This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) and moral constructs (...) related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so. (shrink)

The use of upper limb vibration during exercise and rehabilitation continues to gain popularity as a modality to improve function and performance. Currently, a lack of knowledge of the pathways being altered during ULV limits its effective implementation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether indirect ULV modulates transmission along spinal and corticospinal pathways that control the human forearm. All measures were assessed under CONTROL and ULV conditions while participants maintained a small contraction of the right flexor (...) carpi radialis muscle. To assess spinal pathways, Hoffmann reflexes elicited by stimulation of the median nerve were recorded from FCR with motor response amplitudes matched between conditions. An H-reflex conditioning paradigm was also used to assess changes in presynaptic inhibition by stimulating the superficial radial nerve 37 ms prior to median nerve stimulation. Cutaneous reflexes in FCR elicited by stimulation of the SR nerve at the wrist were also recorded. To assess corticospinal pathways, motor evoked potentials elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation of the contralateral motor cortex were recorded from the right FCR and biceps brachii. ULV significantly reduced H-reflex amplitude by 15.7% for both conditioned and unconditioned reflexes. Therefore, ULV inhibits cutaneous and H-reflex transmission without influencing corticospinal excitability of the forearm flexors suggesting increased presynaptic inhibition of afferent transmission as a likely mechanism. A general increase in inhibition of spinal pathways with ULV may have important implications for improving rehabilitation for individuals with spasticity. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that students in engineering self-report cheating in college at higher rates than those in most other disciplines. Prior work also suggests that participation in one deviant behavior is a reasonable predictor of future deviant behavior. This combination of factors leads to a situation where engineering students who frequently participate in academic dishonesty are more likely to make unethical decisions in professional practice. To investigate this scenario, we propose the hypotheses that (1) there are similarities in the decision-making (...) processes used by engineering students when considering whether or not to participate in academic and professional dishonesty, and (2) prior academic dishonesty by engineering students is an indicator of future decisions to act dishonestly. Our sample consisted of undergraduate engineering students from two technically-oriented private universities. As a group, the sample reported working full-time an average of six months per year as professionals in addition to attending classes during the remaining six months. This combination of both academic and professional experience provides a sample of students who are experienced in both settings. Responses to open-ended questions on an exploratory survey indicate that students identify common themes in describing both temptations to cheat or to violate workplace policies and factors which caused them to hesitate in acting unethically, thus supporting our first hypothesis and laying the foundation for future surveys having forced-choice responses. As indicated by the responses to forced-choice questions for the engineering students surveyed, there is a relationship between self-reported rates of cheating in high school and decisions to cheat in college and to violate workplace policies; supporting our second hypothesis. Thus, this exploratory study demonstrates connections between decision-making about both academic and professional dishonesty. If better understood, these connections could lead to practical approaches for encouraging ethical behavior in the academic setting, which might then influence future ethical decision-making in workplace settings. (shrink)

Drawing from existing theory and empirical evidence on mindfulness, we posit that trait mindfulness is associated with less accurate memories of immoral conduct. We report three studies that provide evidence of this argument. One significant implication of this finding is that it provides a more balanced and complete view of mindfulness. Specifically, while mindfulness is widely promoted for its positive effects for employee well‐being, mindfulness may inadvertently promote a biased moral self‐perception based on inaccurate memories of one's past immoral conduct. (...) In a fourth study, we explore this implication and demonstrate that memory mediates the negative relationship between trait mindfulness and self‐reported immoral conduct. This research contributes to literatures on mindfulness, memory, morality, and to the growing body of work assessing the importance of mindfulness. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in how people conceptualise the legal domain for the purpose of legal knowledge systems. In this paper we discuss four such conceptualisations (referred to as ontologies): McCarty's language for legal discourse, Stamper's norma formalism, Valente's functional ontology of law, and the ontology of Van Kralingen and Visser. We present criteria for a comparison of the ontologies and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the ontologies in relation to these criteria. Moreover, we critically review the criteria.

State governments provide preprinted advance directive forms to the general public. However, many adults in the United States (US) lack the skills necessary to read and comprehend health care-related materials. In this study, we sought to determine the readability of state government-sponsored advance directive forms.

