Americans increasingly cite moral values as a factor in how they vote, but when we define morality simply in terms of a voter's position on gay marriage and abortion, we lose sight of the ethical decisions that guide our everyday lives. In our encounters with friends, family members, nature, and nonhuman creatures, we practice a nonutilitarian morality that makes sacrifice a rational and reasonable choice. Recognizing these everyday ethics, Anna L. Peterson argues, helps us move past the seemingly (...) irreconcilable conflicts of culture and refocus on issues that affect real social change. Peterson begins by divining a "second language" for personal and political values, a vocabulary derived from the loving and mutually beneficial relationships of daily life. Even if our interactions with others are fleeting and fragmentary, they provide a viable alternative to the contractual and atomistic attitudes of mainstream culture. Everyday ethics point toward a more just, humane, and sustainable society, and to acknowledge moments of grace in our daily encounters is to realize a different way of relating to people and nonhuman nature—an alternative ethic to cynicism and rank consumerism. In redefining the parameters of morality, Peterson enables us to make fundamental problems such as the distribution of wealth, the use of public land and natural resources, labor and employment policy, and the character of political institutions the preferred focus of debate and action. (shrink)

_Being Human _examines the complex connections among conceptions of human nature, attitudes toward non-human nature, and ethics. Anna Peterson proposes an "ethical anthropology" that examines how ideas of nature and humanity are bound together in ways that shape the very foundations of cultures. Peterson discusses mainstream Western understandings of what it means to be human, as well as alternatives to these perspectives, and suggests that the construction of a compelling, coherent environmental ethics will revise our ideas not (...) only about nature but also about what it means to be human. (shrink)

Works Righteousness explores the ways that different ethical theories relate to what people actually do. Peterson argues that the most dominant philosophical and religious approaches have largely ignored practice, assuming that internal mental states are what matter for ethics and that ideas and practices are related in a simple, linear fashion. However, some alternative models, including pragmatism, Marxism, and religious pacifism, present a more complex view of the relations between values and practices. These traditions show how attention to practices (...) opens up new ways of thinking about moral theory and concrete issues like hate speech, euthanasia, and climate change. (shrink)

_Being Human _examines the complex connections among conceptions of human nature, attitudes toward non-human nature, and ethics. Anna Peterson proposes an "ethical anthropology" that examines how ideas of nature and humanity are bound together in ways that shape the very foundations of cultures. Peterson discusses mainstream Western understandings of what it means to be human, as well as alternatives to these perspectives, and suggests that the construction of a compelling, coherent environmental ethics will revise our ideas not (...) only about nature but also about what it means to be human. (shrink)

The foundation of health can be understood by the heart only : in pursuit of knowledge about health in the light of Blaise Pascal's thinking.

This article examines shifts in the image of Iceland created for international tourism. It argues that at the beginning of the 21st century the more traditional spotlight on the country’s natural attractions was altered, giving an additional, new focus on the nation’s beautiful, and apparently sexually promiscuous, women. Such a development deserves further comment for a variety of reasons. First, an examination of the importance of women to Iceland’s national marketing, especially their depiction visually, underlines the need to reconsider the (...) substantial role of gender and imagery representation in tourism studies, two themes that have been underexamined by scholars working in the discipline. Second, as a Nordic nation with a reputation for gender equality, this focus on women as sexual objects readily available for male tourist consumption raises a serious contradiction. Last but not least, the use of sexually alluring female images by a developed nation has intriguing implications for postcolonial scholars interested in representations of ‘the Other’. While shying away from implying that ideologies of ‘race’ are not important to discussions of international sex tourism, this article suggests that gender should be considered an equally important contributing factor in such analyses. (shrink)

