This article develops a detailed, empirically driven analysis of the nature of the transition costs incurred in becoming disabled. Our analysis of the complex nature of these costs supports the claim that it can be wrong to cause disability, even if disability is just one way of being different. We also argue that close attention to the nature of transition costs gives us reason to doubt that well-being, including transitory impacts on well-being, is the only thing that should determine the (...) wrongness of causing or removing disability. Non-welfare considerations also defeat the claim that it is always wrong to cause disability. The upshot of these conclusions is that closer attention to the nature of transition costs supports disabled people who strenuously contest the assumption that their well-being is lower than nondisabled people. It also suggests that, in addition, disabled people should contest their opponents’ narrow account of how we should make ethical decisions regarding causing or failing to prevent disability. (shrink)

This article examines whether the voting age should be lowered to 16. The dominant view in the literature is that 16-year-olds in the United Kingdom are not politically mature enough to vote since they lack political knowledge, political interest and stable political preferences. I reject this conclusion and instead argue that the voting age should be lowered to 16. First, I look at Chan and Clayton’s empirical claims and show that these features of 16- and 17-year-olds are in fact created (...) by exclusionary social practices and therefore that these features cannot be used to justify their exclusion from the vote. Second, I evaluate preliminary evidence from Austria which suggests that 16- and 17-year-olds, when actually given the vote, are politically mature. Third, I show that, on a balance of harms, considering that some 16- and 17-year-olds are mature, we still should lower the voting age even if some 16- and 17-year-olds are not politically mature. I conclude that the voting age should be lowered to 16. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice is the study of how people make choices about what and how much to do at various points in time, when choices at one time influence the possibilities available at other points in time. These choices are influenced by the relative value people assign to two or more payoffs at different points in time. Most choices require decision-makers to trade off costs and benefits at different points in time. These decisions may be about savings, work effort, education, nutrition, (...) exercise, health care and so forth. Since early in the twentieth century, economists have analyzed intertemporal decisions using the discounted utility model, which assumes that people evaluate the pleasures and pains resulting from a decision in much the same way that financial markets evaluate losses and gains, exponentially 'discounting' the value of outcomes according to how delayed they are in time. Discounted utility has been used to describe how people actually make intertemporal choices and it has been used as a tool for public policy. Policy decisions about how much to spend on research and development, health and education all depend on the discount rate used to analyze the decision. (shrink)

Microgames are rapidly gaining increased attention and are highly being considered because of the technology-based media that enhances students’ learning interests and educational activities. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new construct through confirmatory factor analysis, to comprehensively understand the factors influencing the use of microgames in mathematics class. Participants of the study were the secondary school teachers in West Java, Indonesia, which had a 1-year training in microgames development. We applied a quantitative approach to collect the data via (...) online questionnaires through google form. Structural Equation Modelling with AMOS software was used to analyze the proposed model. Empirical results confirmed the perceived easy to use and subjective norm influence relationship with teachers’ microgame usage behaviors and intentions. In this condition, SN was found to have the initial significant influence on behavioral intention, as attitude, BI, and facilitating conditions also correlated with the actual use of microgames. Furthermore, the largest influential factor was BI, with the results subsequently showing that TPACK had no significant influence on the actual use of microgames. This report is expected to help bridge the gap across several previous studies, as well as contribute to the explanation and prediction of the factors influencing the teachers’ mathematical utilization of the study’s program. Besides this, it also helps to increase the use of microgames in teaching and learning activities. (shrink)

Why do American ghettos persist? Decades after Moynihan’s report on the black family and the Kerner Commission’s investigations of urban disorders, deeply disadvantaged black communities remain a disturbing reality. Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor―such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime―as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to “fix” ghettos or “help” their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor (...) as moral agents responding to injustice. (shrink)

