Sustained attention, a key cognitive skill that improves during childhood and adolescence, tends to be worse in some emotional and behavioural disorders. Sustained attention is typically studied in non-affective task contexts; here, we used a novel task to index performance in affective versus neutral contexts across adolescence (N = 465; ages 11–18). We asked whether: (i) performance would be worse in negative versus neutral task contexts; (ii) performance would improve with age; (iii) affective interference would be greater in younger adolescents; (...) (iv) adolescents at risk for depression and higher in anxiety would show overall worse performance; and (v) would show differential performance in negative contexts. Results indicated that participants performed more poorly in negative contexts and showed age-related performance improvements. Those at risk of depression performed more poorly than those at lower risk. However, there was no difference between groups as a result of affective context. For anxiety there was no difference in performance as a function of severity. However, those with higher anxiety showed less variance in their reaction times to negative stimuli than those with lower anxiety. One interpretation is that moderate levels of emotional arousal associated with anxiety make individuals less susceptible to the distracting effects of negative stimuli. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation or external design.Self-directedness (...) lies at the nexus of issues concerning the evolution and nature of intentionality, intelligence, and agency. It provides some insight into the evolution of intelligence because it helps explain how organisms are able to manage variable interaction processes, e.g., a hunting strategy that varies with prey type, ground condition, and hunger level. Simple self-directed organisms like bumblebees manage variability in one or a few dimensions. (shrink)

This is the third of five chapters on good, and inquires into what kinds of things are intrinsically good. The first thing claimed as intrinsically good is virtuous disposition and action; the second is pleasure in itself. These two approaches are briefly analysed, with the goodness or badness of pleasure given particular attention. Ross concludes that four things can be seen to be intrinsically good—virtue, pleasure, the allocation of pleasure to the virtuous, and knowledge. He is unable to discover anything (...) that is intrinsically good that is not either one or a combination of these. (shrink)

This is the second of five chapters on good, and starts by making the point that it is around the question of the intrinsically good that the chief controversies about the nature of goodness or value revolve, for most theories of value may be divided into those that treat it as a quality and those that treat it as a relation between that which has value and something else ; Ross says that it seems clear that any view that treats (...) goodness as a relation between that which is good and something else denies that anything is intrinsically good. The chapter first discusses R. B. Perry's relational view of value—in the sense of good, and other theories that also identify goodness with some relation, either as a relation between that which is good and some or all of its elements, or as a relation between some or all of its elements, or as a relation between it or some or all of its elements and something else. Next, the psychological theories of good are discussed; these, as a rule, hold that a thing being good means either that some person or persons have some feelings towards it, or some person or persons think it to be good; this is an objective view of good. The rest of the chapter looks at both R. B. Perry's and G. E. Moore's arguments on these theories, at Ross's own views, at badness as incompatible with goodness or as an element of a good thing, at W. M. Urban's work on the question of values, and at B. Croce's arguments on value judgements. Ross concludes that the arguments in favour of thinking of value as an objective are no more successful than those in favour of treating it as a relation, and presents a lengthy validation of his conclusion, based largely on discussion of beauty and goodness. (shrink)

Proceedings of the II World Congress on Paraconsistency held in Juquey, SP, Brazil, from May 12-19, 2000.

This is the fourth of five chapters on good, and looks at the question of whether goods are commensurable—measurable in degrees. As a preliminary, the question is asked as to whether pleasures are commensurable, and as a preliminary to that question, whether pleasures are comparable, and whether one pleasure can be said to be greater or more pleasant than another. The chapter examines two of three aspects of degrees of goodness: the commensuration of pleasures against one another; and the commensuration (...) of different states of knowledge against one another, including the dependence of the value of a state of knowledge on the nature of the state of mind, and the value of a state of opinion ; the third aspect, the balancing of virtuous actions and dispositions against one another, is examined in the next chapter. The question is then addressed as to whether virtue, knowledge, and pleasure can be compared in value—measured against one another; here, evidence is put forward to support Ross's view that pleasure is inferior in value to virtue and knowledge. The last part of the chapter looks at the relative value of moral goodness and value as ends in themselves. (shrink)

This is the last of five chapters on good, and examines moral goodness. Ross explains the concept of morally good as either being a certain sort of character or being related in one of certain definite ways to a certain sort of character. The matter of what kinds of things are morally good is then addressed, and further advances made in defining moral goodness. These begin by considering Immanuel Kant's views on the desire to do duty, and go on to (...) consider conscientious—or virtuous—actions, scales of moral goodness, types of good desire, and bad actions. (shrink)

This first chapter of Ross's book is devoted to an inquiry into the meaning of right. The interest throughout is ethical, with value only being discussed as far as it seems relevant. The first aspect addressed is the ambiguity inherent in any definition of the meaning of right. G. E. Moore's three definitions of a horse are discussed: these may be designated the arbitrary verbal definition, the verbal definition proper, and the definition that involves the sense of being reduced to (...) elements simpler than itself. These three types of definition are applied to the subsequent discussion of the meaning of right, which includes looking at the difference between right and duty, at moral goodness, at the reduction of right to elements simpler than itself, at right definable as productive of a certain outcome, at ethical principles, at hedonistic utilitarianism, and at the sociological school. (shrink)

Having discussed right in the first two chapters of the book, the remaining five discuss good, starting here with an analysis of the meaning of good. The analysis starts by showing that the senses in which ‘good’ is used can essentially be divided into two: adjunctive or attributive—to persons or things; and predicative. These two different usages are discussed in detail in the rest of the chapter.

