disciplines. (shrink)

Respect is one of the central concepts in contemporary moral thought. It plays a prominent role in everyday, pre-philosophical moral thinking, as well as in recent moral theory and applied ethics. Yet basic questions about the concept and role of respect have received less attention than might be expected. This volume takes up some of these basic questions. The book is not meant to be a comprehensive handbook that covers all aspects of the topic of respect, nor is the focus (...) of the book mainly historical. Rather, the aim is to give leading experts in the field a chance to present their latest ideas and point the research on respect in new directions. Following an introductory historical essay, Part I addresses questions of what respect is, its nature and basis. Part II examines questions in moral theory, for example what exactly ought to be respected, what role respect plays in morality, and which different types of respect are appropriate and morally significant. Part III deals with the practical application of requirements of respect. The essays in this volume will be of interest both to scholars and students working on issues of respect and to anyone interested in this central moral notion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 161-164 [Access article in PDF] Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. By Judith Simmer-Brown. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. xxv + 404 pp. For more than a century, the dakini of Hindu and Buddhist tantric literature and practice lore has intrigued, fascinated, beguiled, and confounded Western scholars. First described by Austine Waddell in 1895 as "demonical furies" and "she-devils," S.C.Das's ATibetan-English Dictionary, published just (...) shortly afterward, defined mkha' 'gro ma (the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit term dakini ) as "a class, mainly of female sprites, akin to our witches, but not necessarily ugly or deformed." More recently the dakini has been investigated by scholars as diverse as David Snellgrove, Rene Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Nathan Katz, Janet Gyatso, Miranda Shaw, and myself. Snellgrove suggested in his Buddhist Himalaya (1957) that "their [i.e., the dakinis' ] activities are generally so gruesome and obscene as to earn them quite properly the name witch," but he conceded that they entered Tibetan mythology "in a rather more gentle aspect." Even so, this ubiquitous, powerful, and yet ever-elusive figure —or symbol, image, motif, or principle—has remained, it seems, just beyond our reach. In a certain respect, this is exactly as it should be; for the dakini— at least within the systems of the Buddhist tantras—is the symbol of transcendent wisdom itself, direct and unmediated, hovering just outside the reach of all discursive language and reasoning.Today one scholar, Judith Simmer-Brown, has given us a thoughtful, well-informed, and well-researched treatment of the history and functioning of the dakini (which she prefers to refer to as a "symbol" or "principle") that seeks to present a balanced discussion and overview of this feminine principle and steers clear of the essentializing and reductionist pitfalls of either Jungian interpretations or contemporary feminist ones. It is timely that we take a careful look at Simmer-Brown's work, not only because it represents the most complete exploration to date of the dakini in a single volume, but also because this valuable study has just been reprinted in paperback.Though in the preface of her work Simmer-Brown characterizes her methodology as being "perhaps wildly messy," there is clearly both system and method in her [End Page 161] presentation. Her study begins with a careful delineation of what may be called the two extremes or poles of contemporary interpretations of the dakini: the one, influenced by Jungian psychology in which the dakini is seen as Jung's famed "shadow," and the other, influenced by feminist goddess theology, which has served either to see the dakini as a feminine savior or as the source of a critique of Tibetan Buddhism in which this feminine ideal reflects an objectified product of patriarchal fantasy. For Simmer-Brown, both poles of interpretation are inadequate; and in her first chapter, "Gender, Subjectivity, and the Feminine Principle," she argues powerfully and convincingly about why this is the case. Indeed, in many respects, this carefully argued opening chapter is the true centerpiece of the work.With respect to Jungian analysis, while Simmer-Brown sees "some real benefits in employing Jungian ideas in interpreting the dakini, " she notes the skewing and distorting complications introduced by Jung's emphasis on contrasexuality. Ultimately, Simmer-Brown declares, "the pervasiveness of the Jungian paradigm in examination of the dakini emphasizes contrasexuality, the ultimacy of gender imagery, and psychological interpretation. These emphases have precipitated a blizzard of feminist objections, and no wonder. However, that critique may be directed more toward Jungian tenets than toward Tibetan Buddhism, which has not been properly represented in Western interpretation" (17).Simmer-Brown's case is especially well made with regard to the second pole of interpretation. Here she notes that recent studies of the dakini that employ feminist considerations have generally taken two directions. Namely, "one identifies the dakini as a construct of patriarchy drawn by a primarily monastic Buddhism in Tibet into the service of the religious goals of male practitioners only. The second perspective identifies the dakini as a goddess figure in... (shrink)

