ABSTRACT In this commentary I evaluate what McGowan’s project would conclude with respect to the treatment of professional Australian Football League player Adam Goodes, who was incessantly ‘booed’ by crowds for the final two years of his career. Analysing Goodes’ case in light of McGowan’s argument leads me to two observations. First, McGowan’s norm-enactment approach is incredibly useful because it explains how words like ‘boo’ (with unstable meaning) can constitute actionable discrimination. Second, however, I wonder if a narrow focus (...) on whether such speech is legally actionable might encourage an overestimation of the power of laws to shepherd new g-norms into social practices. (shrink)

In the wake of a pilot study that indicated that the experience of medical education appears to Inhibit moral development In medical students, increased attention needs to be given to the structure of medical education and the Influence it has on medical students. Interest in ethics and moral reasoning has become widespread in many aspects of professional and public life. Society has exhibited great interest in the ethical issues confronting physicians today. Considerable effort has been undertaken to train medical students, (...) interns, and residents In how to reason through medical-ethical dilemmas. Media attention has focused on Issues such as abortion, euthanasia, care of severely handicapped infants, organ transplantation, and so forth, producing heated debates in both the professional and lay literature over the morality of the various positions. The curriculum of medical education has paralleled and reflected this general Interest in medical ethics. Most medical schools now offer, and frequently require, course work in ethics. However, further research Is needed to better characterize and understand the relationship of medical education to moral development. (shrink)

Following a brief consideration of two contrasting purposes for teaching the medical humanities, a description is given of a film discussion elective course. In contrast to the usual teaching of medical ethics which is primarily a cognitive activity emphasizing the development of a code of principles such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence, the film discussion elective was primarily an affective activity emphasizing the development of an ethical ideal of caring, relatedness, and sensitivity to others. The pass/fail elective, offered for one (...) credit each quarter for two quarters, met once a week for one hour for twenty-four weeks. Each week a film was shown followed by a group discussion. A wide variety of social issues were covered. The objective of the course was to increase the ethical sensitivity of the medical students through promotion of introspection and reflection on social issues. A brief discussion is given of the importance and appropriateness of using film to promote the affective focus of medicine on the relief of suffering. Examples are given of how the course achieved its objective. A detailed description of the resource materials is provided. (shrink)

Research has examined various cognitive processes underlying ethical decision-making, and has recently begun to focus on the differential effects of specific emotions. The present study examines three self-focused moral emotions and their influence on ethical decision-making: guilt, shame, and embarrassment. Given the potential of these discrete emotions to exert positive or negative effects in decision-making contexts, we also examined their effects on ethical decisions after a cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation intervention. Participants in the study were presented with an (...) ethical scenario and were induced, or not induced, to feel guilt, shame, or embarrassment, and were asked to reappraise, or not reappraise, the situation giving rise to those emotions. Responses to questions about the ethical case were evaluated for the quality of ethical sensemaking, perceptions of moral intensity, and decision ethicality. Findings indicate that guilt, shame, and embarrassment are associated with different sensemaking processes and metacognitive reasoning strategies, and resulted in different perceptions of moral intensity. Additionally, cognitive reappraisal had a negative impact on each of these factors. Implications of these findings for ethical decision-making research are discussed. (shrink)

This chapter is about issues in ethics and moral psychology that have been little explored by contemporary philosophers, ones that concern the advantages and disadvantages of two different kinds of empathy. Roughly, first type is what is sometimes called “other-focused” empathy, in which one reconstructs the thoughts and feelings that someone else has or would have. The second type, “self-focused” empathy, is the sort of emotional attitude someone adopts when she imagines how she would think or feel were she (...) in the other person’s place. Both are variants of empathy, for both have to do with having thoughts and feelings that are more apt, in the relevant senses, for someone else’s circumstances than one’s own. But they differ with respect to how much one makes substantial reference to oneself in order to elicit those thoughts and feelings. Some influential philosophers and psychologists have taken note of the distinction, but none have engaged the issues as thoroughly as did Zhu Xi and his students in twelfth century, largely in a series of commentaries and conversations that have yet to be translated into Western languages. The aim of this chapter is to explicate Zhu’s view about self- and other-focused empathy as he characterized them, reconstruct his arguments for his view, and then discuss some of the implications for ethics and moral psychology more generally. Zhu’s position in brief is that self-focused empathy is—for flawed moral agents like ourselves—a necessary and useful means by which we can better understand and care for others, but that ultimately it is the ladder we must kick away in favor of purely other-focused empathy. (shrink)

