But if there aren’t, then ‘they’ are not caused by anything and do not cause anything. That certainly appears to be false, however. John’s absence from our party might have been caused by his having fallen ill, and might cause a commotion. Dick’s not eating his soup might have been caused by his having fallen ill, and might cause a commotion.

Temporal concepts are fundamental constructs of human cognition, but the trajectory of how these concepts emerge and develop is not clear. Evidence of children’s temporal concept development comes from cognitive developmental and psycholinguistic studies. This paper reviews the linguistic factors (i.e., temporal language production and comprehension) and cognitive processes (i.e., temporal judgment and temporal reasoning) involved in children’s temporal conceptualization. The relationship between children’s ability to express time in language and the ability to reason about time, and the challenges and (...) difficulties raised by the interaction between cognitive and linguistic components are discussed. Finally, we propose ways to reconcile controversies from different research perspectives and present several avenues for future research to better understand the development of temporal concepts. (shrink)

In this article, I explore some contemporary versions of character education with specific reference to the extent to which they are viewed as constituting a form of citizenship education. I argue that such approaches often end up displacing the idea of political education and, through their language and stated aims, avoid any genuine engagement with the very concept of the political in all but its most superficial sense. In discussing some of the points raised by critics of character education, I (...) defend the need for a more robust and radical conception of the political as a basis for a form of political education. (shrink)

This paper presents a discussion of some central ideas in anarchist thought, alongside an account of experiments in anarchist education. In the course of the discussion, I try to challenge certain preconceptions about anarchism, especially concerning the anarchist view of human nature. I address the questions of whether or not anarchism is utopian, what this means, and what implications these ideas may have for dominant paradigms in philosophy of education.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Understanding and Experience of Compassion:Aquinas and the Dalai LamaJudith BaradHis Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama writes that the essence of Mahayana Buddhism is compassion.1 Although most people recognize compassion as one of the most admirable virtues, it is not easy to find discussions of it by Christian theologians. Instead, Christian theologians tend to discuss charity, a virtue infused by God into a person. Some of these theologians, such (...) as Cardinal Henri de Lubac,2 insist that Christian charity and Buddhist compassion are very different from each other. Are they correct? A good source to investigate this claim is in Aquinas's Summa Theologica, which contains a very developed discussion of charity. If we look at Aquinas's text and compare it to what the current Dalai Lama writes about compassion, we will recognize that they are discussing the same virtue. Moreover, by combining the insights from East and West, as expressed by the thoughts of the current Dalai Lama and St. Thomas Aquinas, we can achieve a better grasp of compassion so that we can more easily practice it in our daily lives. Though remarkably similar, the two accounts offer differing perspectives, which can be incorporated for mutual enrichment.Much of Aquinas's philosophy of compassion derives from his Christian beliefs, just as much of the Dalai Lama's teachings on compassion are based on Tibetan Buddhism. This explains some of the differences in their accounts. Unlike Christians, Buddhists neither believe in a personal God nor in a soul. Yet despite their theological differences, Aquinas and the Dalai Lama generally share a very similar view of compassion. In fact, one could well imagine Aquinas agreeing with the Dalai Lama who, after acknowledging his religious influence, writes that his goal is "to appeal for an approach to ethics based on universal rather than religious principles."3 It is appropriate, therefore, to begin by considering the similarities in their accounts of compassion, starting with their definitions of compassion. [End Page 11]DefinitionsEtymologically, the word "compassion"—compassio—comes from two Latin words: com means "with" and pati means "suffer." Literally, then, "compassion" means "to suffer with." Aquinas discusses compassion as an interior effect of charity, a theological virtue. It is interior because compassion is felt within the person who has charity. The cause of compassion, charity, Aquinas describes as the friendship between God's children and God Himself. Although Aquinas wrote prolifically on the subject of charity, someone could overlook his writing on compassion because he discusses it under the term "mercy." Diana Fritz Cates, for instance, who draws on an Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical framework to develop a theory of compassion, observes, "Aristotle and Thomas have little to say about compassion: hence, it will not be helpful to begin with their accounts."4 However, Aquinas uses the word misericordia (mercy) as a synonym of compassio (compassion). The synonymous relationship between compassion and mercy is also recognized by the Dalai Lama, who affirms, "Mercy and compassion are the same."5Aquinas defines mercy as "heartfelt sympathy for another's distress, impelling us to succor him if we can." If we experience this heartfelt sympathy, we're not discouraged if the person we try to help doesn't respond. Explicitly connecting mercy and compassion, Aquinas add that mercy, misericordia, gets its name "from denoting a person's compassionate heart (miserum cor) for another's unhappiness."6 The concept of "another's unhappiness" is important to his discussion. A necessary condition of being happy, in Aquinas's view, is that an individual must obtain what he or she wishes. Conversely, someone is unhappy when he suffers what he doesn't wish to suffer. Aquinas maintains that the suffering produced by one's frustrated desire for what he or she perceives as good is a sufficient condition for evoking mercy. In regard to the merciful response, it shouldn't matter what the suffering person perceives as good. So long as the person is suffering what he doesn't wish to suffer, this person should be treated mercifully. Suppose a teenager suffers from being unpopular with his peers. Although the compassionate person may not value popularity, she should extend compassion to the... (shrink)

