Anthropology of Consciousness, Volume 32, Issue 1, Page 33-54, Spring 2021.

How do people evaluate causal relationships? Do they just consider what actually happened, or do they also consider what could have counterfactually happened? Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, we investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur. Participants played a virtual ball‐shooting game and then—while looking at a blank screen—mentally simulated (a) what actually happened, (b) what counterfactually could have happened, or (c) what caused the outcome to happen. Our findings showed (...) that participants moved their eyes in patterns consistent with the actual or counterfactual events that they mentally simulated. When simulating what caused the outcome to occur, participants moved their eyes consistent with simulations of counterfactual possibilities. These results favor counterfactual theories of causal reasoning, demonstrate how eye movements can reflect simulation during this reasoning and provide a novel approach for investigating retrospective causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

In everyday life, there are many things we ought to do. Some are required by law, some perhaps by morality. But a considerable number of the things we ought to do are required neither by law nor by...

Platons Konzept der periagōgē, wie es im Höhlengleichnis dargestellt wird, dient als grundlegender Bestandteil seiner Bildungsphilosophie und veranschaulicht den Prozess des “Richtungswechsels” oder der “Umleitung” des geistigen Auges von der Unwissenheit auf die Form des Guten. Platons Verständnis von Kultur oder Bildung, paideia, betont die Änderung von passiver Beobachtung zu aktivem Engagement in der Suche nach dem ultimativem Wissen und der ethischen Exzellenz. Diese bildungsbezogene Richtungsänderung, von passiv zu aktiv, entfaltet sich während unsere gesamte Seele sich zu der Form des (...) Guten zuwendet. Die Aufrechterhaltung der richtigen Ausrichtung der Seele erfordert die Pflege der niederen Teile der Seele durch die Nachahmung guter Gewohnheiten, guten Verhaltens und angemessener Gefühle, während gleichzeitig die höheren, vernünftigen Kräfte durch mathematische Wissenschaften gestärkt werden, die in der Dialektik gipfeln. Eine solche edukative Umdrehung der Seele zielt auf die Form des Guten als ihrer teleologischen, praktischen und paradigmatischen Achse ab, in Bezug zu der wir uns drehen, während wir unseren täglichen Bestrebungen nachgehen. Diejenigen, die die Form des Guten erfassen konnten, durchlaufen nicht nur zwangsläufig eine persönliche Veränderung, sondern tragen auch die Verantwortung, andere zu einer solchen Transformation zu führen, als ihre Lehrer und Mentoren, ganz so wie es Sokrates tat. Folglich fördert die periagōgē in die richtige Richtung und das Streben nach den richtigen Idealen liegt nicht nur in der persönlichen Verbesserung, sondern erstreckt sich auch auf die Gesellschaft, wo solche erleuchteten Individuen anderen helfen, auf dem richtigen Weg zu bleiben. (shrink)

Workplace learning and competence development in work are frequently used concepts. A wide spread notion is that societal, institutional, and organizational changes require the development of knowledge, methods and strategies for learning at workplaces, in both public and private enterprises. In research on learning and competence development at work, the organizational learning and development as well as individual accomplishments are investigated from various perspectives and in different contexts. The theoretical base for research projects can, accordingly, be focused at a number (...) of organizational and system levels. This paper describes a research project called "Workplace development and learning in elder care" in which learning and knowledge were key issues and where Activity Theory was used as the theoretical base. The project was joint project between two research and development field units. These were UFFE, a municipal social services’ field research unit, and Äldrecentrum Västerbotten, a county council field research unit which aims to serve the interests of the elderly. The project was launched in the fall of 2000 and ended in the summer of 2003. I was employed part-time as a research leader at the municipal research unit and became the research leader for this particular project. A number of students, as well as employees from the county council geriatric care services and the municipal elder care participated in the project. The general aims of the project were to: a) investigate the prerequisites for development and learning; b) test and evaluate interventions at a workgroup level; and c) identify the need for new knowledge. The results were expected to be useful for the field research units as well as for the municipal and county eldercare services in their research and development work. I start with a presentation of the theoretical concepts and apply them in order to form a tentative hypothesis on the status of learning and knowledge in elder care. The next section contains a short description of the different parts of the project and the main results are presented. Finally, the results are discussed and related to the conditions and impact of workplace interventions. (shrink)

