This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of sustainability behaviors by introducing the construct of perceived organizational support toward the environment. We propose and empirically test an integrated model whereby we test the association of POS-E with employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors toward the environment as well as to job attitudes. Results indicated that POS-E was positively related to OCB-E, job satisfaction, organizational identification, and psychological empowerment, and negatively related to turnover intentions. We also found that psychological empowerment partially mediated the (...) relationship between POS-E and the dependent variables. We discuss the theoretical implications as well as practical implications for managers seeking to encourage sustainability in their organizations. (shrink)

“Smallpox was always present, filling the churchyard with corpses, tormenting with constant fear all whom it had not yet stricken, leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror to the lover.” In 1848, British historian T.B. Macaulay first captured the picture of the devastation smallpox wreaked on its victims, but the “ (...) class='Hi'>King of Terrors,” as it was dubbed by future president John Adams, had already decimated populations in the ancient world from Greece to Egypt to China. Smallpox had no respect for authority: the earliest identified victim, Pharaoh Ramses V was but the first in a long line of monarchs and rulers who succumbed,. including the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I, Aztec Emperor Cuitlahuac, and Queen Mary II of England. (shrink)

“Smallpox was always present, filling the churchyard with corpses, tormenting with constant fear all whom it had not yet stricken, leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror to the lover.” In 1848, British historian T.B. Macaulay first captured the picture of the devastation smallpox wreaked on its victims, but the “ (...) class='Hi'>King of Terrors,” as it was dubbed by future president John Adams, had already decimated populations in the ancient world from Greece to Egypt to China. Smallpox had no respect for authority: the earliest identified victim, Pharaoh Ramses V was but the first in a long line of monarchs and rulers who succumbed,. including the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I, Aztec Emperor Cuitlahuac, and Queen Mary II of England. (shrink)

Expressions used in religious contexts have often seemed odd and paradoxical to philosophers. Statements have appeared in Christian discourse to the effect that God is not a person and yet is a person, that he is a servant and a king, that he is nothingness and being itself. These statements appear unintelligible either because their terms are self-contradictory or because they are mutually exclusive.

Revisions of the King James Version of 1611 continued into the 20th and 21st centuries as literal or word-for-word translations. This development corresponds with a new age in Bible translation that started in the second half of the 20th century, which involves at least six changes in the philosophy of Bible translation. Firstly, Bible translation is characterised by interconfessional cooperation. Secondly, the plain meaning intended in the incipient texts is made accessible to readers. Thirdly, new critical editions of the (...) Hebrew and Greek incipient texts on the basis of new discoveries of texts are utilised. Fourthly, there is the tendency to remove archaic language to make versions intelligible. Fifthly, there is a tendency to use gendered and inclusive language. Sixthly, the move is from print communication, which can be typified as typographic interpretive culture, to electronic or media communication, which can be typified as digital-media interpretive culture, where sound and visuality become prominent as a contextual supplement to words. In the analysis it will be determined which of these aspects are reflected in the Revised Standard Version and its revisions as part of the linear emergence of the Tyndale–King James Version tradition. However, unlike the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version and its revisions failed to achieve widespread approval from satisfied readers, thus opening the door to alternative revisions.Contribution: Instead of viewing the Revised Standard Version and its revisions as new and independent from the Tyndale–King James Version tradition, it is demonstrated that they are a linear continuation of the emergence of the pre-20th century translation complex within this tradition without replicating the success of the King James Version. (shrink)

The Hebrew Bible mentions 12 precious stones arranged in four rows of three each on the high priest’s breastpiece in two lists (Ex 28:17–20 and 39:10–13). Nine of these precious stones reappear in the Tyrian king’s ‘covering’ in Ezekiel 28:13 in three groups of three. Although the two lists in Exodus are identical, the order in Ezekiel is slightly different. In Septuagint (LXX) Ezekiel there are 12 precious stones. However, the number and order in the LXX lists (LXX-Ex 28:17–20 (...) and 36:17–20; LXX-Ezk 28:13) are constant in all three cases. The same 12 stones as in the LXX appear, but with variation in order, in two accounts found in Josephus ( The Wars of the Jews Book 5, Chapter 5, Section 7; The Antiquities of the Jews Book 3, Chapter 7, Section 5). The list of precious stones in Revelation 21:19–20 that adorn the 12 foundations of the New Jerusalem is reminiscent of the breastpiece, but it shows four new names along with eight that are known from the LXX; it is not clear if it is a fresh translation from the Hebrew list. This article focuses on the relationships amongst these lists by examining the arrangement, translation and symbolism of these precious stones. Contribution: The precious stones in the high priest’s breastpiece (Exod 28:17–20, 39:10–13) were rendered differently and re-arranged by the Septuagint and other later versions for new contexts, audiences and theological purposes. Unknown stones were rendered with similar stones known to the translator or the incipient text terms were transliterated. (shrink)

