Attentional control theory (ACT) was proposed to account for trait anxiety’s effects on cognitive performance. According to ACT, impaired processing efficiency in high anxiety is mediated through inefficient executive processes that are needed for effective attentional control. Here we review the central assumptions and predictions of ACT within the context of more recent empirical evidence from neuroimaging studies. We then attempt to provide an account of ACT within a framework of the relevant cognitive processes and their associated neural mechanisms and (...) networks, particularly the fronto-parietal, cingular-opercula, and default mode networks. Future research directions, including whether a neuroscience-informed model of ACT can provide a platform for novel neurocognitive intervention for anxiety, are also discussed. (shrink)

The just war tradition is an evolving body of tenets for determining when resorting to war is just and how war may be justly executed. Rethinking the Just War Tradition provides a timely exploration in light of new security threats that have emerged since the end of the Cold War, including ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, threats of terror attacks, and genocidal conflicts within states. The contributors are philosophers, political scientists, a U.S. Army officer, and a senior analyst at (...) the Center for Defense Information. They scrutinize some familiar themes in just war theory from fresh and original angles, and also explore altogether new territory. The diverse topics considered include war and the environment, justice in the ending of war, U.S. military hegemony, a general theory of just armed-conflict principles, supreme emergencies, the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, child soldiers, the moral equality of all soldiers, targeted assassination, preventive war, right authority, and armed humanitarian intervention. Clearly written and free of jargon, this book illustrates how the just war tradition can be rethought and applied today. Contributors include Mark Woods, Eric Patterson, Harry van der Linden, John Lango, Frederik Kaufman, Pauline Kaurin, Reuben Brigety II, Rachel Stohl, Michael Brough, Whitley Kaufman, Jordy Rocheleau, Hartley Spatt, and Robert Hoag. (shrink)

Proposals for a universal basic income have reemerged in public discourse for a variety of reasons. Marx’s critique of exploitation suggests two apparently opposed positions on a basic income. On the one hand, a basic income funded from taxes on labor would appear to be exploitative of workers. On the other hand, a basic income liberates everyone from the vulnerable condition in which one is forced to sell one’s labor in order to survive, and so seems to be one way (...) of abolishing exploitation at its root. This paper will develop a conception of exploitation that resolves the conflict in favor of basic income. The conception of exploitation is grounded in a liberal egalitarian conception of justice rather than in Marx’s labor theory of value or an exclusive focus on the worker-capitalist relation. This position is not premised on an acceptance of the basic institutions of capitalism, but rather is a standpoint from which to evaluate them. It is not necessary to downsize our ideas of freedom and equality. But it is less obvious than it appeared in classic Marxist formulations that socialism is necessary for social justice. To quote the title of a famous article, there could be a ‘capitalist road to communism’, if a substantial basic income is feasible in a capitalist society. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift für Michael Fischer ist ein Patchwork und eine wunderbare Mischung aus Wissenschaft, Persönlichem, Freundschaft und Genuss. Sie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen und vielseitigen Texten, Zeichnungen und Bildern zusammen, von Menschen, die ihn begleitet haben, manche viele Jahre, manche nur eine kurze, aber entscheidende Zeit. Studentinnen und Studenten, die von ihm gelernt haben, Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die mit ihm Ideen entwickelt, Projekte initiiert und geforscht haben, Freunden aus Kunst und Kultur, Theater, Oper und den Bühnen des Lebens, nämlich: (...) Eric Hobsbawm, Claudio Magris, André Glucksmann, Wolf Singer, Johannes Hahn, Volker Gerhardt, Thomas Fischer, Rudolf (+) und Gundl Hradil, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Gerard Mortier, Jürgen Flimm, Brita Steinwendtner, Veit Heinichen, Peter Ruzicka, André Tubeuf, Thomas Oberender, Stefan Zweifel, Hermann Lübbe, Eduardo Chitas, Wilhelm Donner, Hans Eichhorn, Reinhard Kacianka, Tina Perisutti, Ulrich H. J. Körtner, Markus Hengstschläger, Henriette und Conrad Ulrich-Hürlimann, Michael Hagner, Thomas Macho, Johann Weyringer, Birgit Recki, Walther Ch. Zimmerli, Andreas Cesana, Kurt Seelmann. (shrink)