This paper inquiries into the complex issue of informed consent applying artificial intelligence in medical diagnostic consultations. The aim is to expose the main ethical and legal concerns of the New Health phenomenon, powered by intelligent machines. To achieve this objective, the first part of the paper analyzes ethical aspects of the alleged right to explanation, privacy, and informed consent, applying artificial intelligence in medical diagnostic consultations. This analysis is followed by a legal analysis of the limits and requirements for (...) the explainability of artificial intelligence. Followed by this analysis, recommendations for action are given in the concluding remarks of the paper. (shrink)

This article examines the Scandinavian political responses to radical left-wing activism in the interwar period. This is done by combining an anal­ysis of legalistic aspects with rhetoric. Although the Scandinavian countries— Denmark, Sweden and Norway—did not embark on a path of emergency powers to fight a communist enemy, attempts to tame and ban communist parties certainly took place. The article argues that all three countries imposed restrictive legislation to inhibit any kinds of movements, hostile to the demo­cratic system, but also (...) that there were limits to the restrictions. Thus, the parliamentarians decided to criminalize tendencies to political violence, but to tolerate anti-democratic sentiments to be voiced. By addressing the response to subversive movements, the article offers insights into Scandinavian efforts to safeguard democracy in a time of political and social crisis. (shrink)

In this book, Kristina Musholt offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. Traditionally, self-consciousness has been central to many philosophical theories. More recently, it has become the focus of empirical investigation in psychology and neuroscience. Musholt draws both on philosophical considerations and on insights from the empirical sciences to offer a new account of self-consciousness—the ability to think about ourselves that is at the core of what makes us human. -/- Examining theories (...) of nonconceptual content developed in recent work in the philosophy of cognition, Musholt proposes a model for the gradual transition from self-related information implicit in the nonconceptual content of perception and other forms of experience to the explicit representation of the self in conceptual thought. A crucial part of this model is an analysis of the relationship between self-consciousness and intersubjectivity. Self-consciousness and awareness of others, Musholt argues, are two sides of the same coin. -/- After surveying the philosophical problem of self-consciousness, the notion of nonconceptual content, and various proposals for the existence of nonconceptual self-consciousness, Musholt argues for a non-self-representationalist theory, according to which the self is not part of the representational content of perception and bodily awareness but part of the mode of presentation. She distinguishes between implicitly self-related information and explicit self-representation, and describes the transitions from the former to the latter as arising from a complex process of self–other differentiation. By this account, both self-consciousness and intersubjectivity develop in parallel. (shrink)

In todays’ super-diverse societies, communication and interaction in clinical encounters are increasingly shaped by linguistic, cultural, social and ethnic complexities. It is crucial to better understand the difficulties patients with migration background and healthcare professionals experience in their shared clinical encounters and to explore ethical aspects involved. We accompanied 32 migrant patients during their medical encounters at two outpatient clinics using an ethnographic approach. Overall, data of 34 interviews with patients and physicians on how they perceived their encounter and which (...) difficulties they experienced are presented. We contrasted the perspectives on the difficult aspects and explore ethical questions surrounding the involved issues. Patients and physicians describe similar problem areas, but they have diverging perspectives on them. Two main themes were identified by both patients and physicians: >patients’ behaviour in relation to doctors’ advice relationship issues<. A deeper understanding of the difficulties and challenges that can arise in cross-cultural settings could be provided by bringing together healthcare professionals’ and patients’ perspectives on how a cross- cultural clinical encounter is perceived. Ethical aspects surrounding some of the difficulties could be highlighted and should get more attention in clinical practice and research. (shrink)

When forecasting their own behavior, people are often inaccurate and tend to predict that they will engage in more socially desirable behavior than they actually do. The problem with inaccurate behavioral forecasts is that they can lead to negative consequences both for the self and for others. One particularly negative consequence may be that such errors can produce overly harsh evaluations and condemnation of others who do not act in a way that most people predict they themselves would act. This (...) paper identifies these common behavioral forecasting errors, why they occur, and the negative interpersonal and unintended, unethical consequences they can have. (shrink)

This chapter treats Hubert Dreyfus’ account of skilled coping as part of his wider project of demonstrating the sovereignty of practical intelligence over all other forms of intelligence. In contrast to the standard picture of human beings as essentially rational, individual agents, Dreyfus argued powerfully on phenomenological and empirical grounds that humans are fundamentally embedded, absorbed, and embodied. These commitments are present throughout Dreyfus’ philosophical writings, from his critique of Artificial Intelligence research in the 1970s and 1980s to his rejection (...) of John McDowell’s conceptualism in his 2005 APA Presidential Address. The present chapter articulates Dreyfus’ proposal for a contentless, non-mentalistic form of intentionality by contrasting his position with that of his U.C. Berkeley colleague John Searle and defending it as a plausible alternative to the so-called “Standard Story” of intentional action as the effect of an agent’s mental states. (shrink)

