Concern has been raised that segregation of girls and boys into separate classes leads to increased gender stereotyping. We tested this in a sample of 365 seventh-grade students attending a junior high school that offers both gender-segregated (GS) and co-educational classes. It was found that for both boys and girls, the more GS classes they took in the fall, the more gender stereotyped they were in their responding in the spring (controlling for initial levels of gender stereotyping). We concluded that (...) GS likely heightens the salience of gender in the classroom thereby reinforcing and increasing gender stereotypes. As such, we argue that GS is a misguided approach to addressing any educational difficulties girls and boys might be having. (shrink)

In his writings, Pope Francis describes a culture of interfaith and intercultural encounter as the foundation of lasting peace, friendship, and reconciliation among peoples. Far from superficial, a culture of encounter is built upon the slow work of honoring differences and forming social bonds across differences. In the first part of this paper, the authors investigate correspondences between the theology of encounter in the teaching and witness of Martin Buber and Pope Francis, in which the sacred, the ground of (...) reality, and the potential for redemption are revealed in the engaged space “between” self and other. In the second part of the paper, they explore how these ideas are actualized in practices of nonviolence, such as dialogue. In conclusion, they identify how these ideas and role models suggest a road map to build a culture of nonviolence and just peace through encounter within fractured societies throughout the world today. (shrink)

The pursuit of genetic knowledge has such emotional, social, scientific, and financial importance that it has been compared to the divine quest for the Holy Grail, and to the calamity of opening Pandora's Box. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the recent announcement of a completed blueprint for the human genome has fueled calls for both increased research and increased precautions. This new era, which holds the potential promise of advances in medicine, agriculture and other areas, also requires the (...) careful investigation of a myriad of issues. Those issues such as informed consent, patenting, privacy, and confidentiality, have been explored in at least some detail. Others, such as equity, mutual respect, empowering education, consensus building, and planning for long-term survival, have not been as fully examined, nor have they been as comprehensively integrated into mainstream thinking. To facilitate this, we need to implement an ethical approach that leads us to ask critical questions about the appropriate use of our new tools. (shrink)

The term dual use technologies refers to research and technology with the potential both to yield valuable scientific knowledge and to be used for nefarious purposes with serious consequences for public health or the environment. There are two main approaches to assessing dual use technologies: pragmatic and metaphysical. A pragmatic approach relies on ethical principles and norms to generate specific guidance and policy for dual use technologies. A metaphysical approach exhorts us to the deeper study of human nature, our intentions, (...) goals, values ideals and social relations when considering dual use technology. Use of science and technology (S and T) is determined by two components of human nature: human intentions and choices. We have drawn a distinction between specific measures, goals and intentions with respect to technologies in order to show that moral judgment about technologies must precede their use. Understanding of our intentionality and values, and our moral ideals, as a measurable, tangible part of the real world is important for the prevention of any possible harm from S and T. In the context of dual use technologies, we stress the importance of three main understandings of human nature: vulnerability, responsibility and narrative identity. These can become a strong ontological “antidote” to technology’s poisoning of modern man. Each new technology can be measured and compared with man’s values, traditions and societal norms. This can be done bearing in mind the concept that human nature is not dualistic, but pluralistic. A system of ethical principles that includes the principles of good intentions, the correspondence of goals and means, the balancing of risks and benefits, simplicity, and contextuality, will help ensure that technologies are more humanistic and friendly to human beings. (shrink)

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their (...) distinctive accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics. (shrink)

The contingentist/inevitabilist debate contests whether the results of successful science are contingent or inevitable. This article addresses lingering ambiguity in the way contingency is defined in this debate. I argue that contingency in science can be understood as a collection of distinct concepts, distinguished by how they hold science contingent, by what elements of science they hold contingent, and by what those elements are contingent upon. I present a preliminary taxonomy designed to characterize the full-range positions available and illustrate that (...) these constitute a diverse array rather than a spectrum. (shrink)

