The first years of life mark a time of rapid development and dietary change, as children transition from an exclusive milk diet to a modified adult diet. During these early years, children's learning about food and eating plays a central role in shaping subsequent food choices, diet quality, and weight status. Parents play a powerful role in children's eating behavior, providing both genes and environment for children. For example, they influence children's developing preferences and eating behaviors by making some foods (...) available rather than others, and by acting as models of eating behavior. In addition, parents use feeding practices, which have evolved over thousands of years, to promote patterns of food intake necessary for children's growth and health. However in current eating environments, characterized by too much inexpensive palatable, energy dense food, these traditional feeding practices can promote overeating and weight gain. To meet the challenge of promoting healthy weight in children in the current eating environment, parents need guidance regarding alternatives to traditional feeding practices. (shrink)

Eating behaviors evolve during the first years of life as biological and behavioral processes directed towards meeting requirements for health and growth. For the vast majority of human history, food scarcity has constituted a major threat to survival, and human eating behavior and child feeding practices have evolved in response to this threat. Because infants are born into a wide variety of cultures and cuisines, they come equipped as young omnivores with a set of behavioral predispositions that allow them to (...) learn to accept the foods made available to them. During historical conditions of scarcity, family life and resources were devoted to the procurement and preparation of foods, which are often low in energy, nutrients, and palatability. In sharp contrast, today in non-Third World countries children's eating habits develop under unprecedented conditions of dietary abundance, where palatable, inexpensive, ready-to-eat foods are readily available. (shrink)

Earth is changing in ways it hasn't for hundreds of thousands of years. At the same time, Christianity is breaking away from its millennium-long geographical and cultural center in the Euro-West. Its growth is in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, primarily in Pentecostal, evangelical, and independent churches. These dramatically changed planetary and ecclesial landscapes have led many to conclude that we need a new way of thinking about our collective existence: who are we and what is the nature of our (...) responsibility in this deeply altered world? To address that question, biblical scholars Bruce C. Birch and Jacqueline E. Lapsley and Christian ethicists Larry L. Rasmussen and Cynthia Moe-Lobeda carry on "a new conversation" that engages how Christians are to understand the authority and use of Scripture, the basic elements of any full-bodied Christian ethic attuned to our circumstances, and the nature of our responsibility to our planetary neighbors and creation itself. (shrink)

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic and environmental variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated with sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, motor coordination and working memory, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms were (...) associated with poorer sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and executive function. Bivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small environmental correlation with motor coordination and a small genetic correlation with working memory. Trivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small genetic correlation with inhibition, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms shared a small environmental correlation with inhibition. The remaining variance was mostly driven by unique G and/or E variance. Overall, well-being and depression and anxiety symptoms show both independent and shared relationships with cognitive functions but this is largely attributable to unique G or E variance and small shared G/E variance between pairs of variables. (shrink)

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid this contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures of decision making rather than complex real-life social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address this blind spot, we investigated the effects of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision making in men (...) and women using a standardized cognitive measure and a novel task that simulated a real-life social situation. Participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor or an equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed participants were further characterized as high- or low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed that the experimental manipulation was effective. On the IGT, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders made significantly riskier decisions than those characterized as high-cortisol responders. Similarly, in the online chatroom, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders were, relative to those in the Non-Stress group, significantly more likely to make risky decisions. Together, these results suggest that at lower levels of cortisol both men and women tend to make riskier decisions in both economic and social spheres. (shrink)