Corpus surveys have shown that the exact forms with which idioms are realized are subject to variation. We report a rating experiment showing that such alternative realizations have varying degrees of acceptability. Idiom variation challenges processing theories associating idioms with fixed multi-word form units, fixed configurations of words, or fixed superlemmas, as they do not explain how it can be that speakers produce variant forms that listeners can still make sense of. A computational model simulating comprehension with naive discriminative learning (...) is introduced that provides an explanation for the different degrees of acceptability of several idiom variant types. Implications for multi-word units in general are discussed. (shrink)

I introduce a case study from organization studies to argue that social epistemologists’ recommendation to cultivate diversity and dissent in science is unlikely to be welcomed in the social sciences unless it is coupled with another epistemic ideal: the norm of epistemic responsibility. The norm of epistemic responsibility enables me to show that organization scholars’ concern with the fragmentation of their discipline is generated by false assumptions: the assumption that a diversity of theoretical approaches will lead to fragmentation and the (...) assumption that an imposed consensus on a theoretical approach is needed to maintain the unity of the discipline. (shrink)

In practice, the role of lay members of research ethics committees (RECs) often involves checking the accessibility of written materials, checking that the practical needs of participants have been considered and ensuring that a lay summary of the research will be produced. In this brief report, I argue that all these tasks would be more effectively carried out through a process of patient involvement (PI) in research projects prior to ethical review. Involving patients with direct experience of the topic under (...) investigation brings added value beyond the contributions typically made by lay REC members, who are often not patients themselves. This is because PI tailors the design and conduct of research to the specific interests and concerns of the people who will actually take part in a project and make use of its findings. If a project has PI in its early stages, then a similar input from lay REC members could at best result in duplication of effort and at worst create the potential for conflict. The rationale for lay REC membership will therefore need to change from ‘contributing a patient perspective’ to ‘ensuring transparency and public accountability in REC decisions’. This has implications for addressing more strategic questions about lay REC membership, including who is best recruited to the role and how they should be expected to contribute in practice. (shrink)

Introduction. The paper considers a wide range of monetary policy rules: integral stabilization, NGDP targeting, price level targeting, raising the inflation target, introducing negative nominal interest rates etc. The author also considers discretionary policy used by central banks when the nominal rate is close to zero, such as dramatic preventive cut of the key interest rate and interventions in the open markets with the aim of cutting long-term interest rates. The relevance of this problem is supported by global long-term macroeconomic (...) and demographic factors, such as the dynamics of oil prices and the aging of the population. The aim of the paper is to identify the most effective monetary policy rules in order to reduce the risk of a nominal interest rate falling to zero. Methods. Analysis of the background and the results of general equilibrium models modeling monetary policy is carried out. Analysis of the role of current global trends (based on statistics) in aggravating the problem of declining interest rates. Scientific novelty of the research. The author systematizes the conclusions of modern macroeconomic theory, which offers a number of monetary rules making it possible to reduce the likelihood of falling into the zero bound of interest rate. Results. The effectiveness of monetary rules such as targeting nominal GDP and price levels in preventing the nominal interest rate from falling to zero is shown, primarily due to more efficient public expectations management which is a weak point of discretionary intervention. Conclusions. Under the current global factors for many developed countries and some oil-exporters, the downward trend in nominal rates persists. Combined with slowdown in economic growth, such threat may have negative consequences for the Russian economy. In this case, it seems reasonable to stick to the inflation target above 2% per year and in the future to consider switching to targeting the price level or nominal GDP. (shrink)

Obstetric ultrasound has become a significant tool in obstetric practice, however, it has been argued that its increasing use may have adverse implications for women’s reproductive freedom. This study aimed to explore Australian obstetricians’ experiences and views of the use of obstetric ultrasound both in relation to clinical management of complicated pregnancy, and in situations where maternal and fetal health interests conflict.

