We used a retrospective survey to model the patterns of appraisal, motivation, and coping that uniquely correspond with 12 positive emotions (affection/love, amusement, awe, challenge/det...

According to appraisal theory, emotions result from an individual's meaning analysis of the implications of his/her circumstances for personal well-being, and individual differences in emotion arise when individuals appraise similar situations differently. Relational models of appraisal attempt to describe the situational and dispositional antecedents of appraisals, and should allow one to predict such individual differences. In this article, we review three examples of our efforts toward developing relational appraisal models. In two, we start with a particular appraisal component, motivational relevance (...) and problem-focused coping potential (Smith & Lazarus, 1990), respectively, and describe and test the relational model proposed for that component. In the third, as a precursor to developing a true relational model, we examine another appraisal component, emotion-focused coping potential, from a more dispositional perspective. We conclude by considering both the potential value of relational appraisal models, and future directions in the development of these models. (shrink)

This article examines the implications for contract law of Rawls' theory of justice as fairness. It argues that contract law as an institution is part of the basic structure of society and as such subject to the principles of justice. Discussing the basic structure in relation to contract law is particularly interesting because it is instructive for both contract law and Rawlsian theory. On the one hand, justice as fairness has clear normative implications for the institution of contract law. On (...) the other hand, this discussion forces us to critically assess the meaning and appeal of the concept of a basic structure in justice as fairness. (shrink)

ArgumentAs the deficit model's failure leaves scientists searching for more effective communicative approaches, science communication scholars have begun promoting narrative as a potent persuasive tool. Narratives can help the public make choices by setting out a scientific issue's contexts, establishing the stakes involved, and offering potential solutions. However, employing narrative for persuasion risks embracing the same top-down communication approach underlying deficit model thinking. This essay explores the parallels between movie censorship and the current use of narrative to influence public opinion (...) by examining how the Hays Office and the Catholic Legion of Decency responded to science in movies. I argue that deploying narratives solely as public relations exercises demonstrates the same mistrust of audiences that provided the foundation of movie censorship. But the history of movie censorship reveals the dangers of using narrative to remove the public's agency and to coerce them towards a preferred position rather than fostering their ability to come to their own conclusions. (shrink)

In the mid-twentieth century film studios sent their screenplays to Hollywood's official censorship body, the Production Code Administration, and to the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency for approval and recommendations for revision. This article examines the negotiations between filmmakers and censorship groups in order to show the stories that censors did, and did not, want told about pregnancy, childbirth and abortion, as well as how studios fought to tell their own stories about human reproduction. I find that censors considered pregnancy (...) to be a state of grace and a holy obligation that was restricted to married women. For censors, human reproduction was not only a private matter, it was also an unpleasant biological process whose entertainment value was questionable. They worried that realistic portrayals of pregnancy and childbirth would scare young women away from pursuing motherhood. In addition, I demonstrate how filmmakers overcame censors’ strict prohibitions against abortion by utilizing ambiguity in their storytelling. Ultimately, I argue that censors believed that pregnancy and childbirth should be celebrated but not seen. But if pregnancy and childbirth were required then censors preferred mythic versions of motherhood instead of what they believed to be the sacred but horrific biological reality of human reproduction. (shrink)

Peter Martyr Vermigli's distinctive blend of humanism, hebraism, and scholasticism constitutes a unique contribution to the scriptural hermeneutics of the Reformation. The Companion consists of 24 essays addressing the reformer’s international career, exegetical method, biblical commentaries, major theological topics, and later influence.