Szmimary.—The present report investigated the question of how individual differences in self-consciousness devdop. Rimé and LeBon proposed that high self-consciousness follows a history of frequent exposure to selffocusing stimuli, i.e., mirrors, audiences, audio and video devices, and cameras. To explore this hypothesis private and public self-consciousness and past exposure to self-focusing stimuli were assessed in 438 subjects. Analysis indicated that history of frequent exposure to self-focusing stimuli is significantly but weakly related to high private (...) class='Hi'>self-consciousness in men and to high public self-consciousness in women. This supports previous observations suggesting that the routes to the development of selfconsciousness seem to differ for the two sexes. (shrink)

근대 이후 다양한 철학적 흐름에서 자아에 대한 객관주의적 입장은 비판을 계속 받아왔다. 최근에는 객관주의적 자아 대신 새로운 대안으로 떠오르는 개념이 ‘변화적 자아’ 또는 ‘과정적 자아(self-in-process)’이다. 우리의 자아는 고정된 본질을 가진 실체가 아니라 역사적 우연성들 의 영향을 받으며 진화하는 자아이다. 스스로의 행위에 의해 변형되며, 따라서 경험을 통해 드러 나고 경험에 의해 변형되는 자아이다. 변화적 자아에서는 의식 대신에 ‘몸’이 중심축이다. 몸이 라는 것은 단순히 뇌와 신체를 가리키는 것은 아니며, 그것은 생리학적 심리학적 현상일 뿐만 아니라, 사유, 느낌, 욕구의 역동적 복합성이다. 이 글은 (...) 몸적 자아에 근거하여 중국 고대 철학자인 순자의 수신(修身) 개념을 분석하고자 한다. 본 논문에서는 구체적으로 세 가지 질문에 초점을 맞추고자 한다. 첫째, 순자가 왜 의례의 장 (場)으로서 몸에 집중했는가? 둘째, 인간은 몸을 통해서 어떻게 자아를 형성하고 표현하는가? 셋째, 자아는 어떻게 성장하는가? 순자가 의례의 장으로서 몸짓에 주목한 이유는 인간의 몸이 언표화되지 않는 그 이상의 것, 즉 인간의 내면의 상태를 전달할 수 있다고 믿었기 때문이다. 인간의 몸짓은 다른 의사소통 수 단보다 훨씬 더 근원적이고 직접적인 기호이다. 그리고 우리는 의례 습득을 통해 단순히 어떤 사회에서 올바르다고 승인되는 몸짓을 습득하는 데에서 그치는 것이 아니라 우리의 자아를 형 성한다. 의례 과정에서 존대와 처신의 기제를 통해 나의 자아를 표현하고 상대방의 자아를 대우 한다. 개인의 자아는 상호작용 의례를 행하는 과정에서 형성되고 실현된다. 또한 순자는 『순자』 ｢권학(勸學)｣에서 수신의 단계로 법(法)-> 류(類)-> 예(禮) 또는 통류(統類)의 과정을 제시한다. 이것은 개인이 수신을 통해 차이성-> 유사성-> 통일성의 세계로 나아가는 과정을 묘사한 것이다. 다시 말하면 수신이라는 것은 자신만의 고유한 방식을 통해 자아 정체성을 형성하는 것이기도 하지만, 동시에 개별 존재 간의 유사성, 더 나아가 통일성을 깨닫는 길이기도 하다. 그리고 이 것은 인간됨의 길이기도 하다. (shrink)

This study examined within-person co-occurrence of self-focus, negative affect, and stress in a community sample of adolescents with or without emotional disorders. As part of a larger study, 278 adolescents were interviewed about emotional disorders. Later, they completed diary measures over three days, six times a day, reporting their current thoughts, affect, and levels of stress. Negative affect was independently related to both concurrent stress and self-focus. Importantly, the association between negative affect and self-focus (...) was stronger among participants with a recent unipolar mood disorder, compared to those with an anxiety disorder, comorbid anxiety and depression, or those without an emotional disorder. The implications of these findings to theories of self-focus and its role in emotional disorders are discussed. (shrink)