In the UK, many have argued that the past five years or so have seen an increase in the radicalism and visibility of feminist activism, jarring somewhat with the strong emphasis on loss in much recent scholarship – as well as media commentary – on feminist politics. Against this backdrop, this article asks how, and to what extent, this resurgence of feminist activism has unsettled the centrality of loss within the affective economies of contemporary British feminism, by examining a range (...) of recent texts produced within academic, activist, publishing and media spheres. After arguing that attachments to loss remain remarkably intransigent, the latter part of the article draws on Sara Ahmed’s account of ‘sticky affects’ to provide a theoretical account of why notions such as ‘young women are not feminist’ and ‘feminist activism is a thing of the past’ continue to yield such force despite empirical evidence to the contrary. (shrink)

We here introduce the Zygon Symposium on “Just How Special Are Humans?” This collection is based on a symposium at Harvard University in 2020 that brought together world leaders on the study of human nature from science, theology, and philosophy. They shared their research and perceptive insights on this key topic of great contemporary interest from quite different disciplines and viewpoints. The present Symposium contains articles further developed from the presentations, as well as two additional contributions from experts specializing in (...) theological ethics and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

It is commonly held that the natural numbers sequence 0, 1, 2,... possesses a unique structure. Yet by a well known model theoretic argument, there exist non-standard models of the formal theory which is generally taken to axiomatize all of our practices and intentions pertaining to use of the term “natural number.” Despite the structural similarity of this argument to the influential set theoretic indeterminacy argument based on the downward L ̈owenheim-Skolem theorem, most theorists agree that the number theoretic version (...) does not have skeptical consequences about the reference of “natural number” analogous to the ‘relativity’ Skolem claimed pertains to notions such as “uncountable” and “cardinal.” In this paper I argue that recent proposals by Shapiro, Lavine, McGee and Field which aim to distinguish the number and set theoretic indeterminacy arguments by locating extra-mathematical constraints on the interpretation of our number theoretic vocabulary are inadequate. I then suggest that if we consider the manner in which the natural numbers figure in our computational practices – e.g. in characterizing how we compute sums and products or determine prime factorizations – it follows that our application of computational terms such as “computable function” and “tractable computational problem” indirectly uniquely determines their structure. (shrink)

The Paradox of the Knower was originally presented by Kaplan and Montague [26] as a puzzle about the everyday notion of knowledge in the face of self-reference. The paradox shows that any theory extending Robinson arithmetic with a predicate K satisfying the factivity axiom K → A as well as a few other epistemically plausible principles is inconsistent. After surveying the background of the paradox, we will focus on a recent debate about the role of epistemic closure principles in the (...) Knower. We will suggest this debate sheds new light on the concept of knowledge which is at issue in the paradox – i.e. is it a “thin” notion divorced from concepts such as evidence or justification, or is it a “thick” notion more closely resembling mathematical provability? We will argue that a number of features of the paradox suggest that the latter option is more plausible. Along the way, we will provide a reconstruction of the paradox using a quantified extension of Artemovʼs [2] Logic of Proofs, as well as a series of results linking the original formulation of the paradox to reflection principles for formal arithmetic. On this basis, we will argue that while the Knower can be understood to motivate a distinction between levels of knowledge, it does not provide a rationale for recognizing a uniform hierarchy of knowledge predicates in the manner suggested by Anderson. (shrink)

We argue that many current forms of anti-racist and multicultural teaching, whilst well-intentioned, nevertheless serve to 'fix' identities on children in ways which inhibit their agency and reinforce stereotypes. In our exploration of the issues we employ a wide range of theoretical ideas.

In managers' dynamic, real-world environments, they often feel it is necessary to exercise some creative discretion over employee ratings. Most managers do not describe their ratings of subordinates in performance appraisals as completely honest or accurate. The inaccuracy is often in the form of inflated ratings. They justify the inaccuracy by sighting, among other things, the need to avoid confrontation with subordinates, damaging working relationships, and creating permanent written documents which may later harm a subordinate's career. Many of these motives (...) are not only well intentioned, but are designed to enhance individual, unit, and organizational performance (some of the ultimate objectives of performance appraisal systems.) This paper examines the ethics of this sort of deliberate manipulation of performance appraisal systems. It suggests that at the organizational level, performance appraisal is usually seen as an end in itself, and a formalist ethical critique is applied. At the managerial level, performance appraisal is usually seen as a means to an end, and a utilitarian critique is applied. Since both perspectives are essential, we conclude that a Janus-Headed analysis is needed. We suggest some duties and obligations for both the organization and the manager engaged in performance appraisal. (shrink)