Mental accounting is a concept associated with the work of Richard Thaler. According to Thaler, people think of value in relative rather than absolute terms. They derive pleasure not just from an object’s value, but also the quality of the deal – its transaction utility (Thaler, 1985). In addition, humans often fail to fully consider opportunity costs (tradeoffs) and are susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. Why are people willing to spend more when they pay with a credit card than (...) cash (Prelec & Simester, 2001)? Why would more individuals spend $10 on a theater ticket if they had just lost a $10 bill than if they had to replace a lost ticket worth $10 (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984)? Why are people more likely to spend a small inheritance and invest a large one (Thaler, 1985)? According to the theory of mental accounting, people treat money differently, depending on factors such as the money’s origin and intended use, rather than thinking of it in terms of the “bottom line” as in formal accounting (Thaler, 1999). An important term underlying the theory is fungibility, the fact that all money is interchangable and has no labels. In mental accounting, people treat assets as less fungible than they really are. Even seasoned investors are susceptible to this bias when they view recent gains as disposable “house money” (Thaler & Johnson, 1990) that can be used in high-risk investments. In doing so, they make decisions on each mental account separately, losing out the big picture of the portfolio. (See also partitioning and pain of paying for ideas related to mental accounting.) . (shrink)

Social studies’ explanations of race can marginalize educators of color, due to a lack of focus in the curriculum or conversations in the classroom. This article addresses the problem through composite counter-narratives, created from collaborations between the author and current social studies teachers of color. Two teachers, Charlie Smith and Rosita Hernandez, describe their experiences learning and teaching social studies through the lens of community. Current research positions counter-narratives as a pedagogical tool for pre-service teachers resisting majoritarian narratives or as (...) a curricular tool for elementary social studies teachers challenging mainstream historical texts. However, a gap exists on in-service social studies teachers using community to create counter-narratives. Composite counter-narratives serve as a starting point in addressing this gap. This article aims to provide scholarship space for the voices of teachers of color while situating the community as a significant influence in teaching social studies. (shrink)

This self-interview is the responsive document coming forth from the post-conference camaraderie. The four “Žižekian Performers” – found with themselves personally, creatively, and academically following the 2014 International Žižek Studies Conference. As a self-interview document that mimics the gameplay of Žižek himself in his own self-interview from his The Metastases of Enjoyment where he puts on the guise of the “big Other” to examine himself, we four performers here examine ourselves, each other, our work, and each other’s work to produce (...) this post-partum collaborative essay. In our collective project, we outline our individual performances from the Conference, each stake a claim and personal response to the critical question of what is a “Žižekian Performance,” and identify and discuss other synergies that emerged and exist amid our work in the form of cross-examinations and self-examinations. Ultimately, this group’s self-interview blazes the way for performance to interpenetrate the “Žižekian” and to intervene wherever theory, investigation, and presentation may lie. (shrink)

"The demonization of the radical right ill serves us when now, more than ever before, it is vitally important to know all we can about this esoteric milieu's nature and potentialities…by…demonizing the many, we cloak the few, and, however unwittingly, facilitate the existence of evil in the world." —From the Introduction by Jeffrey Kaplan White power groups are universally vilified and feared. But to better understand the threat they pose, scholars and activists must try to better understand their disturbing ideas (...) and practices. In this controversial volume, Jeffrey Kaplan brings to light the workings of white supremacy movements in the United States and Europe in the years since World War II. The first half of the Encyclopedia is made up of over 100 entries—many of them essay-length—describing the people, groups and themes that make up the radical racist right. Some of the entries are written by movement activists themselves, providing useful insider accounts. The second half contains original resources circulated within the movement, each prefaced and placed in scholarly context by the editor. These documents, although offending, are invaluable to researchers and often available nowhere else. Cross-references and an index make the information easily accessible. For scholars of race, religion, politics or social movements, the Encyclopedia of White Power is an essential resource. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend and develop a stakeholder pragmatism advanced in some of the work by Edward Freeman and colleagues. By positioning stakeholder pragmatism more in line with the democratic and ethical base in American pragmatism (as developed by William James, John Dewey and Richard Rorty), the article sets forth a fallibilistic stakeholder pragmatism that seeks to be more useful to companies by expanding the ways in which value is and can be created in a contingent world. A dialogue (...) between a defence company and peace and arbitration society is used to illustrate the main plot of this article. (shrink)

This article focuses on exerting influence in leadership, namely manipulation in storytelling. Manipulation is usually considered an unethical approach to leadership. We will argue that manipulation is a more complex phenomenon than just an unethical way of acting in leadership. We will demonstrate through an empirical qualitative study that there are various types of manipulation through storytelling. This article makes a contribution to the literature on manipulation through leadership storytelling, offering a more systematic empirical analysis and a more nuanced view (...) of the topic than previously existed by outlining how managers engage in manipulative storytelling and what kind of ethics they link to their manipulation in leadership. Four types of manipulation in storytelling are identified in the study: humorous, pseudo-participative, seductive and pseudo-empathetic. From an ethical perspective, we will show that manipulation is not always self-evidently reprehensible. We will conclude that the dominant ethical justification for manipulation stems from its consequences. (shrink)