Current education paradigms were informed by the classical Newtonian worldview of brain functioning in which the mind is simply the physical activity of the brain, and our thoughts cannot have any effect upon the physical world. However, researchers in the field of quantum mechanics found that the outcomes of certain subatomic experiments are determined by the consciousness of the observer, leading philosophers to propose that the observed and the observer are linked. Quantum mechanics also demonstrates that distant minds may behave (...) in simultaneous correlational ways, in the absence of being linked through any known energetic signal. Further, researchers in this field propose that an external memory space is operating in the human brain, suggesting that this proposed external memory space may be a quantum field surrounding the brain and interacting with other fields, generating a global mental field of information flow. This article proposes that current education paradigms, which have been informed by a classical Newtonian physics worldview may need to be expanded to include a quantum mechanics worldview. The author seeks to understand if, and how, quantum mechanics could inform education practices, theories and paradigms and invites discussion, debate and speculation on the implications this would have for education systems. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement among both supporters and opponents that affirmative action either must not violate any principle of equal opportunity or procedural justice, or if it does, it may do so only given current extenuating circumstances. Many believe that affirmative action is morally problematic, only justified to the extent that it brings us closer to the time when we will no longer need it. In other words, those that support affirmative action believe it is acceptable in nonideal theory, but (...) not ideal theory. This paper argues that affirmative action is entirely compatible with equal opportunity and procedural justice and would be even in an ideal world. I defend a new analysis of Rawlsian procedural justice according to which it is permissible to interfere in the outcomes of procedures, and thus I show that affirmative action is not morally problematic in the way that many have supposed. (shrink)

In recent years, feminist philosophy of science has been subjected to criticism. The debate has focused on the implications of the underdetermination thesis for accounts of the role of social values in scientific reasoning. My aim here is to offer a different approach. I suggest that feminist philosophers of science contribute to our understanding of science by (1) producing gender‐sensitive analyses of the social dimensions of scientific inquiry and (2) examining the relevance of these analyses for normative issues in philosophy (...) of science. (shrink)

Much of the literature on values in science is limited in its perspective because it focuses on the role of values in individual scientists’ decision making, thereby ignoring the context of scientific collaboration. I examine the epistemic structure of scientific collaboration and argue that it gives rise to two arguments showing that moral and social values can legitimately play a role in scientists’ decision to accept something as scientific knowledge. In the case of scientific collaboration some moral and social values (...) are properly understood to be extrinsic epistemic values, that is, values that promote the attainment of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

This volume congregates articles of leading philosophers about potentials and potentiality in all areas of philosophy and the empirical sciences in which they play a relevant role. It is the first encompassing collection of articles on the metaphysics of potentials and potentiality.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sanctity of Life—The Sanctity of ChoiceKristina HallettWhat do you do when helping someone means advocating for his death?I am a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist and have been in practice since 1993. I entered the field, as most do, to be of assistance and support to people in dealing with the difficult, the unimaginable, and the often painful circumstances of life. The goal has always been simple: to help. (...) The manner may differ, but the central goal is the same: to help. I have encountered many challenging situations in my work: times when I felt unbelievably sad upon hearing someone’s story; when I felt righteous indignation at injustices encountered; when I worried for someone’s safety; when I laughed and rejoiced in someone’s experience. In each of these situations the path to helping was clear of moral dilemma. But what about when helping results in execution – the state enforcing the legally imposed punishment of the death penalty? While some decisions involve the potential for moral and emotional distress, there is usually a way of understanding “helping” as giving voice to an individual’s right to choose. What do you do when helping someone means advocating for his death as punishment?Several years ago while I worked for a state Department of Corrections (DOC), an inmate on death row was executed. The state had not conducted an execution for decades. I was the Supervising Psychologist for the DOC facility, and as such it was my role to facilitate mental health treatment for this inmate. I was also the liaison to DOC custody staff regarding policies, treatment, and the impact of the process of an execution on staff, the involved inmate and other inmates in the facility. The DOC staffers were split in their views of the situation. Some staff were adamantly opposed to the death penalty, a portion were relatively neutral and the largest number of staff were strong proponents of the death penalty—some to the point of relishing the execution.He had confessed and been convicted of heinous crimes, including the rapes and murders of several young women. Innocence was not a question. He readily admitted his responsibility for these crimes. The legal process was long and involved, including several different trials and penalty hearings, all with the same result: he was sentenced to death. Now all mandatory appeals associated with the death penalty were exhausted. Having already spent a great many years on death row, he did not want to pursue further appeals. He made the “choice” to [End Page 95] not file a voluntary appeal and instead to proceed with the death penalty process.It is a curious thing, but when the required appeals (the checks and balances of the legal system) were completed and this man said, “I want to proceed with the imposition of my sentence,” all the rules changed. This individual, who had been competent to assist in his defense and his appeals to fight his sentence for over twenty years, was suddenly seen as “incompetent” to choose to accept his sentence. Opponents of the death penalty viewed execution as “state–assisted suicide” and believed the inmate had “death row syndrome,” and therefore was not competent to make the decision to move forward with his sentence. Those who agreed with the death penalty believed he was fully competent and supported the completion of his sentence through lethal injection. And then there was me.I had always been against the death penalty. From a moral perspective, I believed in the sanctity of life, that we do not have the right to take the life of another human being. I shared in others’ horror and outrage at horrific crimes, but felt justice belonged to the legal system (through incarceration) and to God. I did not believe in retribution or revenge, although I supported consequences and accountability. I argued against the death penalty in high school debates, college round–table discussions and in theoretical conversations with my peers, family and friends.When faced with this situation as a psychologist, I found myself splitting a very fine hair. I did not support the death penalty, but I did support the ability of... (shrink)

