The olfactory system was traditionally thought to lack a thalamic relay to mediate top-down influences from memory and attention in other perceptual modalities. Olfactory perception was therefore often described as an outlier among perceptual modalities. It was argued as a result that olfaction was a canonical example of a direct perception. In this paper we review functional and anatomical evidence which demonstrates that olfaction depends on both direct pathway connecting anterior piriform cortex to orbitofrontal cortex and an indirect thalamic circuit (...) connecting posterior piriform cortex and orbitofrontal cortices to the olfactory system. We argue that the indirect corticothalamic circuit has the structure to potentially mediate mediates top-down influences of memory and attention in olfactory perception. This suggests that olfaction is not an outlier after all. (shrink)

In this paper the authors argue that the exploration of the nature of needs and rights should begin with the actually existing organization of care and of justice in society. The authors raise two key concerns with this organization: 1) the invisibility of care to some, and 2) the inaccessibility of rights to others. Recent work by care scholars has called attention to the ways the current organization of care work perpetuates the myth of self-sufficiency for some, while reducing (...) others to mere dependents. Law and Society scholars have demonstrated the problems of uneven access to legal remedies within the current organization of the legal system. Addressing these concerns simultaneously reveals both the problems of the current organization of needs and rights as well as illuminating alternative possibilities. The authors argue, first, that a justice perspective, based on rights is inadequate because its presumed universality is belied by the reality of the inaccessibility of rights to many. Second, the authors argue that a care perspective, currently formulated upon the assumption that only some people have needs, is also flawed because its presumed particularity distorts the human experience and subsequent policies. Instead, the authors need to conceive of care in a public way that permits both rights and needs to be understood as applicable to all. The authors propose some initial thoughts about how to create such a public concept of care. (shrink)

Approaches to self‐management traditionally focus upon individual capacity to make behavioural change. In this paper, we use Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and capital to demonstrate the impact of structural inequalities upon chronic illness self‐management through exploring findings from 28 semi‐structured interviews conducted with people from a lower socioeconomic region of Adelaide, South Australia who have type 2 diabetes. The data suggests that access to capital is a significant barrier to type 2 diabetes self‐management. While many participants described (...) having sufficient cultural capital to access and assess health information, they often lacked economic capital and social capital in the form of support networks who promote health. Participants were often involved in social networks in which activities which are contrary to self‐management have symbolic value. As a consequence, they entered relationships with health professionals at a disadvantage. We conclude that structural barriers to self‐management arising from habitus resulting in the performance of health behaviours rooted in cultural and class background and limited access to capital in the form of economic resources, social networks, health knowledge and prestige may have a negative impact on capacity for type 2 diabetes self‐management. (shrink)

Self-deception may be a natural consequence of active goal operation instead of an adaptation for negotiating the social world. We argue that because autonomous goal programs likely drove human judgment and behavior prior to evolution of a central executive or “self,” these goal programs can operate independently to attain their desired end states and thereby produce outcomes that “deceive” the individual.

The emergence of a new tissue economy raises issues for the governance of risk and concepts of the body and self. This article explores the development of autologous cell therapies as a form of tissue engineering and considers how and why autologous applications are seen as less risky and more socially and politically acceptable. In a careful analysis of contemporary debates around the need for new international policies to regulate these technologies, we critically assess the discursive strategies employed to (...) support ideas of the body as a natural entity. Central to these debates are assumptions that autologous applications do not threaten the moral or corporeal integrity of the individual and that they are ‘an ethics-free zone’. Analysis reveals that concepts such as intercorporeality need to be refined if they are to assist our understanding of these cell-based therapies. We consider the biopolitics of Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation (ACI) in order to show the linkages between the culturing of cells, regulation and the reproduction of the self. (shrink)

