Fundamental terms in the field of ecology are ambiguous, with multiple meanings associated with them. While this could lead to confusion, discord, or even tests that violate core assumptions of a given theory or model, this ambiguity could also be a feature that allows for new knowledge creation through the interconnected nature of concepts. We approached this debate from a quantitative perspective, and investigated the cost of ambiguity related to definitions of ecological units in ecology related to the general term (...) “community.” We did a meta-analysis of tests associated with two bodies of literature, Hubbell’s unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography and Diamond’s assembly rules, that rely on a specific ecological unit that assumes that species are existing within a local area and that they have overlapping resource needs. We predicted that if ambiguous terminology is widespread, then researchers will have tested them with many different ecological units, that in addition some of these ecological units will violate the core assumptions of the theory, and finally that the overall level of support for a theory will be stronger if appropriate ecological units were used. We found that indeed multiple different ecological units were used in the literature to test both theories, with 65 percent appropriate ecological units for neutral theory tests, and only 6 percent for assembly rule tests. Finally, there was some evidence that the support for a theory depended on whether appropriate ecological units were used for neutral tests, but there was not enough data for the assembly rule tests. These results thus show that ambiguous terminology in ecology is having measurable effects on research and is not of solely philosophical concern. We advocate that authors be explicit in their writing and outline core assumptions of theories, that researchers apply these consistently in their tests, and that readers be attentive to what is written and cognizant of their potential biases. (shrink)

This article engages the conversation between Sarah Coakley, Daphne Hampson, and Aristotle Papanikolaou on the appropriateness of kenosis as a theological trope for women and deeply oppressed and vulnerable others. It affirms Coakley's and Papanikolaou's stance, which maintains that kenosis is a necessary or at least distinctively valuable category in Christian theology for understanding the transformation and redemption of all persons. The paper expands on Papanikolaou's analysis of the kenosis involved in the healing and recovery of personhood, arguing that the (...) “emptying of fear” reaches the fullness of self‐giving love in the scandalous act of forgiveness. (shrink)

Carey's superb discussion of the origin of concepts is extended into the field of cognitive ethology. I also suggest that agency may be a default mechanism, often leading to over-attribution. The problem therefore becomes one of specifying the conditions in which agency is not attributed. The significance of attentional/focusing abilities on conceptual development is also emphasized.

To counter human ultrasociality, alternative communities can arise, and, unlike insects, lower echelons can unite and rebel. Examples include movements such as: “Black Lives Matter,” “Fight for $15,” “Occupy,” and the “Village Movement.” To strengthen ultrasociality, a surplus bottom echelon can be reduced: for example, by means such as imprisoning Blacks, deporting immigrants, wars, and the Holocaust. Alternatively, a new structure could be created, for example, ISIL.

Abstract Unlike bioethicists who contend that there is a morality common to all, H. Tristan Engelhardt (1996) argues that, in a pluralistic secular society, any morality that does exist is loosely connected, lacks substantive moral content, is based on the principle of permission and, thus, is a morality between moral strangers. This, says Engelhardt, stands in contrast to a substance-full morality that exists between moral friends, a morality in which moral content is based on shared beliefs and values and exists (...) in communities that tend to be closely knit and religiously based. Of what value does Engelhardt's description of ethics as moral friends and moral strangers have for nursing? In this essay, I attempt to show how Engelhardt's description serves to illustrate how the nursing community historically had been one of moral friends but has gradually become one of moral strangers and, hence, at risk of failing to protect patients in their vulnerability and of compromising the integrity of nursing. Building on Engelhardt's concepts, I suggest we might consider modern nursing like a moral family to the extent that members might at times relate to one another as moral strangers but still possess a desire and a need to reconnect with the common thread that binds us as moral friends. Nursing is a practice discipline. Given the challenges of modern bioethics, an applied ethic is needed to give moral direction to clinicians as we strive to conduct ourselves ethically in the practice of our profession. To that end, nursing should reflect upon and seek to reconnect with the content-full morality that is historically and religiously based. (shrink)