In this essay, we demonstrate that in addition to the Revised Standard Version and its revisions as part of the linear emergence of the Tyndale–King James Version tradition in the 20th and 21st centuries, there are also alternative revisions and retranslations of the King James Version (KJV) of 1611 as literal or word-for-word translations, which emerge as divergent branches. The revisions of the American Standard Version (ASV) (1901) emerged in the following branches, namely the New American Standard Bible (...) (NASB) and its revisions, The Amplified Bible (AB) and its revisions, as well as The Living Bible, Paraphrased and its retranslation, the New Living Translation (NLT). Then there are revisions that emerged as alternatives to the Revised Standard Version (1946–1952/1971) by reverting to the King James Revised (Blayney) Edition (1769) as their incipient text rather than the ASV, namely The Modern King James Version (MKJV) (and similar revisions), The New King James Version (NKJV) and the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible. Finally, there are retranslations within the Tyndale–King James Version tradition, namely the Contemporary English Version (CEV), and the Common English Bible (CEB). The diversity reflects the search for individual identity to satisfy particular reader expectations in an age of digital-media interpretive culture featuring broad universal values.Contribution: Instead of viewing the revisions and retranslations within the Tyndale–King James Version tradition since the second half of the 20th century as new and independent, it is demonstrated that the various branches and their versions rather continue the emergence of the pre-20th century translation complex within this tradition to satisfy particular reader expectations. (shrink)

Like lynching and other mass hysterias, xenophobia exemplifies a contagious, collective wave of energy and hedonic quality that can point toward a troubling unpredictability at the core of political and social systems. While earlier studies of mass hysteria and popular discourse assume that cooler heads (aka rational individuals with their logic) could and should regain control over those emotions that are deemed irrational, and that boundaries are assumed healthy only when intact, affect studies pose individuals as nodes of biosocial networks (...) larger than themselves. Thus rather than suggesting that the individual can only prevent societal harm by gaining command and patrolling the borders of an autonomous self, we embrace the notion that affects can exert a positive and transformative force on a social reality that is resistant to top-down policy intervention and any straightforward moral or logical plea. (shrink)