This edited collection had its origins in a two-day conference held at the Tate Britain, organised collaboratively by research staff and students at Middlesex University and the London Consortium in order to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the publication of Edmund Burke's famous book on the sublime. The conference was funded by Middlesex University, the London Consortium and the Tate Britain's AHRC-funded "Sublime Object: Nature, Art and Language" research project. The conference set out to critically examine the legacy of the (...) sublime in contemporary art, culture and society and to assess the value and the dangers of this concept as it is articulated in current thought and practice. The book selected from and expanded on the papers delivered at the conference in order to pursue this goal further. It was broken into themed sections (each of which had an introduction), each exploring an different issue around contemporary uses of the sublime. The sections were: 1. Nature, Ecology and the Sublime; 2. The Sublime After Kant; 3. Capitalism, Terror, Art and the Sublime; 4. Baroque and Beyond: Art, Sex and the Sublime; 5. The Cinematic Sublime. The volume reflects the interdisiplinarity of the concept of the sublime today, and includes essays whose appraoches come from aesthetics and ethics, ecological and political thought, psychoanalysis, feminism, film studies, literary studies, art history and popular culture. It includes papers by internationally renowned authors from the UK, America and Europe alongside the new voices of younger academics. The contributors were: Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins University), Mark Bould (University of the West of England), Eu Jin Chua (London Consortium), Gudrun Filipska (Middlesex University), Cornelia Klinger (Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna / University of Tübingen, Germany), Esther Leslie (Birkbeck), William McDonald (Middlesex Univeristy), Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck), Claire Pajaczkowska (Royal College of Art), Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds), Gene Ray (Geneva University of Art and Design), Bettina Reiber (Central St. Martins), Jan Rosiek (University of Copenhagen), Sherryl Vint (Brock University, Canada), and Luke White (Middlesex University). (shrink)

The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz's classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms (...) of this consensus position. My second aim is to show what form substantivalism must take in order to uphold the consensus while addressing this challenge. The result is a novel "plenitudinous" substantivalist view, which predicts that certain modal facts about spacetime are vague or indeterminate. I then argue against this view on independent grounds, concluding that substantivalists should reject the consensus position. The paper also discusses the way forward for substantivalists in light of this conclusion. (shrink)

Philosophers and geographers have converged on the topic of public space, fascinated and in many ways alarmed by fundamental changes in the way post-industrial societies produce space for public use, and in the way citizens of these same societies perceive and constitute themselves as a public. This volume advances this inquiry, making extensive use of political and social theory, while drawing intimate connections between political principles, social processes, and the commonplaces of our everyday environments.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 202-204.

I demonstrate that a set of well-known objections defeat John Stuart Mill’s plural voting proposal, but do not defeat plural voting as such. I adopt the following as a working definition of political equality: a voting system is egalitarian if and only if departures from a baseline of equally weighted votes are normatively permissible. I develop an alternative proposal, called procedural plural voting, which allocates plural votes procedurally, via the free choices of the electorate, rather than according to a substantive (...) standard of competence. The alternative avoids standards objections to Mill’s proposal. Moreover, reflection on the alternative plural voting scheme disrupts our intuitions about what counts as an egalitarian voting system. Undue emphasis on Mill’s version of plural voting obscures three important reasons to reject plural voting in favor of strictly egalitarian voting systems: that certain choices that generate inequalities of political power are morally impermissible; that even... (shrink)

This paper will explore an epistemic aspect of hope, namely hope’s relationship to knowledge. It has been taken for granted that people do not hope for things to occur that they know will occur. I will be giving an argument that hope and knowledge are compatible, and I will defend that argument against one primary objection. More specifically, I will argue that there are instances when an agent knows that p and still hopes that p.

Burrowing mammals are ubiquitous on farms in South Africa and can hinder agricultural practices. This study explored farmer perspectives of these species, and specifically the factors that influence these perspectives. Forty-four farmers responded to a questionnaire that assessed their ecological knowledge of, tolerance towards and lethal management of burrowing mammals that occur on their farms. The results from generalised linear models showed that neither farmer age, nor level of education are accurate predictors of ecological knowledge, overall tolerance towards burrowers, or (...) their lethal management. Knowledge of burrowing mammals showed a significant relationship with tolerance, with more knowledgeable individuals displaying higher levels of tolerance. However, a farmer’s overall tolerance towards burrowing species did not affect the number of species managed. Our results also suggest that different values are attached to different species when it comes to lethal management. Thus, farmers commonly controlled the numbers of the problem rodent species, Highveld gerbil (Gerbilliscus brantsii) and Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris), but were less likely to manage black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) and warthog (Phacochoerus africanus), even when experiencing these as problematic. We suggest that the larger, more charismatic species possibly evoke more sympathy from farmers. Agro-ecosystems are likely to become increasingly important for conservation in the future, and we encourage continued studies on the environmental attitudes and approaches of agricultural practitioners as a means to understanding the current status and future trends in ecologically sustainable agriculture. (shrink)

_Peter Greenaway's Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema_ Edited by Paula Willoquet-Maricondi and Mary Alemany-Galway Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2001 ISBN 0-8108-3892-3 xxviii + 360 pp.