It is estimated that over 800 million people are hungry each day and two billion are suffering from the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. While a paradigm shift towards a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approach to food and nutrition insecurity is emerging, technical approaches largely prevail to tackle the causes of hunger and malnutrition. Founded in original in-depth field research among smallholder farmers in southwest Kenya, we argue that incorporating cultural or social dimensions in this technical debate is imperative and (...) that by systematically overlooking these dimensions, food insecurity cannot be accurately captured nor properly addressed. Based on a sub-location in rural southwest Kenya where the food plate is rapidly narrowing towards a high-calorie low nutrient diet and where over 80 % of households experience food shortages at least once a year, conclusions suggest that preferences, the local function of food, and the practices that emerge therefrom can affect the regularity of meals and their composition. The findings allow us to complement emerging research and program development with a more comprehensive and locally adapted approach to tackle food and nutrition insecurity. (shrink)

Studying teaching behavior in controlled conditions is difficult. It seems intuitive that a human learner might have trouble reliably recreating response patterns over and over in interaction. A robot would be the perfect tool to study teaching behavior because its actions can be well controlled and described. However, due to the interactive nature of teaching, developing such a robot is not an easy task. As we will show in this review, respective studies require certain robot appearances and behaviors. These mainly (...) should induce teaching behavior in humans, be interactive, match the study design, and be realizable in terms of effort. We discuss how remote controlling of the robot or simulating robot capabilities is used as an option. With this review, we introduce the field of research on studying human teaching behavior with robots as a tool in the experimental design. We will provide a structured overview of existing work, and identify main challenges of employing robots in such studies. (shrink)

Patriarchal institutions govern all aspects of women's lives: their minds, their bodies, and their souls. Additionally, they govern the ways in which women are perceived by others and the ways in which women perceive themselves. (Re) Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience, is a collection of essays on language, religion, war, sex trafficking, and medicine-the patriarchal structures that form the basis of western society and, thus, are in many ways inherently unjust. The essays illustrate the multitude of ways (...) that women have found to work within and without these structures to create justice. Traditional theories of justice cast it as a cardinal virtue, unbiased and impartial. The essays in this book, however, remove justice from the abstract and return it to the specific: most of the essays use personal narratives to highlight the connections all people share. The women discussed here are challenging the authority of existing patriarchal narratives by telling their versions, and, thus, calling attention to and challenging their own political and social realities. Reflecting a focus on global connectedness and interdisciplinarity, the writers of these essays aim not only to raise questions, but also to show ways in which women are creating new pathways for themselves. Only by exploring solutions will women reclaim justice. From L.A. to Zimbwabe, women have stories to tell about their experiences of justice in the inherently patriarchal institutions of Language, Religion, War, Sex Trafficking, and Medicine. This relevant and thought-provoking collection captures the trials that women across the world face and the hope they create through their courageous actions. Through both personal narrative and factual overview, these essays emphasize that as people committed to justice, women must not simply raise the questions, but they must also explore solutions in order to reclaim justice for themselves, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers. Contributors: Yifat Bitton, Stephany Ryan Cate, Jo Scott-Coe, Susan Dewey, Carmela Epright, Carmen Faymonville, Adam Gaynor, Pauline Greenhill, Denise Handlarski, Alison Jobe, Marc J.W. de Jong, Jodie M. Lawston, Jody Lisberger, Kristy Maher, Susan Maloney, Mickias Musiyiwa, Ruben Murillo, Annemarie Profanter, Natalie Wilson, and J. Carter Wood. (shrink)

The paper investigates the effects of a humanoid robot’s online feedback during a tutoring situation in which a human demonstrates how to make a frog jump across a table. Motivated by micro-analytic studies of adult-child-interaction, we investigated whether tutors react to a robot’s gaze strategies while they are presenting an action. And if so, how they would adapt to them. Analysis reveals that tutors adjust typical “motionese” parameters. We argue that a robot – when using adequate online feedback strategies – (...) has at its disposal an important resource with which it could proactively shape the tutor’s presentation and help generate the input from which it would benefit most. These results advance our understanding of robotic “Social Learning” in that they suggest a paradigm shift towards considering human and robot as one interational learning system. Keywords: human-robot-interaction; feedback; adaptation; multimodality; gaze; conversation analysis; social learning; pro-active robot conduct. (shrink)