I reply to Mills's critique of my effort to show the relevance of Rawls's theory of justice for thinking about and responding to racial injustices. Contrary to Mills's claims, my suggestion that the fair equality of opportunity principle can remedy socioeconomic disadvantages caused by the legacy of racial oppression is compatible with Rawls's framework, does not conflate distributive justice with corrective justice, and does not confuse racial injustice with economic injustice. I also raise doubts about Mills's project to radically reconstruct (...) contractarian political philosophy. He seeks to displace ideal theory with nonideal theory by foregrounding the realities of past racial domination. Against this approach, I argue that an ideal theory that abstracts away from these realities is not inherently ideological, useless for corrective justice, or too ideal to guide social reform. And I defend the view that ideal theory is indispensible for nonideal theorizing about racial justice. (shrink)

Imagine: A 15-year-old girl has sex with a 20-year-old man. It is her first sexual experience. Her first time having intercourse. She remembers that “he basically took it from me,” but feels an affection for the person and the event. She was not at the age of consent, but describes the experience as “just pleasure.” Was this rape or simply a man ushering a young girl into womanhood? Now imagine her as a 15-year-old boy and him to be a 20-year-old (...) woman. She “took it from him,” but he recalls it was pleasurable. Was he forced into sexual relations with an adult before the age of consent? Was he raped? Can he actually be raped?It is often difficult to conceptualize male bodies as being victims of sexual violence, and... (shrink)

This article analyses the concept of sufficiency in relation to sustainability and discusses ethical implications for sustainable organisation in time and place. We identify three foundational conceptualisations of sufficiency related to sustainability: (1) a limits model that starts with objective boundaries imposed by the biosphere and basic human needs; (2) a preference model that treats sufficiency as a subjective inclination for moderation defined situationally; and (3) a balancing model that seeks to integrate the objective limits and subjective preferences by focussing (...) on action embedded in the socio-ecological context. This includes balancing the needs of humans with those of non-humans. The limits model builds on universal duty, the preference model on preference utilitarianism and the balancing model on action-oriented virtue ethics. The balancing model of sufficiency is well suited to meeting the needs of present and future generations as well as delivering intra- and inter-generational justice not limited to humans. (shrink)

An incisive and sympathetic examination of the case for ending the practice of imprisonment Despite its omnipresence and long history, imprisonment is a deeply troubling practice. In the United States and elsewhere, prison conditions are inhumane, prisoners are treated without dignity, and sentences are extremely harsh. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended (...) altogether? In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby examines the abolitionist case against prisons and its formidable challenge to would-be prison reformers. Philosophers have long theorized punishment and its justifications, but they haven’t paid enough attention to incarceration or its related problems in societies structured by racial and economic injustice. Taking up this urgent topic, Shelby argues that prisons, once reformed and under the right circumstances, can be legitimate and effective tools of crime control. Yet he draws on insights from black radicals and leading prison abolitionists, especially Angela Davis, to argue that we should dramatically decrease imprisonment and think beyond bars when responding to the problem of crime. While a world without prisons might be utopian, The Idea of Prison Abolition makes the case that we can make meaningful progress toward this ideal by abolishing the structural injustices that too often lead to crime and its harmful consequences. (shrink)

By setting up a dialogue with contemporary animal research the essay attempts, on the one hand, to expose the limits of Martin Heidegger’s concept of animality in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and, on the other hand, to propose some new ways of thinking the being of those animals that most distinctly show themselves as being other than Heidegger’s claims. I suggest, with reference to Heidegger’s thesis of the animal as “poor in world,” that the being of the cognitively most (...) complex animals is better understood in terms of otherworldly worlds within the world of human world forming. With this concept I aim to develop and continue, rather than criticize, Heidegger’s way of thinking the being of animals and deepen the productive relationship between science and philosophy that Heidegger proposed in this work. (shrink)