Many jobs today are alienating: they damage the working person in psychological, mental, intellectual or psychosomatic ways; the psychosomatic damage may be permanent. This ill is due to a disregard for the basic psychological needs not gratified in a large number of workroles. It can be remedied without revolutionizing either the political or the economic-legal systems of pluralist democratic societies. Rather, we should revolutionize the image of the rank-and-file working person and attempt radical experiments in implementing new and democratic structures (...) in the workplace. The feasibility of all this is demonstrated by many successful and viable reforms. These are system-atically overlooked by backward-looking social scientists (Taylorist traditionalists, neo-Marxists and technological determinists). (shrink)

Adults have been shown to attribute certain properties more frequently than others to the dead. This category-specific pattern has been interpreted in terms of simulation constraints, whereby it may be harder to imagine the absence of some states than others. Afterlife beliefs have also shown context-sensitivity, suggesting that environmental exposure to different types of information might influence adults? reasoning about post-death states. We sought to clarify category and context effects in adults afterlife reasoning. Participants read a story describing the death (...) of a human protagonist after exposure to a biological prime, an emotional prime, or no prime. Emotions, desires, and epistemic states were more frequently attributed to the dead character than biological, psychobiological, and perceptual states, partially replicating previous findings. The biological prime decreased the attribution of certain post-death states relative to the control condition, whereas the emotional prime had no effect. Simulation theory does not provide a satisfactory explanation of the present findings, which may be better accounted for by conflict between different cognitive systems that are engaged in thinking about the dead. (shrink)

: New genetic technologies continue to emerge that allow us to control the genetic endowment of future children. Increasingly the claim is made that it is morally "irresponsible" for parents to fail to use such technologies when they know their possible children are at risk for a serious genetic disorder. We believe such charges are often unwarranted. Our goal in this article is to offer a careful conceptual analysis of the language of irresponsibility in an effort to encourage more care (...) in its use. Two of our more important sub-claims are: A fair judgment of genetic irresponsibility necessarily requires a thick background description of the specific reproductive choice; and there is no necessary connection between an act's being morally wrong and its being irresponsible. These are distinct judgments requiring distinct justifications. (shrink)

A great deal of philosophical work has explored the complex conceptual intersection between ethics and epistemology in the context of issues of testimony and belief, and much of this work has significant educational implications. In this paper, I discuss a troubling example of a case of testimony that seems to pose a problem for some established ways of thinking about these issues and that, in turn, suggests some equally troubling educational conclusions.

The “reproductive suppression hypothesis” states that the strong desire of adolescent girls in our culture to control their weight may reflect the operation of an adaptive mechanism by which ancestral women controlled the timing of their sexual maturation and hence first reproduction, in response to cues about the probable success of reproduction in the current situation. We develop a model based on this hypothesis and explore its behavior and evolutionary and psychological implications across a range of parameter values. We use (...) the process of model development to identify assumptions implicit in the reproductive suppression hypothesis and variables that need to be measured in order to investigate it more fully. In addition, because costs were probably associated with weight control, an important part of this analysis is the specification of situations in which the benefits of adaptive adjustment of the maturation schedule could have outweighed the costs of achieving that adjustment by slowing adolescent weight gain. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of a radical republican conception of freedom as non-domination, rooted in the anarchist tradition. In discussing both the non-statist theoretical frameworks and the practical educational experiments associated with this tradition, I suggest that it can add a valuable dimension to recent critical work in philosophy of education that draws on the republican idea of freedom as non-domination.