The phenomenon of eSports is omnipresent today. International championships and their competitive athletes thrill millions of spectators who watch eSports athletes and their teams try to improve and outperform each other. In order to achieve the necessary cognitive and physical top form and to counteract general health problems caused by several hours of training in front of the PC or console, eSports athletes need optimal cognitive, physical and mental training. However, a gap exists in eSports specific health management, including prevention (...) of health issues and training of these functions. To contribute to this topic, we present in this mini review possible avenues for holistic training approaches for cognitively, physically and mentally fitter and more powerful eSports athletes based on interdisciplinary findings. Furthermore, we discuss exergames as a motivating and promising complementary training approach for eSports athletes, which simultaneously combines physical and cognitive stimulation and challenges in an attractive gaming environment. Exergames have the high potential to penetrate new applications and thus influence the growing eSports research and development community. (shrink)

Research of tutoring in parent-infant interaction has shown that tutors – when presenting some action – modify both their verbal and manual performance for the learner (‘motherese’, ‘motionese’). Investigating the sources and effects of the tutors’ action modifications, we suggest an interactional account of ‘motionese’. Using video-data from a semi-experimental study in which parents taught their 8- to 11-month old infants how to nest a set of differently sized cups, we found that the tutors’ action modifications (in particular: high arches) (...) functioned as an orienting device to guide the infant’s visual attention (gaze). Action modification and the recipient’s gaze can be seen to have a reciprocal sequential relationship and to constitute a constant loop of mutual adjustments. Implications are discussed for developmental research and for robotic ‘Social Learning’. We argue that a robot system could use on-line feedback strategies (e.g. gaze) to pro-actively shape a tutor’s action presentation as it emerges. (shrink)

Research of tutoring in parent-infant interaction has shown that tutors – when presenting some action – modify both their verbal and manual performance for the learner (‘motherese’, ‘motionese’). Investigating the sources and effects of the tutors’ action modifications, we suggest an interactional account of ‘motionese’. Using video-data from a semi-experimental study in which parents taught their 8- to 11-month old infants how to nest a set of differently sized cups, we found that the tutors’ action modifications (in particular: high arches) (...) functioned as an orienting device to guide the infant’s visual attention (gaze). Action modification and the recipient’s gaze can be seen to have a reciprocal sequential relationship and to constitute a constant loop of mutual adjustments. Implications are discussed for developmental research and for robotic ‘Social Learning’. We argue that a robot system could use on-line feedback strategies (e.g. gaze) to pro-actively shape a tutor’s action presentation as it emerges. (shrink)

How do we switch between “playing along” and treating robots as technical agents? We propose interaction breakdowns to help solve this “social artifact puzzle”: Breaks cause changes from fluid interaction to explicit reasoning and interaction with the raw artifact. These changes are closely linked to understanding the technical architecture and could be used to design better human–robot interaction (HRI).

An innovative perspective on the relationship between philosophy and the Bible. The early modern philosophers’ interpretations of the Scriptures allow deciphering the breeding ground of the freedom of philosophizing, the theological-political debate, and the new conception of nature.

Research of tutoring in parent-infant interaction has shown that tutors – when presenting some action – modify both their verbal and manual performance for the learner (‘motherese’, ‘motionese’). Investigating the sources and effects of the tutors’ action modifications, we suggest an interactional account of ‘motionese’. Using video-data from a semi-experimental study in which parents taught their 8- to 11-month old infants how to nest a set of differently sized cups, we found that the tutors’ action modifications (in particular: high arches) (...) functioned as an orienting device to guide the infant’s visual attention (gaze). Action modification and the recipient’s gaze can be seen to have a reciprocal sequential relationship and to constitute a constant loop of mutual adjustments. Implications are discussed for developmental research and for robotic ‘Social Learning’. We argue that a robot system could use on-line feedback strategies (e.g. gaze) to pro-actively shape a tutor’s action presentation as it emerges. (shrink)