Critics have argued that Rawls's account of self-respect is equivocal. I show, first, that Rawls in fact relies upon an unambiguous notion of self-respect, though he sometimes is unclear as to whether this notion has merely instrumental or also intrinsic value. I show second that Rawls’s main objective in arguing that justice as fairness supports citizens’ self-respect is not, as many have thought, to show that his principles support citizens’ self-respect generally, but to show that his principles counter the effects (...) of the market on lower class citizens’ sense of worth. This discussion establishes that Rawls, in the end, sees self-respect primarily as an intrinsic good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Navigating Intersex Healthcare: My OdysseyCynthiaI was born in 1965 with what the medical community called “ambiguous genitalia.” My initial announcement as a boy was called into question upon closer assessment of my atypical anatomy by medical specialists at a children’s hospital in Chicago. That team of medical experts included a pediatric urologist and a pediatric endocrinologist, as well as a prominent pediatric surgeon, who was at that time presiding (...) president of the relatively newly established American Pediatric Surgeons Association. I have wondered over the years whether, or to what extent, that status and position had any important impact on the unfolding of my medical case.Just over 100 days after my birth, I was surgically and socially reassigned female, and renamed Cynthia. My mother and physician father, ages 25 and 30, respectively, with two young sons at home, did the best they could to move ahead in life as a young family. Part of our family story is that my unusual birth contributed to my parents’ decision to move away from Chicago, where both of my parents had been raised and wanted to settle, and where my father had many professional opportunities. We relocated to Southern California to make a “fresh start” where no one would know the dark secret too terrible to be shared with any beyond a small circle of close friends and family. It would never be talked about openly.With the exception of the rare and dreaded occasions of medical appointments with my primary care physician, or maybe an endocrinologist to renew hormone prescriptions, my parents chose [End Page E3] to have me travel from our home in San Diego to a clinician in Los Angeles, away from my father’s medical colleagues. This decision was puzzling to me at the time, and maybe more so now. These trips were a source of considerable stress and anxiety, as I had no idea of what to expect; my mother told me only that treatment would “help me get my period started.” I was instructed to tell my friends and teachers that I was taking off school on a weekday to go on a “shopping trip” with my mother. As far as I know, these trips were never discussed at home with my older brothers. I heard years later that my parents disclosed some information about me with my brothers when my parents travelled outside the country. They felt that my brothers should know what had happened to me in the event of a catastrophic accident that might prevent my parents from telling me themselves. I suppose they believed that I wasn’t ready at the time to be told my own life and medical history. I can’t say for sure.I don’t want to judge my parents too harshly for how they handled my medical care. I know that it was an extremely stressful and uncertain time for them, and peer support, which I know now is so vitally important for both parents and young affected individuals like myself, was not made available to us. I never thought to ask about such help, or even consider the idea that anyone else would be in a similar situation like mine. I don’t think I would have been even remotely comfortable or willing to discuss it openly at that point.In my early twenties, I had to face another milestone in my journey and in my interactions with the medical community. I had yet to have the vaginoplasty I was told I “needed.” There was no discussion as to whether or not I wanted it or not. It just had to be done, and I was aware of the limitations I had at this vulnerable time in my life when my peer group was sexually active and I was not. My awareness of the obstacle posed by my difference made me avoid the topic of dating; it was difficult even to think about the possibility of a romantic relationship. I put it out of my mind, but I knew that it was a significant concern for my parents. My physician father did most of the prodding to get me to acknowledge the reality... (shrink)

Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transformed Lives: Making Sense of Atonement Today by Cynthia S. W. CrysdaleVirginia W. LandgrafTransformed Lives: Making Sense of Atonement Today Cynthia S. W. Crysdale new york: seabury books, 2016. 192 pp. $16.00Cynthia Crysdale aims to show how atonement can have meaning for modern and postmodern Christians who reject the idea that God wills Jesus's violent death. She starts with stories of people who were estranged from (...) God but have been given grace to love God anew. Their subsequent lives are not perfect and involve multiple deaths of the old self and resurrections into the new. Yet there is a reconciliation not present beforehand: not a change in God, who has always loved us, but a change in us. Crysdale seeks to navigate between two undesirable positions: a penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement, which she thinks posits a violent God, or a rejection of the idea of atonement altogether. She sees atonement as not only moral influence showing an example but a relationship that involves our whole being.Crysdale then presents a historical overview to show that this understanding of atonement is a plausible interpretation of scripture and tradition. Biblical sacrifices were not intended to propitiate an angry deity but to expiate human sin. New Testament writers who saw Jesus's death on the cross in continuity with these sacrifices were not implying that God was punishing Jesus. Jesus's statements about giving his life as a ransom prophesied the subversion of patron–client power relations rather than predicting a transaction whereby Jesus would pay for sin. Subsequent writers who saw Jesus as gaining victory over the devil saw God and Jesus as united against the powers and Jesus as attaining justice by love. Even Anselm, sometimes blamed for the penal substitutionary view, intended to avoid the idea of the crucifixion as God's punishment of Jesus. In the honor code of the time, either satisfaction or punishment was required. Therefore, Jesus's act of making satisfaction is precisely not punishment. Crysdale sees subsequent conflations of satisfaction and punishment as distorting Anselm's original intent and implying that God requires violent punishment of sin. [End Page 208]Crysdale then takes readers on a tour of changes in scientific, historical, and epistemological consciousness in the modern era to ask how theology might be done today. Drawing on Bernard Lonergan, she describes multiple dimensions of conversion that are all instances of grace when they occur. She then interprets the incarnation as indicating God's offer of friendship with humanity and Jesus's death and resurrection as indicating the transformation of power and oppression. Believing that an abstract atonement over the heads of human beings does not exist, she concludes with further stories of lives transformed by an encounter with God, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day.This book is suitable for educated lay adults, advanced undergraduates, or introductory seminary courses. Protestant audiences may find it typically Catholic, even though Crysdale is an Anglican, because it emphasizes changed lives rather than God's act of justification prior to any change in us. Theologically, it does not deal with every possible objection to its thesis. Those concerned with cultures of impunity, where malevolent lawlessness gets its way, may think that rejecting any sense of punishment of sin in the crucifixion throws the baby out with the bathwater. Recently, Fleming Rutledge (in The Crucifixion), drawing on Karl Barth, has made a point of retaining punishment as one meaning of the atonement even while emphasizing that God's wrath is always in the service of God's love. Transformed Lives does not have the last word on the atonement and would not claim to, since Crysdale wants to invite readers to do theology befitting their changing context. However, readers at many levels will benefit from its accessible treatment of its topic and invitation to reflection that befits a loving, reconciling, evil-opposing God.Virginia W. LandgrafAmerican Theological Library AssociationCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The manuscript diary of Jane Attwater, an earnestly religious woman from a village near Salisbury in England, offers valuable insight into how women's so-called “private” writings were crucial in preserving familial and community history and in contributing to the production of religious culture. Written regularly between the ages of twelve and eighty-one, Attwater's diary is the most extensive diary written by a nonconformist woman in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The text itself is an extraordinary record of her own religious (...) and family life. At the same time, the materiality of the diary reveals a complex interweaving of faith, family, and memory. The diary contains four generations of Attwater women's diary entries, carefully interleaved to produce diary-conversations; there is evidence of ongoing revisions and excisions throughout; and it was studiously and self-consciously curated for future readership. Attwater wrote both as an aid to her own memory, faithfully placing on paper reminders of God's help, and to preserve the memory of her family and religious community, creating what Pierre Nora calls “lieux de mémoire” – sites for anchoring a group's memory. (shrink)

