Remote state preparation is generation of a desired state by a remote observer. In spite of causality, it is well known, according to the Reeh–Schlieder theorem, that it is possible for relativistic quantum field theories, and a “physical” process achieving this task, involving superoscillatory functions, has recently been introduced. In this work we deal with non-relativistic fields, and show that remote state preparation is also possible for them, hence obtaining a Reeh–Schlieder-like result for general fields. Interestingly, in the nonrelativistic case, (...) the process may rely on completely different resources than the ones used in the relativistic case. (shrink)

In the research field of machine ethics, we commonly categorize artificial moral agents into four types, with the most advanced referred to as a full ethical agent, or sometimes a full-blown Artificial Moral Agent (AMA). This type has three main characteristics: autonomy, moral understanding and a certain level of consciousness, including intentional mental states, moral emotions such as compassion, the ability to praise and condemn, and a conscience. This paper aims to discuss various aspects of full-blown AMAs and presents the (...) following argument: the creation of full-blown artificial moral agents, endowed with intentional mental states and moral emotions, and trained to align with human values, does not, by itself, guarantee that these systems will have _human_ morality. Therefore, it is questionable whether they will be inclined to honor and follow what they perceive as incorrect moral values. we do not intend to claim that there is such a thing as a universally shared human morality, only that as there are different human communities holding different sets of moral values, the moral systems or values of the discussed artificial agents would be different from those held by human communities, for reasons we discuss in the paper. (shrink)

South Africa has been undergoing a process of transformation since the end of White minority rule in 1994. During this period, various employment and lifestyle opportunities have given rise to a growing Black middle class. Against this backdrop, the article draws upon an intersectional approach to corpus-assisted discourse studies in order to examine the construction of the BMC in a 1.4 million-word corpus composed of 20 mainstream Anglophone South African newspaper titles published between 2008 and 2014. With the help of (...) the corpus tool AntConc, the article investigates the collocates of ‘black middle class’, ‘black diamonds’, ‘clever blacks’ and ‘coconuts’, classifying results according to semantic categories in order to provide an idea of the multiple but nuanced representations of the BMC in contemporary SA. The analysis finds several lexically rich moralizing and paternalistic discourses that, in accordance with an intersectional perspective, enact a complex pattern of strategies that are simultaneously exclusionary and inclusionary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Unsettling AffairZohar LedermanAdults should not bury babies. Whenever that happens, you know something in the world has gone awry.Similarly to most Israeli Jews, I had to enlist in the military when I was 18. As part of my basic military training, I had to guard a certain settlement in the West Bank for two weeks. The drill was what we call “4–8”: four hours of guarding, eight hours (...) of rest. I was supposed to stand on my feet throughout my shift without eating, reading, or doing anything that might distract my attention. The terrorists are coming, we were told, and they are bloodthirsty. You can save lives! Well, not that of the terrorist, obviously.I did very little guarding during those two weeks. I was too busy coping with depression and loneliness, although I am only now aware of the latter. Desperately struggling to keep my head above water, I did what I could to survive. I read books, lots of books. I remember reading Nietzsche’s Zarathustra’s parable of one’s development in the desert. You start off as a lion, then a camel, and finally a child. If I could bestow only one piece of advice to my younger self, it would be to pack lightly, as even the camel’s back can only take so much. My laziness paid off. Nothing happened during that time. My older brother was kind enough to drive for an hour and bring me and my comrades the best candy Israel has to offer, and Coke. So I snacked, drank, and read.Two years later, I was called to the very same settlement as an emergency medical technician, just about to commence medical school. I was accompanied by my brother, who was then in paramedic school. We were in the midst of a family dinner in one of the too-many Jewish holidays. A terrorist attack occurred—a terrorist penetrated a house while everyone was asleep and shot everything that moved, including a male baby. Being only a couple of months old, his body occupied less than a quarter of the ambulance gurney. The upper part was bare; the lower part was wrapped in a diaper. There was no blood, no obvious visible signs of trauma on his body, except for a small hole in his right arm, just under the bicipital muscle, right where the brachial artery is.Talking about the ethics of futile care seems out of sync in such moments, even if I were aware then of the debate. When a baby is dying, you do everything to save him. Two fingers on the chest, 15 chest compressions, 2 breaths. That is what we had to do then, and that is what we did. Needless to say, the pale body did not respond. My brother and I drove the small body to the morgue. I could do nothing but stare at it throughout the 50-minute drive. There is something wrong in a world where this kind of thing happens. I promised the baby that I would fix it.I have not fixed it. But I have been trying.I am now an emergency medicine physician and a bioethicist. I have not been involved in other terrorist attacks since then, but I have seen my share. Some deaths feel natural and even due; others feel cruel, untimely, and unjust. The latter takes away a tiny bit of your soul and makes you question your role in the world. By being the best physician I can be, I hope to prevent future cruel, unjust, and untimely deaths, one person at a time. But there is only so much a physician can do.Similarly to others working in bioethics, my research spans several topics, from clinical to public health ethics. A few topics, however, are particularly close to my heart, and the Israeli occupation is one of them. The untimely death of the baby drives this passion.I could not save that baby. No one could. But as a physician and a privileged academic I can choose to channel my efforts to make them count towards preventing other cruel, untimely, and unjust deaths. Through... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Full Collection of Personal NarrativesZohar Lederman, Ola Ziara, Rachel Coghlan, Oksana Sulaieva, Anna Shcherbakova, Oleksandr Dudin, Vladyslava Kachkovska, Iryna Dudchenko, Anna Kovchun, Lyudmyla Prystupa, Yuliya Nogovitsyna, Ghaiath Hussein, Kathryn Fausch, P. P. Kyaw, Ayesha Ahmad, Richard W Sams II, Handreen Mohammed Saeed, Artem Riga, Ryan C. Maves, Elizabeth Dotsenko, Irina Deyneka, Eva V. Regel, and Vita Voloshchuk• An Unsettling Affair• How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our Pain• (...) Adjusting Laboratory Practices to the Challenges of Wartime• Why We Stay• A Semi-Personal Story from a Ukrainian NGO Professional (or a Semi-Professional Story from a Ukrainian Person) Living through the War• When Ethics Survives Where People Do Not: A Story From Darfur• Burma’s Healthcare Under Fire: My Experience as an Exiled Medical Professional• When a Conflict Collapses on a Child: An (Aborted) Medical Evacuation of a Hazara Toddler During the Kabul Airport Blast and the Taliban Takeover• The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of War• Providing Care to a Potential Aggressor: An Ethical Dilemma• One Surgeon’s Experience During Armed Conflict in Ukraine• The Limits of Our Obligations• A Liberating Breath• Soldiers of the Invisible Front: How Ukrainian Therapists Are Fighting for the Mental Health of the Nation Under Fire• Stories of Families with Chronically Ill Pediatric Patients during the War in UkraineCopyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