High profile breaches of data security in government and other organizations are becoming an increasing concern amongst members of the public. Academic researchers have rarely discussed data security issues as they affect research, and this is especially the case for qualitative social researchers, who are sometimes disinclined to technical solutions. This paper describes 14 guidelines developed to help qualitative researchers improve the security of their digitally-created and stored data. We developed these procedures after the theft of a laptop computer containing (...) highly sensitive data from the home of a fieldworker. This paper introduces the ‘principle of proliferation’: digitally-created and stored files tend to proliferate during the course of a research project by virtue of fact that they can and are copied and shared as research progresses from data collection through to analysis and archive. Our guidelines were designed as concrete strategies that researchers embarking on a project can employ, particularly researchers working in teams, to accommodate this proliferation and reduce it where possible. (shrink)

Bioethicists appearing in the media have been accused of "shooting from the hip" (Rachels, 1991). The criticism is sometimes justified. We identify some reasons our interactions with the press can have bad results and suggest remedies. In particular we describe a target (fostering better public dialogue), obstacles to hitting the target (such as intrinsic and accidental defects in our knowledge) and suggest some practical ways to surmont those obstacles (including seeking out ways to write or speak at length, rather than (...) in sound bites). We make use of our own research into the way journalists quote bioethicists. We end by suggesting that the profession as a whole look into this question more fully. (shrink)

“What is this journal Speculum?” the prospective graduate student asked me. “Is it some sort of radical feminist journal? I saw copies of it in Professor So-and-So's office, and I can't imagine that he would subscribe to a feminist publication. . . . So, what is Speculum?” To understand this question, I had to remember myself at twenty-two years of age, educated but not professionalized, more familiar with speculum as an instrument used in gynecological examinations than with Speculum, the premier (...) journal for medievalists. Vaguely recalling my own puzzlement at first encountering a journal for medievalists called Speculum, I explained to the student the Latin derivation of the title, the importance of the journal in medieval studies, and the absolute absence of a connection between the title of the journal and anything gynecological. We chuckled a bit—in female solidarity—about the naivete of Speculum's founders , who had chosen to title their journal with a name that resonated so strongly for modern women. (shrink)

Congenital amusia in its most common form is a disorder characterized by a musical pitch processing deficit. Although pitch is involved in conveying emotion in music, the implications for pitch deficits on musical emotion judgements is still under debate. Relatedly, both limited and spared musical emotion recognition was reported in amusia in conditions where emotion cues were not determined by musical mode or dissonance. Additionally, assumed links between musical abilities and visuo-spatial attention processes need further investigation in congenital amusics. Hence, (...) we here test to what extent musical emotions can influence attentional performance. Fifteen congenital amusic adults and fifteen healthy controls matched for age and education were assessed in three attentional conditions: executive control, alerting, and orienting while music expressing either joy, tenderness, sadness, or tension was presented. Visual target detection was in the normal range for both accuracy and response times in the amusic relative to the control participants. Moreover, in both groups, music exposure produced facilitating effects on selective attention that appeared to be driven by the arousal dimension of musical emotional content, with faster correct target detection during joyful compared to sad music. These findings corroborate the idea that pitch processing deficits related to congenital amusia do not impede other cognitive domains, particularly visual attention. Furthermore, our study uncovers an intact influence of music and its emotional content on the attentional abilities of amusic individuals. The results highlight the domain-selectivity of the pitch disorder in congenital amusia, which largely spares the development of visual attention and affective systems. (shrink)

Moral distress is the sense that one must do, or cooperate in, what is wrong. It is paradigmatically faced by nurses, but it is almost a universal occupational hazard.

Margaret Urban Walker argues that hospital ethics committees should think of their task as "keeping moral space open." I develop her suggestion with analogies: Enlarge the windows (i.e., expand what counts as an ethical issue); add rooms and doors (i.e., choose particular issues to engage). Examples include confidentiality defined as information flow, and moral distress in the healthcare workplace.

This article reviews professional mental health publications before and after the Eichmann trial. Psychiatrists rejected the massive denial of survivors' emotional reactions that was prevalent in Israeli society at the time. The Eichmann trial permitted the opening up of survivors' experiences in public. Legal procedure enabled the witnesses to speak about what they had hidden until then. The judge's presence gave legitimacy and power to the accusations, transforming the survivors from outlaws to partners in justice. The audience came to support (...) this stronger survivor identity. Through a slow process, it became a valid issue for psychotherapy, allowing the weaker aspects of the survivors' personalities to be addressed. This article reviews professional mental health publications before and after the Eichmann trial. Psychiatrists rejected the massive denial of survivors' emotional reactions that was prevalent in Israeli society at the time. The Eichmann trial permitted the opening up of survivors' experiences in public. Legal procedure enabled the witnesses to speak about what they had hidden until then. The judge's presence gave legitimacy and power to the accusations, transforming the survivors from outlaws to partners in justice. The audience came to support this stronger survivor identity. Through a slow process, it became a valid issue for psychotherapy, allowing the weaker aspects of the survivors' personalities to be addressed. (shrink)