The unchanging realities of race relations in the United States, recently highlighted by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, demonstrate that Black Americans are still not viewed, treated or protected as citizens in this country. The rates of poverty, disease and incarceration in Black communities have been recognized by some Critical Race Theorists as genocidal acts. Despite the appeal to the international community’s interpretation of human rights, Blacks are still the most impoverished and lethally targeted group in America. Given the “white (...) racial framing” that stems from “white habitus,” and enforced systemically, the situation of Black Americans is best described through a racial realist perspective, in which racial equality is merely an illusion. Under such dire colonial circumstances, I argue that there should be a renewed discussion on the role that violence and decolonization can play in the American context. (shrink)

O presente estudo tem o objetivo de apresentar a "fenomenologia da afetividade" elaboradapelo filósofo Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977), discípulo de Husserl e que produziuanálises filosóficas a partir da denominada "fenomenologia realista", ou seja,uma filosofia fenomenológica da verdade, mas que mantém o contato existencial com arealidade, a partir do conhecimento das essências genuínas e do conhecimento a priori. Para ofilósofo somente por meio do método fenomenológico é possível alcançar genuinamente oconhecimento a priori das essências dos fenômenos e assim, chegar à verdade (...) ea profundidade do fenômeno. A investigação filosófica de Hildebrand se baseia diretamentena experiência humana, assim, para conhecer a essência do ser humano é importante analisaros fenômenos da vida consciente. Hildebrand afirma em sua análise fenomenológica que apessoa humana é um ser espiritual e que possui três estruturas intencionais: o entendimento,a vontade e a afetividade. Essas três estruturas da pessoa humana são, em verdade, aestrutura ontológica do ser humano e cada uma delas compõem “centros operativos” devivências. Assim, esse artigo visa apresentar a vida e o pensamento de Hildebrand,explicitando a questão da pessoa humana e da afetividade, diante de tantas confusõesconceituais, uma vez que, segundo Hildebrand, a afetividade é a estrutura da pessoa humana que melhor expressa a vida interior humana. É por meio da afetividade que é possível dizer que vivemos algo. Sendo assim, o filósofo exige uma análise radical e rigorosa, entendendo fenomenologicamente a resposta afetiva possuidora de um caráter ativo e que expressa a tomada de decisão em relação aos acontecimentos no ser humano. (shrink)

IN THE JEWISH—CHRISTIAN SCHISM REVISITED, JOHN HOWARD YODER gives an account of the Jewishness of the politics of Jesus and Pauline Christianity. He rightly claims that irresponsible historiography has presented early Christianity as a departure from the Jewish ways of its time, reading the later schism into the New Testament and belying the Jewishness of Christian ethics. He contends that living in the faithfully Jewish ways of Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul, as many Jewish communities did up to the time of (...) Jesus and many non-Christian Jewish communities and free churches have done since, is what it means to be the people of God. After an appreciative exposition of Yoder's account and a brief articulation of its theological and ethical stakes, I argue that the biblical witness to the election of Israel troubles his understanding of the people of God as presupposed and conveyed by his revisionist historiography of the Jewish—Christian schism. (shrink)

In order to offer a substantive Christian challenge to modern state violence, the particular character of the modern state cannot be ignored. Nor can New Testament teaching on peace be reduced to flat and generalized ethical imperatives. The subtlety of peace is neglected if either of these two tendencies goes unchecked. After thus framing the question of a Christian response to modern state violence, itself the product of Christian agency among other factors, I offer a New Testament challenge to modern (...) state violence along two lines: refusing the sacrificial political economy characteristic of the modern state, laboring instead at a christological dynamic of gift that takes account of the relative position of agents in the inherited distribution of power and expects more from the strong; observing the limits of state representation for addressing vulnerability to violence, indeed its complicity in that vulnerability, and investing in scales of community commensurate with the subtlety of peace. (shrink)

Shamanism is an ancient system centered on individuals chosen from shamans who gained access to extraordinary information through meditation or trance to meet the psychological, medical, and spiritual needs of a community. "Neoxamanism" is thus the current attempt to reconcile this wisdom with modern elements and ideas. This research aimed to understand,through the phenomenological-empirical method, the sense of the neoxamanic religious experience from five collaborators of the city of Uberlândia-MG. After the interviews, a process of analysis was followed which obtained (...) variant elements in the reports and other invariants, through which this religious experience is synthesized: Being a neo-shaman is to relate to the sacred; is to connect with yourself; is to connect with nature; is to understand the uniqueness between us and nature. Thus we could make connections with meditation, religiosity and health, concluding that the study of this phenomenon has much to add in the way of thinking and doing human health nowadays. (shrink)

