This expanded edition of C L Hardin's ground-breaking work on colour features a new chapter, 'Further Thoughts: 1993', in which the author revisits the dispute ...

One dark and rainy night, Yuso sexually assaults and tortures Zelan. In escaping from the scene of his crime, he falls heavily and becomes an impotent paraplegic. Instead of treating his fate as divine retribution for his wicked acts, Yuso sees it as sheer bad luck. He shows no remorse for what he has done, and vainly hopes that he will recover his powers, which he now treats as involuntarily hoarded resources to be used on less rainy days. In the (...) presence of others, he pretends that he has turned over a new leaf. He asks for religious and educational books, hoping to make up for his poor education and deprived social background. But he immediately discards them when he is alone in favor of the pornographic magazines which he has bribed a nurse to smuggle in for him. His deception and various obscene acts committed in the hospital are exposed; by the time he comes up for trial, everyone knows that he is still a lustful, sadistic, and unrepentant man. Most retributivists have a sufficient justification for punishing Yuso independently of the social consequences of his punishment. Two features of the case might cause some difficulties. First, Yuso has already experienced considerable suffering and deprivation both before and after his crime, and retributivists might disagree about the relevance of the suffering to his punishment. Secondly, Yuso is unrepentant, and it is unlikely that punishment will change him. This might, as we shall see, create a problem for those who think that the justifying aim of punishment is the moral reform of the offender. (shrink)

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

This detailed and sympathetic, but not uncritical, study of On Liberty' argues for the general consistency and coherence of Mill's defence of individual liberty, but maintains that there are significant non-utilitarian elements in his arguments.

Contingent valuation of the environment has proven popular amongst environmental economists in recent years and has increased the role of monetary valuation in public policy. However, the underlying economic model of human psychology fails to explain why certain types of stated behaviour are observed. Thus, good scope exists for interdisciplinary research in the area of economics and psychology with regard to environmental valuation. A critical review is presented here of some recent research by social psychologists in the US attempting to (...) explain stated behaviour in contingent valuation. Attitudinal scales have been used to analyse the role of ecocentric, biocentric and altruistic motives for giving. However, the research is shown to draw some potentially misleading conclusions and be unrepresentative of contingent valuation. Two recent economic studies using contingent valuation are then reported and shown to have identified non-economic motives for WTP. The complexity of value formation and expression is found to go far beyond that generally accepted by economic models. Greater consideration of the role played by attitudes and ethical considerations then becomes relevant to the interpretation of results being used in standard cost-benefit analysis and environmental policy. (shrink)

An example of illegal trade is presented in the context of hazardous waste movement across internaional borders. It highlights the fact that unethical conduct can have negative enviromental health consequences, especially for improverished countries. The example exposes how ethical principles are breached through illegal trade in hazardous waste, and points to the role that environmental epidemiology plays in the assessment of risk associated with trade in hazardous waste.

In this article C. L. Tsou, of the Institute of Biophysics, Beijing, criticizes the use of the expression I50, the inhibitor concentration to produce 50% inhibition of a particular enzyme as a ‘most unfortunate’ parameter, when screening enzyme inhibitors designed as drugs. Comments on Dr Tsou's point of view will be welcomed from readers.

What ecological advantages do animals gain by being able to detect, extract and exploit wavelength information? What are the advantages of representing that information as hue qualities? The benefits of adding chromatic to achromatic vision, marginal in object detection, become apparent in object recognition and receiving biological signals. It is argued that this improved performance is a direct consequence of the fact that many animals' visual systems reduce wavelength information to combinations of four basic hues. This engenders a simple categorical (...) scheme that permits a rich amount of sensory information to be rapidly and efficiently employed by cognitive machinery of limited capacity. (shrink)

All students of the classical languages are aware that, in referring to intervals of time, the Greeks and Romans often employed a method of reckoning which was inclusive and consequently different from our own. The Greeks, for example, refer to the period between two celebrations of the Olympic games as a though we should call it a four-year interval. One instance of this kind of usage in Latin is the stereotyped formula employed in expressing a date: ante diem quintum Id. (...) Mai. is 11 May, though we should say that there was an interval of four days only between 11 and 15 May. Another instance is the use of tertiana and quartana as applied to fevers which recur on alternate days and on every third day respectively. The ramifications of this mode of expression are extensive, but I am only concerned here with one, namely the use of quisque with ordinals. (shrink)

I Consider first line 58, though its interpretation cannot be separated from that of the ensuing lines. The editors put a comma after iuuenem and must therefore intend propiorque iubenti to be taken with conticuit. It seems more natural, however, to take it with what precedes. The obvious function of propior in such a case is to qualify or amplify an idea already stated, as in Stat. Ach. 2. 94–95.