As the prospects for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have dwindled, Jewish scholars in the United States have increasingly invoked the concept of diaspora to counter a purported Jewish consensus regarding Zionism. In this essay, I critique prominent exponents of this approach from a diasporic standpoint. My concern is not that Butler and the Boyarins attack Israel publicly, endorse a binational solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and/or support the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions—rather, it is that (...) they lack a compelling vision for diasporic politics. Their visions prove wanting because they contest Zionism on the terrain of Jewish identity. To loosen Zionism’s hold, Butler and the Boyarins recover alternative approaches to the attainment or grounding of Jewish identity. Yet when framed as an ethic of particular identity, diasporic thinking can neither rebut Zionism’s political arguments, nor can it develop alternative models of Jewish self-rule. Instead of theorizing Jewish identity, I argue, diasporic thinkers should envision Jewish political solidarity beyond the confines of the nation-state. (shrink)

Autobiographical memory is intimately linked to the self. However, the relation between the self and involuntary recall has been understudied. Theoretically, the more relevant an event is to the self the more accessible the memory should be. In line with this prediction, the present study tested the hypothesis that self-relevance of a stressor modulates involuntary recall. Healthy student participants viewed distressing film clips and were presented with information that defined the main characters as more or less (...) similar to them, or without any information about the characters. In line with predictions, participants in the high self-relevance condition reported more involuntary memories of the film clips after one week compared to participants in the low self-relevance and control conditions. The findings support the theoretical relation between the self and memory accessibility and extend findings from previous research to the domain of involuntary recall. (shrink)

Secularism is usually thought to contain the project of self-deification, in which humans attack God’s authority in order to take his place, freed from all constraints. Julie E. Cooper overturns this conception through an incisive analysis of the early modern justifications for secular politics. While she agrees that secularism is a means of empowerment, she argues that we have misunderstood the sources of secular empowerment and the kinds of strength to which it aspires. Contemporary understandings of secularism, Cooper (...) contends, have been shaped by a limited understanding of it as a shift from vulnerability to power. But the works of the foundational thinkers of secularism tell a different story. Analyzing the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau at the moment of secularity’s inception, she shows that all three understood that acknowledging one’s limitations was a condition of successful self-rule. And while all three invited humans to collectively build and sustain a political world, their invitations did not amount to self-deification. Cooper establishes that secular politics as originally conceived does not require a choice between power and vulnerability. Rather, it challenges us—today as then—to reconcile them both as essential components of our humanity. (shrink)

There is a deep cultural anxiety around public expressions of maternalism and the application of maternal values to society as a whole. Julie Stephens examines why postmaternal thinking has become so influential in recent decades and why there has been a growing unease with maternal forms of subjectivity and maternalist perspectives. In moving beyond policy definitions, which emphasize the priority given to women's claims as employees over their political claims as mothers, Stephens details an elaborate process of cultural forgetting (...) that has accompanied this repudiation of the maternal. Reclaiming an alternative feminist position through an investigation of oral history, life narratives, Web blogs, and other rich and varied sources, Stephens confronts the core claims of postmaternal thought and challenges dominant representations of feminism as having forgotten motherhood. Deploying the interpretive framework of memory studies, she examines the political structures of forgetting surrounding the maternal and the weakening of nurture and care in the public domain. She views the promotion of an illusory, self-sufficient individualism as a form of social unmothering that is profoundly connected to this ethos. In rejecting both traditional maternalism and the new postmaternalism, Stephens challenges prevailing paradigms and makes way for an alternative feminist maternalism centering on a politics of care. (shrink)

BackgroundThe present study examined the efficacy of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health-Home Visiting infant mental health treatment to promote the socioemotional wellbeing of infants and young children. Science illuminates the role of parental “co-regulation” of infant emotion as a pathway to young children’s capacity for self-regulation. The synchrony of parent–infant interaction begins to shape the infant’s own nascent regulatory capacities. Parents with a history of childhood adversity, such as maltreatment or witnessing family violence, and who struggle with (...) symptoms of post-traumatic stress may have greater challenges in co-regulating their infant, thus increasing the risk of their children exhibiting social and emotional problems such as anxiety, aggression, and depression. Early intervention that targets the infant–parent relationship may help buffer the effect of parental risk on child outcomes.MethodsParticipants were 58 mother–infant/toddler dyads enrolled in a longitudinal randomized control trial testing the efficacy of the relationship-based IMH-HV treatment model. Families were eligible based on child age and endorsement of at least two of four socio-demographic factors commonly endorsed in community mental health settings: elevated depression symptoms, three or more Adverse Childhood Experiences parenting stress, and/or child behavior or development concerns. This study included dyads whose children were born at the time of study enrollment and completed 12-month post-baseline follow-up visits. Parents reported on their own history of ACEs and current posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, as well as their toddler’s socioemotional development.ResultsMaternal ACEs predicted more toddler emotional problems through their effect on maternal PTSD symptoms. Parents who received IMH-HV treatment reported more positive toddler socioemotional wellbeing at follow-up relative to the control condition. The most positive socioemotional outcomes were for toddlers of mothers with low to moderate PTSD symptoms who received IMH-HV treatment.ConclusionResults indicate the efficacy of IMH-HV services in promoting more optimal child socioemotional wellbeing even when mothers reported mild to moderate PTSD symptoms. Results also highlight the need to assess parental trauma when infants and young children present with socioemotional difficulties. (shrink)