Although “you are what you eat” is a well-worn cliché, personal identity does not figure prominently in many debates about the ethics of eating interventions. This paper contributes to a growing philosophical literature theorizing the connection between eating and identity and exploring its implications for eating interventions. I explore how “identity-policing,” a key mechanism for the social constitution and maintenance of identity, applies to eating and trace its ethical implications for eating interventions. I argue that identity policing can be harmful (...) and that eating interventions can subject people to these harms by invoking identity policing qua intervention strategy or by encouraging people to eat in ways that subject them to policing from others. While these harms may be outweighed by the benefits of the intervention being promoted, they should nonetheless be acknowledged and accounted for. To aid in these evaluations, I consider factors that modulate the presence and severity of identity-policing and discuss strategies for developing less harmful eating interventions. I conclude by considering the relationship between identity-policing and identity loss caused by long-term diet change. This paper contributes to the centering of identity in food ethics and to a more comprehensive picture of identity’s ethical importance for eating interventions. (shrink)

Though the name of Robert Mallet was once inevitably associated with the scientific study of earthquakes, it is less well known today. As part of an overdue reappraisal, this essay examines Mallet's major seismological projects and publications, emphasizing his theoretical contributions. Mallet's own claim to be a founder of modern seismology is upheld. Beyond that, however, he is also seen to be an important precursor of plate tectonics.

Building on recent developments in radical democratic theory, in this article we articulate and explore a fresh perspective for theorists and activists of radical democracy: a ‘living critique of domination’. Characterized by a two-fold analytical effort, a ‘living critique of domination’ calls for a radical critique of contemporary forms of power and control coupled with a reappraisal of emancipatory political experiences created by the political action of the Many. We demonstrate that this project responds to the theoretical and practical challenges (...) faced by a politics of emancipation today. Our article offers a first articulation of this living critique through a discussion of three recent political experiences, namely, the 2016 French uprising, Nuit Debout, as well as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's complex and demanding work challenges much that is taken for granted in philosophical thinking as well as in the theorizing of art, theology, science and culture. Each essay in this collection explores a key concept involved in Wittgenstein's thinking, relating it to his understanding of philosophy, and outlining the arguments and explaining the implications of each concept. Concepts covered include grammar, meaning and meaning-blindness language-games and private language, family resemblances, psychologism, rule-following, teaching and learning, avowals, Moore's Paradox, aspect seeing, (...) the meter-stick, and criteria. Students new to Wittgenstein and readers interested in developing their understanding of specific aspects of his philosophical work will find this book very welcome. (shrink)