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, corporations have faced a crisis of trust, with growing sentiment against ‘elites and ‘big business’ and a feeling that ‘something ought to be done’ to re-establish public regard for corporations. Trust and trustworthiness are deeply moral significant. They provide the ‘glue or lubricant’ that begets reciprocity, decreases risk, secures dignity and respect, and safeguards against the subordination of the powerless to the powerful. However, in deciding how to restore trust, it is difficult to (...) determine precisely what should be done, by whom, and who will bear the cost, especially if any action involves a risk to overall market efficiency and corporate profitability. The paper explores whether corporations have a moral duty to be trustworthy, to bear the cost of being so and thus contribute to resolving the current crisis of trust. It also considers where the state and other social actors have strong reason to protect and enforce such moral rights, while acknowledging that other actors have similar obligations to be trustworthy. It outlines five ‘salient factors’ that trigger specific rights to trustworthiness and a concomitant duty on corporations to be trustworthy: market power, subordination (threat and intimidation), the absence of choice, the need to preserve systemic trust, and corporate political power which might undermine a state’s legitimacy. Absent these factors and corporations do not have a general duty to be trustworthy, since a responsible actor in fair market conditions should be able to choose between the costs and benefits of dealing with generally trustworthy corporations. (shrink)

The present study examined a relational model of appraisal that specifies the situational and dispositional antecedents of appraised problem-focused coping potential, itself a hypothesised antecedent of the emotions of hope/challenge and resignation. The hypothesised relational antecedents of this appraisal were tested in a quasi-experiment in which individuals varying in self-perceived and objectively assessed math ability attempted to solve math problems on which difficulty was manipulated. Findings for the critical test problem largely conformed to predictions: Under difficult conditions, but not easy (...) ones, increasing math ability was generally associated with elevated appraisals of problem-focused coping potential, increased hope/challenge, reduced resignation, and increased likelihood of solving the problem. However, problem-focused coping potential, hope/challenge, and the likelihood of solving the problem were all lower, and resignation was higher, for the highest ability participants, than would be predicted from their ability levels. Comparable findings were not observed for appraisals of emotion-focused coping potential or its theoretically associated emotion of anxiety, providing evidence of discriminant validity for the examined model. The results of a mediational analysis supported the hypothesis that the effects of the quasi-experimental design on hope/challenge and resignation were mediated by their effects on appraised problem-focused coping potential, lending support to the proposition that appraisals play a causal role in emotion elicitation. (shrink)

Through cultural transmission, repeated learning by new individuals transforms cultural information, which tends to become increasingly compressible . Existing diffusion chain studies include in their design two processes that could be responsible for this tendency: learning and reproducing . This paper manipulates the presence of learning in a simple iterated drawing design experiment. We find that learning seems to be the causal factor behind the increase in compressibility observed in the transmitted information, while reproducing is a source of random heritable (...) innovations. Only a theory invoking these two aspects of cultural learning will be able to explain human culture's fundamental balance between stability and innovation. (shrink)

This study assesses the impact had by institutional isomorphic pressures in the organisational fields of 185 businesses operating within the United Kingdom. The emphasis throughout is on how external institutions affect the socially and environmentally responsible aspects of an organization’s purchasing practice. Factor analyses and a linear regression model are employed to test the influence of these pressures. Initial findings suggest that what other industry participants are doing in this area is not as important in affecting the procurement practice of (...) the focal organisation as is the managers’ perception of how legitimacy is awarded by stakeholders and, indeed, if competitors with well-developed social and environmental supply chain management programs are perceived favourably in the industry. (shrink)

This chapter examines Thoreau’s experiences on Mt. Katahdin, vis-à-vis exposure science and wilderness therapy. A close reading of Thoreau’s account suggests the experience had a profound effect on him, emotionally and philosophically, an effect that is relevant to environmental exposure and eco-vulnerability in the contexts of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Thoreau’s experience on that mountain presented to him an aspect of wilderness antithetical to the romantic, transcendentalist notions he previously held and ultimately led to more nuanced, therapeutic depictions (...) found in works like “Walking” and Walden. That such a reconciliation was possible for Thoreau suggests a privileged insulation from trauma not afforded to many. It also indicates the value of both philosophical contemplation and wilderness therapy to promote psychological resilience and adaptability. The author argues philosophers should begin to engage conceptually and normatively with exposure, vulnerability, and resilience. (shrink)

