The cry that advanced machines will come to dominate human beings resounds from the time of the Luddites up to the current consternation by the chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy. My theme is a twist on this fear: self-deselection, the possibility that humans will voluntarily combine their own bodies with technological additions to the point where it could reasonably be said that our species has been replaced by another kind of entity, a hybrid of human and radical enhancement, (...) whether that enhancement stems from genetic alteration or the affixing of robotic parts. The paper discusses why this danger exists, focusing mainly on perilous psychological and cultural tendencies (though the amazing rate of technological change and its likely course are discussed). It then proceeds with arguments as to why such deselection is a kind of suicide and why this suicide would be a bad thing in the context of early twenty-first- century society. In the last section, ecofeminist theory is employed to generate a therapeutic ethic of social and political relationship that contrasts with a patriarchal model of dominative control through aggressive science. (shrink)

Charles Crittenden here offers an original solution to one of the traditional dilemmas of philosophy—whether there can be any thing not existing, since to say that some thing does not exist seems to presuppose its existence. Drawing on the tools of Wittgensteinian philosophy and speech act theory, Crittenden argues that we can and often do make reference to unreal objects such as fictional characters, though they do not exist in any sense at all.

Cooperative child care among humans, where individuals other than the biological mother (allomothers) provide care, may increase a mother’s fertility and the survivorship of her children. Although the potential benefits to the mother are clear, the motivations for allomothers to provide care are less clear. Here, we evaluate the kin selection allomothering hypothesis using observations on Hadza hunter-gatherers collected in ten camps over 17 months. Our results indicate that related allomothers spend the largest percentage of time holding children. The higher (...) the degree of relatedness among kin, the more time they spend holding, supporting the hypothesis of nepotism as the strongest motivation for providing allomaternal care. Unrelated helpers of all ages also provide a substantial amount of investment, which may be motivated by learning to mother, reciprocity, or coercion. (shrink)

Cross-cultural sex differences in mobility and harm avoidance have been widely reported, often emphasizing fitness benefits of long-distance travel for males and high costs for females. Data emerging from adults in small-scale societies, however, are challenging the assumption that female mobility is restricted during reproduction. Such findings warrant further exploration of the ontogeny of mobility. Here, using a combination of machine-learning, mixed-effects linear regression, and GIS mapping, we analyze range size, daily distance traveled, and harm avoidance among Hadza foragers during (...) middle childhood and adolescence. Distance traveled increased with age and, while male adolescents had the longest daily ranges, average daily distance traveled by each sex was similar. We found few age- or sex-related patterns in harm-avoidant responses and a high degree of individual variation. When queried on the same issues, children and their parents were often in alignment as to expectations pertaining to harm avoidance, and siblings tended to behave in similar ways. To the extent that sex differences in mobility did emerge, they were associated with ecological differences in physical threats associated with sex-specific foraging behaviors. Further, we found no strong association between harm avoidance and mobility. Young Hadza foragers of both sexes are highly mobile, regardless of how harm avoidant they are. Taken together, our findings indicate that the causal arrows between harm avoidance and mobility must be evaluated in ecologically specific frameworks where cultural expectations of juvenile mobility can be contextualized. (shrink)

Paul Crittenden sets out to recover the past philosophical practice of treating developmental questions as an important part of ethical inquiry and to bring moral development, moral education, and moral philosophy back together again. The first part of this extremely thorough work is concerned with the main contemporary accounts of how children come to be moral beings. Against this background, the second part consists of historical studies of major accounts of morality in a developmental context. Crittenden stresses the (...) necessity of community for moral development and also address a number of conceptual questions, including the relationship between morality and religion. (shrink)

Managers throughout the world regularly face ethical dilemmas that have important, and perhaps complex, professional and personal implications. Further, societal consequences of decisions made can be far-reaching. In this study, 210 financial services managers from Australia, Chile, Ecuador and the United States were queried about their ethical beliefs when faced with four diverse dilemmas. In addition, the situational context was altered so the respondent viewed each dilemma from a top management position and from a position of economic hardship. Results suggest (...) a complex interaction of situation, culture and issue when individuals make ethical judgments. Specifically, Chileans were found to have different beliefs about sex discrimination and child labor dilemmas when compared to their colleagues from the other three nations. Chileans and Australians also disagreed on the bribery dilemma. Anglo managers were more likely than Latin American managers to change their ethical responses when the situation was altered. For multinational firms interested in maintaining healthy ethical climates, the findings suggest that culturally contingent ethical guidelines, or policies adapted to the local customs, must be considered. Further, managers must remain aware of issues related to specific situations, both internal and external, that would cause subordinates to alter their moral judgment. (shrink)

Two hundred and fifty years ago in A. D. 1763, the learned and brilliant German philologist PETRUS WESSELING published in Amsterdam his magisterial edition of the Greek text of Herodotos. His text became very influential and was the basis of nearly all later editions, with his emendations and readings adopted without question over the coming decades and eventually centuries. Many of these were the product of his deep knowledge of Greek history. But at 1.64.3, WESSELING emended the reading of all (...) the best manuscripts from Ἀλκμεωνιδέω to Ἀλκμεωνιδέων. This emendation means that those who fled Attica after the Battle of Pallene in 546 B. C. went into exile with the Alkmeonidai, rather than with a specific individual, Alkmeonides. Yet this removal of Alkmeonides from Herodotos’ narrative at this point is neither necessary nor justifiable. (shrink)

The basics -- The family as an institution for the development of values -- The role of community and culture in shaping land use policy -- The mending wall : religion and ethics at the dawn of a century -- Character education : a dialogue -- Restoring trust in government : the role of integrity and responsiveness -- Is there a crisis of citizenship? -- Organizational ethics and responsibility -- Media ethics -- Reflections on values, ethics, and personal responsibility.

Jack Crittenden examines the debate in political theory about the true conception of human nature. On the one hand is the concept of the liberal self which is self-contained, atomistic, even selfish; on the other hand is the notion of the communitarian self which is socially situated and defined in part by one's community. Crittenden argues that neither view is acceptable and draws on recent psychological research to develop a theory of `compound individuality'. The compound individual retains the (...) liberal emphasis on personal autonomy, without the association of autonomy with self-sufficiency. Crittenden concludes by reflecting on what kinds of political institutions will invite commitment and reflection from `compound individuals'. (shrink)