In this study, we test the interactive effect on ethical decision-making of (1) personal characteristics, and (2) personal expectanciesbased on perceptions of organizational rewards and punishments. Personal characteristics studied were cognitive moral developmentand belief in a just world. Using an in-basket simulation, we found that exposure to reward system information influenced managers’ outcome expectancies. Further, outcome expectancies and belief in a just world interacted with managers’ cognitive moral development to influence managers’ ethical decision-making. In particular, low-cognitive moral development managers who (...) expected that their organization condoned unethical behavior made less ethical decisions while high cognitive moral development managers became more ethical in this environment. Low cognitive moral development managers also behaved less ethically when their belief in a just world was high. (shrink)

In this study, we test the interactive effect on ethical decision-making of (1) personal characteristics, and (2) personal expectanciesbased on perceptions of organizational rewards and punishments. Personal characteristics studied were cognitive moral developmentand belief in a just world. Using an in-basket simulation, we found that exposure to reward system information influenced managers’ outcome expectancies. Further, outcome expectancies and belief in a just world interacted with managers’ cognitive moral development to influence managers’ ethical decision-making. In particular, low-cognitive moral development managers who (...) expected that their organization condoned unethical behavior made less ethical decisions while high cognitive moral development managers became more ethical in this environment. Low cognitive moral development managers also behaved less ethically when their belief in a just world was high. (shrink)

Appeals to justice are made both to support and to refute the moral permissibility of euthanasia. This article provides a sketch of the major justice-basedarguments and proposes that a communitarian and virtue ethic underlies the ethos of nursing and leads to the conclusion that euthanasia is the opposite of justice. Justice says that nursing should reject euthanasia and remain true to the wisdom that has consistently informed the traditions and practices of the nursing community through history—practices inspired by charity, dependent (...) on prudence, and strengthened and sustained by the practice of virtue. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.2 (Summer 2009): 279–292. (shrink)

Background Clinical ethics consultants are expected to “reduce disparities, discrimination, and inequities when providing consultations,” but few studies about inequities in ethics consultation exist.1 The objectives of this study were (1) to determine if there were racial or gender differences in the timing of requests for ethics consultations related to limiting treatment, and (2) if such differences were found, to identify factors associated with that difference and the role, if any, of ethics consultants in mitigating them. Methods The study was (...) a mixed methods retrospective study of consultation summaries and hospital and ethics center data on 56 age-and gender-matched Caucasian and African American Medicare patients who received ethics consultations related to issues around limiting medical treatment in the period 2011 to 2014. The average age of patients was 70.9. Results Consultation requests for females were made significantly earlier in their stays in the hospital (6.57 days) than were consultation requests made for males (16.07 days). For African American patients, the differences in admission-to-request intervals for female patients (5.93 days) and male patients (18.64 days) were greater than for Caucasian male and female patients. Differences in the timing of a consultation were not significantly correlated with the presence of an advance directive, the specialty of the attending physician, or the reasons for the consult request. Ethics consultants may have mitigated problems that developed during the lag in request times for African American males by spending more time, on average, on those consultations (316 minutes), especially more time, on average, than on consultations with Caucasian females (195 minutes). Most consultations (40 of 56) did result in movement toward limiting treatment, but no statistically significant differences were found among the groups studied in the movement toward limiting treatment. The average number of days from consult to discharge or death were strongly correlated with the intervals between admission to the hospital and request for an ethics consultation. Conclusion Our findings suggest race and gender disparities in the timing of ethics consultations that consultants may have partially mitigated. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a number of measurements relevant to sport-related concussion (SRC) symptoms; however, most studies to date have used a single MRI modality and whole-brain exploratory analyses in attempts to localize concussion injury. This has resulted in highly variable findings across studies due to wide ranging symptomology, severity and nature of injury within studies. A multimodal MRI, symptom-guided region-of-interest (ROI) approach is likely to yield more consistent results. The functions of the cerebellum and basal ganglia transcend (...) many common concussion symptoms, and thus these regions, plus the white matter tracts that connect or project from them, constitute plausible ROIs for MRI analysis. We performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), resting-state functional MRI, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) imaging using arterial spin labeling (ASL), in youth aged 12-18 years following SRC, with a focus on the cerebellum, basal ganglia and white matter tracts. Compared to controls similar in age, sex and sport (N = 20), recent SRC youth (N = 29; MRI at 8 ± 3 days post injury) exhibited increased susceptibility in the cerebellum (p = 0.032), decreased functional connectivity between the caudate and each of the pallidum (p = 0.035) and thalamus (p = 0.021), and decreased diffusivity in the mid-posterior corpus callosum (p < 0.038); no changes were observed in recovered asymptomatic youth (N = 16; 41 ± 16 days post injury). For recent symptomatic-only SRC youth (N = 24), symptom severity was associated with increased susceptibility in the superior cerebellar peduncles (p = 0.011) and reduced activity in the cerebellum (p = 0.013). Fewer days between injury and MRI were associated with reduced cerebellar-parietal functional connectivity (p < 0.014), reduced activity of the pallidum (p = 0.002), increased CBF in the caudate (p = 0.005), and reduced diffusivity in the central corpus callosum (p < 0.05). Youth SRC is associated with acute cerebellar inflammation accompanied by reduced cerebellar activity and cerebellar-parietal connectivity, as well as structural changes of the middle regions of the corpus callosum accompanied by functional changes of the caudate, all of which resolve with recovery. Early MRI post-injury is important to establish objective MRI-based indicators for concussion diagnosis, recovery assessment and prediction of outcome. (shrink)