Some moral theorists argue that being an innocent beneficiary of significant harms inflicted by others may be sufficient to ground special duties to address the hardships suffered by the victims, at least when it is impossible to extract compensation from those who perpetrated the harm. This idea has been applied to climate change in the form of the beneficiary-pays principle. Other philosophers, however, are quite sceptical about beneficiary pays. Our aim in this article is to examine their critiques. We conclude (...) that, while they have made important points, the principle remains worthy of further development and exploration. Our purpose in engaging with these critiques is constructive — we aim to formulate beneficiary pays in ways that would give it a plausible role in allocating the cost of addressing human-induced climate change, while acknowledging that some understandings of the principle would make it unsuitable for this purpose. (shrink)

Transgenic plants are now being used to develop pharmaceutical and industrial products in addition to their use in crop improvement. Using confinement requirements, these transgenic plants are grown and processed under conditions that prevent intermixing with commodity crops. Regulatory agencies in the United States have provided guidance of zero tolerance of these new industrial crops with commodity crops. While this is a worthy goal, it is theoretically unattainable. In spite of the best containment practices, there is a potential risk using (...) any system of production due to unforeseen incidences including natural disasters or exposure to workers. The precautionary principle has been used for numerous regulated articles in addressing the potential risks of new products and technology based on a risk assessment in similar situations. We present here a risk assessment model that could be used as a start to develop an accepted model for the industry. The model is based on current risk models used for other regulated articles, but adapted for these types of products. This could be used to determine action levels in the event of an unintended exposure or to ensure that detection or confinement methods are adequate to avoid risks. As an example, aprotinin, a therapeutic protein now being produced in maize, was evaluated for potential risk to humans using this model. (shrink)

Some moral theorists argue that being an innocent beneficiary of significant harms inflicted by others may be sufficient to ground special duties to address the hardships suffered by the victims, at least when it is impossible to extract compensation from those who perpetrated the harm. This idea has been applied to climate change in the form of the beneficiary-pays principle. Other philosophers, however, are quite sceptical about beneficiary pays. Our aim in this article is to examine their critiques. We conclude (...) that, while they have made important points, the principle remains worthy of further development and exploration. Our purpose in engaging with these critiques is constructive — we aim to formulate beneficiary pays in ways that would give it a plausible role in allocating the cost of addressing human-induced climate change, while acknowledging that some understandings of the principle would make it unsuitable for this purpose. (shrink)

Colexification refers to the phenomenon of multiple meanings sharing one word in a language. Cross‐linguistic lexification patterns have been shown to be largely predictable, as similar concepts are often colexified. We test a recent claim that, beyond this general tendency, communicative needs play an important role in shaping colexification patterns. We approach this question by means of a series of human experiments, using an artificial language communication game paradigm. Our results across four experiments match the previous cross‐linguistic findings: all other (...) things being equal, speakers do prefer to colexify similar concepts. However, we also find evidence supporting the communicative need hypothesis: when faced with a frequent need to distinguish similar pairs of meanings, speakadjust their colexification preferences to maintain communicative efficiency and avoid colexifying those similar meanings which need to be distinguished in communication. This research provides further evidence to support the argument that languages are shaped by the needs and preferences of their speakers. (shrink)