I present a way of thinking about gender that I have found helpful in evaluating various proposed feminist projects. By considering gender and value as independent dimensions, relationships of "difference" can be more clearly perceived as involving relationships of lack, of complementarity, or of perversion. I illustrate the use of my gender/value "compass" with applications to questions of self-identity, rationality, and knowledge. This way of thinking about gender allows a conceptualization of feminism that neither erases nor emphasizes gender distinctions.

In civil libertarian discourse, the inverse relationship between government secrecy and privacy is well recognized and widely acknowledged - so widely, in fact, that it can come to seem as though we might regain sufficient privacy simply by cabining official secrecy. But regimes of secrecy that insulate private-sector data processing practices also contribute materially to the decline of privacy, and indeed play a vital role in facilitating government efforts to make citizens' lives transparent. In addition, there is an inverse relationship (...) between openness and privacy that we are inclined to resist discussing. When, for example, a government agency posts on its website documents containing private information about individual citizens, or when a social networking service establishes default rules for transmitting information from member pages to commercial partners, openness contributes materially to the exposure that people experience. Our public discourse about information policy reinforces the devaluation of privacy in two opposite but mutually-reinforcing ways, by valorizing political economies organized around secrecy and by elevating openness as an ultimate good. The shelter that privacy affords for self-development is essential to a healthy democracy. It is therefore important to interrogate both our regimes of secrecy and our discourses about openness. (shrink)

This paper argues for the inclusion of a fourth order of recognition, pertaining to self-recognition, in Axel Honneth's critical theory of social recognition. I argue for the significance of this on the basis of examining the critical potential of the social psychology he has developed across his career as it pertains to autonomy, authenticity and agency. However, incorporating a fourth order of recognition into Honneth's internally differentiated account of recognition will not be easy given the architecture of his theory. (...) To remain consistent with Honneth's delineation between love, rights and solidarity, a fourth order of recognition would need to be capable of generating a practical relation to self and a normative attitude; it would require an institutional locale in which it could be articulated through social practices that admit conflict and thereby the possibility for further extension and/or reconstitution. Self-recognition fulfils three of these four criteria: it may lack for a specific institu.. (shrink)

In the UK, higher education and health care providers share responsibility for educating the workforce. The challenges facing health practice also face health education and as educators we are implicated, by the way we design curricula and through students’ experiences and their stories.

Is it possible to develop a personal narrative that is not fictitious or self-deceptive? In this essay, I will look at the way that personal narratives contribute to self-deception. In so doing, I will consider the narrative that the narrator or pastor of André Gide’s Pastoral Symphonie develops while reflecting upon his romantic relationship with his blind adopted “daughter”, Gertrude. Although the pastor’s narrative is largely self-deceptive, we need not fear that all narratives are equally delusional. When (...) a narrative is not self-deceptive, it can make a positive contribution to self-knowledge and moral understanding. (shrink)

This essay looks at the important, but often neglected, contribution that self‐interpretation makes to emotional self‐knowledge. We engage in acts of self‐interpretation when (A) we try to understand what it is that we are feeling, or, relatedly, what it is that we ought to be feeling. On such occasions, we draw upon social and personal narratives as well as on the emotional conceptual repertoires at our disposal. We also engage in acts of self‐interpretation when (B) we (...) try to ascertain the meaning or significance of an emotion, treating it as a datum, or piece of evidence, upon which to make inferences or further Interpretations. Although we often seem to have first‐person privileged access to our mental states, the third‐person strategy of self‐interpretation can be a valuable source of self‐knowledge. I focus here upon the role that self‐interpretation plays in providing us with knowledge about our emotional experiences. (shrink)