Soft X‐ray tomography (SXT) is an imaging technique capable of characterizing and quantifying the structural phenotype of cells. In particular, SXT is used to visualize the internal architecture of fully hydrated, intact eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells at high spatial resolution (50 nm or better). Image contrast in SXT is derived from the biochemical composition of the cell, and obtained without the need to use potentially damaging contrast‐enhancing agents, such as heavy metals. The cells are simply cryopreserved prior to imaging, and (...) are therefore imaged in a near‐native state. As a complement to structural imaging by SXT, the same specimen can now be imaged by correlated cryo‐light microscopy. By combining data from these two modalities specific molecules can be localized directly within the framework of a high‐resolution, three‐dimensional reconstruction of the cell. This combination of data types allows sophisticated analyses to be carried out on the impact of environmental and/or genetic factors on cell phenotypes. (shrink)

In this volume, Maher contextualizes the work of a group of contemporary analytic philosophers—The Pittsburgh School—whose work is characterized by an interest in the history of philosophy and a commitment to normative functionalism, or the insight that to identify something as a manifestation of conceptual capacities is to place it in a space of norms. Wilfrid Sellars claimed that humans are distinctive because they occupy a norm-governed "space of reasons." Along with Sellars, Robert Brandom and John McDowell have tried (...) to work out the implications of that idea for understanding knowledge, thought, norms, language, and intentional action. The aim of this book is to introduce their shared views on those topics, while also charting a few key disputes between them. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first objective is to examine the impact of an individual’s ethical ideology and level of professional commitment on the earnings management decision. The second objective is to observe whether the presence of a personal benefit affects an individual’s ethical orientation or professional commitment within the context of an opportunity to manage earnings. Using a sample of 375 undergraduate business majors, our results suggest a significant relationship between an individual’s ethical orientation and decision-making. (...) Further, participants with higher levels of professional commitment seem to be less likely to engage in earnings management behavior and less likely to behave opportunistically. These results have the potential to add to our understanding of certain behaviors in entry-level personnel and should be of interest to managers, practitioners, academicians, and researchers. (shrink)

A collection of essays, comments and replies on some of the contentious issues in feminist theory. Specific conversations centre on topics of debate such as feminist standpoint theory; gender as an analytic category; problems with sexual difference; and privacy and representations of the personal. Each exchange covers issues central to feminist scholarship and includes discussions from a cross-section of disciplines: political/social theory, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies and critical theory.

Reading, a micro-level and subjective activity, is a mechanism through which gender is constructed and reinforced. Drawing on insights from cultural studies and feminist literary critics, and applying sociological perspectives and methodologies, we explored how 53 women and men read and interpreted two short stories, William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Jayne Anne Phillip's “Home.” We found that the gender of the readers had relatively few effects on their interpretations, but that indicators of life experience were influential. In general, (...) more substantial life experience as reflected in greater age, being married, and having children was associated with more sympathetic, empathic reactions to the major characters. Ideological positions also influenced readers' interpretations, when those positions were relevant to the themes of the text; these individual values and attitudes were associated with more particularistic patterns of empathy. Rather than dismissing gender as an influence on reading, however, we suggest that gender influences reading and interpretation partially through the pervasive gender-markings of social context. (shrink)