This second chapter continues the inquiry into right started in the first, asking what makes right acts right. Historical attempts to state a single characteristic of all right actions that is the foundation of their rightness have been based on egoism and utilitarianism; these are not discussed except in so far as they are contrasted with the other theory put forward, which is G. E. Moore's theory suggesting that what makes actions right is that they are productive of good. The (...) main aspect of this addressed is that of duty, and the consideration leads to a rejection of the definition of right as just productive of the best possible consequences. The connection between the attributes of right and optimific is discussed, and the nature of acts that are right is explored in more detail. Two appendices follow Chapter II: the first discusses rights ; the second discusses punishment. (shrink)

Primary to both ontology and epistemology is the attributional union that properties and relations have with their subjects. Yet, the tradition’s understanding of attribution has been assessed as shallow, and its contemporary analysis deemed locked in a non-progressing stalemate. Central here is the historically dominant __in___herence_/_constituent_ construal of attribution, what, I argue, has remained obscure and unattended as to its background assumptions and their implications. On the analysis offered herein, I make precise and detail errors of the defining assumptions of (...) inherence theory and the _two-tiered nature_ it requires of attribution. Brought into relief will be the four elements involved in every attributional union, and what are the errors in a sequence of collapsing identities among them that define inherence theory. Along the way, clarification and warrant is provided for the alternative theses and their implications defining an __ad___herence_ theory of attribution, key features synopsized in the last section. (shrink)

Previous work has shown that spontaneous collapse of Fock states of identical fermions can be modeled as arising from random Rabi oscillations between two states. In this paper, a mathematical formalism is presented to incorporate this into many-body quantum field theory. This formalism allows for nonlocal collapse in the context of a relativistic system. While there is no absolute time-ordering of events, this approach allows for a coherent narrative of the collapse process.

It is through our actions that we affect the way the world goes. Whenever we face a choice of what to do, we also face a choice of which of various possible worlds to actualize. Moreover, whenever we act intentionally, we act with the aim of making the world go a certain way. It is only natural, then, to suppose that an agent's reasons for action are a function of her reasons for preferring some of these possible worlds to others, (...) such that what she has most reason to do is to bring about the possible world which, of all those available to her, is the one that she has most reason to want to obtain. This is what is known as the `teleological conception of practical reasons'. Whether this is the correct conception of practical reasons is important not only in its own right, but also in virtue of its potential implications for what sort of moral theory we should accept. Below, I argue that the teleological conception is indeed the correct conception of practical reasons. (shrink)

Background. South Africa (SA) currently has a golden opportunity to legislate on human heritable genome editing (HHGE), as the country is revising its assisted reproductive technology regulations. A set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE, which could seamlessly slot into the current regulations, has already been developed. The principles underlying the proposed set of sub-regulations are as follows: HHGE should be regulated to improve the lives of the people and should not be banned; the well-established standard of safety and efficacy (...) should be used in the regulation of HHGE; quality of life is what matters, and not preserving a ‘normal’ genome; parents’ reproductive autonomy must be respected; and equality of access to approved HHGE technology should be promoted. Objectives. To ascertain whether the proposed set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE is aligned with public opinion in SA, and SA’s Bill of Rights. Methods. Public opinion in SA is determined with reference to a deliberative public engagement study on HHGE conducted among South Africans, and the relevant rights in the Bill of Rights are interpreted with reference to recent case law. Results. This proposed set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE is aligned with public opinion in SA, and SA’s Bill of Rights. Conclusion. Despite the legal and ethical complexities of HHGE, the proposed set of sub-regulations provides a targeted and effective legislative approach. They fit seamlessly into the country’s existing health law framework, creating specific legal standards for HHGE that align with both public opinion and the country’s Bill of Rights. (shrink)

Recently Mr. E. Courtney has reopened discussion on the authenticity of the last six Heroides, a subject which had almost universally been accepted as settled by scholars.2 He also briefly discussed the ninth epistle and examined certain grounds for doubting whether it is rightly included in the Ovidian canon. In this he is following Karl Lachmann, who was disposed to doubt the authenticity not only of the last six but also of those of the remainder which are not mentioned in (...) Ovid's catalogue of the epistles given at Amores 2. 18 f.3 This despoliation of the canon has not generally found favour since Lachmann, and in the case of Heroides 9 the editors and other scholars working on the poems 4 have without exception regarded the poem as a genuine specimen of Ovid's work. (shrink)

In this lecture Armstrong argues that the main point of difference between Saint Augustine and other Christian Platonists centers less on how they view the effectiveness of man's free will than on their view of man's relationship to God. The Platonic tradition always stressed the goodness of the deity. Augustine, however, stressed God's immutability and power, and paid little attention to His goodness and His offer of redemption to all men, including those who stand outside the institutionalized church. This engaging (...) 1966 Saint Augustine Lecture is an unabashed polemic which is cast within an examination of three topics which illustrate Augustine's relationship to pagan and Christian Platonism. The criticism is stated with refreshing boldness and masterly erudition. The extensive notes are stimulating and informative. In the first section the author discusses the natural divinity of the soul and tells why most Christian thinkers, including Augustine, rejected the Platonic view that man's soul is naturally divine. The second topic presents the different attitudes Augustine and Platonism expressed toward the body and the material universe. Here Armstrong argues that in their fervent rejection of the Plotinian doctrine of the mystical body of the universe, Christians lost the sense of the holiness of everyday life and thereby dampened their awareness of the immediacy of the Holy Spirit. In his last topic of discussion Armstrong preaches against Augustine's doctrine of selective predestination and his conception of God as an arbitrary tyrant. These two views, says Armstrong, bring bad news to mankind and cause extreme pessimism rather than an awakening of love--the motive force which speeds man back to God.--W. D. T. (shrink)