Gareth Evans and others have argued that our intentional attitudes are transparent to facts in the world. This suggests we can know them by looking outwards to the world rather than inwards to our minds. Richard Moran uses this idea of transparency in his account of self-knowledge. Critics have objected to his account on several counts. For example, Jonathan Way has argued that irrational attitudes can give ordinary self-knowledge when they are not transparent and that there are rational (...) attitudes that are not transparent. I argue here that these objections fail because Way does not fully consider the two different kinds of self-knowledge, ‘ordinary’ and evidence-based, that differentiate the two stances that Moran claims a subject can have towards his attitudes. It is the differences between these two stances and the implications of these that motivate Moran’s account, rather than whether the formed attitude is rational or irrational, as long as the subject avows it from the deliberative stance, focuses on the attitude’s object and conforms to the transparency condition as Moran sets this out. (shrink)

_2020 Critics' Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association (AESA) In _Race on Campus_, Julie J. Park argues that there are surprisingly pervasive and stubborn myths about diversity on college and university campuses, and that these myths obscure the notable significance and admirable effects that diversity has had on campus life. _ Based on her analysis of extensive research and data about contemporary students and campuses, Park counters these myths and explores their problematic origins. Among the major myths that (...) she addresses are charges of pervasive self-segregation, arguments that affirmative action in college admissions has run its course and become counterproductive, related arguments that Asian Americans are poorly served by affirmative action policies, and suggestions that programs and policies meant to promote diversity have failed to address class-based disadvantages. In the course of responding to these myths, Park presents a far more positive and nuanced portrait of diversity and its place on American college campuses. At a time when diversity has become a central theme and goal of colleges and universities throughout the United States, _Race on Campus _offers a contemporary, research-based exploration of racial dynamics on today’s college campuses. (shrink)

Personality and prayer are both conceptualized as focusing on issues of connectivity with the self and beyond. Individual participants each recruited a peer to join the study . Participants rated themselves according to multi-item scales that detail five personality factors . They also responded to an instrument specifying eight foci of the inward, outward, and upward cognitive content of prayer ; these eight foci were reduced to three prayer themes: internal concerns, embracing paradox, and bold assertion. Finally, respondents reported (...) the strength of six "basic" emotions that may be experienced during their typical prayer. Using the same instruments, each peer rated her or his matched participant. Results reveal discrete patterns between self and peer ratings, with respect to links among prayer and personality variables. Both self and peer ratings emphasize a relation between prayer and the personality traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness . Several concluding points highlight the value of the present conceptualization of personality and prayer with relation to connectivity, potential differences between personal and corporate prayers, and the potential role of sex differences in the disclosure of prayer's content and emotional influence. (shrink)

"J’étais morte, mais pas enterrée, et c’est la philosophie qui m’a ramenée à la vie. Comme une mère, elle m’a non seulement donné la vie en me donnant accès à ma vie intérieure par l’élargissement de ma conscience, mais elle m’a également appris à vivre, c’est-à-dire comment agir au mieux dans la vie quotidienne. Tout au long de ses réflexions et de son témoignage, l’auteure affirme haut et fort que la philosophie peut sauver des vies, car elle rend possibles la (...) conversion du regard et la prise en charge de sa propre liberté."--Résumé de l'éditeur. (shrink)