As a way of comparing qualitative and quantitative approaches to critical discourse analysis, two analysts independently examined similar datasets of newspaper articles in order to address the research question ‘How are different types of men represented in the British press?’. One analyst used a 41.5 million word corpus of articles, while the other focused on a down-sampled set of 51 articles from the same corpus. The two ensuing research reports were then critically compared in order to elicit shared and unique (...) findings and to highlight strengths and weaknesses between the two approaches. This article concludes that an effective form of CDA would be one where different forms of researcher expertise are carried out as separate components of a larger project, then combined as a way of triangulation. (shrink)

The distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness is a subject of intensive debate. According to one view, visual experience overflows the capacity of the attentional and working memory system: We see more than we can report. According to the opposed view, this perceived richness is an illusion—we are aware only of information that we can subsequently report. This debate remains unresolved because of the inevitable reliance on report, which is limited in capacity. To bypass this limitation, this study utilized (...) color diversity—a unique summary statistic—which is sensitive to detailed visual information. Participants were shown a Sperling-like array of colored letters, one row of which was precued. After reporting a letter from the cued row, participants estimated the color diversity of the noncued rows. Results showed that people could estimate the color diversity of the noncued array without a cost to letter report, which suggests that color diversity is registered automatically, outside focal attention, and without consuming additional working memory resources. (shrink)