Uncertainty, insufficient information or information of poor quality, limited cognitive capacity and time, along with value conflicts and ethical considerations, are all aspects thatmake risk managementand riskcommunication difficult. This paper provides a review of different risk concepts and describes how these influence risk management, communication and planning in relation to forest ecosystem services. Based on the review and results of empirical studies, we suggest that personal assessment of risk is decisive in the management of forest ecosystem services. The results are (...) used together with a reviewof different principles of the distribution of risk to propose an approach to risk communication that is effective aswell as ethically sound. Knowledge of heuristics and mutual information on both beliefs and desires are important in the proposed risk communication approach. Such knowledge provides an opportunity for relevant information exchange, so that gaps in personal knowledge maps can be filled in and effective risk communication can be promoted. (shrink)

A lively debate has emerged regarding the ethics of using biomedical technologies to alter feelings of love. Earp and Savulescu et al. generally argue that biotechnologies can be ethically used to enhance or diminish feelings they call “love,” a term they use to describe feelings of lust, attraction and attachment in adult romantic relationships. McGee’s intervention in this debate, as I understand it, is to argue that not all of the feelings categorized as “love” by Earp and Savulescu et al. (...) should actually be considered “love properly so called.” According to McGee, these “not... (shrink)

Devetnaesti vek za Rusku i Tursku carevinu predstavlja period donosenja reformskih zakona sa ciljem da se drzave modernizuju i, koliko mogu, odgovore duhu vremena. Premda su u Rusiji reforme kocene rezimom arakcejevstine i reakcionarnom politikom Nikolaja I, drzava je nacinila ozbiljan korak u borbi protiv sistemske korupcije donosenjem Krivicnog zakonika 1845. godine. Sa druge strane, Turska je bila pod nesumnjivo vecim stranim pritiskom kada je proces modernizacije bio u pitanju. Period tanzimata oznacava krupno razdoblje u kome se Turska, izmedju ostalog, (...) suocila sa sveprisutnom korupcijom. Krunu turskog reformatorskog rada na ovom polju predstavlja donosenje Krivicnog zakonika 1856. godine. U radu se analiziraju konkretni zakoni kojima je korupcija sankcionisana u ove dve carevine. (shrink)

Sandra Harding's feminist standpoint epistemology makes two claims. The thesis of epistemic privilege claims that unprivileged social positions are likely to generate perspectives that are “less partial and less distorted” than perspectives generated by other social positions. The situated knowledge thesis claims that all scientific knowledge is socially situated. The bias paradox is the tension between these two claims. Whereas the thesis of epistemic privilege relies on the assumption that a standard of impartiality enables one to judge some perspectives as (...) better than others, the situated knowledge thesis seems to undermine this assumption by suggesting that all knowledge is partial. I argue that a contextualist theory of epistemic justification provides a solution to the bias paradox. Moreover, contextualism enables me to give empirical content to the thesis of epistemic privilege, thereby making it into a testable hypothesis. (shrink)

The aims of this article are to consider (1) whether there are medical and societal differences among diseases regarding which patient groups should be asked to participate in first-in-human (FIH) trials of stem-cell-based therapies; (2) any differences in the light of values generally endorsed by different types of ethical theories, since the question in the title of this article is value laden, and its answer depends on which values one wants to promote and protect, and how they are ranked in (...) importance; (3) whether the answer to that question is disease-specific, or whether it depends on factors common to several diseases. To illustrate these problems, we use Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD), between which there are important medical and societal differences. Moreover, research on stem-cellbased therapies for these diseases is being translated from research to practice. This approach to the problem can be applied to decision making about similar problems raised by other diseases that exhibit the same types of differences. (shrink)

