BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

The feminization of agriculture narrative has been reproduced in development literature as an oversimplified metric of empowerment through changes in women’s labor and managerial roles with little attention to individuals’ heterogeneous livelihoods. Grounded in feminist political ecology, we sought to critically understand how labor and managerial feminization interact with changing agricultural practices. Working with a local NGO as part of an international, donor-funded research-for-development project, we conducted semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation with over 100 farmers in Mid-Western (...) Nepal in 2017. Household structure and headship are dynamic in the context of male out-migration, pushing women to take on new agricultural duties and increasing household labor responsibilities. In this context, decision-making processes related to agricultural management and new cultivation practices illustrate ongoing renegotiations of gender and cultivation practices within and beyond the household. We contend that the heterogeneity of household power dynamics muddies the empowering impacts of migration and emphasize the importance of community spaces as a locus of subjectivity formation and social value. We conclude that FPE can illuminate complexities of power, space, and individual responses to socio-ecological conditions that challenge the current feminization of agriculture framework. (shrink)

Nietzsche is perhaps best known for his diagnosis of the problem of nihilism. Though his elaborations on this diagnosis often include descriptions of certain beliefs characteristic of the nihilist (such as beliefs in the meaninglessness or worthlessness of existence), he just as frequently specifies a variety of affective symptoms experienced by the nihilist that weaken their will and diminish their agency. This affective dimension to nihilism, however, remains drastically underexplored. In this book, Kaitlyn Creasy offers a comprehensive account of (...) affective nihilism that draws on Nietzsche’s drive psychology, especially his reflections on affects and their transformative potential. After exploring Nietzsche’s account of affectivity (illuminating especially the transpersonal nature of affect in Nietzsche’s thought) and the phenomenon of affective nihilism, Creasy argues that affective nihilism might be overcome by employing a variety of Nietzschean strategies: experimentation, self-narration, and self-genealogy. (shrink)

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In this paper, I explore the sociality of emotional experience in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, I describe four key mechanisms through which an individual's sociocultural context shapes her emotional experience on Nietzsche's view—emotional contagion as habitual affective mimicry, the production of emotions' felt character through the assimilation of dominant social beliefs and norms, affective interpretation à la Christopher Fowles, and the imposition of dominant notions of emotional appropriateness—fleshing out a dimension of Nietzsche's thought which is largely taken for (...) granted but remains undertreated. After detailing these mechanisms, I argue that attending to the sociality of emotional experience in Nietzsche's thought is crucial not only for understanding key elements of his moral psychology (including certain of his reflections on freedom and self‐transformation), but also for understanding his interpretation of nihilism as a psychological‐affective phenomenon produced by the society to which one belongs. On Nietzsche's view, attending to the sociality of emotion helps individuals recognize the way in which the sociocultural contexts they inhabit might undermine their flourishing—and also helps them envision the conditions (especially sociocultural conditions) requisite for healthier, more empowering emotional lives. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a set of theoretical tools Nietzsche offers for making sense of the emotional dynamics and psychophysiological impacts of sexist oppression. Specifically, I indicate how Nietzsche’s account of the social and cultural production of emotional experience (i.e. his account of the transpersonal nature of emotional experience) can serve as a conceptual resource for understanding the detrimental emotional impacts of social norms, beliefs, and practices that systematically devalue certain of one’s ends and interests.

Analysing sexual harassment law in British Columbia, this paper argues that in highly sexualised work environments, in which practices including sexual ‘jokes’ or innuendo may be common, law embodies and (re)creates the gendered subtext of the workplace. When a complaint of sexual harassment from a sexualised workplace is raised in a legal forum, a complainant has an obligation to clearly object to the sexual remarks, ‘jokes,’ banter, etc.—which may be the ‘norm’—to show the conduct in question was unwelcome. At the (...) same time, however, a workplace may be structured, in part by law, in a way that restricts employee resistance to uncomfortable sexual experiences. This is the case, I argue, for women working in full-service restaurants when it comes to sexual interactions with customers. This paper explores how restaurant work, in the Canadian context with a focus on the province of British Columbia, is organised in a manner that makes women vulnerable to enduring sexually harassing practices as a routine part of their jobs. (shrink)

