Leadership and folIowership are unified in an interdependent relationship exemplified by the idea of teamwork. Ethical concems are among the valuational elements essential to developing loyalty and trust in this relationship. However, because of their need to maintain power and distance, self-serving leaders may become detached from how their actions are perceived and reacted to by followers. This pattern can be especially damaging to teamwork when leaders continue to receive disprortionate rewards despite their poor performance, especially when coupled with organizational (...) downsizing and layoffs. Implications are drawn regarding the ethics of equity, responsibility, and accountability in the exercise of authority and power. (shrink)

According to the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, one can precisely define the state of an individual particle in a many-body system by its position, momentum, and spin. It is shown in the EPR spin experiment that the quantum torque brings about an instantaneous change in the state of one of the particles when the other undergoes a local interaction, but that such a transfer of “information” cannot be extracted by any experiment subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.

It was shown by de Broglie and Bohm that the concept of a deterministic particle trajectory is compatible with quantum mechanics. It is demonstrated by explicit construction that there exists another more general deterministic trajectory interpretation. The method exploits an internal angular degree of freedom that is implicit in the Schrödinger equation, in addition to the particle position. The de Broglie-Bohm model is recovered when the new theory is averaged over the internal freedom. The model exhibits a strong form of (...) entanglement which implies a primary role for the wavefunction of the Universe. The conditions of autonomy are examined, and the viability of the theory is established by application to the measurement problem. (shrink)

The geometrical structures implicit in the de Broglie waves associated with a relativistic charged scalar quantum mechanical particle in an external field are analyzed by employing the ray concept of the causal interpretation. It is shown how an osculating Finslerian metric tensor, a torsion tensor, and a tetrad field define respectively the strain, the dislocation density, and the Burgers vector in the “natural state” of the wave, which is a non-Riemannian space of distant parallelism. A quantum torque determined by the (...) quantum potential is introduced and the example of a screw dislocated wave is discussed. (shrink)

We discuss the application of the de Broglie-Bohm theory of relativistic spin-1/2 particles to the Klein paradox andzitterbewegung.

In support of a recent conjecture by Nielsen (1999), we prove that the phenomena of ‘incomparable entanglement’— whereby, neither member of a pair of pure entangled states can be transformed into the other via local operations and classical communication (LOCC)—is a generic feature when the states at issue live in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

The Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem shows that, in any Hilbert space of dimension of at least 3, it is impossible to assign noncontextual definite values to all observables in such a way that the quantum-mechanical predictions are reproduced. This leaves open the issue of what subsets of observables may be assigned definite values. Clifton has shown that, for a system of at least two continuous degrees of freedom, it is not possible to assign simultaneous noncontextual values to two coordinates and their conjugate (...) momenta. In this Letter, it is shown that, for a system of a single continuous degree of freedom, it is not possible to assign noncontextual values to the coordinate and its conjugate momenta that satisfy a continuity assumption herein called the ‘ -Product Rule’.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

We analyze phase-space approaches to relativistic quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of the causal interpretation. In particular, we discuss the canonical phase space associated with stochastic quantization, its relation to Hilbert space, and the Wigner-Moyal formalism. We then consider the nature of Feynman paths, and the problem of nonlocality, and conclude that a perfectly consistent relativistically covariant interpretation of quantum mechanics which retains the notion of particle trajectory is possible.

Give me your fingers.Under this hair shirt steams the vocabularyof flesh, crosshatched into meaning.– Vievee Francis, Horse in the DarkThis exercise in vocabularies of vulnerability seeks to think...