The paper investigates the effects of a humanoid robot’s online feedback during a tutoring situation in which a human demonstrates how to make a frog jump across a table. Motivated by micro-analytic studies of adult-child-interaction, we investigated whether tutors react to a robot’s gaze strategies while they are presenting an action. And if so, how they would adapt to them. Analysis reveals that tutors adjust typical “motionese” parameters (pauses, speed, and height of motion). We argue that a robot – when (...) using adequate online feedback strategies – has at its disposal an important resource with which it could proactively shape the tutor’s presentation and help generate the input from which it would benefit most. These results advance our understanding of robotic “Social Learning” in that they suggest a paradigm shift towards considering human and robot as one interational learning system. Keywords: human-robot-interaction; feedback; adaptation; multimodality; gaze; conversation analysis; social learning; pro-active robot conduct. (shrink)

Themes of Christian martyrdom were central to popular political mobilization in El Salvador, as in much of Latin America, during the 1970s and 1980s. The story of Christ's sacrifice provided a powerful narrative for explaining injustice and political violence, a frame for interpretation as well as action during the twelve-year Salvadoran civil war, which ended in 1992 by a negotiated settlement. In the first part of this article we trace the politics of martyrdom and sacrifice through the war. The final (...) sections of the article examine the place of narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice in post-civil war El Salvador. While most Salvadorans today continue to experience high levels of inequality, poverty, and violence, the narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice that animated the revolutionary movements and liberation theology of the 1980s have lost much of their resonance. We suggest that the dispersion of both the perceived sources of, and the imagined solutions to, injustice contribute to the diminution in the importance of Christian narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice in El Salvador today. (shrink)

Research in social robotics is commonly focused on designing robots that imitate human behavior. While this might increase a user’s satisfaction and acceptance of robots at first glance, it does not automatically aid a non-expert user in naturally interacting with robots, and might hurt their ability to correctly anticipate a robot’s capabilities. We argue that a faulty mental model, that the user has of the robot, is one of the main sources of confusion. In this work, we investigate how communicating (...) technical concepts of robotic systems to users affect their mental models, and how this can increase the quality of human-robot interaction. We conducted an online study and investigated possible ways of improving users’ mental models. Our results underline that communicating technical concepts can form an improved mental model. Consequently, we show the importance of consciously designing robots that express their capabilities and limitations. (shrink)

Research in social robotics is commonly focused on designing robots that imitate human behavior. While this might increase a user’s satisfaction and acceptance of robots at first glance, it does not automatically aid a non-expert user in naturally interacting with robots, and might hurt their ability to correctly anticipate a robot’s capabilities. We argue that a faulty mental model, that the user has of the robot, is one of the main sources of confusion. In this work, we investigate how communicating (...) technical concepts of robotic systems to users affect their mental models, and how this can increase the quality of human-robot interaction. We conducted an online study and investigated possible ways of improving users’ mental models. Our results underline that communicating technical concepts can form an improved mental model. Consequently, we show the importance of consciously designing robots that express their capabilities and limitations. (shrink)

In these skeptical and disillusioned times, there are still groups of people scattered throughout the world who are trying to live out utopian dreams. These communities challenge the inevitability and morality of dominant political and economic models. By putting utopian religious ethics into practice, they attest to the real possibility of social alternatives. In Seeds of the Kingdom, Anna L. Peterson reflects on the experiences of two very different communities, one inhabited by impoverished former refugees in the mountains (...) of El Salvador and the other by Amish farmers in the Midwestern U.S. What makes these groups stand out among advocates of environmental protection, political justice, and sustainable development is their religious orientation. They aim, without apology, to embody the reign of God on earth. The Salvadoran community is grounded in Roman Catholic social thought, while the Amish adhere to Anabaptist tradition. Peterson offers a detailed portrait of these communities' history, social organization, religious life, environmental values, and agricultural practices. She discovers both practical and ideological commonalities in these two comparatively successful and sustainable communities, including a strong collective identity, deep attachment to local landscapes, a desire to preserve non-human as well as human lives, and, perhaps unexpectedly, a utopian horizon that provides both goals and the hope of reaching them. By examining the process by which people struggle to live according to a transcendent value system, she sheds light on both the actual and the potential place of religion in public life. Peterson argues that the Amish and Salvadoran communities, geographically and culturally removed from the industrialized West, have relevance for the political and environmental problems of the developed world. These communities have succeeded in the face of significant internal and external challenges, offering important practical and theoretical lessons on how to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice in the wider world. (shrink)