Natural language involves both speaking and listening. Recent models claim that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within individuals (Dell & Chang, 2014; MacDonald, 2013; Pickering & Garrod, 2004; 2013a). Evidence for this claim has come from studies of cross-modality structural priming, mainly examining processing in the direction of comprehension to production. The current study replicated these comprehension to production findings and developed a novel cross-modal structural priming paradigm from production to comprehension using a temporally-sensitive online (...) measure of comprehension, Event-Related Potentials. For Comprehension-to-Production priming, participants first listened to active or passive sentences and then described target pictures using either structure. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, participants first described a picture using either structure and then listened to target passive sentences while EEG was recorded. Comprehension-to-Production priming showed the expected passive sentence priming for syntactic choice, but not response time or average syllable duration. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, primed, versus unprimed, passive sentences elicited a reduced N400. These effects support the notion that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within the individual. Moreover, this paradigm can be used for the exploration priming at different linguistic levels as well as the influence of extra-linguistic factors on natural language use. (shrink)

Studying the typical development of reading is key to understanding the precise deficits that underlie reading disabilities. An important correlate of efficient reading is the speed of naming arrays of simple stimuli such as letters and pictures. In this cross-sectional study, we examined developmental changes in visual processing that occurs during letter and object naming from childhood to early adulthood in terms of behavioral task efficiency, associated articulation and eye movement parameters, and the coordination between them, as measured by eye-voice (...) span in both the spatial and temporal domains. We used naming speed tasks, in which participants were required to name sets of letters or simple objects as quickly and as accurately as possible. Single stimulus manipulations were made to these tasks to make the stimuli either more visually and/or phonologically similar to one another in order to examine how these manipulations affected task performance and the coordination between speech and eye movements. Across development there was an increased efficiency in speech and eye movement performance and their coordination in both the spatial and temporal domains. Furthermore, manipulations to the phonological and visual similarity of specific letter and object stimuli revealed that orthographic processing played a greater role than phonological processing in performance, with the contribution of phonological processing diminishing across development. This comprehensive typical developmental trajectory provides a benchmark for clinical populations to elucidate the nature of the cognitive dysfunction underlying reading difficulties. (shrink)

In his early essay, “Reality and Its Shadow,” Levinas appears to take a strong position against art, and while the strength of his admonitions against aesthetics has been questioned, the fact remains that Levinas refers to art as an act that is like “feasting during a plague.” Art becomes offensive. However, is it possible that we could imagine the artwork as a site where the encounter with the Other becomes possible? That is, when we encounter certain artworks, do we not (...) also encounter the radical alterity of one whose experiences and very existence cannot possibly be assimilated to the Same, or to our own experiences? In this paper, I argue that art marks a site where the encounter with the Other is made possible by examining the post-genocide and post-war photographs of Simon Norfolk. I maintain that art thus contains ethical possibilities that actually align with Levinasian ethics, rather than run counter to it, as Levinas seemed to believe. This art cannot be understood through the lens of enjoyment—as “feasting during a plague”—but rather must be understood as an experience which throws us outside of ourselves and our interiority and, in so doing, forces us to confront an alterity and a horror that awakens responsibility and awareness of the Other. (shrink)

This research assessed how the performance and team skills of three-person teams working with an Intelligent Team Tutoring System on a virtual military surveillance task were affected by feedback privacy, participant role, task experience, prior team experience, and teammate familiarity. Previous work in Intelligent Tutoring Systems has focused on outcomes for task skill training for individual learners. As research extends into intelligent tutoring for teams, both task skills and team skills are necessary for good team performance. This work includes a (...) brief review of previous research on ITTSs, feedback, teams, and teamwork, including the recounting of two categories of a framework of teamwork performance, Communication and Cognition, which are relevant to the present study. This research examines the effects of an intelligent agent, as well as features of the team, its members, and the task being undertaken, on team communication and team situation awareness. Thirty-seven teams of three participants, each at their own computer running a multiplayer surveillance simulation, were given just-in-time private or public performance feedback during four 5-min trials. In the fourth trial, two of the three participants switched roles. Feedback type, teamwork experience, and teammate familiarity had no statistically significant effect on communication or team situation awareness. However, higher levels of role experience and task experience showed significant and medium-sized effects on communication performance. Results, based on performance data and structured interview responses, also revealed areas of improvement in future feedback design and a potential benchmark for feedback frequency in an action-oriented serious game-based ITTS. Among the conclusions are six design objectives for future ITTSs, establishing a foundation for future research on designing effective ITTSs that train interpersonal skills to nascent teams. (shrink)