Die Einordnung der Rechtsphilosophie als akademische Disziplin reicht vom reinen Grundlagenfach mit «Service-Funktion» für die praktischen Rechtswissenschaften über ein interdisziplinäres Verständnis, das die Bezüge zu anderen ...

The book contains a systematical and very accurate introduction into the scholastic philosophy. It begins with part one containing logic and dialectic. Part two deals with metaphysics and ontology. Part three examines cosmology, followed by the fourth part which embraces rational psychology. Part five deals with natural theology. In spite of its systematic architecture the book exemplifies the skill of the author to write a very comprehendible text that can be read with profit by undergraduates.

This volume contains essays by some of the leading scholars in the study of the Jewish religious ideas in the Second Temple period, that led up to the development of early forms of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Close attention is paid to the cosmological ideas to be found in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible and to the manner in which the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek reflected the creativity with which Judaism engaged Hellenistic ideas (...) about the cosmos and the creation. The concepts of heaven and divine power, human mortality, the forces of nature, combat myths, and the philosophy of wisdom, as they occur in 2 Maccabees, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit, are carefully analysed and compared with Greek and Roman world-views. There are also critical examinations of Dead Sea scroll texts, early Jewish prayers and Hebrew liturgical poetry and how they these adopt, adapt and alter earlier ideas. The editors have included appreciations of two major figures who played important roles in the study of the Second Temple period and in the history and development of the ISDCL, namely, Otto Kaiser and Alexander Di Lella, who died recently and are greatly missed by those in the field."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Mark Coeckelbergh starts his book with a very powerful picture based on a real incident: On the 9th of January 2020, Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested by Detroit police officers in front of his two young daughters, wife and neighbors. For 18 hours the police would not disclose the grounds for his arrest (American Civil Liberties Union 2020; Hill 2020). The decision to arrest him was primarily based on a facial detection algorithm which matched Mr. Williams’ driving license photo with (...) the picture of a man who was suspected of watch theft two years earlier. Not only did the computer ‘get it wrong’ as one of the detectives said, when Mr. Williams made them aware that the picture of the suspect obviously wasn’t resembling him, the probably unreliable algorithm very likely contributed to racial discrimination (Hill 2020). It is well documented that many available facial detection algorithms at this time had significant problems (e.g. a comparably high false positive rate) with respect to black persons, like Mr. Williams (NIST 2019). Multiple causes may exist, such as unbalanced training datasets and insufficient optimization. Coeckelbergh compares the disturbing case of Mr. Williams with a political interpretation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, where the protagonist, Josef K., is accused of an unspecified crime by an opaque, oppressive and absurd bureaucracy: “In the 21st-century United States, Josef K. is black and is falsely accused by an algorithm, without explanation” (p. 2). (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms pervade contemporary society. They are integral to social institutions, inform processes of governance, and animate the mundane technologies of daily life. Consistently, the outcomes of machine learning reflect, reproduce, and amplify structural inequalities. The field of fair machine learning has emerged in response, developing mathematical techniques that increase fairness based on anti-classification, classification parity, and calibration standards. In practice, these computational correctives invariably fall short, operating from an algorithmic idealism that does not, and cannot, address systemic, Intersectional (...) stratifications. Taking present fair machine learning methods as our point of departure, we suggest instead the notion and practice of algorithmic reparation. Rooted in theories of Intersectionality, reparative algorithms name, unmask, and undo allocative and representational harms as they materialize in sociotechnical form. We propose algorithmic reparation as a foundation for building, evaluating, adjusting, and when necessary, omitting and eradicating machine learning systems. (shrink)

The laboratory animal environment: room for concern.