For most people, animals are the most significant aspects of the nonhuman world. They symbolize nature in our imaginations, in popular media and culture, and in campaigns to preserve wilderness, yet scholars habitually treat animals and the environment as mutually exclusive objects of concern. Conducting the first examination of animals' place in popular and scholarly thinking about nature, Anna L. Peterson builds a nature ethic that conceives of nonhuman animals as active subjects who are simultaneously parts of both (...) nature and human society. Peterson explores the tensions between humans and animals, nature and culture, animals and nature, and domesticity and wildness. She uses our intimate connections with companion animals to examine nature more broadly. Companion animals are liminal creatures straddling the boundary between human society and wilderness, revealing much about the mutually constitutive relationships binding humans and nature together. Through her paradigm-shifting reflections, Peterson disrupts the artificial boundaries between two seemingly distinct categories, underscoring their fluid and continuous character. (shrink)

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has been dominated by an idealist logic that limits its positive impact on the natural world about which environmental philosophers care deeply. Environmental ethicists need to alter the ways we think and talk about what we value and the relations among ideas, values, and actions. Drawing on the sociology of religion and Marxian philosophy among other sources, a new approach may increase our understanding of how ideas are lived out and how we might increase the impact of our (...) ideas about the value of nature. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the relationships among corporate accountability, reputation, and tax behavior as a corporate social responsibility issue. As part of our investigation, we provide empirical examples of corporate reputation and corporate tax behaviors using a sample of large, U.S.-based multinational companies. In addition, we utilize corporate tax controversies to illustrate possibilities for aggressive corporate tax behaviors of high-profile multinationals to become a reputation threat. Finally, we consider whether reputation serves as an accountability mechanism for corporate tax behaviors (...) among other mechanisms for holding firms accountable for corporate tax behaviors. Our conceptual work points to a complicated relationship among shareholder, stakeholder, and civic responsibilities in the development and execution of firm’s corporate tax strategies. Building on those insights, our empirical illustration considers corporate reputation data alongside data which reflects corporate tax behavior. Based on this work, we find no clear trend or pattern indicating that reputation is associated with or affected by certain types of corporate tax behaviors. That is, our exploratory empirical illustration suggests that corporate tax behavior does not produce broad reputational consequences that would motivate a change in firm behavior. Drawing from celebrity and strategic silence research, we then suggest that reputation may not be a well-functioning mechanism for holding corporations to account for contributing their fair share of the resources used by government for the benefit of society and offer-related theoretical insights. (shrink)

The speed and scale of the COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted the limits of current health systems and the potential promise of non‐establishment research such as “DIY” research. We consider one example of how DIY research is responding to the pandemic, discuss the challenges faced by DIY research more generally, and suggest that a “trust architecture” should be developed now to contribute to successful future DIY efforts.

Nature can be understood as socially constructed in two senses: in different cultures’ interpretations of the nonhuman world and in the physical ways that humans have shaped even areas that they think of as “natural.” Both understandings are important for environmental ethics insofar as they highlight the diversity of ways of viewing and living in nature. However, strong versions of the social constructionist argument contend that there is no “nature” apart from human discourse and practices. This claim is problematic both (...) logically, insofar as it fails to deconstruct the notion of culture, and ethically, insofar as it categorically privileges human activities and traits. (shrink)