BackgroundRecurrent Major Depressive Disorder is one of the most disabling mental disorders in modern society. Prior research has shown that self-compassion protects against ruminative tendencies, a key feature of recurrent MDD. In addition, self-compassion has been found to be positively related to higher psychophysiological flexibility in young, healthy adults. To our knowledge, there is a lack of studies on how self-compassion relates to vmHRV in patients with recurrent MDD. The aim of the current study was to investigate (...) whether higher self-compassion would associate with lower ruminative tendencies and higher vmHRV in a sample of adults with recurrent MDD.MethodsWe included a sample of 63 patients between 20 and 71 years old with a history of three or more depressive episodes. They filled out the Self-Compassion Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and Rumination Rating Scale. ECG was acquired while resting and the square root of the mean squared differences of successive RR interval values was calculated as measure of vmHRV.ResultsAs hypothesized, self-compassion was associated with lower ruminative tendencies. However, self-compassion was not associated with level of vmHRV. Several confounding variables were controlled for in the statistical analyses, and higher age predicted lower vmHRV across all statistical analyses.ConclusionThe results confirmed our hypothesis that higher self-compassion would be associated with lower ruminative tendencies in recurrent MDD. Contrary to our expectation, we did not find that the tendency to be more self-compassionate was associated with higher vmHRV. As such, higher self-compassion seems to relate with a lower tendency to ruminate about past mistakes and events but does not seem to relate to a flexible autonomic stress response. Other potential explanatory factors for lower vmHRV in recurrent MDD is suggested as focus for exploration in future studies. (shrink)

"Dreaming with open eyes" is a tagline for Spinoza's critique of Descartes; the dreams in question are principally those of volition and the active imagination. In this article, I compare the Cartesian theory of imagination as an active, but not fully rational, power of the mind and the Cartesian account of the volitional self to Spinoza's views. Descartes's own dreams and theories of dreaming are the focus of the first part of the article. Thereafter I examine Spinoza's critique of (...) Descartes and his alternative account of imagination. Finally, I argue that there is a positive sense of dreaming with open eyes to be recuperated in Spinoza's thought. Construed positively, to dream with open eyes is to understand dreams and imagination as natural phenomena and so to be able to respond constructively to them in ethical and political, as well as epistemological, life. (shrink)

This book examines the contributions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French women philosophers and intellectuals to moralist writing. Moralist writing, a distinctively French genre, draws on philosophical and literary traditions extending back to classical antiquity. Closely connected to salon culture and influenced by Augustinianism, it engages social and political questions, epistemology, moral psychology, and virtue ethics. The first half of the book analyzes women’s use of moralist forms such as the essay, maxim, and “character” or portrait to explore classical topics: (...) class='Hi'>self-knowledge and knowledge of the self, the ethics and obligations of friendship, the relation of the passions to happiness. The second half focuses on topics that relate directly to women’s lifeworld: the critique of the institution of marriage, the status of older women, and the question of women’s nature and capabilities. Each chapter traces the evolution of women’s moralist thought from the late seventeenth century to the Enlightenment and the decades immediately following the French Revolution, a period of tremendous change in the horizon of possibilities for women as public figures and intellectuals. (shrink)

A practical guide to stop searching for meaning by creating meaning from within"--Provided by publisher.

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another’s pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis (...) was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.. (shrink)

Socrates is both the first thoroughgoing moral philosopher and the first to employ irony as a philosophical tool. These innovative and foundational aspects of Socratic philosophy, however, lead to apparent inconsistencies and worrisome interactions. Socrates is charged with making his interlocutors look foolish, arrogant, self-serving, or ignorant. Worse still, he seems aware of these reactions. If Socrates knows his methods stir resentment, why does he continue with them? Furthermore, how should we view irony in light of Socratic ethics? I (...) argue that Socrates uses irony and shame to bring about the desire for moral improvement. Socratic irony is of the riddling variety and the shame that it produces is not intended to belittle the interlocutor’s sense of self. Instead, shame is an appropriate response to the realization that one’s life is unexamined and possibly vicious. Therefore, the real problem with Socratic irony lies not with its use, but its failure rate. (shrink)

This essay explores the profoundly gendered nature of the split between the disciplines of economics and sociology which took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing implications for the relatively new field of economic sociology. Drawing on historical documents and feminist studies of science, it investigates the gendered processes underlying the divergence of the disciplines in definition, method, and degree of engagement with social problems. Economic sociology has the potential to heal this disciplinary split, but only if (...) the field is broadened, deepened, and made wiser and more self-reflective through the use of feminist analysis. (shrink)