Although the world of sports has witnessed numerous corruption scandals, the effects of perceived corruption in sports have not been sufficiently investigated in the literature. The aim of this paper is to examine how sports team identification weakens people’s perceptions of corruption in sports, and how it dampens corruption’s negative effects on spectator behavior. The study also examines how prevalent social norms regarding corruption in a country strengthen or weaken these effects. A survey of 1,005 sports spectators from four Sub-Saharan (...) African countries reveals how the interplay between team identification and perceived corruption can encourage or discourage sports attendance under different conditions. Corruption is investigated through the theoretical lenses of the pluralistic nature of morality. Findings indicate that particularistic values linked to moral obligations toward the team collide with the universalistic values that demand fairness in sports. In addition, social norms of corruption moderate the clash between universalistic and particularistic values. (shrink)

Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population has for the past two centuries been a constant source of inspiration and debate for scholars working on relationships between population and economy in a historical perspective. This book sets a new standard in this active and influential field of research. The contributors go beyond the conventional European and North American geographical boundaries, bringing out new empirical findings and developing new arguments. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part takes up (...) classical issues -- the 'positive' and the 'preventive' checks and their determinants -- raised by Malthus himself, and examines the issues against fresh evidence from Europe, America, and Asia. These issues are also themes of the second part, which is devoted to short-term fluctuations in mortality and fertility in relation to prices, wages, and other economic indicators. The final set of chapters is a coherent collection of technically sophisticated articles from an on-going international joint project concerned with how households respond to economic stress in different economic, social, and cultural settings, in traditional China, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, and Italy. With a brief, but well-organized introduction, this collection of scholarly essays offers both demographers and economic historians a wealth of exciting findings and stimulating insights. (shrink)

Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population has for the past two centuries been a constant source of inspiration and debate for scholars working on relationships between population and economy in a historical perspective. This book sets a new standard in this active and influential field of research. The contributors go beyond the conventional European and North American geographical boundaries, bringing out new empirical findings and developing new arguments. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part takes up (...) classical issues -- the 'positive' and the 'preventive' checks and their determinants -- raised by Malthus himself, and examines the issues against fresh evidence from Europe, America, and Asia. These issues are also themes of the second part, which is devoted to short-term fluctuations in mortality and fertility in relation to prices, wages, and other economic indicators. The final set of chapters is a coherent collection of technically sophisticated articles from an on-going international joint project concerned with how households respond to economic stress in different economic, social, and cultural settings, in traditional China, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, and Italy. With a brief, but well-organized introduction, this collection of scholarly essays offers both demographers and economic historians a wealth of exciting findings and stimulating insights. (shrink)

Jesus Christ may be regarded as the chief spirit of agitation and innovation. He himself declared, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.” One cannot delve seriously into the centuries of activism and scholarship against racism, Jim Crowism, and the terrorism of lynching without encountering the legacies of Timothy Thomas Fortune and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Black scholars from the 19th century to the present have been inspired by the sociological and economic works of Fortune and Wells. Scholars of (...) American philosophy, however, continue to ignore their writings, their theoretical contributions and their ethical aspirations, preferring instead the insipid declarations of white turn of the century.. (shrink)

Any attempt to develop biosemiotics either towards a new biological ground theory or towards a metaphysics of living nature necessitates some kind of naturalization of its semiotic concepts. Instead of standard physicalistic naturalism, a certain kind of semiotic naturalism is pursued here. The naturalized concepts are defined as referring only to the objects of our external experience. When the semiotic concepts are applied to natural phenomena in biosemiotics, there is a risk of falling into anthropomorphic errors if the semiotic concepts (...) remain mentalistic. It is suggested that there really is an anthropomorphic error or “hidden prototype fallacy” arising from Peirce’s prototype for semiosis: the research process of an experimental scientist. The fallacy lies in the concept of the object of representation — it is questionable whether there are any objects of representation for bacteria and whether the DNA-signs have any objects. The conclusion is that Peircean semiotic concepts are naturalizable but only if they are based on some more primitive concept of representation. The causal origins of representations are not relevant, only their anticipative consequences (i.e. meaning). (shrink)