This article contributes to an emerging literature on the “neo” or “entrepreneurial” developmental state that emphasizes the role of innovation policy in promoting the structural transformation of industry. It finds further evidence that supports this approach and advances it by making two unique contributions. First, it highlights an essential yet underappreciated feature of contemporary innovation policy: the state’s capacity to condition public assistance and discipline private firms that do not adhere to government guidelines. These capacities are necessary to guarantee that (...) the benefits of public investment in innovation—the social and economic spillovers—are not appropriated by private actors but shared more broadly within society. Second, it highlights that politics—reflected in the relations between innovation agencies and key social actors—represents an important causal factor in both the formation and subsequent transformation of these institutional capacities. These points are illustrated through a historical analysis of a crucial case: the state-led development of Israel’s thriving high-tech sector. (shrink)

What happens when men and women feel powerful in intimate relationships? When does power corrupt and when does it lead to positive consequences, such as increased sensitivity to others' needs, personal growth, and social responsibility? This book offers anyone interested in such questions a clear and accessible depiction of the effects of social power, based on cutting-edge theory and research. The book starts with a general discussion on the ways power influences individuals. The role of one's personality, goals, and culture (...) seem to play a decisive role in whether power leads to benevolent or malevolent consequences. Some effects of power are more intuitively understood (e.g., taking from or contributing to a common resource, or aggressive responses in parents who feel powerless), while other effects regard much more surprising phenomena (e.g., self-fulfilling prophecies, stopping an annoying fan, or forgiveness for a transgression). Following the description of this social-psychological mechanism, The Power to Care discusses the cultural and developmental circumstances in which power is experienced. Culturally acquired gender-roles, experiencing racism, egoistic vs. altruistic motivations, and defensive tendencies - all influence what men and women want in intimate relationships, and the way power can motivate them to attain their goals. These circumstances may explain the gender differences found in the results of three experiments, described in Chapter 4. In these experiments, men and women in long-term, intimate relationships reacted differently to a temporary sense of power, in terms of their tendency to self-focus, take the perspective of others, and objectify their relationship partners.In the last section, The Power to Care discusses the seemingly contradictory beliefs of professionals and laymen alike, that power corrupts, but that the empowerment processes yields positive results. In this section, the role of power and empowerment processes is discussed, mainly in macro-level interventions, in intimate partner violence (for both victims and perpetrators), overcoming addiction, and in policy practice (e.g., in court verdicts regarding cases of post-divorce relocation of custodial parents). (shrink)

This article reconstructs the political motivation argument against cosmopolitanism, according to which the extension of social justice beyond bounded communities would be motivationally unstable, and thus unjustified. It does so through an analysis of the stability problem, and a reconstruction of the three most prominent anti-cosmopolitan arguments—Rawlsian statism, liberal nationalism, and civic republicanism—as solutions to this problem. It then examines, and rejects, three prominent objections, each denying a different level of the argument. The article concludes that the civic republican version (...) of the argument is the most plausible, and implications for cosmopolitanism are considered. (shrink)

According to the so-called Hempel’s Dilemma, the thesis of physicalism is either false or empty. Our intention in this paper is not to propose a solution to the Dilemma, but rather to argue as follows: to the extent that Hempel’s Dilemma applies to physicalism it equally applies to any theory that gives a deep-structure and changeable account of our experience or of high-level theories. In particular, we will show that it also applies to mind-body dualistic theories. The scope of Hempel’s (...) Dilemma turns out to be very wide: it is a special case of a general sceptical argument against changeable deep-structure theories in and outside science. (shrink)

In recent years, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence systems have started to show signs of what might be seen as human level intelligence. More specifically, large language models such as OpenAI’s GPT-3, and more recently Google’s PaLM and DeepMind’s GATO, are performing amazing feats involving the generation of texts. However, it is acknowledged by many researchers that contemporary language models, and more generally, learning systems, still lack important capabilities, such as understanding, reasoning and the ability to employ knowledge of the world and (...) common sense in order to reach or at least advance toward general intelligence. Some believe that scaling will eventually bring about these capabilities; others think that a different architecture is needed. In this paper, we focus on the latter, with the purpose of integrating a theoretical–philosophical conception of understanding as knowledge of dependence relations, with the high-level requirements and engineering design of a robust AI system, which integrates machine learning and symbolic components. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants that they are unfair, and that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria (...) are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent. (shrink)