We present a self-organizing approach to sentence processing that sheds new light on notional plurality effects in agreement attraction, using pseudopartitive subject noun phrases. We first show that notional plurality ratings predict verb agreement choices in pseudopartitives, in line with the “Marking” component of the Marking and Morphing theory of agreement processing. However, no account to date has derived notional plurality values from independently needed principles of language processing. We argue on the basis of new experimental evidence and a (...) dynamical systems model that the theoretical black box of notional plurality can be unpacked into objectively measurable semantic features. With these semantic features driving structure formation, our model reproduces the human verb production patterns as a byproduct of normal processing. Finally, we discuss how the self-organizing approach might be extended to other agreement attraction phenomena. (shrink)

This article examines the implications of the Deleuzian concept of `nomad thought' within the context of postcoloniality and indigenous politics. I argue that Deleuze's deconstruction of coherent and self-identical subjectivity through this concept disallows the possibility of effective indigenous politics through its lack of accountability to a `politics of location', its implicit reproduction of a universalized western subject, and its delegitimation of `experience' and `local knowledge'. I investigate these dynamics in Deleuze's work, and also in deployments of the Deleuzian (...) figure of the nomad and of `nomad thought' by Rosi Braidotti and Paul Patton. As a counterpoint to Deleuze, I discuss a number of feminist and postcolonial writers who recuperate concepts such as `experience' and `local knowledge', yet without lapsing into essentializing discourses. Their work enables robust versions of indigenous politics, and it is by adopting such approaches that feminist and postcolonial theory can move forward in politically accountable ways. (shrink)

In the literature on social research, adherence to the principle of informed consent is sometimes recommended on the ground that the privacy of those being studied is hereby protected. The principle has it that before becoming part of a study, a competent individual must receive information about its purpose, use, etc., and on this basis freely agree to participate. Joan Sieber motivates the employment of informed consent as a way to safeguard research participants' privacy as follows: "A research experience regarded (...) by some as a delightful opportunity for self-disclosure could constitute an unbearable invasion of privacy for... (shrink)

Hume’s discussion of pride and sympathy in the _Treatise_ shows direct engagement with Malebranche’s discussion of ‘imitation’ in the _Search_. For Malebranche, imitation—both of passions and belief—and our tendency to judge ourselves by comparison, generate the passion of pride or grandeur, which plays a useful social role. However, as both cause and effect of the admiration of others, grandeur is ungrounded and thus imaginary. Hume disagrees. He invokes the principle of sympathy to explain how the evaluations of others can support (...) pride by indicating, without constituting, grounds for pride. Hume’s argument depends on his underappreciated claim that sympathy can communicate the evaluative opinions as well as the passions of others. Working with the Malebranchean inventory of principles—sympathy and comparison—Hume refines their characterization, thereby redeeming the human tendency to feel pride and humility by characterizing it as corrigible and subject to social regulation. (shrink)

As the organic food sector has grownand changed to become more mainstream, large-scaleconventional growers have entered into organicproduction. While it is increasingly clear that notall organic farms are self-sufficient small scaleunits that practice poly-cultural agronomy and sell inlocal marketing venues, there still exists apresumption that there are clear lines between thesmall scale ``movement'' farmers who followagro-ecological agronomic ideals and the relativelylarger and partly conventional newcomers who do not.This paper addresses a specific empirical issue, whichis the extent to which California (...) organic farmerspractice the techniques of ecological farming. Itillustrates that while there are some distinctdifferences in practices between larger and/orpart-conventional (i.e., mixed) growers and smallerand/or all-organic growers, it also shows that inalmost all cases, practices fall quite short ofagro-ecological ideals. By examining in more depth howgrowers follow particular agro-ecological principles,the paper also demonstrates that key variations arerelated to variables separate from scale. Some ofthese variables are geographic, ranging frombiophysical and climatic opportunities andconstraints, to regional norms and institutionalsupport. Mostly, however, variation is related to cropspecificities and the availability of efficacioustechnologies to deal with crop-specific problems. Thisso-called technology barrier crucially depends on howorganic is defined, and thus suggests the importanceof organic rules and regulations in shaping thepractices of organic production. (shrink)