One of the areas of concern raised by cross-border reproductive travel regards the treatment of women who are solicited to provide their ova or surrogacy services to foreign consumers. This is particularly troublesome in the context of developing countries where endemic poverty and low standards for both medical care and informed consent may place these women at risk of exploitation and harm. We explore two contrasting proposals for policy development regarding the industry, both of which seek to promote ethical outcomes (...) and social justice: While one proposal advocates efforts to minimize cross-border demand for female reproductive resources through the pursuit of national self-sufficiency, the other defends cross-border trade as a means for meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Despite the conflicting objectives of the proposed strategies, the paper identifies common values and points of agreement between the two, including the importance of regulations to safeguard those providing ova or surrogacy services. (shrink)

Aside from making a few weak, and hopefully widely shared claims about the value of privacy, transparency, and accountability, we will offer an argument for the protection of privacy based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. After briefly sketching an account of the value of privacy, transparency, and accountability, along with the salient features of a prisoner’s dilemma games, a game-theory analysis will be offered. In a (...) game where both players want privacy and to avoid transparency and the associated accountability, the dominant action will be to foist accountability and transparency on the other player while attempting to retain one’s own privacy. Simply put, if both players have the ability or power to make the other more accountable and transparent, they will do so for the same reasons that player’s defect in a prisoner’s dilemma game. Ultimately this will lead to a sub-optimal outcome of too much accountability and transparency. While there are several plausible solutions to prisoner dilemma games, we will offer both technical, as well as, law and policy solutions. We need to change the payoffs of the game so that is it in everyone’s interest to balance privacy and accountability rather than foisting transparency on others. (shrink)

0-categorical o-minimal structures were completely described by Pillay and Steinhorn 565–592), and are essentially built up from copies of the rationals as an ordered set by ‘cutting and copying’. Here we investigate the possible structures which an 0-categorical weakly o-minimal set may carry, and find that there are some rather more interesting examples. We show that even here the possibilities are limited. We subdivide our study into the following principal cases: the structure is 1-indiscernible, in which case all possibilities are (...) classified up to binary structure; the structure is 2-indiscernible, classified up to ternary structure; the structure is 3-indiscernible, in which case we show that it is k-indiscernible for every finite k. We also make some remarks about the possible structures of higher arities which an 0-categorical weakly o-minimal structure may carry. (shrink)

This study compares two uniquely developed tools for engaging undergraduate business ethics students in case discussions: paper-based cases and interactive digital games. The cases we developed address borderline instances of sexual harassment and racism in the workplace and were used to facilitate students’ affective appreciation of the content of course lectures and readings. The purpose of the study was to assess the relative effectiveness of these two tools as teaching aids in increasing affective learning. Pre- and post-test surveys thus focused (...) on affective learning outcomes. These included change in student perceptions of the importance of the topics, feelings of agency, perceptions of improved self-reliance, and confidence. Results showed that digital cases are at least as effective as static cases in terms of their affective learning efficacy, and that digital serious games spur students to reflect on themselves and others more effectively than static cases. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una nueva traducción al español del breve opúsculo De mystica theologia junto con una introducción al texto. La introducción se concentra en el análisis de algunos puntos que son especialmente útiles para entender el texto en cuestión: su historia y su significado para el neoplatonismo y, aun más importante, su relevancia en términos de una exposición sumamente original de la doctrina cristiana desde la perspectiva de un neoplatónico; la importancia de este texto en la filosofía (...) contemporánea también se hace notar; y, finalmente, su crucial importancia para la así llamada “teología negativa”. (shrink)

To what extent do early intuitions about ownership depend on cultural and socio-economic circumstances? We investigated the question by testing reasoning about third party ownership conflicts in various groups of three- and five-year-old children (N = 176), growing up in seven highly contrasted social, economic, and cultural circumstances (urban rich, poor, very poor, rural poor, and traditional) spanning three continents. Each child was presented with a series of scripts involving two identical dolls fighting over an object of possession. The child (...) had to decide who of the two dolls should own the object. Each script enacted various potential reasons for attributing ownership: creation, familiarity, first contact, equity, plus a control/neutral condition with no suggested reasons. Results show that across cultures, children are significantly more consistent and decisive in attributing ownership when one of the protagonists created the object. Development between three and five years is more or less pronounced depending on culture. The propensity to split the object in equal halves whenever possible was generally higher at certain locations (i.e., China) and quasi-inexistent in others (i.e., Vanuatu and street children of Recife). Overall, creation reasons appear to be more primordial and stable across cultures than familiarity, relative wealth or first contact. This trend does not correlate with the passing of false belief theory of mind. (shrink)

Placing Parmenides in his proper historical context by taking seriously the impact of Persian Zoroastrianism on his developing monoism, Henn supplies precise interpretation of the most difficult and vexing of Parmenides's fragments, while...