In this chapter, I contend that Nietzsche’s robust critiques of human exceptionalism and the “humanization of nature [Vermenschlichung der Natur]”, as well as his positive, proto-ecocentric vision of the “naturalization of humanity [Vernatürlichung des Menschen]”, afford contemporary environmental philosophy a novel perspective from which to critique anthropocentric conservation ideologies (according to which nature conservation ought to be motivated by the interests and aims of humanity, especially economic development and prosperity). Importantly, I also argue that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the work (...) in which Nietzsche’s positive vision appears most conspicuously, as suggested by Zarathustra’s relationship to the natural world and exhortations to “remain faithful to the earth.” -/- As Nietzsche’s critique of anthropocentrism reinforces his positive project, I will begin by detailing Nietzsche’s rejection of human exceptionalism (section 1). In addition, I will analyze Nietzsche’s critique of the “humanization of nature” (KSA 10:10[43]; 10:13[20]; 12:1[29]), emphasizing specific pernicious projections of human values onto the other-than-human world. Although these themes appear throughout Nietzsche’s body of work, they are central to Zarathustra. -/- After describing Nietzsche’s critical project, I present his positive, proto-ecocentric vision for humanity’s re-naturalization, one he most emphatically endorses and fleshes out in Zarathustra (section 2). This positive vision can be found in his calls for the human being to become more natural and to cultivate a noble reverence and gratitude for the natural world so that we may learn from it about ourselves—rather than falsifying it for our ends and then insisting that we are part of this other, falsified nature. Only when we can see ourselves as natural beings—specifically, as living beings willing power, embedded in a world with other living beings who do the same—can we identify tasks and pursue aims that empower and strengthen us. In Nietzsche’s view, this recognition results only from an attunement to the other-than-human world. Finally, after adding a few important caveats to proto-ecocentric strains in Nietzsche’s thought, I briefly explain the contributions his thought might make to contemporary environmental philosophy and policy (section 3). (shrink)

Scepticism about ought simpliciter is the view that there is no such thing as what one ought simpliciter to do. Instead, practical deliberation is governed by a plurality of normative standpoints, each authoritative from their own perspective but none authoritative simpliciter. This paper aims to resist such scepticism. After setting out the challenge in general terms, I argue that scepticism can be resisted by rejecting a key assumption in the sceptic’s argument. This is the assumption that standpoint-relative ought judgments bring (...) with them a commitment to act in accordance with those judgments. Instead, I propose an alternative account of our normative concepts according to which only ought simpliciter judgments commit one to acting in accordance with those judgments. In addition to answering the sceptical challenge, the proposal offers an independently motivated account of what makes a concept normatively authoritative. (shrink)

The recent philosophy of Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, represents an attempt to solve the traditional puzzles in the foundations of quantum theory by denying the objective reality of the quantum state. Einstein had hoped to remove the spectre of nonlocality in the theory by also assigning an epistemic status to the quantum state, but his version of this doctrine was recently proved to be inconsistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics. In this essay, I present plausibility arguments, old and new, (...) for the reality of the quantum state, and expose what I think are weaknesses in QBism as a philosophy of science. (shrink)

In The Affirmation of Life, Bernard Reginster argues that Nietzschean nihilism is best characterized as a "philosophical claim."1 This account has inspired a number of critical responses from contemporary scholars.2 Ken Gemes and John Richardson, for example, both point out that while Reginster's characterization presents nihilism as a purely cognitive phenomenon involving particular beliefs about meaning and value, it is just as frequently presented by Nietzsche as a feeling-based phenomenon, a weariness that comports one negatively toward the world of which (...) one is a part.3 How, then, should Nietzsche's reader understand the problem of nihilism in his thought?In... (shrink)

Algorithms wield increasing control over our lives—over which jobs we get, whether we're granted loans, what information we're exposed to online, and so on. Algorithms can, and often do, wield their power in a biased way, and much work has been devoted to algorithmic bias. In contrast, algorithmic neutrality has gone largely neglected. I investigate three questions about algorithmic neutrality: What is it? Is it possible? And when we have it in mind, what can we learn about algorithmic bias?