Nonhuman animals play various roles in environmental ethics, often as charismatic symbols of wilderness or active participants in the natural dramas we seek to preserve. Sometimes, however, nonhuman animals do not fit into—and may even threaten—the “nature” that we value. There are two especially problematic animals: white-tailed deer and feral cats. Together, these creatures shine light on a number of important issues in environmental ethics, including the tensions between animal welfare and environmentalism, the ways human interests and categories pervade even (...) ecocentric perspectives, and the complex place of science in environmental ethics and advocacy. Thinking through the issues raised by debates about deer and cats can contribute to a more adequate treatment of nonhuman animals in environmental thought and advocacy. (shrink)

Opening on Olympus and concluding with two trials involving ‘the Syrian’ (an obvious Lucianic persona), Lucian'sDouble Indictment(=Bis Acc.) presents a fantastical scenario that draws on Old Comic, Platonic and biographical models. In the first of the Syrian's two trials, a personified Rhetoric accuses the Syrian of abandoning her, his legitimate wife, for his lover, Dialogue. Dialogue, in turn, accuses the Syrian ofhubris, asserting that the Syrian rendered him a generic freak when he forced him to accept ‘jokes,iambos, cynicism, and Eupolis (...) and Aristophanes’ (ὁ σκῶμμα καὶ τὸν ἴαμβον καὶ κυνισμὸν καὶ τὸν Εὔπολιν καὶ τὸν Ἀριστοφάνη,Bis Acc.33). Amidst this literary fantasy, Lucian seemingly adds an element of realism when the Syrian specifies that he was ‘almost forty’ (τετταράκοντα ἔτη σχεδὸν γεγονότι,Bis Acc.32) at the time he left Rhetoric for Dialogue. This is notably not the only instance in which we find this age attributed to a Lucianic alter-ego: Lycinus in theHermotimus(=Hermot.) is likewise described as being ‘almost forty’ at the time of the dialogue. This is strikingly also the same age at which the dialogue's eponymous interlocutor—he is sixty at the time of the dialogue—began his own philosophical education (αὐτὸς κατὰ σὲ γεγονὼς ἠρξάμην φιλοσοφεῖν τετταρακοντούτης σχεδόν,Hermot.13). (shrink)

In Thinking Like a Mall, Steven Vogel proposes an environmental philosophy “after nature,” meaning one that rejects the division of the world into wild and humanized spaces. This division is false because environments are always constructed by people, who are enmeshed in landscapes and ecological processes. The opposition between wild and humanized parallels the religious division between sacred and profane, according to Vogel. He believes this dualism is an inextricable part of religious worldviews and thus that environmental philosophy must reject (...) religion. This understanding of religion echoes the work of many scholars of religion, who define religion in terms of an opposition between sacred and profane. However, this approach fails to take into account the many traditions that do not divide the world this way. In many cultures, the sacred is connected to the profane much as the natural and the human are intertwined in Vogel’s materialist philosophy. This entanglement is evident in ecological restoration, in which human actions help construct processes that ultimately transcend human intentions and control. I argue that this is a kind of transcendence, which points to a way in which religious language can help us think about a post-natural environmental philosophy. (shrink)

In Thinking Like a Mall, Steven Vogel proposes an environmental philosophy “after nature,” meaning one that rejects the division of the world into wild and humanized spaces. This division is false because environments are always constructed by people, who are enmeshed in landscapes and ecological processes. The opposition between wild and humanized parallels the religious division between sacred and profane, according to Vogel. He believes this dualism is an inextricable part of religious worldviews and thus that environmental philosophy must reject (...) religion. This understanding of religion echoes the work of many scholars of religion, who define religion in terms of an opposition between sacred and profane. However, this approach fails to take into account the many traditions that do not divide the world this way. In many cultures, the sacred is connected to the profane much as the natural and the human are intertwined in Vogel’s materialist philosophy. This entanglement is evident in ecological restoration, in which human actions help construct processes that ultimately transcend human intentions and control. I argue that this is a kind of transcendence, which points to a way in which religious language can help us think about a post-natural environmental philosophy. (shrink)