What role does traditional ecological knowledge play in the lives of smallholder farmers in post-conflict communities as they cope with the destructive impacts of war? In many cases, military weapons, such as unexploded bombs, are left behind in the surrounding landscape, forcing farmers to adapt their livelihood practices to the increased risk of death and injury. We analyze trends in the local production of knowledge in Ratanak Kiri province, Cambodia, an area heavily bombarded by the US Air Force during the (...) Vietnam War. We argue that the system of traditional ecological knowledge has adapted to include basic information on bomb identification, location, and management strategies. This factual approach gives individuals the flexibility to generate their own views on whether they perceive unexploded ordnance as a violent hazard and/or an economic commodity. In a relatively short 50-year time period, the body of knowledge has been quickly accumulated and culturally transmitted to family and neighbors. Our findings suggest that traditional ecological knowledge should not be reduced to a static and ancient form of collective memory. We call for the expansion of the concept of traditional ecological knowledge to include short-term and dynamic processes of knowledge generation. (shrink)

Moses Mendelssohn was the leading Jewish thinker of the German Enlightenment and the founder of modern Jewish philosophy. His writings, especially his attempt during the Pantheism Controversy to defend the philosophical legacies of Spinoza and Leibniz against F. H. Jacobi’s philosophy of faith, captured the attention of a young Leo Strauss and played a critical role in the development of his thought on one of the fundamental themes of his life’s work: the conflicting demands of reason and revelation. _ Leo (...) Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn_ is a superbly annotated translation of ten introductions written by Strauss to a multi-volume critical edition of Mendelssohn’s work. Commissioned in Weimar Germany in the 1920s, the project was suppressed and nearly destroyed during Nazi rule and was not revived until the 1960s. In addition to Strauss’s introductions, Martin D. Yaffe has translated Strauss’s editorial remarks on each of the passages he annotates in Mendelssohn’s texts and brings those together with the introductions themselves. Yaffe has also contributed an extensive interpretive essay that both analyzes the introductions on their own terms and discusses what Strauss writes elsewhere about the broader themes broached in his Mendelssohn studies. Strauss’s critique of Mendelssohn represents one of the largest bodies of work by the young Strauss on a single thinker to be made available in English. It illuminates not only a formerly obscure phase in the emergence of his thought but also a critical moment in the history of the German Enlightenment. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Concept of Moral Consensus: The Case of Technological Interventions into Human Reproduction. Edited by Kurt Bayertz. Deciding Together: Bioethics and Moral Consensus. By Jonathan D. Moreno.

Ritual atonement for Cohen aims exclusively at ethical repentance. Sins, or ethical failures, are regarded as unwitting misdeeds, corrigible once recognized. As individuals continue to vacillate, their need for repentance remains life-long. Rosenzweig, however, considers redemption from sin impossible without recourse to miracles. Individual failures are failures in wish, Rosenzweig implies, rather than failures in deed, as Cohen maintains; hence atonement requires above all the ongoing regulating of wishes through liturgical prayer. "Repentance" (t'shuvah), which for Cohen is the "return" to (...) ethical integrity, is for Rosenzweig the "return" to the daily, weekly, and yearly prayers of the Jewish liturgy. (shrink)

Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s seeks to explain the 'change in orientation' that Strauss underwent during a decade of personal and political upheaval. Though he began to garner attention in the 1950s, it was in the 1930s that Strauss made a series of fundamental breakthroughs which enabled him to recover, for the first time since the Middle Ages, the genuine meaning of political philosophy. Despite this being a period of marked output and activity for Strauss, his research in this (...) era remains overlooked. This volume is the first to assemble in one place an examination of Strauss' various publications throughout the decade, providing a comprehensive analysis of his work during the period. It includes, for the first time in English, five newly translated writings of Strauss from 1929-37, brought to life with insight from leading scholars in the field. (shrink)