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an (...) exchange that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

The conditions of transport and slaughter at the end of their lives are a major challenge to the welfare of agricultural animals. • End-of-life experiences should be of a greater ethical concern than others of similar intensity and duration, due to their position in the animal’s life. • End-of-life welfare can have both internal importance to the animals and external ethical importance to human decision-makers. • We should pay extra care to ensure that the conditions during transport and slaughter are (...) as positive as possible. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle examines the nature of happiness, which he defines as a specially good kind of life. He considers the nature of practical reasoning, friendship, and the role and importance of the moral virtues in the best life. This new edition features a revised translation and valuable new introduction and notes.

Reflections on Theoretical Issues in Argumentation Theory Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015. Pp. xiv, 1-293. ISBN 978-3-319-21102-2. eBook US$139.00, €118,99; Hardcover US$179.00, €147,69.

This paper examines the general prospects for conceptual role expressivism, expressivist theories that embrace conceptual role semantics. It has two main aims. The first aim is to provide a general characterisation of the view. The second aim is to raise a challenge for the general view. The challenge is to explain why normative concepts are not a species of defective concepts, where defective concepts are those that cannot meaningfully embed and participate in genuine inference. After rejecting existing attempts to answer (...) the challenge, I propose an alternative solution. However, the solution leaves conceptual role expressivism a far less distinctive and interesting position than its proponents claim. I conclude that we should be sceptical about how much expressivists gain by appealing to conceptual role semantics. (shrink)

This article interprets David E. Storey’s foundation of an environmental ethic on Nietzsche’s philosophy of life as a version of new conservationism. Critically examining Storey’s various claims, the article demonstrates potentially problematic aspects of the new conservationist project. In order to both question Storey’s interpretation of a Nietzschean philosophy of life and problematize the new conservationist understanding of nature, this article returns to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. In particular, it argues from a Nietzschean perspective that the new conservationist projection (...) of human teleology and values onto wild nature and non-human life results in a nihilistic conception of wild nature. (shrink)

In recent work, Bernard Reginster argues for an interpretation of the relationship between morality and the affects in Nietzsche which he calls ‘sentimental pragmatism’. According to this view, the values, value judgments, and moral practices agents develop and adopt function to serve specific affective needs. Reginster deploys this interpretation to argue for a functional interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, according to which all three essays of the Genealogy comprise psychological studies designed to uncover Christian morality’s function to (...) serve the affect of ressentiment. In this paper, I first develop Reginster’s sentimental pragmatism by specifying a need to feel powerful as the one affective need which all moral developments aim to serve on Nietzsche’s view. Then, I argue that while Reginster’s functional interpretation of the Genealogy makes sense of key moral phenomena discussed in the first and third essays, it works less well to explain key developments in the second essay. I then suggest that my power-based sentimental pragmatism does better in this regard, allowing us to identify one basic function of morality that Nietzsche intends to uncover in all three essays of the Genealogy, one basic affective need it aims to serve: the need to feel powerful. (shrink)