The expressivist account of knowledge attributions, while claiming that these attributions are nonfactual, also typically holds that they retain a factual component. This factual component involves the attribution of a belief. The aim of this work is to show that considerations analogous to those motivating an expressivist account of knowledge attributions can be applied to belief attributions. As a consequence, we claim that expressivists should not treat the so-called factual component as such. The phenomenon we focus on to claim that (...) belief attributions are non-factual is that of normative doxastic disagreement. We show through several examples that this kind of disagreement is analogous to that of the epistemic kind. The result will be a doxastic expressivism. Finally, we answer some objections that our doxastic expressivism could seem to face. (shrink)

This text reads into the work of Ibrahim Nubani (1962—), a Palestinian-Israeli painter who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1988, during the first Intifada. Nubani’s painting has undergone a tremendous change from the 1980s and the period of his hospitalization to his painting style today: from geometric, Modernist-type painting, gradually moving into his contemporary chaotic and saturated style of expression. I draw parallels between Nubani’s personal and psychological condition and the political events that affected him. I refer to his state (...) in relation to the discourse of mimicry and camouflage in nature, comparing his position to that of the invisible presences in the background in a perfect camouflage, referring to Roger Caillois’ interpretations. I look at his diagnosed psychiatric state of schizophrenia as the materialization of the meaning of being a Palestinian-Israeli in a life of fragmentation and rejection, by referring to Bhabha and Shammas. I relate to Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of schizophrenia as a cultural rebellion against the moderating mechanisms of cultural/national identification. I demonstrate how Nubani’s work and speech undermine the modalities of mainstream Israeli society, acting like a cultural insurgent, terrorizing Zionist axioms. While analysing Nubani’s iconography I identify several tropes, images and icons that serve as signifiers of his personal crisis and artistic development. I link Nubani’s eyes/ocelli images to Lacan’s discussion of ‘symbolic castration’ as the core of his personal becoming part of Israeli society and his collapse, the in-between desire to assimilate in the early stages of his life, and his current desire to fully live his life as a Palestinian. The text moves between his images and images from other sources that open Nubani’s world into the discourses of Western painting, schizophrenia, high Modernism, the postcolonial condition and so forth. The text is fragmented into eight pieces, following the schizophrenic break-up of Nubani’s personal state and his painted work. I read his work as a destabilizing agent, and identify visual references drawn from the wider context of art history, and specifically referring to masterpieces of the Israeli art canon. (shrink)

This paper argues that a lonely death is, by definition, a bad death and that society as a whole, as well as individuals in society are obligated to assure a certain degree of well‐being, flourishing, or care among and for fellow individuals. Individuals can then be said to have a right against dying a lonely death. Such a right has corresponding duties. The paper further specifies what such duties may entail based on what individuals may need on their deathbed, specifically (...) focusing on the need for human touch. Assuming that human touch might indeed be needed by some individuals in order to avoid a lonely death, the paper explores potential implications from a public health perspective, particularly during infectious disease outbreaks such as COVID. (shrink)

Artificial general intelligence is not a new notion, but it has certainly been gaining traction in recent years, and academic as well as industry resources are redirected to research in AGI. The main reason for this is that current AI techniques are limited as they are designed to operate in specific problem-domains, following meticulous preparation. These systems cannot operate in an unknown environment or under conditions of uncertainty, reuse knowledge gained in another problem domain, or autonomously learn and understand the (...) problem-domain. We shall call AI systems capable of such feats artificial general intelligent systems. The three tasks of this paper are to provide a working definition of the term AGI, examine the “missing G”, i.e., the set of abilities that current AI systems lack and whose implementation will result in a basic AGI system, and consider different approaches, including a hybrid one, to a comprehensive solution for an AGI. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine some actual examples of written verbal irony that contain apposition. Meta-linguistic knowledge about apposition as a syntactic structure is claimed to be involved in the interpretation process of the utterance and especially in recognizing the victim of the irony. This discussion demonstrates the interdependence between apposition, its echoic quality in particular cases, and the victim of the irony. Since syntactic structure may serve as a cue to indirect meaning, pointing at the specific (...) meta-linguistic knowledge used for interpreting ironic utterances may enrich the discussion and enhance the description of the interpretation process. Different types of echoing are demonstrated and examined. The analysis also suggests that untruthfulness may serve mainly as a cue to the presence of irony, rather than as an essential component of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Ostracism is known to cause psychological distress. Thus, defining the factors that can lead to recovery or diminish these negative effects is crucial. Three experiments examined whether suggesting the possible causes of ostracism to victims could decrease or eliminate their ostracism distress. They also examined whether death-anxiety mediated the association between the suggested possible cause for being ostracized and recovery. Participants were randomly assigned to six experimental and control groups and were either ostracized or included in a game of Cyberball. (...) Two control conditions were used: participants who were ostracized but received no explanation and participants who were included. Immediately after the ostracism experience, participants in the experimental groups were presented with one of four causes for being ostracized, using locus of control and stability, the two causal dimensions of Weiner’s attribution theory. After a short delay they were administered a mood or needs-satisfaction questionnaire. The results highlight the interaction between locus of control and stability, and underscore the relative importance of different attributions in alleviating self-reported ostracism distress. Specifically, both external and unstable attributions decreased distress, and an unstable attribution led to complete recovery in some participants. Thus, recovery from ostracism may be accelerated when the victim receives an explanation for ostracism that attributes the incident to unstable, external causes soon after the incident. Death-anxiety fully mediated the association between locus of control attribution and mood, but for on needs-satisfaction or the stability of the attribution. (shrink)