Life is so wretched that it would be impossible to endure were it not for the luminous beams of illusion that guide us through its darkest moments. Many argue, perhaps not to this degree, that were it not for some modest illusions about the world and ourselves we would experience a serious decline in quality of life. On those not-so-good days, this claim strikes me as irresistible. How would I endure life and maintain my sanity if I had to embrace (...) each and every disgusting and disheartening fact about the world? Perceiving the world in a way that is neither clear-eyed nor complete may not be without its advantages. But even if being mistaken about the world or self-deceived causes one to be healthier or more comfortable, it is worth asking whether there is something to be said against a life of this kind. Might there not be some knowledge about ourselves or the world that we ought to have? Do not these ‘positive illusions,’ or flattering but inaccurate beliefs that people have about themselves and the world, interfere with their ability to live the good life? In the first part of this paper, I will briefly review the psychological literature which suggests that mild self-deception in the positive direction contributes to, rather than compromises, a person’s well-being. I will then, in the second part of the paper, examine what three thinkers, Joseph Butler, Immanuel Kant, and W.K. Clifford, have said about the wrongfulness of self-deception. While their arguments call attention to various reasons for thinking that some cases of self-deception might give rise on balance to negative consequences, they fail to show that all cases must have this effect. In the final part of the paper, I will consider whether our interest in autonomy might provide us with a better explanation of the supposed wrongfulness of self-deception. I will try to show that in virtue of being mistaken alone, the self-deceiver generally experiences some loss of a particular kind of autonomy. Nevertheless, my analysis will leave open the following two possibilities: that the loss of autonomy was autonomously brought about, and that the loss of autonomy in question may result on balance in an increase in the self-deceiver’s autonomy. (shrink)

Research on collective emotion spans social sciences, psychology and philosophy. There are detailed case studies and diverse theories of collective emotion. However, experimental evidence regarding the universal characteristics, antecedents and consequences of collective emotion remains sparse. Moreover, current research mainly relies on emotion self-reports, accounting for the subjective experience of collective emotion and ignoring their cognitive and physiological bases. In response to these challenges, we argue for experimental research on collective emotion. We start with an overview of theoretical frameworks (...) to identify a set of three characteristics of collective emotion. Based on research in cognitive and affective sciences, we then examine the corresponding candidate mechanisms. Finally, we highlight outstanding questions, review experimental evidence, and suggest ideas for future experimental research. (shrink)

In Morality and Global Justice, Michael Boylan presents us with a set of solutions to some of the world’s most pressing moral issues. Boylan claims that his solutions are not utopian; instead, they are practical, workable policy recommendations that governments and other organizations should adopt. For the most part, Boylan is correct; there are no obviously insurmountable obstacles to implementing many of his recommendations. But, as he himself admits, his position on immigrants and refugees borders on the utopian (Boylan 2011, (...) 204). In what follows, I will discuss two concerns that I have about his position. The first concern (1) is consequentialist: I fear that implementing a policy of open borders may lead to economic, environmental, and political consequences that are on balance undesirable. The second (2) is practical: even if American citizens have moral reasons for supporting a policy of open borders, they may have reasons of self-interest for rejecting it. If this is correct, then Boylan may have a difficult time garnering the support necessary to make the policy a reality. (shrink)

Ecologically valid procedures for eliciting and measuring children's anger are needed to enhance researchers' theories of children's emotional competence and to guide intervention efforts aimed at reactive aggression. The purpose of this article is to describe a laboratory-based game-playing procedure that has been used successfully to elicit and measure children's anger across observational, physiological, and self-report channels. Steps taken to ensure that participants are treated ethically and fairly are discussed. The article highlights recently published data that emphasize the importance (...) of provoking and assessing children's anger across multiple channels using laboratory-based procedures. Finally, it presents preliminary data that suggest that the safeguards taken to protect children were successful in making both children and their parents feel well treated and comfortable. (shrink)