Externalism in the philosophy of mind has been thought by many to pose a serious threat to the claim that subjects are in general authoritative with regard to certain of their own intentional states.¹ In a series of papers, Tyler Burge (1985_a_, 1985_b_, 1988, 1996) has argued that the distinctive entitlement or right that subjects have to self- knowledge in certain cases is compatible with externalism, since that entitlement is environmentally neutral, neutral with respect to the issue of the individuation (...) dependence of subjects' intentional states on factors beyond their bodies. His reason is that whereas externalism—the view that certain intentional states of persons are individuation-dependent on objects and/or phenomena external to their bodies—is a metaphysical thesis, authoritative self-knowledge is an epistemological matter. This being so, there is no reason to suppose that the two need conflict with one another. (shrink)

One reason why we find the causal theory of reference so interesting is because it provides an account of de re necessity. Necessity is not only predicated of statements but also of objects. It is not only discovered by means of linguistic analysis but also by means of empirical investigation. And this means that truths we once described as contingent turn out to be necessary after all. We may think that this account of de re necessity is due to the (...) causal theorists' open acceptance of essentialism. Certainly essentialism provides an account of de re necessity. The problem, however, is that the causal theorists do not prove essentialism so much as presuppose it. Nevertheless, they still provide an account of de re necessity - an account of de re necessity that owes nothing to essentialism. And it is this account of necessity that I plan to discuss in this paper. (shrink)

Followers of Wittgenstein allegedly once held that a meaningful claim to know that p could only be made if there was some doubt about the truth of p. The correct response to this thesis involved appealing to the distinction between the semantic content of a sentence and features attaching to its use. It is inappropriate to assert a knowledge-claim unless someone in the audience has doubt about what the speaker claims to know. But this fact has nothing to do with (...) the semantic content of knowledgeascriptions; it is entirely explicable by appeal to pragmatic facts about felicitous assertion. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence research and regulation seek to balance the benefits of innovation against any potential harms and disruption. However, one unintended consequence of the recent surge in AI research is the potential re-orientation of AI technologies to facilitate criminal acts, term in this article AI-Crime. AIC is theoretically feasible thanks to published experiments in automating fraud targeted at social media users, as well as demonstrations of AI-driven manipulation of simulated markets. However, because AIC is still a relatively young and inherently (...) interdisciplinary area—spanning socio-legal studies to formal science—there is little certainty of what an AIC future might look like. This article offers the first systematic, interdisciplinary literature analysis of the foreseeable threats of AIC, providing ethicists, policy-makers, and law enforcement organisations with a synthesis of the current problems, and a possible solution space. (shrink)