As even those who endorse it concede, cosmopolitanism has a motivational problem. There is a need for strategies to generate support of global norms conducive to cosmopolitanism, but which do not rely primarily on the motivating force of the moral argument. This article makes the case for civic vigilance as an answer to this problem. It argues that support for cosmopolitan norms could be advanced by encouraging a recognition of the ‘boomerang effect’: the ways in which global injustice undermines the (...) freedom of one’s own political community. The article offers evaluative criteria for different motivational strategies, assesses prominent alternatives to moral motivation, and finally defends the appeal to civic vigilance. (shrink)

When discussing AI alignment, we usually refer to the problem of teaching or training advanced autonomous AI systems to make decisions that are aligned with human values or preferences. Proponents of this approach believe it can be employed as means to stay in control over sophisticated intelligent systems, thus avoiding certain existential risks. We identify three general obstacles on the path to implementation of value alignment: a technological/technical obstacle, a normative obstacle, and a calibration problem. Presupposing, for the purposes of (...) this discussion, that the technical and normative problems are solved, we focus on the problem of how to calibrate a system, for a specific value, to be on a specific location within a spectrum stretching between righteous and normal or average human behavior. Calibration, or more specifically mis-calibration, also raises the issue of trustworthiness. If we cannot trust AI systems to perform tasks the way we intended, we would not use them on our roads and at our homes. In an era where we strive to construct autonomous machines endowed with common sense, reasoning abilities and a connection to the world, so they would be able to act in alignment with human values, such mis-calibrations can make the difference between trustworthy and untrustworthy systems. (shrink)

Triggered Inversion (TI) in Hebrew has been previously analyzed as canonical A'-movement to the specificer position of a functional projection in the CP-layer (Doron & Shlonsky 1990, Shlonsky 1997). This article examines the semantic properties of TI constructions in Hebrew, specifically the cross-linguistic similarities between TI in Hebrew and pseudoclefts (PC) in English, as discussed in Heycock & Kroch (1999). A structure is proposed for Hebrew TI that parallels the structure given for equatives in Hebrew by Rothstein (1995), in which (...) the trigger is base-generated in the operator layer and the inverted surface word order is an artifact of subject movement to a position below that of the verb. Finally, TI is considered in the crosslinguistic typology of focus constructions outlined in Kiss (1998). (shrink)

The convergence of morphogenesis into viable organisms under variable conditions suggests closed‐loop dynamics involving multiscale functional feedback. We develop the idea that morphogenesis is based on synergy between mechanical and bio‐signaling processes, spanning all levels of organization: molecular, cellular, tissue, up to the whole organism. This synergy provides feedback within and between all levels of organization, to close the loop between the dynamics of the morphogenesis process and its robust functional outcome. Hydra offer a powerful platform to explore this direction, (...) thanks to their simple body plan, extraordinary regeneration capabilities, and the accessibility and flexibility of their tissues. Our recent experiments show that structural inheritance of the actomyosin organization directs body‐axis formation during Hydra regeneration. Morphogenesis is then stabilized through dynamic cytoskeletal reorganization induced by the inherited structure. The observed cytoskeletal stability and reorganization capabilities suggest that mechanical feedback integrates with biochemical processes to establish viable patterns and ensure canalization. (shrink)