PurposeEven low intensity exercise bouts of at least 15 min can improve feelings of energy and reduce systolic blood pressure. However, little is known about the psychological outcomes of briefer exercise bouts, particularly for modes of exercise that are more intense than level walking, and readily available to many working adults. This study assessed the effects of a 4-min bout of stair walking on FOE and feelings of fatigue.MethodsThirty-six young adult participants were randomized to either stair walking or seated control (...) groups. All participants walked on level-ground from a laboratory to a nearby stairwell and were seated for 4 min before beginning their experimental condition. Stair-walking participants walked up and down one flight of 16 stairs at their own pace for 4 min, while control participants remained seated during that time. Participants walked back to the laboratory for post-condition assessments. Measures of blood pressure, heart rate, rated perceived exertion, and the intensity of feelings of mental energy, mental fatigue, physical energy, and physical fatigue were assessed pre-and post-condition. Separate one-way ANOVAs were conducted on change scores for all variables.ResultsThe stair climbing group experienced significant increases in heart rate [F = 13.167, p < 0.001] and RPE [F = 93.844, p < 0.001] that were not observed in the seated control group. Four minutes of self-paced stair climbing resulted in small changes and non-significant differences within and between groups in blood pressure as well as FOE and FOF.ConclusionAlthough a 4-min self-paced exercise bout can convey short-term physiological health benefits, a 4-min bout of self-paced indoor stair walking in a stairwell was insufficient to lower blood pressure or change subjective FOE and fatigue in a sample that exhibited better than typical FOE and FOF at the pre-test. (shrink)

In an 1881 letter, Nietzsche remarks incredulously that he is "utterly amazed" to have found in Spinoza "a precursor" with whom he shares an "overtendency [...] to make knowledge the most powerful affect."1 It is this tendency to assign knowledge and ways of knowing the functional role of an affect that I intend to investigate as a means of overcoming affective nihilism.2 In particular, it is by participating in certain practices of self-knowledge and introducing oneself, experimentally, to new sites and (...) bodies of knowledge that one might reengage oneself with one's world and affirm life.In his work, Nietzsche describes affects as "reactions of the will", as "inclinations" and "aversions... (shrink)

Background and aims: Recent investigations have highlighted the value of neuropsychological testing for the assessment and screening of Alcohol-Related Brain Damage. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the suitability of the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination and the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status for this purpose. Methods: Comparing 28 participants with ARBD and 30 alcohol-dependent participants without ARBD we calculated Area Under the Curve statistics, sensitivity and specificity values, base-rate adjusted predictive values, and likelihood ratios for (...) both tests. Results: High levels of screening accuracy were found for the total scores of both the ACE-III and RBANS at multiple cut-off points. Removing participants with a history of polysubstance from the samples improved the diagnostic capabilities of the RBANS substantially, while only minor improvements to the ACE-III’s accuracy were observed. Conclusions: Overall, both the ACE-III and RBANS are suitable tools for ARBD screening within an alcohol-dependent population, though the RBANS is the superior of the two. Clinicians using these tools for ARBD screening should be cautious of false-positive outcomes and should therefore combine them with other assessment methods and more detailed neuropsychological testing before reaching diagnostic decisions. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to outline a Kantian form of cosmopolitan law and the jurisprudence involved in the creation of a cosmopolitan constitution. This article explores and discusses Kantian cosmopolitan law, the idea of cosmopolitan right, the laws of hospitality and a Kantian approach to constitutional cosmopolitanism. In doing so, the article argues beyond Kant's discussion of constitutionalism, suggesting that a written constitution not only articulates many of Kant's cosmopolitan concerns, but also provides a reasonable ethical foundation for (...) an international society. Throughout this discussion, more particular aspects of Kant's legal conception of cosmopolitanism are examined, focusing on the possibility of an ethical cosmopolitan order based on jurisprudence, the necessity of a minimal consensus bound by constitutional provisions, and the corresponding legal obligations maintained by cosmopolitan law. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of external goods in Nicomachean Ethics I 8-12 is often thought to amend his narrow claim that happiness is virtuous activity. I argue, to the contrary, that on Aristotle's account, external goods are necessary for happiness only because they are necessary for virtuous activity. My case innovates in three main respects: I offer a new map of EN I 8-12; I identify two mechanisms to explain why virtuous activity requires external goods, including a psychological need for external goods; (...) and I show the relevance of Aristotle's distinction between wishing and choosing. On the view I attribute to Aristotle, our capacity to choose virtuously requires, first, that we wish for external goods (because virtue requires the right attitudes of evaluation) and, second, that these wishes are generally fulfilled (because the social consequences and psychological pain of unfulfilled wishes undermine our opportunity to act virtuously and to take pleasure in acting virtuously). I close with discussion of how Aristotelians should defend this approach. (shrink)