In 2018 Academic Placement Data and Analysis ran a survey of doctoral students and recent graduates on the topics of diversity and inclusivity in collaboration with the Graduate Student Council and Data Task Force of the American Philosophical Association. We submitted a preliminary report in Fall 2018 that describes the origins and procedure of the survey [1]. This is our final report on the survey. We first discuss the demographic profile of our survey participants and compare it to the United (...) States general population, its doctoral students, and APA membership, finding several areas of underrepresentation (i.e. gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic, and veteran status). We then discuss the results of questions regarding diversity and inclusivity. We find, for instance, that participant comfort in philosophy depends on gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, disability, and language status and that participants most often mentioned the theme of diversity when asked how philosophy could be more inclusive. Finally, we discuss the results of questions related to graduate program and placement. We find, for example, that underrepresented graduates are both less likely to recommend their graduate program to others and less likely to prefer an academic job. We close by making some recommendations for the APA and for the discipline based on our findings. (shrink)

Disillusionment is acknowledged to be a painful process with important personal and social consequences. However, scientific conceptualisations of the experience are inconsistent. Across four studies, we examined whether lay conceptions of disillusionment produce a consistent pattern of features. In Study 1 (N = 204), we extracted 19 features of disillusionment from open-ended participant definitions. In Study 2 (N = 131), participants rated the centrality of these features and indicated that features such as discovery, disappointment, and loss, were highly representative, while (...) features such as hopelessness, orientation, and truth, were more peripheral. In two further studies, we used experimental designs to test the diagnosticity of these features. In Study 3 (N = 155), participants rated vignettes descriptions as more disillusioning when they were based on more, rather than less, prototypical disillusionment features. Given that disappointment is a feature of disillusionment, we conducted Study 4 (N = 60) to test whether the extracted features effectively distinguish disillusionment from disappointment. Overall, we found evidence to suggest that disillusionment contains a consistent set of features, and represents a state of negative epistemic affect associated with the violation of core assumptions. These results create avenues for research on disillusionment, its antecedents and its consequences. (shrink)

Disgust is a strong aversion, yet paradoxically it can constitute an appreciative aesthetic response to works of art. Artistic disgust can be funny, profound, sorrowful, or gross. This book examines numerous examples of disgust as it is aroused by art and offers a set of explanations for its aesthetic appeal.

This study aims to use the Asian knowledge model “APO” as a determinant for performance excellence in universities and identifying the most effecting factors on it. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip. The result of the study showed that (APO) model is valid as a measure and there are four dimensions in the model affecting significantly more than the others (university processes, KM leadership, personnel, KM outputs). Furthermore, performance excellence produced though modernizing the means of education, (...) curriculum development, technology and flexibility in the organizational structure. The study recommends expanding the usage of (APO) model, enhancing the role of knowledge leadership, technology, organizational flexibility, sharing culture and incentive systems that encouraging innovation. (shrink)

For years a debate has raged within the various literatures of philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology over whether, and to what degree, the concepts that characterize psychopathology are social constructions that reflect cultural values. While the majority position among philosophers has been normativist, i.e., that the conception of a mental disorder is value-laden, a vocal and cogent minority have argued that psychopathology results from malfunctions that can be described by terminology that is objective and scientific. Scientists and clinicians have tended to (...) endorse the objectivist position, with some notable exceptions. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Last year the editors of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society invited feminists worldwide to comment on the millennial transition. Representing a disciplinary and generational range of writers, the resulting collection is at turns inspiring, troubling, provocative, despairing, celebratory. Some of the essays give voice to anxieties, others are more hopeful some reflect back, others look forward. Many of these fifty-plus short essays speak to themes of gender, nationality, global independence, transnational corporate domination, racial and ethnic identities, and (...) complex intersections among these systems. Readers will find eye-opening writing that is thoughtful, committed, and passionate about feminist futures. (shrink)

One understanding of conscience dominates bioethical discussion about conscience. On this view, to have a conscience is to be compelled to act in accordance with one’s own moral values for the sake of one’s “integrity,” where integrity is understood as inner or psychological unity. Conscience is deemed valuable because it promotes this quality. In this paper, I describe the dominant view, attempt to show that it is flawed, and sketch a positive alternative to it. In my opinion, conscience often fails (...) to promote inner unity (regardless of the degree of inner unity we have in mind); acting with a conscience leaves many people broken rather than unified. A better view about the value of conscience is that having a conscience encourages morally responsible agency. My goal is to prove that this alternative explains better what it means to value conscience in health care and the extent to which we ought to value it. (shrink)