Examines political philosophies of the classic theorists as a means to understand international dilemmas in the post-Cold War world.

This paper examines the critical role that organizational leaders play in establishing a values based climate. We discuss seven mechanisms by which leaders convey the importance of ethical values to members, and establish the expectations regarding ethical conduct that become engrained in the organizations climate. We also suggest that leaders at different organizational levels rely on different mechanisms to transmit values and expectations. These mechanisms then influence members practices and expectations, further increase the salience of ethical values and result in (...) the shared perceptions that form the organizations climate. The paper is organized in three parts. Part onebegins with a brief discussion of climates regarding ethics and the critical role of values. Part two provides discussion on the mechanisms by which leaders and members transmit values and create climates related to ethics. Part three provides a discussion of these concepts with implications for theory, research, and practice. (shrink)

Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a new (...) classroom curriculum designed to help students use CVA to improve their reading comprehension. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats genome editing has already reinvented the direction of genetic and stem cell research. For more complex diseases it allows scientists to simultaneously create multiple genetic changes to a single cell. Technologies for correcting multiple mutations in an in vivo system are already in development. On the surface, the advent and use of gene editing technologies is a powerful tool to reduce human suffering by eradicating complex disease that has a genetic etiology. Gene drives are (...) CRISPR mediated alterations to genes that allow them to be passed on to subsequent populations at rates that approach one hundred per cent transmission. Therefore, from an anticipatory biomedical ethics perspective, it is possible to conceive gene drive being used with CRISPR to permanently ameliorate aberrant genes from wild-type populations containing mutations. However, there are also a number of possible side effects that could develop as the result of combining gene editing and gene drive technologies in an effort to eradicate complex diseases. In this paper, we critically analyse the hypothesis that the combination of CRISPR and gene drive will have a deleterious effect on human populations from an ethical perspective by developing an anticipatory ethical analysis of the implications for the use of CRISPR together with gene drive in humans. (shrink)

The Politics of the Texbook analyzes the factors that shape production, distribution and reception of school texts through original essays which emphasize the double-edged quality of textbooks. Textbooks are viewed as systems of moral regulation in the struggle of powerful groups to build political and cultural accord. They are also regarded as the site of popular resistance around discloding the interest underlying schoolknowledge and incorporating alternative traditions.

Provides a philosophical analysis of the numerous and distinct conceptions of parenthood. This work considers such issues as the nature and justification of parental rights, the sources of parental obligations, the value of autonomy, and the moral obligations and tensions present within interpersonal relationships.

Michael Young, an anthropologist and Malinowski's authorized biographer, has selected the photographs based on one of Malinowski's unpublished studies of the region, and the plan of that abandoned project has helped structure this book.

In the life sciences, there is an ongoing discussion about a perceived ‘reproducibility crisis’. However, it remains unclear to which extent the perceived lack of reproducibility is the consequence of issues that can be tackled and to which extent it may be the consequence of unrealistic expectations of the technical level of reproducibility. Large-scale, multi-institutional experimental replication studies are very cost- and time-intensive. This Perspective suggests an alternative, complementary approach: meta-research using sociological and philosophical methodologies to examine researcher trust in (...) data. An improved understanding of the criteria used by researchers to judge data reliability will provide crucial, initial evidence on the actual scale of the reproducibility crisis and on measures to tackle it. (shrink)

Theodicy and Toleration Seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair of topics to treat in a single paper. Toleration usually means putting up with beliefs or actions with which one disagrees, and it is practiced because the beliefs or actions in question are not disagreeable enough to justify interference. It is usually taken to be a topic for moral and political philosophy. Theodicy, on the other hand, is the attempt to solve the problem of evil; that is, to (...) explain the origin of suffering and sin in a way that does not make God a moral cause of those evils.1 While theodicy concerns the notions of good and evil, and could therefore be considered a moral topic, historical and contemporary discussions of it have .. (shrink)