The present study used the experience sampling method to detect fluctuations in thinking, such as self-focus or concreteness in daily life, and to examine their relationship with depressive symptoms and concurrent negative affect. Thirty-one undergraduates recorded their negative affect, ruminative self-focus, and concreteness of thinking eight times a day for 1 week. Multilevel modeling showed that individuals with increasing levels of depression showed lower levels of concreteness in their daily thinking. Further analysis revealed a significant positive (...) association between momentary ruminative self-focus and concurrent negative affect only with low concreteness of thinking. These results suggested that individuals with increasing levels of depression chronically process self-related information on an abstract level, which reflects a malfunction of their self-regulatory cycle and might serve to maintain or even exacerbate dysphoric moods. (shrink)

Ideomotor theory of human action control proposes that activation of a motor representation can occur either through internally-intended or externally-perceived actions. Critically, sometimes these alternatives of eliciting a motor response may be conflicting, for example, when intending one action and perceiving another, necessitating the recruitment of enhanced action-control to avoid motor mimicry. Based on previous neuroimaging evidence, suggesting that reduced mimicry is associated with self-related processing, we aimed to experimentally enhance these action-control mechanisms during motor contagion by inducing (...) class='Hi'>self-focus. In two within-subjects experiments, participants had to enforce their action intention against an external motor contagion tendency under heightened and normal self-focus. During high self-focus participants showed reduced motor mimicry, induced either by mirror self-observation or self-referential judgments. This indicates that a self-focus provoking situation can enhance online action-control mechanisms, needed to resist unintentional motor contagion tendencies and thereby enables a modulation of automatic mirroring responses. (shrink)

A previous model for treating electromagnetic nonlinear wave systems is examined in the context of wave mechanics. It is shown that nonlinear wave mechanics implies harmonic generation of new quasiparticle wave functions, which are absent in linear systems. The phenomenon is interpreted in terms of pair (and higher order ensembles) coherence of the interacting particles. The implications are far-reaching, and the present approach might contribute toward a common basis for diverse physical phenomena involving nonlinearity. An intimate relationship connecting coherence, nonlocal (...) interaction, and nonlinearity has been previously noticed in the physics of superconductivity. It is shown here that all these ingredients are consistently contained in the present formalism. The present theory may contribute to elucidate a controversial theory proposed by Panarella, who claims to have measured high-energy photons due to high-intensity laser radiation, which cannot be predicted on the basis of linear quantum theory. Panarella explains the new phenomena by stipulating a nonlinear intensity-dependent photon energy. It is argued here that nonlinearity, manifested in the presence of high intensity, may give rise to high- and low-energy photons, the so-called “effective” and “tired” photons, respectively. However, the present explanation does not involve ad hoc assumptions regarding the foundations of quantum theory. In analogy with the electrodynamic model, the present theory leads to particulate self-focusing in high-density streams of particles. Since such particulate beams are currently under consideration in connection with fusion reactions, this might be of future interest. (shrink)

We become aware of our bodies interoceptively, by processing signals arising from within the body, and exteroceptively, by processing signals arising on or outside the body. Recent research highlights the importance of the interaction of exteroceptive and interoceptive signals in modulating bodily self-consciousness. The current study investigated the effect of social self-focus, manipulated via a video camera that was facing the participants and that was either switched on or off, on interoceptive sensitivity and on tactile perception ). (...) The results indicated a significant effect of self-focus on SSDT performance, but not on interoception. SSDT performance was not moderated by interoceptive sensitivity, although interoceptive sensitivity scores were positively correlated with false alarms, independently of self-focus. Together with previous research, our results suggest that self-focus may exert different effects on body perception depending on its mode . While interoception has been previously shown to be enhanced by private self-focus, the current study failed to find an effect of social self-focus on interoceptive sensitivity, instead demonstrating that social self-focus improves exteroceptive somatosensory processing. (shrink)

A number of investigators have suggested that affective states influence the focus of attention. One recent proposal is that negative moods increase self-focus. This review considers the evidence that bears on this hypothesis. Conceptual issues pertaining to the construct of self-focus are discussed first. Next, the various parameters that influence attentional focus are presented in order to provide a way of organizing the mood/selffocus literature. Studies that have used state measures of mood and (...) class='Hi'>self-focus are considered in this context. Methodological limitations of existing studies are discussed and directions for future work provided. (shrink)