‘Introspection’ is a term used by philosophers to refer to a special method or means by which one comes to know certain of one's own mental states; specifically, one's current conscious states. It derives from the Latin ‘spicere’, meaning ‘look’, and ‘intra’, meaning ‘within’; introspection is a process of looking inward. Introspectionist accounts of self-knowledge fall within the broader domain of theories of self-knowledge, understood as views about the nature of and basis for one's knowledge of one's own mental states, (...) including one's beliefs, desires, conscious thinkings, and sensations. Theories of self-knowledge are motivated by the apparent need to account for a number of striking features of at least some such knowledge, which ordinary empirical knowledge, including knowledge of the mental states of others, is typically thought to lack. (shrink)

In Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee’s satire about a modern TV minstrel show, an auditioning actor named Honeycutt tells the show’s writer, Pierre Delacroix, “I even do Shakespeare shit. . . . To be or not to be, you know? That’s the motherfuckin’ question. . . . There’s a scene where this brother was—Laertes was asking the king, that he wanted to go to Paris and shit. The king asked his daddy, and his daddy say, ‘He hath, my lord, (...) wrung from me by laboursome petition. . . .’” Impatiently, Delacroix interrupts: “Was there any more to it, or was that pretty much . . . ?” Delacroix’s interruption of Honeycutt’s Polonius ironically echoes Polonius’s interruption of the speech of the First Player: “This is too .. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We focus on the core institution of the capital market and the institutional work of professional service firms that provide ratings on corporate issuers, initially in a bid to maintain this institution, which suffered when those involved relied solely on information from the issuers themselves. Through our analysis we identify a new type of decoupling—complicit decoupling. Complicit decoupling evolves over time, beginning with the creation of a new practice, here corporate ratings as a form of policing work, which emerges to (...) help to maintain a core institution. This practice is then adopted, implemented and later becomes decoupled. Exposure does not undermine the legitimacy of the practice because external actors collude in the ‘window dressing’ and, because it has become normalized, only partial repairs are enacted. It is by nature field-level institutional work, benefiting the majority of the field and inherently involves a violation of promise keeping. We conclude with implications for managers and behavioral ethics researchers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We focus on the core institution of the capital market and the institutional work of professional service firms that provide ratings on corporate issuers, initially in a bid to maintain this institution, which suffered when those involved relied solely on information from the issuers themselves. Through our analysis we identify a new type of decoupling—complicit decoupling. Complicit decoupling evolves over time, beginning with the creation of a new practice, here corporate ratings as a form of policing work, which emerges to (...) help to maintain a core institution. This practice is then adopted, implemented and later becomes decoupled. Exposure does not undermine the legitimacy of the practice because external actors collude in the ‘window dressing’ and, because it has become normalized, only partial repairs are enacted. It is by nature field-level institutional work, benefiting the majority of the field and inherently involves a violation of promise keeping. We conclude with implications for managers and behavioral ethics researchers. (shrink)

The introduction discusses the shared themes of German Idealism and phenomenology—principally, the critique of naturalism or a reductive scientific account of reality, the nature of consciousness and subjectivity, the implications of that account for epistemology and ethics, and the significance of intersubjectivity. The introduction also outlines the ways in which twentieth-century phenomenologists reacted against some key assumptions and philosophical methods of the German Idealists. It briefly mentions the key figures in each movement and their central concepts. Finally, it sets out (...) the structure of the volume and gives brief summaries of each chapter. (shrink)

Both Kant and Levinas contrast morality with a vision of the lives of animals, governed by self-interested instincts. Despite this shared Hobbesian-Darwinian account of the struggle for existence, there are significant differences: Kant positions reason as the path to transcending instinct and inclination, through respect for the moral law, but as a survivor of the Shoah, Levinas claims that reason is continuous with self-interested motivations, and the ethical should instead be understood as a form of anarchy that traumatizes the self-possessed, (...) autonomous subject. Central to both accounts is a commitment to ethics as the transcendence of animality, and we should question whether that shared association between animality and self-interested violence is warranted. (shrink)

...Through this eleven-session Bible study, you will learn to turn from worldly satisfactions to a life of contentment, from selfishness to humility, and from unbelief to rich fellowship with God.--back cover.