The eight pieces constituting this Meeting Report are summaries of presentations made during a panel session at the 2011 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) annual meeting held between March 3rd and 6th in Cincinnati. Lisa Newton organized the session and served as chair. The panel of eight consisted both of pioneers in the field and more recent arrivals. It covered a range of topics from how the field has developed to where it should be going, from identification of (...) issues needing further study to problems of training the next generation of engineers and engineering-ethics scholars. (shrink)

Was Malthus a ‘Utilitarian’? This apparently simple-minded question is justified by on-going debate in the secondary literature. For example, in his study, The Classical Economists, D. P. O'Brien maintains that ‘only the two Mills, apart from Bentham himself, were really Utilitarians’. Against this we have the view of Lord Robbins that ‘We get the picture badly out of focus if we conceive that reliance on the principle of utility was confined to Bentham and his immediate circle.’ In this paper we (...) shall demonstrate the justice of the Robbins perspective with specific reference to the population issue. (shrink)

It is sometimes held that rules of inference determine the meaning of the logical constants: the meaning of, say, conjunction is fully determined by either its introduction or its elimination rules, or both; similarly for the other connectives. In a recent paper, Panu Raatikainen argues that this view—call it logical inferentialism—is undermined by some “very little known” considerations by Carnap (1943) to the effect that “in a definite sense, it is not true that the standard rules of inference” themselves suffice (...) to “determine the meanings of [the] logical constants” (p. 2). In a nutshell, Carnap showed that the rules allow for non-normal interpretations of negation and disjunction. Raatikainen concludes that “no ordinary formalization of logic [... ] is sufficient to ‘fully formalize’ all the essential properties of the logical constants” (ibid.). We suggest that this is a mistake. Pace Raatikainen, intuitionists like Dummett and Prawitz need not worry about Carnap’s problem. And although bilateral solutions for classical inferentialists—as proposed by Timothy Smiley and Ian Rumfitt—seem inadequate, it is not excluded that classical inferentialists may be in a position to address the problem too. (shrink)

Assuming that future experiments confirm Aspect's discovery of nonlocal interactions between quantum pairs of correlated particles, we analyze the constraints imposed by the EPR reasoning on the said interactions. It is then shown that the nonlocal relativistic quantum potential approach plainly satisfies the Einstein causality criteria as well as the energy-momentum conservation in individual microprocesses. Furthermore, this approach bypasses a new causal paradox for timelike separated EPR measurements deduced by Sutherland in the frame of an approach by means of space-time (...) zigzags with advanced potentials. It is finally demonstrated that this inherent quantum causal direct interaction establishes permanent EPR correlations which are always restricted to spacelike separations and are instantaneous only in the center-of-mass rest frame of the two-particle system. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSolving a conflict between two response options in an interference task has been found to increase control in a subsequent conflict situation. The present research examined whether such conflict adaptation persists in the presence of distractors that have motivational relevance and are therefore competing for attentional resources. In an adjusted flanker task, motivational distractors were presented together with the current trial while the previous trial never included any distractor. Accumulated evidence across three studies showed that motivational distractors reduced the conflict (...) adaptation effect. This was found irrespective of the location at which the distractor occurred, and independent of its valence. Study 3 and a merged data analysis ruled out low-level alternative explanations. In line with a dual competition account (P... (shrink)

In their introduction to this volume, Ram and Leake usefully distinguish between task goals and learning goals. Task goals are desired results or states in an external world, while learning goals are desired mental states that a learner seeks to acquire as part of the accomplishment of task goals. We agree with the fundamental claim that learning is an active and strategic process that takes place in the context of tasks and goals (see also Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett, and Thagard, (...) 1986). But there are important questions about the nature of goals that have rarely been addressed. First, how can a cognitive system deal with incompatible task goals? Someone may want both to get lots of research done and to relax and have fun with his or her friends. Learning how to accomplish both these tasks will take place in the context of goals that cannot be fully realized together. Second, how are goals chosen in the first place and why are some goals judged to be more important than others? People do not simply come equipped with goals and priorities: we sometimes have to learn what is important to us by adjusting the importance of goals in the context of other compatible and incompatible goals. This paper presents a theory and a computational model of how goals can be adopted or rejected in the context of decision making. In contrast to classical decision theory, it views decision making as a process not only of choosing actions but also of evaluating goals. Our theory can therefore be construed as concerned with the goal-directed learning of goals. (shrink)