이 글은 장자가 주목한 칼의 철학과 이상적 인간상이란 주제를 논의의 축으로 삼아 현대 중국의 최고작가로 평가받는 진융(金庸, 1924-2018)의 작품 소설 영웅문 의 일부를영화화한 (倚天屠龍記, Kung Fu Master, 1993)의 철학적 의의를 구명해본것이다. 이 글에서는 형식상 축약될 수밖에 없는 영화의 한계를 감안하여 원작소설의 내용을 필요에 따라 원용하여 보완해가면서 논의를 전개하였다. 그 결과 영화의 중심소재이기도 한 의천검과 도룡도라는 칼에 담겨진 철학적 의의가 장자철학과 밀접하게 연계되어 있음을 확인하였다. 특히 장자는 살상무기로써 전쟁의 도구가 되는 칼의 존재에 대해 주목한바 있는데, 는 이와 같은 장자의 철학정신을 잘 (...) 반영하여 창조적으로 승화시켰다. 장자는 자연의 이법을 벗어난 칼의 활용은 반자연한 것이며, 어떠한 경우라도 자기욕망의 대상으로 그것을 외물화해서는 안 된다고 강조한다. 또한 칼을 운용하는 주체 역시고착된 일인칭적 자아로부터 해방되지 않으면 안 되며, 타자를 강제적으로 간섭하거나 지배하려고 해서도 안 된다는 입장이다. 장자는 이러한 이상적 인간상을 가리켜 무기 (無己) 라고 제시하였는데, 영화의 주인공은 장자의 이상적 인간상에서 특히 마음의 철학을 특화한 무기 (無忌)라는 이름으로 등장한다. 이 둘의 개념은 동일한 철학정신에 기반을 두고있다는 것이 이 글의 입장이다. 이 글은 특히 이와 같은 문제의식을 무장해제의 철학정신에서 확인하고자 한 의의가 있다. (shrink)

This paper proposes a third meditation-category—automatic self-transcending— to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automaticself-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma (...) activity, included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automaticself-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects. (shrink)

Current accounts suggest that self-referential thought serves a pivotal function in the human ability to simulate the future during mind-wandering. Using experience sampling, this hypothesis was tested in two studies that explored the extent to which self-reflection impacts both retrospection and prospection during mind-wandering. Study 1 demonstrated that a brief period of self-reflection yielded a prospective bias during mind-wandering such that participants’ engaged more frequently in spontaneous future than past thought. In Study 2, individual differences in the (...) strength of self-referential thought — as indexed by the memorial advantage for self rather than other-encoded items — was shown to vary with future thinking during mind-wandering. Together these results confirm that self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering and provide novel evidence that a key function of the autobiographical memory system may be to mentally simulate events in the future. (shrink)

Emotion-Focused Training for Emotion Coaching is based on Emotion-focused Therapy findings and was developed to help participants deepen their emotional skills. The goal was to examine the efficacy of a 12-week EFT-EC group program the level of emotion intelligence, self-compassion and self-criticism in a student population. A quasi-experiment with no control group was conducted with pre- and post-measurements using The Self-compassion scale, the Forms of Self-Criticising/attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale, and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire – (...) short form. The EFT-EC participants were128 students. The EFT-EC intervention had a significant effect on self-criticism and self-control latent scores as reported at post-measurement. The structural equation model with latent variables was not an adequate fit for the rest of the subscales. These results are promising and suggest that interventions intended to enhance emotion skills can also reduce self-criticism even when not directly addressing it. (shrink)

Self-control is integral to successful human agency. Without it we cannot extend our agency across time and secure central social, moral, and personal goods. But self-control is not a unitary capacity. In the first part of this paper we provide a taxonomy of self-control and trace its connections to agency and the self. In part two, we turn our attention to the external conditions that support successful agency and the exercise of self-control. We argue that (...) what we call moral security is a critical foundation for agency. Parts three and four explore what happens to agency when moral security is lacking, as in the case of those subject to racism, and those living in poverty. The disadvantages suffered by those who are poor, in a racial minority or other oppressed group, or suffering mental illness or addiction, are often attributed to a lack of individual self-control or personal responsibility. In particular, members of these groups are often seen as irresponsibly focused on short-term pleasures over long-term good, a view underwritten by particular psychological theories of self-control. We explore how narratives about racism and poverty undermine moral security, and limit and distort the possibility of synchronic and diachronic self-control. Where moral security is undermined, the connection between self-control and diachronic goods often fails to obtain and agency contracts accordingly. We close with some preliminary reflections on the implications for responsibility. (shrink)

Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge is interesting but peculiar and can seem implausible. He denies that we can know by introspection that we have thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But he allows that we can know by introspection what we think, feel, and experience. We consider two puzzles. The first puzzle, PUZZLE 1, is interpretive. Is there a way of understanding Dretske’s theory on which the knowledge affirmed by its positive side is different than the knowledge denied by its negative side? (...) The second puzzle, PUZZLE 2, is substantive. Each of the following theses has some prima facie plausibility: there is introspective knowledge of thoughts, knowledge requires evidence, and there are no experiences of thoughts. It is unclear, though, that these claims form a consistent set. These puzzles are not unrelated. Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge is a potential solution to PUZZLE 2 in that Dretske’s theory is meant to show how,, and can all be true. We provide a solution to PUZZLE 1 by appeal to Dretske’s early work in the philosophy of language on contrastive focus. We then distinguish between “Closure” and “Transmissibility”, and raise and answer a worry to the effect that Dretske’s theory of self-knowledge runs counter to Transmissibility. These results help to secure Dretske’s theory as a viable solution to PUZZLE 2. (shrink)

Appraisal theory assumes that the individual variability of emotional reactions to the same situation is due to individual differences in appraisal. However, the question of how interindividual differences in appraisal come about has been rarely formally addressed. We focus on one of the central dimensions of appraisal—problem-focused coping potential—and attempt to explain individual differences in appraisals along this dimension using self-efficacy theory. We integrate outcome expectancies, self-efficacy expectations, and problem-focused coping potential into a single framework and outline (...) their personality antecedents. Using generalized self-efficacy beliefs as an example, we then discuss the mechanisms underlying the effects of personality dispositions on appraisal and the conditions that moderate their influence. We conclude with the implications for theory, research, and practice. (shrink)

Much light has been shed on important features of teaching and learning by Alasdair MacIntyre's writings. Yet there are experiences that are crucial to teaching and learning that are unaddressed in MacIntyre's arguments; experiences that reveal education as a distinctive kind of practice. This paper examines one kind of such experience: an experience I call ‘being pulled up short’. Drawing on the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Gerald L. Bruns, I analyse an example of teaching King Lear to argue that (...) being pulled up short is a unique experience of disorientation that cannot be taught merely by pedagogical skill, including the modern tools and approaches provided by constructivist learning theory and meta-cognition. The paper concludes by identifying challenges that being pulled up short poses for the education of disposition, and for the aims and activities of teaching. (shrink)

The claim of this paper is to present Spinoza’s view on self-esteem and positive reciprocity, which replaces the human being in a monistic psycho-dynamical affective framework, instead of a dualistic pedestal above nature. Without naturalising the human being in an eliminative materialistic view as many recent neuro-scientific conceptions of the mind do, Spinoza finds an important entry point in a panpsychist and holistic perspective, presenting the complexity of the human being, which is not reducible to the psycho-physiological conditions of (...) life. From a panpsychist point of view, qualities and values emerge from the world, in a situation similar to what could be seen in animism, or early childhood psychology, where the original distance between the mind and the exterior thing is reduced ad minima, and both can even interrelate in a confusing manner. Human reality is nevertheless a social reality, it supposes a basis for shared competencies, that we will present as grounded on the one hand of the sustaining character of the essence of the animal-man as will-to-power. Negatively speaking we all share same asocial tendencies and affects. This aspect is not only negative but it is also a will to develop and master the environment, because values have an onto-metaphysical immanent dimension in nature, not because there is an individual bottom-up will to survive, but rather a will to live in harmony with the surrounding world. On the other hand, we shall see that Spinoza understood and described perfectly the power of the mind over the power of the affects, as a co-constituting dimension, which is alienating natural dependencies, leaving an inner space for the objectification of ethical values, not related to mere compensation mechanisms. (shrink)