This paper develops a notion of manipulative gaslighting, which is designed to capture something not captured by epistemic gaslighting, namely the intent to undermine women by denying their testimony about harms done to them by men. Manipulative gaslighting, I propose, consists in getting someone to doubt her testimony by challenging its credibility using two tactics: “sidestepping” and “displacing”. I explain how manipulative gaslighting is distinct from reasonable disagreement, with which it is sometimes confused. I also argue for three further claims: (...) that manipulative gaslighting is a method of enacting misogyny, that it is often a collective phenomenon, and, as collective, qualifies as a mode of psychological oppression. (shrink)

Belief in propositions has had a long and distinguished history in analytic philosophy. Three of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore, believed in propositions. Many philosophers since then have shared this belief; and the belief is widely, though certainly not universally, accepted among philosophers today. Among contemporary philosophers who believe in propositions, many, and perhaps even most, take them to be structured entities with individuals, properties, and relations as constituents. For example, the (...) proposition that Glenn loves Tracy has Glenn, the loving relation, and Tracy as constituents. What is it, then, that binds these constituents together and imposes structure on them? And if the proposition that Glenn loves Tracy is distinct from the proposition that Tracy loves Glenn yet both have the same constituents, what is about the way these constituents are structured or bound together that makes them two different propositions? In The Nature and Structure of Content, Jeffrey C. King formulates a detailed account of the metaphysical nature of propositions, and provides fresh answers to the above questions. In addition to explaining what it is that binds together the constituents of structured propositions and imposes structure on them, King deals with some of the standard objections to accounts of propositions: he shows that there is no mystery about what propositions are; that given certain minimal assumptions, it follows that they exist; and that on his approach, we can see how and why propositions manage to have truth conditions and represent the world as being a certain way. The Nature and Structure of Content also contains a detailed account of the nature of tense and modality, and provides a solution to the paradox of analysis. Scholars and students working in the philosophy of mind and language will find this book rewarding reading. (shrink)

Children ranging from 3 to 5 years were introduced to two anthropomorphic robots that provided them with information about unfamiliar animals. Children treated the robots as interlocutors. They supplied information to the robots and retained what the robots told them. Children also treated the robots as informants from whom they could seek information. Consistent with studies of children's early sensitivity to an interlocutor's non-verbal signals, children were especially attentive and receptive to whichever robot displayed the greater non-verbal contingency. Such selective (...) information seeking is consistent with recent findings showing that although young children learn from others, they are selective with respect to the informants that they question or endorse. (shrink)

Recent research finds that people respond more generously to individual victims described in detail than to equivalent statistical victims described in general terms. We propose that this “identified victim effect” is one manifestation of a more general phenomenon: a positive influence of tangible information on generosity. In three experiments, we find evidence for an “identified intervention effect”; providing tangible details about a charity’s interventions significantly increases donations to that charity. Although previous work described sympathy as the primary mediator between tangible (...) information and giving, current mediational analyses show that the influence of tangible details can operate through donors’ perception that their contribution will have impact. Taken together with past work, the results suggest that tangible information of many types promotes generosity and can do so either via sympathy or via perceived impact. The ability of tangible information to increase impact points to new ways for charities to encourage generosity. (shrink)

Just as humans can draw conclusions responsibly or irresponsibly, so too can computers. Machine learning systems that have been trained on data sets that include irresponsible judgments are likely to yield irresponsible predictions as outputs. In this paper I focus on a particular kind of inference a computer system might make: identification of the intentions with which a person acted on the basis of photographic evidence. Such inferences are liable to be morally objectionable, because of a way in which they (...) are presumptuous. After elaborating this moral concern, I explore the possibility that carefully procuring the training data for image recognition systems could ensure that the systems avoid the problem. The lesson of this paper extends beyond just the particular case of image recognition systems and the challenge of responsibly identifying a person’s intentions. Reflection on this particular case demonstrates the importance (as well as the difficulty) of evaluating machine learning systems and their training data from the standpoint of moral considerations that are not encompassed by ordinary assessments of predictive accuracy. (shrink)

By exploring diverse and sometimes positive roles for ignorance, A Defense of Ignorance offers a revisionary approach to epistemology that challenges core assumptions about epistemic values. Townley contributes innovative ways of thinking about the practicalities and politics of knowledge and argues for an expanded domain of responsible epistemic conduct. All social scientists, especially those interested in knowledge and in feminist scholarship, stand to benefit from Townley's arguments.

In Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, Watson and Hartley dispute the claim that Rawls’s doctrine of political liberalism must tolerate gender hierarchy because it counts conservative and orthodox religions as reasonable comprehensive doctrines. I argue that their defense in fact contains two arguments, both of which fail. The first, which I call the “Deliberative Equality Argument”, fails because it does not establish conclusively that political liberalism’s demand for equal citizenship forbids social practices of domination, as the authors contend. The second, (...) which I call the “Equal Liberties Argument”, fails because it supports a particular version of political liberalism and not the doctrine itself. (shrink)

We often think of trust as an interpersonal relation, and of the distinction between trust and reliance as a distinction between kinds of interpersonal relations. Indeed this is often the case. I may trust one colleague but not find her reliable; rely on another but find him untrustworthy; both trust and rely on my best friend; neither trust nor rely on my dean. One of us has discussed the nature of such relations and distinctions at length. But trust is not (...) only an interpersonal matter. Human society comprises not only individuals but also institutions, and indeed individuals who occupy crucial institutional roles. We often individually or collectively trust, distrust, rely on, or fail or refuse to rely on such institutions or institutional players qua players. In this essay we explore the structure, scope and value of such institutional trust and distrust, which we call “public trust.” Public trust, we will argue, plays a central role in constituting the public sphere and in structuring societies in which it is worth living. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

The formation and recall of memories are fundamental aspects of life and help preserve the complex collection of experiences that provide us with a sense of identity and autonomy. Scientists have recently started to investigate pharmacological agents that inhibit or “dampen” the strength of memory formation and recall. The development of these memory-dampening agents has been investigated for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Currently, these agents are being tested in multicenter clinical trials and will likely soon be approved (...) for the treatment of PTSD. With advancements in technology, more targeted memory-dampening techniques may be developed in the future. Accessibility to these agents will inevitably affect one's sense of identity and also one's sense of autonomy. Therefore, it is essential that the legal and ethical implications of using these agents be examined for governments and courts to appropriately address issues that may emerge. (shrink)

Gilbert and colleagues point out the discrepancy between the limited empirical data illustrating changes in personality following implantation of deep brain stimulating electrodes and the vast number of conceptual neuroethics papers implying that these changes are widespread, deleterious, and clinically significant. Their findings are reminiscent of C. P. Snow’s essay on the divide between the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences. This division in the literature raises significant ethical concerns surrounding unjustified fear of personality changes in the context (...) of DBS and negative perceptions of clinician-scientists engaged in DBS. These concerns have real world implications for funding future innovative, DBS trials aimed to reduce suffering as well as hampering true interdisciplinary scholarship. We argue that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the value it places on empirical inquiry, experiential knowledge, and inter-disciplinary scholarship – reflecting diverse ways of knowing – provides a framework to start to address the important questions Gilbert and colleagues raise. In particular, we highlight the importance of expert clinician knowledge in contributing to the neuroethical questions raised by Gilbert and colleagues. Finally, we provide illustrative examples of some of our interdisciplinary empirical research that demonstrate the iterative cycle of inquiry characteristic of pragmatism in which conceptual neuroethics questions have led to empirical studies whose results then raise additional conceptual questions that give rise to new empirical studies in a way that highlights the contributions of the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Contemporaneously, management studies have focused considerable attention on postmodernity. This engagement is premised on a particular reading of modernity and this paper identifies the frequent implication that spiritual and anti-rational aspects cannot be located in modernist experience and thus seek responses within post-modernism. However, the paper suggests that the spiritual and the anti-rational are integral to modernity through modernistic constructions in the arts. While a tension between the rational and the anti-rational within modernity is occasionally acknowledged, art studies discussed underwrite (...) the dominance of science as illustrated particularly through Greenberg’s account of abstract art. Alternative accounts of abstract art foreground the spiritual in the lives and work of some leading artists and the Theosophy Movement during the High, Modernist period (1890 – 1930). The surfaced tensions between the scientific and the spiritual at the heart of Modernity are related to management theory and its engagement with postmodernity. (shrink)