One of the distinctive features of the primate genome is the Alu element, a repetitive short interspersed element, over a million highly similar copies of which account for >10% of the genome. A direct consequence of this feature is that primates' transcriptome is highly enriched in long stable dsRNA structures, the preferred target of adenosine deaminases acting on RNAs (ADARs), which are the enzymes catalyzing A‐to‐I RNA editing. Indeed, A‐to‐I editing by ADARs is extremely abundant in primates: over a hundred (...) million editing sites exist in their genomes. However, there are few essential editing sites conserved across mammals that have maintained their editing level despite the radical change in ADAR target landscape. Here, we review and discuss the cost of having an unusual amount of dsRNA and editing in the transcriptome, as well as the opportunities it presents, which might have contributed to the accelerated evolution of the primates. (shrink)

A major trend that characterized the naturalization of the Aristotelian habitus concept in the medieval Islamic world was its application to religious discourses. This trend was not limited to the works of Muslim thinkers. The present communication focuses on the ways in which Maimonides used the concept, naturalizing it in the religious Jewish system.

Habitus is a logical and ethical Aristotelian concept that was first introduced to the Islamic world through the translation of Greek philosophical works into Arabic in the ninth century. Following its introduction and until the nineteenth century, thinkers and scholars of the Islamic world naturalized it creatively in various intellectual systems. In ethical usage, habitus is a disposition that, once acquired and well established through a process of accustoming, allows humans to perceive and act in certain ways without deliberation or (...) reflection. This concept explained how humans transcended their inborn natures, and as such it was amenable to employment in manifold fields and contexts. The present article studies significant applications from the ninth to the nineteenth century by thinkers of the Islamic world, who fleshed out the Aristotelian concept and used it for their own purposes. Among other things, it shows that the two main trends of naturalization involved application of the concept to religious Islamic discourses and to the study of humans and their society, anticipating modern Western sociological usage. (shrink)

This article examines how Arabic handled societal taboos in the medieval Islamic world and the ways by which language users applied censorship that led to the creation of euphemisms. Special attention is given to sources from the eastern part of the Islamic world dating to the fourth/tenth and the fifth/eleventh centuries, and to the taboo topics and types of euphemisms they disclose. The complex relationship between the concept of euphemism and kināya, the polysemous Arabic term that renders it, is examined. (...) As a whole, the evidence demonstrates an overwhelming Arabic preference for figurative speech over change of form as the essential generation mechanism of euphemisms. Finally, light is shed on the ways in which discerning medieval literary critics anticipated significant modern sociolinguistic observations: the relations between euphemism, orthophemism, and dysphemism, in addition to the incessant process of euphemism degradation. (shrink)

Can anyone doubt that the Jewish tradition mandates universal access to healthcare? In a comprehensive and illuminating discussion, A.L. Mackler seems to have already said all that needs to be said. After aptly analyzing the principles of the traditional institutions and norms relating to tzedakah, Mackler proceeded to apply these traditions to the context of healthcare, concluding that.

The mitigation of pandemics like that caused by the current COVID-19 virus is largely dependent on voluntary public adherence to government rules and regulations. Recent research has identified various individual covariates that account for some of the variance in compliance with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. However, despite considerable research, our understanding of how and why these factors are related to adherence behavior is limited. Additionally, it is less clear whether disease-transmitting behaviors during a pandemic can be understood in terms of more (...) general behavioral tendencies. The current research has examined the utility of a behavioral-failure lens in predicting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and in illuminating mechanisms underlying the previously established relationship between Conscientiousness and adherence. In the two studies reported here, individual variations in the predisposition to behavioral failures predicted adherence to COVID-19 measures, and mediated the relationships between Conscientiousness and adherence. The Failure Proneness questionnaire predicted compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, while the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire did not. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that COVID-19 behavior was predicted only through the intentional factors. Hence, our data lend support to the notion that noncompliance with official COVID-19 prevention guidelines is driven mainly by intentional factors related to violation of norms and rules. The theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