L’heure est à la commémoration du mouvement de 1968, en Allemagne comme ailleurs. On considère que 1968 est à l’origine des nouveaux mouvements sociaux des années 1970 et 1980, dont le mouvement des femmes. Premier d’une série de mouvements sociaux, le « nouveau mouvement des femmes » émerge en Allemagne en 1971 au cours du processus de mobilisation contre la loi sur l’avortement (article 218 du code pénal). L’engagement des femmes est moins visible dans les mouvements protestataires de la f...

L’heure est à la commémoration du mouvement de 1968, en Allemagne comme ailleurs. On considère que 1968 est à l’origine des nouveaux mouvements sociaux des années 1970 et 1980, dont le mouvement des femmes. Premier d’une série de mouvements sociaux, le « nouveau mouvement des femmes » émerge en Allemagne en 1971 au cours du processus de mobilisation contre la loi sur l’avortement (article 218 du code pénal). L’engagement des femmes est moins visible dans les mouvements protestataires de la f...

Part of a symposium on John Rawls: Reticent Socialist by William Edmundson . In Edmundson’s account, pure procedural justice functions as a kind of limit to Rawls’s socialism, the point at which a socialist can find common ground with a critic of government and a defender of free markets like Hayek. Though I agree with much of what Edmundson says, I want to urge a reading of pure procedural justice that would bring Rawls more in line with Marx and further (...) from Hayek. (shrink)

I examine ramifications of the widespread view that scientific objectivity gives us a permission to trust scientific knowledge claims. According to a widely accepted account of trust and trustworthiness, trust in scientific knowledge claims involves both reliance on the claims and trust in scientists who present the claims, and trustworthiness depends on expertise, honesty, and social responsibility. Given this account, scientific objectivity turns out to be a hybrid concept with both an epistemic and a moral-political dimension. The epistemic dimension tells (...) us when scientific knowledge claims are reliable, and the moral-political dimension tells us when we can trust scientists to be socially responsible. While the former dimension has received a fair amount of attention, the latter is in need of analysis. I examine what it means for scientists to be socially responsible, that is, to follow “sound” moral and social values in different stages of scientific inquiry. Social responsibility is especially important when scientists function as experts in society. Members of the public and policymakers do not want to rely on scientific research shaped by moral and social values they have good reasons to reject. Moreover, social responsibility is important in social research in which moral and social values can legitimately play many roles. I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different answers to the question of how social scientists can identify appropriate moral and social values to inform their research. I argue that procedural accounts of social responsibility, such as well-ordered science and deliberative polling, have limitations. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 67-69.

Ever since Jonathan Bennett wrote about Huckleberry Finn's conscience in 1974, Mark Twain's young hero has played a small but noteworthy role in the moral philosophy and moral psychology literature. Following Bennett, philosophers read Huck as someone who consistently follows his heart and does the right thing in a pinch, firmly believing all the while that what he does is morally wrong.1 Specifically, according to this reading, Huck has racist beliefs that he never consciously questions; but in practice he consistently (...) defies those beliefs to do the right thing in the context of his relationship with his Black companion, Jim. Because of this, Huck is morally admirable, but unusual. Perhaps he is an "inverse... (shrink)

Values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place have sometimes been downplayed in the climate change discourse. However, they have been suggested to be not only important to citizens but the values most vulnerable to climate change. Here we test four empirical consequences of the suggestion: at least 50% of the locations citizens' consider to be the most important locations in their municipality are chosen because they represent these values, locations representing these values have a high probability (...) of being damaged by climate change induced sea level rise, citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe in the local effects of climate change, and citizens for which these values are particularly strongly held less strongly believe that they have experienced the effects of climate change. The tests were made using survey data collected in 2014 from 326 citizens owning property in Höganäs municipality, Sweden, and included values elicited using a new methodology separating instrumental values from end values, and using the former as stepping stones to pinpoint the latter, that represent the true interests of the respondents. The results provide the first evidence that, albeit frequent, values related to culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place are not the values most vulnerable to climate change. This in turn indicates a need to further investigate the vulnerability of these values to climate change, using a methodology that clearly distinguishes between instrumental and end values. (shrink)