Human trafficking is both a human rights violation and the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. This article examines cross-border trafficking of girls and women in Nepal to India. It gives a brief explanation of what is meant by trafficking and then looks at the reasons behind trafficking. In Nepal, women and children are trafficked internally and to India and the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation or forced marriage, as well as to India and within the country for (...) involuntary servitude as child soldiers, domestic servants, circus entertainment, and factory workers. Nepal and India are both signatories to international conventions and bound by domestic law to combat trafficking, and yet, this scourge continues. There are many laws in place, both in Nepal and India, which regulate the trafficking and prostituting of girls and women. This article looks at how effective these laws and regulations actually are and will look at the reasons for the continuation of trafficking. Despite the formal recognition of girl trafficking as a major problem and the existence of laws to curtail it, trafficking continues. The major problem with Nepal’s and India’s domestic laws is in the lack of enforcement. Finally, this article will look at ways to fight trafficking and make the governments of India and Nepal more effective in their fight against trafficking. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses a variety of foundational issues pertaining to the notion of algorithm employed in mathematics and computer science. In these settings, an algorithm is taken to be an effective mathematical procedure for solving a previously stated mathematical problem. Procedures of this sort comprise the notional subject matter of the subfield of computer science known as algorithmic analysis. In this context, algorithms are referred to via proper names of which computational properties are directly predicated )). Moreover, many formal results (...) are traditionally stated by explicitly quantifying over algorithms. These observations motivate the view that algorithms are themselves abstract mathematical objects -- a view I refer to as algorithmic realism. The status of this view is clearly related to that of Church's Thesis -- i.e. the claim that a function is computable by an algorithm just in case it is partial recursive. But whereas Church's Thesis is widely accepted on the basis of several well-known mathematical analyses of algorithmic computability, there is presently no consensus on how we can uniformly identify individual algorithms with mathematical objects. In the first chapter of this work, I attempt to illustrate the theoretical significance of algorithmic realism. I suggest that this view is not only of foundational significance to computer science, but also worth highlighting due to the role algorithms play in the fixation of mathematical knowledge and their relationship to intensional entities such as propositions and properties. Chapter Two presents a formal framework for reducing computational discourse to mathematical discourse modeled on contemporary discussion of mathematical nominalism. Chapter Three is centered on a case study intended to illustrate the technical exigencies involved with defending algorithmic realism. Chapter Four explores various ways in which algorithms might be identified with models of computation. And finally, Chapter Five argues that no such identification can uniformly satisfy all statements of algorithmic identity and non-identity affirmed by computational practice. I suggest that the technical crux of algorithmic realism lies in the necessity of reducing recursive specifications of algorithms to iterative models of computation in a manner which preserves algorithmic identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionCarolyn J. Dean (bio)... even since he [Nietzsche] became famous has he ever been anything but an occasion for misunderstanding?—Georges Bataille, The Accursed ShareAt the current juncture in the history of studies “on Bataille,” admiration and indebtedness have given way to admiration constrained by ambivalence and indebtedness complicated by a desire for accountability. This special issue provides an opportunity to work through these inevitable critical shifts, symptoms of an (...) immeasurable debt to a writer from whom we have necessarily taken distance. It is also an occasion to ask about our own investments in the renewed production of Bataille.During his lifetime (1897–1962), Georges Bataille was called many names, including a “pornographer” and a fascist, and when he died he became a cult figure among some intellectuals, for whom he represented an eclectic and unappreciated thinker. Since his untimely death, Bataille has become very famous. Now, according to Jürgen Habermas, this former librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale, editor of Critique, author of covertly circulated erotic books and other works that did not sell well, stands first in a line of French intellectuals leading from “Bataille via Michel Foucault to Jacques Derrida” [Habermas 14]. 1 Bataille’s remains are located in the posthumanist pantheon: his work is joined to the giants of the French philosophical, psychoanalytic, and literary heritage, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Blanchot; he has been the subject of countless literary exegeses and even of a prizewinning biography [see Surya]. Bataille no longer has the merit of being unknown.But who is the Bataille we pretend to know? He is the one with whom many critics identify, yet his work is necessarily misunderstood, sometimes (but not always) in the interests of preserving its insights. Critical work on Bataille naturally emphasizes his theory of dépense (expenditure), his mysticism, his attraction to the sacrificial, sadomasochistic erotics of fascist politics, and tends, viscerally if implicitly, to identify with Bataille’s refusal to be hard in the conventional sense—his repudiation of impermeable, phallic masculinity and its association with moral resolve. In 1945, Bataille wrote that he was the “contrary of him who tranquilly watches the dismasted vessels from the shore, because in fact... I cannot imagine anyone so cruel that he could notice the one who is dismasted with such carefree laughter. Sinking is something altogether different, one can have it to one’s heart’s content...” [OC 6:358]. In 1966, a sensitive critic wrote: “Bataille’s cogito, thus, reads: ‘I sink therefore I am’” [Hollier 138]. In other words, Bataille was no proponent of a sink-or-swim philosophy, but of “the hard desire to endure”—words he wrote to describe Vincent Van Gogh, whose self-mutilation was, from Bataille’s perspective, the necessary precondition of his art. This hard desire is paradoxically the hard labor of unbinding the self, a project that entails yet moves beyond empathizing with those caught in the storm: Bataille insisted that creation required symbolic castration rather than the phallic virtue of the moral man or the swollen pride of those who volunteer heroically for the rescue mission (“Heroism,” he said, “is an [End Page 3] attitude of flight” [OC 5: 347]). As countless critics have demonstrated, even Bataille’s most relentlessly hard-core texts use sexuality as an allegory for the self-shattering of the phallic body.The sacrificial constitution of the man who would sink—for this Bataille was giddily embraced after his death. By 1990, when Yale French Studies devoted a special issue to him, the embrace was equally enthusiastic, but giddiness had given way to some defensiveness. Those theorists who did not admire Bataille equated his repudiation of phallic virtue with the ego-dissolving sublimity of fascism. After all, some of his friends and intellectual heirs had been subjected to public scrutiny for their anti-Semitic, often fascist sympathies. Implicitly defending Bataille, the editor of that special issue insisted on Bataille’s “ethics” of sacrifice. He claimed that Bataille held “onto the possibility of an ethics” through a paradoxically “incessant repositing of the ethical” [Stoekl 2, 5]. This account of Bataille’s ethics avoids the problem that the ethics of sacrifice in... (shrink)