In Ethics and the A Priori Michael Smith discusses two types of claims that invoke the term ‘should.’ The first type invokes the ‘should’ of instrumental reason and the second type invokes the should of full practical reason . I argue that these are not mutually exhaustive categories. There is a third type of should-claim that does not fall into either category, such as when we say to someone who is going to smoke, ‘You should smoke low tar cigarettes.’ This (...) third type of should-claim aims, in a sense, at damage control. By comparing it to shouldFPR-claims, I show that shouldFPR-claims cannot be, contrary to what Smith suggests, even partly based on defects of character such as an agent’s irrational anger. Smith also claims that what I shouldFPR do is determined by the strongest desire my fully rational self would have, where a necessary condition of being fully rational is having no false beliefs and all relevant true beliefs. I point out that on such a view the connection between shouldFPR-claims and criticizability is lost and the connection between shouldFPR-claims and the agent’s abilities is lost. I sketch out an alternative view of shouldFPR-claims that retains these connections and on which the shouldFPR is constrained by the beliefs it is reasonable to require that agent to have. (shrink)

The population of older adults worldwide is growing, with an urgent need for approaches that develop and maintain intrinsic capacity consistent with healthy aging. Theory and empirical research converge on feeling safe as central to healthy aging. However, there has been limited attention to resources that cultivate feeling safe to support healthy aging. Nostalgia, “a sentimental longing for one’s past,” is established as a source of comfort in response to social threat, existential threat, and self-threat. Drawing from extant theory (...) and research, we build on these findings to position nostalgia as a regulatory resource that cultivates feeling safe and contributes to intrinsic capacity to support healthy aging. Using a narrative review method, we: characterize feeling safe as a distinct affective dimension, summarize the character of nostalgia in alignment with feeling safe, propose a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which nostalgia cultivates feeling safe, highlight the contribution of nostalgia to feeling safe and emotional, physiological, and behavioral regulatory capabilities in healthy aging, and offer conclusions and direction for research. (shrink)

In April 2020, almost six out of 10 people around the world were in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being locked down usually has a deleterious effect on the confined individual's mental health. In this exceptionally challenging context, finding ways to minimize negative mood about the pandemic is essential. Pandemic-related negative states (“negative mood”) and recovery experiences were investigated in a sample of 264 individuals who completed daily surveys four times per day over 7 consecutive days. MSEMs analyses revealed (...) that negative mood persisted from moment-to-moment through the day, thus showing a response lag effect. Further analyses revealed that when someone experienced pandemic-related psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, control, pleasure, or relatedness at specific periods of the day, mood had improved at the next measured time period, suggesting a protective effect. However, the pattern displayed by singles with dependents suggests that some recovery experiences at specific periods during the day seem to have a backfiring effect and worsen subsequent mood. These findings bring new insight into the role of recovery experiences during lockdowns and suggest that many could benefit from such experiences throughout the day when self-isolating. However, for individuals with multiple risk factors such as being single with dependents, some recovery experiences, at specific periods during the day, might not bring the desired outcome and future research is needed to examine if guilt or domestic burden may explain this finding. Results contribute to our understanding of how to take care of one's mental health during the current pandemic, and concrete recommendations adapted to individual contexts are provided. (shrink)

Philosophical writing is challenging for students new to philosophy. Many philosophy classes are populated, for the most part, by students who have never taken philosophy before. While many institutions offer general writing support services, these services tend to be most beneficial for helping to identify problems with style and grammar. They are not equipped to help students with the particular challenges that come with writing philosophy for the first time. We implemented the “Home Base” Mentoring Program in two introductory level (...) philosophy courses to target the specific challenges that novice learners have when learning how to write philosophy. Through the program, students had access to writing mentors who were undergraduate senior philosophy majors. Based on surveys given to the students who have participated in this program, we found that the program boosted student confidence in writing and also worked to develop a welcoming, judgment-free, and encouraging environment in the philosophy department more generally. (shrink)

Infertility can be an agonizing experience, especially for women. And, much of the agony has to do with luck: with how unlucky one is in being infertile, and in how much luck is involved in determining whether one can weather the storm of infertility and perhaps have a child in the end. We argue that bad luck associated with being infertile is often bad moral luck for women. The infertile woman often blames herself or is blamed by others for what (...) is happening to her, even when she cannot control or prevent what is happening to her. She has simply had bad luck. We focus on the self-blame of infertile women and show how it stems from pro-natalism that targets women. We also argue that overall for women, regret is a better moral response to infertility than self-blame. (shrink)