Background: Transgender health care is a subject of much debate among clinicians, political commentators, and policy-makers. While the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (SOC) establish clinical standards, these standards contain implied ethics but lack explicit focused discussion of ethical considerations in providing care. An ethics chapter in the SOC would enhance clinical guidelines. Aims: We aim to provide a valuable guide for healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in the ethical aspects of clinical support for gender (...) diverse and transgender people of all ages. Recognizing that the WPATH is a global association, we address broad challenges. We offer a reflection on general ethical principles, providing conceptual tools for healthcare providers, patients, and families to navigate the specific challenges they might encounter in transgender health care, in line with WPATH’s worldwide mission and scope. Method: This article employs a descriptive analysis, and our framework of reference is the four principles of biomedical ethics: respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Results: The article presents a discussion on the four ethical principles as applied to transgender health care. We address issues such as respect for patient autonomy in decision-making, the role of beneficence and nonmaleficence in clinical interventions, and the importance of justice in equitable treatment and access to care. Some of the ethical concerns we address in this article pertain to the current sociopolitical climate, where there has been increasing legal interference, internationally, for transgender and nonbinary people, particularly youth, seeking medical care. Discussion: We highlight the interplay between ethical principles and clinical practice, underscoring the need for ethical guidance in addressing the diverse challenges faced by healthcare providers and patients in transgender health care. We advocate for continuous refinement of ethical thinking to ensure that transgender health care is not only medically effective but also ethically sound. (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have not reached a consensus about whether or not individuals who contribute to climate change have a moral obligation to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, I side with those who think that such individuals do have such an obligation by appealing to the concept of integrity. I argue that adopting a political commitment to work toward a collective solution to climate change—a commitment we all ought to share—requires also adopting a personal commitment to reduce (...) one’s emissions. On these grounds, individuals who contribute to climate change have a prima facie moral duty to lower their personal greenhouse gas emissions. After presenting this argument and supporting each of its premises, I defend it from two major lines of objection: skepticism about integrity’s status as a virtue and concerns that the resulting moral duty would be too demanding to be morally required. I then consider the role that an appeal to integrity could play in galvanizing the American public to take personal and political action regarding climate change. (shrink)

In Pragmatism’s Evolution, Trevor Pearce demonstrates that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism owes an enormous debt to specific biological debates in the late 1800s, especially those concerning the role of the environment in development and evolution. Many are familiar with John Dewey’s 1909 assertion that evolutionary ideas overturned two thousand years of philosophy—but what exactly happened in the fifty years prior to Dewey’s claim? What form did evolutionary ideas take? When and how were they received by American philosophers? Although (...) the various thinkers associated with pragmatism—from Charles Sanders Peirce to Jane Addams and beyond—were towering figures in American intellectual life, few realize the full extent of their engagement with the life sciences. In his analysis, Pearce focuses on a series of debates in biology from 1860 to 1910—from the instincts of honeybees to the inheritance of acquired characteristics—in which the pragmatists were active participants. If we want to understand the pragmatists and their influence, Pearce argues, we need to understand the relationship between pragmatism and biology. (shrink)

This commentary aims to place Grace de Laguna’s critique of pragmatism in its historical context. It examines her 1904 response to Henry Heath Bawden, her 1909 attack on John Dewey’s immediate empiricism, and her 1910 book Dogmatism and Evolution, focusing on the following question: Why did she describe her approach as an attempt to complete the pragmatists’ Darwinian revolution in logic?

Significant challenges arise for clinical care teams when a patient or surrogate decision-maker hopes a miracle will occur. This article answers the question, “How should clinical bioethicists respond when a medical decision-maker uses the hope for a miracle to orient her medical decisions?” We argue the ethicist must first understand the complexity of the miracle-invocation. To this end, we provide a taxonomy of miracle-invocations that assist the ethicist in analyzing the invocator's conceptions of God, community, and self. After the ethicist (...) appreciates how these concepts influence the invocator's worldview, she can begin responding to this hope with specific practices. We discuss these practices in detail and offer concrete recommendations for a justified response to the hope for a miracle. (shrink)