Randomized controlled trials are often considered the gold standard for estimating causal effect, but they may lack external validity when the population eligible to the RCT is substantially different from the target population. Having at hand a sample of the target population of interest allows us to generalize the causal effect. Identifying the treatment effect in the target population requires covariates to capture all treatment effect modifiers that are shifted between the two sets. Standard estimators then use either weighting, outcome (...) modeling, or combine the two in doubly robust approaches. However, such covariates are often not available in both sets. In this article, after proving L 1 {L}^{1} -consistency of these three estimators, we compute the expected bias induced by a missing covariate, assuming a Gaussian distribution, a continuous outcome, and a semi-parametric model. Under this setting, we perform a sensitivity analysis for each missing covariate pattern and compute the sign of the expected bias. We also show that there is no gain in linearly imputing a partially unobserved covariate. Finally, we study the substitution of a missing covariate by a proxy. We illustrate all these results on simulations, as well as semi-synthetic benchmarks using data from the Tennessee student/teacher achievement ratio, and a real-world example from critical care medicine. (shrink)

Institutional review boards, tasked with facilitating ethical research, are often pulled in competing directions. In what we call the protection-inclusion dilemma, we acknowledge the tensions IRBs face in aiming to both protect potential research participants from harm and include under-represented populations in research. In this manuscript, we examine the history of protectionism that has dominated research ethics oversight in the United States, as well as two responses to such protectionism: inclusion initiatives and critiques of the term vulnerability. We look at (...) what we know about IRB decision-making in relation to protecting and including “vulnerable” groups in research and examine the lack of regulatory guidance related to this dilemma, which encourages protection over inclusion within IRB practice. Finally, we offer recommendations related to how IRBs might strike a better balance between inclusion and protection in research ethics oversight. (shrink)

Scholars have revealed how moral evaluation is woven into formal administrative processes. While research examining these dynamics tends to assume that a person’s naturalized identity (such as race and gender) precedes administrative processing, we argue that social categorization by administrators is the tacit precondition upon which further processing takes place. We make this argument by looking at a set of unusual cases: parole hearings where prisoners fall outside of, conflict with, or move between categories of gender, sexuality, race, and ability. (...) We find that categorization acts as a prerequisite to moral evaluation. When administrators cannot easily categorize a prisoner, they resolve this uncertainty by denying parole. Yet, social categorization can also serve as a pathway to moral approval and administrative allocation. In certain situations, administrators encourage prisoners’ identification with a new social category as proof that they are deserving of parole. In both cases, successful administrative categorization occurs through a combination of what we call narrativization, or crafting a narrative around one’s identity that aligns with administrators’ presumptions, and authorization, or marshalling official evidence from prior classification moments to support identity claims. These insights extend our understanding of classification, moral evaluation, and the administrative reproduction of inequality. (shrink)

"Que sais-je? Que dois-je faire? Que m'est-il permis d'espérer? " Ainsi s'interrogeait Kant. Preuve s'il en est que les philosophes ne sont pas des êtres désincarnés. Ce sont des hommes comme nous, ayant une famille, un métier, des engagements citoyens. Dans leurs écrits, ils nous parlent de nous, de ce que nous sommes et vivons. Leurs questions sont les interrogations existentielles auxquelles nous confronte le monde postmoderne consumériste, individualiste, relativiste et nihiliste. En revisitant la philosophie moderne, cet ouvrage nous invite (...) à reprendre les trois grandes questions kantiennes. Il est urgent de penser notre existence afin de vivre avec lucidité, responsabilité et plénitude. Ce que les Grecs appelaient une vie "bonne". (shrink)

With the development and increasing use of diverse public involvement methods over the past decade, formal technology assessment has shifted from a largely closed, intrainstitutional tool of policy analysis and advice to a tool for the social assessment of scientific-technological issues at the interface between politics and public discourse. Through citizens’ conferences, scenario workshops, and consensus conferences, technology assessment has effectively been opened up to the public sphere: Citizens and interest group representatives are drawn into the process of assessing scientific (...) and technological issues alongside experts, the process often takes place in public, and its outcomes are made widely available for information and debate. This article analyzes the public involvement agenda in technology assessment from the conceptual perspective of the “public sphere.” It discusses key features of public sphere–oriented technology assessment, including public access, actor involvement, and deliberation. And it considers the implications of the public sphere dimension for future developments in participatory technology assessment. (shrink)