A model of Peano Arithmetic is short recursively saturated if it realizes all its bounded finitely realized recursive types. Short recursively saturated models of $\PA$ are exactly the elementary initial segments of recursively saturated models of $\PA$. In this paper, we survey and prove results on short recursively saturated models of $\PA$ and their automorphisms. In particular, we investigate a certain subgroup of the automorphism group of such models. This subgroup, denoted $G|_{M(a)}$, contains all the automorphisms of a countable short (...) recursively saturated model of which can be extended to an automorphism of the countable recursively saturated elementary end extension of the model. (shrink)

Intergroup competition over resources is attested since the dawn of history. Written and archaeological evidence go back to at least the fourth millennium BC. According to accepted views, evolution has favored humans because of their ability to have cumulative cultures, which has made flexible adaptation possible. One major aspect of this adaptation has been the ability to handle power contests without engaging physical force. Instead, increasing prestige dynamics has allowed contest management by displaying symbolic assets. These have growingly been instrumental (...) in deterring external assaults, thus guaranteeing the possession – or expansion – of a group’s resources. However, while material assets are believed to create status by the evidence of their tangible usefulness, symbolic assets are by definition subject to ongoing negotiation, entirely dependent on being socio-semiotically recognized as types of capital. Symbolic stock exchanges thus appear to have been determinative since antiquity in hierarchizing ethnic and political groups fighting over resources, prioritizing ones over the others. They have culminated in repertoires of more solid tangible and intangible assets, from impressive buildings, city gates, gardens and temples, to ideas such as freedom, quality of life and wealth, justice, personal security, or whatever values that have gained universal recognition. The article discusses the creation and expansion of such symbolic repertoires and their uncertain position in recent times. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest in corporate law can be addressed by two main alternatives: a requirement of a majority of the minority vote or the imposition of duties of loyalty and fairness. A comparison of Delaware, the UK, Canada, and Israel reveals that while the conflicts of interest problem within publicly-traded corporations receives different treatment in the different jurisdictions — either a fairness rule or a majority of the minority rule — closely-held corporations receive the same treatment of an imposition of (...) duties of loyalty and fairness. This article explains this finding, demonstrating that determining which of these rules is adopted is, in fact, a choice between liability rule protection and property rule protection. This choice depends on the total and relative transaction costs. These costs include both the negotiation costs attendant upon a property rule, as well as the adjudication costs associated with a liability rule. The sum of these costs is influenced by the efficacy of the judicial system and of extralegal mechanisms such as the market for corporate control, the capital market, and the types of investors active in the market. Because the different jurisdictions have different relative costs, due to differences in the economy and the legal systems, publicly-traded corporations are treated differently in each system. However, sometimes conflict of interest situations share the same main characteristics — as with closely-held corporations—leading to the domination of one solution, and thus the same solution is applied for closely-held corporations in the different jurisdictions. (shrink)

Voting lies at the center of collective decision-making in corporate law. While scholars have identified various problems with the voting mechanism, insincere voting—in the forms of strategic voting and conflict of interests voting—is perhaps the most fundamental. This article shows that insincere voting distorts the voting mechanism at its core, undermining its ability to determine transaction efficiency. As further demonstrated, strategic and conflict of interests problems frequently coincide with one another: voting strategically often means being in conflict, and many fact (...) patterns present aspects of both problems. Finally, this article claims that although the two problems have seemingly different solutions, these solutions are essentially similar in nature: all solutions to insincere voting are variations on two basic rules, namely, property rules and liability rules. (shrink)

This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining the rhetorical and the sociological perspectives. The scientific fact is presented as an entity having both an epistemic and a social meaning, and the scientific paper is presented as a discourse that has both an epistemic value and role related to knowledge and to the description of the ‘world,’ and a social value, fulfilling social roles within its relevant discourse community. The discussion leads to some insights (...) into the connection between scientific language and facts. Scientific language reflects the degree of facticity of the utterance at every stage: various linguistic and discursive elements reflect the current factual status of the utterance. This conception of fact is dynamic and open to discussion, and it is presented from the author’s point of view. On the other hand, language, or the choice of language usage, creates facticity in the sense of social acceptance: by using language, the researcher reports on his belief that what he is describing is indeed a fact. The essence of the scientific paper as an argumentative text is that its point of departure is the faith of the speaker in the facticity of the new information, and its rhetorical aim is to convince the audience, based on its disciplinary rationality, to accept that same faith and thereby usher the new claim into the shared disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for (...) instance, ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression. (shrink)