Call it the Skynet hypothesis, Artificial General Intelligence, or the advent of the Singularity — for years, AI experts and non-experts alike have fretted (and, for a small group, celebrated) the idea that artificial intelligence may one day become smarter than humans. -/- According to the theory, advances in AI — specifically of the machine learning type that’s able to take on new information and rewrite its code accordingly — will eventually catch up with the wetware of the biological brain. (...) In this interpretation of events, every AI advance from Jeopardy-winning IBM machines to the massive AI language model GPT-3 is taking humanity one step closer to an existential threat. We’re literally building our soon-to-be-sentient successors. -/- Except that it will never happen. At least, according to the authors of the new book Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without Fear. (shrink)

We consider a weak version of Schindler’s remarkable cardinals that may fail to be ${{\rm{\Sigma }}_2}$-reflecting. We show that the ${{\rm{\Sigma }}_2}$-reflecting weakly remarkable cardinals are exactly the remarkable cardinals, and that the existence of a non-${{\rm{\Sigma }}_2}$-reflecting weakly remarkable cardinal has higher consistency strength: it is equiconsistent with the existence of an ω-Erdős cardinal. We give an application involving gVP, the generic Vopěnka principle defined by Bagaria, Gitman, and Schindler. Namely, we show that gVP + “Ord is not ${{\rm{\Delta (...) }}_2}$-Mahlo” and ${\text{gVP}}$ + “there is no proper class of remarkable cardinals” are both equiconsistent with the existence of a proper class of ω-Erdős cardinals, extending results of Bagaria, Gitman, Hamkins, and Schindler. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

Mark Murphy has recently defended a novel account of divine agency on which God would have very minimal requiring reasons and a wide range of merely justified reasons. This account grounds his response to the problem of evil. If God would not have requiring reasons to promote the well-being of creatures, Murphy argues, then the evil we observe would not count as evidence against theism. I argue that Murphy's conclusion, if successful in undermining the problem of evil, also undermines probabilistic (...) arguments for theism. However, there is good reason to resist his conclusion. Even if God does not have requiring reasons, but merely has justifying reasons, to promote creaturely well-being, God may nevertheless have most motivating reason to do so, and this would be enough to predict divine action, at least given Murphy's further assumption that God is perfectly free. It does not follow from the rational permissibility of God's Φ-ing that it is possible for God to Φ. (shrink)

Mackie famously argued for a moral error theory on the basis that objective moral values, if they existed, would be very queer entities. Unfortunately, his argument is very brief and it is not totally obvious from what he says exactly where the queerness of moral values is supposed to lie. In this paper I will firstly show why a typical interpretation of Mackie is problematic and secondly offer a new interpretation. I will argue that, whether or not we have reason (...) to live in the morally correct way, what seems queer about moral properties is that there is a morally correct way in which to live in the first place. This interpretation makes sense of Mackie’s claim that theism might be able to solve the queerness problem; the notion of an objectively correct way to live may make sense if theism is true, but not otherwise. (shrink)

This book presents an account of Hannah Arendt's performative and non-sovereign theory of freedom and political action, with special focus on action's disclosure of the unique 'who' of each agent. It aims to illuminate Arendt's critique of sovereign rule, totalitarianism, and world-alienation, her defense of a distinct political sphere for engaged citizen action and judgment, her conception of the 'right to have rights,' and her rejection of teleological philosophies of history. Arendt proposes that in modern, pluralistic, secular public spheres, no (...) one metaphysical or religious idea can authoritatively validate political actions or opinions absolutely. At the same time, she sees action and thinking as revealing an inescapable existential illusion of a divine element in human beings, a notion represented well by the 'daimon' metaphor that appears in Arendt's own work and in key works by Plato, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Kant, with which she engages. While providing a post-metaphysical theory of action and judgment, Arendt performs the fact that many of the legitimating concepts of contemporary secular politics retain a residual vocabulary of transcendence. This book will be of interest not only to Arendt scholars, but also to students of identity politics, the critique of sovereignty, international political theory, political theology, and the philosophy of history.. (shrink)

We live in anagewhere"progressive" intellectualspresuppose that true democracy demands the affirmation of "global values" and the drive toward a world government, a"universal and homogenous state." Intellectuals, journalists, and educators bemoan the effects of "globalization" even as they uncritically endorse cosmopolitanism and dismissnational attachments as parochial and outdated. They confuse thoughtful patriotism - and commitment to the self-governing nation - with the narrowest form of nationalism. In a wonderfullylucid and learned essay, Trevor Shelley recovers a humane liberal tradition, from Montesquieu (...) to Manent, that takes the political seriously and does full justice to the legitimate claims of both universality and particularity. Whether discussing Tocqueville's critique of the pantheistic reveries of democratic man or Pierre Manent's erudite defense of the nation, the political form that provides the indispensable framework for democratic self-government, Shelley thoughtfully illumines the place and limits of globalization in a democratic age. --Daniel J. Mahoney, Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship, Assumption College. (shrink)

Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are “unnaturally” small, which has driven much of the search for physics beyond the standard model. Of particular interest is the fine-tuning of the universe for life, which suggests that our universe’s ability to create physical life forms is improbable and in need of explanation, perhaps by a multiverse. This claim has been challenged on (...) the grounds that the relevant probability measure cannot be justified because it cannot be normalized, and so small probabilities cannot be inferred. We show how fine-tuning can be formulated within the context of Bayesian theory testing in the physical sciences. The normalizability problem is seen to be a general problem for testing any theory with free parameters, and not a unique problem for fine-tuning. Physical theories in fact avoid such problems in one of two ways. Dimensional parameters are bounded by the Planck scale, avoiding troublesome infinities, and we are not compelled to assume that dimensionless parameters are distributed uniformly, which avoids non-normalizability. (shrink)

The word ‘environment’ has a history. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of a singular, abstract entity—the organism—interacting with another singular, abstract entity—the environment—was virtually unknown. In this paper I trace how the idea of a plurality of external conditions or circumstances was replaced by the idea of a singular environment. The central figure behind this shift, at least in Anglo-American intellectual life, was the philosopher Herbert Spencer. I examine Spencer’s work from 1840 to 1855, demonstrating that he was exposed (...) to a variety of discussions of the ‘force of circumstances’ in this period, and was decisively influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte in the years preceding the publication of Principles of psychology (1855). It is this latter work that popularized the word ‘environment’ and the corresponding idea of organism–environment interaction—an idea with important metaphysical and methodological implications. Spencer introduced into the English-speaking world one of our most enduring dichotomies: organism and environment. (shrink)

Why does institutional police brutality continue so brazenly? Criminologists and other social scientists typically theorize about the causes of such violence, but less attention is given to normative questions regarding the demands of justice. Some philosophers have taken a teleological approach, arguing that social institutions such as the police exist to realize collective ends and goods based upon the idea of collective moral responsibility. Others have approached normative questions in policing from a more explicit social-contract perspective, suggesting that legitimacy is (...) derived by adhering to (limited) authority. This article examines methodologies within political philosophy for analyzing police injustice. The methodological inquiry leads to an account of how justice constrains the police through both special (or positional) moral requirements that officers assume voluntarily, as well as general moral requirements in virtue of a polity’s commitment to moral, political and legal values beyond law enforcement and crime reduction. The upshot is a conception of a police role that is constrained by justice from multiple foundational stances. (shrink)

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples (...) and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women. (shrink)

Two main types of philosophical arguments have been given in support of the claim that the citizens of affluent societies have stringent moral duties to aid the global poor: “positive duty” arguments based on the notion of beneficence and “negative duty” arguments based on noninterference. Peter Singer’s positive duty argument (Singer 1972) and Thomas Pogge’s negative duty argument (Pogge 2002) are among the most prominent examples. Philosophers have made speculative claims about the relative effectiveness of these arguments in promoting attitudes (...) and behaviors that could lead to the alleviation of poverty. In this article we present the results of two empirical studies that evaluate these claims, and suggest that both arguments have a modest effect on people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding global poverty. In a replication of the second study, the negative duty argument, in particular, had a statistically significant effect on donations. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these results and suggest directions for further research on the role that philosophical arguments can play in engendering concern and action on pressing moral problems. (shrink)

We show that Weak Vopěnka’s Principle, which is the statement that the opposite category of ordinals cannot be fully embedded into the category of graphs, is equivalent to the large cardinal principle Ord is Woodin, which says that for every class [Formula: see text] there is a [Formula: see text]-strong cardinal. Weak Vopěnka’s Principle was already known to imply the existence of a proper class of measurable cardinals. We improve this lower bound to the optimal one by defining structures whose (...) nontrivial homomorphisms can be used as extenders, thereby producing elementary embeddings witnessing [Formula: see text]-strongness of some cardinal. (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff has presented an account of justice that has important implications for disability. He does not ground rights in intellectual capacities. Instead, rights are justly owed by virtue of the inherent worth bestowed by God to humanity, thereby protecting those with severe intellectual disabilities. Wolterstorff’s aesthetics, I claim, offer a vision for how these rights are rendered. By describing art as a social practice wherein justice can be rendered, and by describing justice as essential to Christian liturgy, Wolterstorff allows (...) liturgy to be a site where justice can and ought to be rendered to the disabled. Liturgy then becomes a social practice where one can learn to see those with disabilities differently, not as inherently ugly but as beloved by God and owed certain goods by right. (shrink)