The first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. This landmark work is the first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists that considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. With twenty-six chapters by leading researchers, the book connects and integrates findings from fields that range from philosophy of mind to sociology of sports. The chapters show not only that (...) sports can tell scientists how the human mind works but also that the scientific study of the human mind can help athletes succeed. Sports psychology research has always focused on the themes, notions, and models of embodied cognition; embodied cognition, in turn, has found striking confirmation of its theoretical claims in the psychological accounts of sports performance and athletic skill. Athletic skill is a legitimate form of intelligence, involving cognitive faculties no less sophisticated and complex than those required by mathematical problem solving. After presenting the key concepts necessary for applying embodied cognition to sports psychology, the book discusses skill disruption ; sensorimotor skill acquisition and how training correlates to the development of cognitive faculties; the intersubjective and social dimension of sports skills, seen in team sports; sports practice in cultural and societal contexts; the notion of “affordance” and its significance for ecological psychology and embodied cognition theory; and the mind's predictive capabilities, which enable anticipation, creativity, improvisation, and imagination in sports performance. Contributors Ana Maria Abreu, Kenneth Aggerholm, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, Duarte Araújo, Jürgen Beckmann, Kath Bicknell, Geoffrey P. Bingham, Jens E. Birch, Gunnar Breivik, Noel E. Brick, Massimiliano L. Cappuccio, Thomas H. Carr, Alberto Cei, Anthony Chemero, Wayne Christensen, Lincoln J. Colling, Cassie Comley, Keith Davids, Matt Dicks, Caren Diehl, Karl Erickson, Anna Esposito, Pedro Tiago Esteves, Mirko Farina, Giolo Fele, Denis Francesconi, Shaun Gallagher, Gowrishankar Ganesh, Raúl Sánchez-García, Rob Gray, Denise M. Hill, Daniel D. Hutto, Tsuyoshi Ikegami, Geir Jordet, Adam Kiefer, Michael Kirchhoff, Kevin Krein, Kenneth Liberman, Tadhg E. MacIntyre, Nelson Mauro Maldonato, David L. Mann, Richard S. W. Masters, Patrick McGivern, Doris McIlwain, Michele Merritt, Christopher Mesagno, Vegard Fusche Moe, Barbara Gail Montero, Aidan P. Moran, David Moreau, Hiroki Nakamoto, Alberto Oliverio, David Papineau, Gert-Jan Pepping, Miriam Reiner, Ian Renshaw, Michael A. Riley, Zuzanna Rucinska, Lawrence Shapiro, Paula Silva, Shannon Spaulding, John Sutton, Phillip D. Tomporowski, John Toner, Andrew D. Wilson, Audrey Yap, Qin Zhu, Christopher Madan. (shrink)

Birch’s formulation is persuasive but not nuanced enough to capture at least one situation where it is reasonable to invoke the precautionary principle (PP): when we have multiple, weak, but convergent, lines of evidence that a species is sentient, but no statistically significant evidence of a single credible indicator of sentience within the order as required by BAR. I respond to the worry that if we include such cases in our framework for applying the PP, we open ourselves to (...) the charge of being “unscientific.”. (shrink)

This article responds to critical reflections on my Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Sarah Birch, Kevin J. Elliott, Claudia Landwehr and James L. Wilson. It discusses how different types of representative democracy, especially different forms of government (presidential, parliamentary or hybrid), can be justified. It clarifies, among other things, the distinction between procedural and process equality, the strengths of semi-parliamentary government, the potential instability of constitutional designs, and the difference that theories can make in actual processes of constitutional reform.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume, Tillotson, and Dialogue XIIJeff JordanJeff JordanUniversity of DelawareFootnotes1. 'Natural religion' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries denoted knowledge of the divine which could be had via reason or instinct, independent of any purported special revelation.2. Of the two best works on Hume's philosophy of religion, J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume's Philosophy of Religion (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1988); and K. Yandell, Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion (...) (Philadelphia, 1990), only the first examines Hume's critique of the argument from prudence at all (see Hume's Philosophy of Religion, 194-203); but Gaskin's treatment of Hume's critique leaves untouched several important elements of the critique.3. B. Pascal, Pensées, ed. L. Lafuma, trans. J. Warrington (1670; reprint, London, 1960), 92-96.4. On Locke, see Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), bk. 2, chap. 21. On Leibniz, see Die Philosophischen Schriften, 3:621. On Craig, see Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica (1699), chap. 6. On Paley, see A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1795), pt. 3, chap. 8.5. Tillotson, "The Wisdom of Being Religious," Sermon 1 in Works of Tillotson (London, 1820), 1:317-89 (hereafter cited as W).6. I do not mean to suggest that Hume was aware only of the sermon "The Wisdom of Being Religious," but that Hume was aware of Tillotson's claims and arguments as found in several of his sermons. "The Wisdom of Being Religious" is important because (i) it is explicitly mentioned by Hume in his A Letter From A Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (1745; reprint, Edinburgh, 1967), 23, so we know that Hume had read this sermon; (ii) it was one of the best known of Tillotson's sermons; and (iii) it contains all of the elements of Tillotson's argument from prudence.7. T. Birch, "Life of the Author," in Works of Tillotson, 1:xix-xx. See also L. G. Locke, Tillotson (Copenhagen, 1954).8. Tillotson may have been aware of the Port Royal Logic version of the wager through Locke with whom Tillotson was in correspondence. See Tillotson, 83.9. Tillotson's case for (1) is treated extensively in his sermon, "The Advantage of Religion to Societies," Sermon 3 in Works of Tillotson, 1:409-23.10. In the passage quoted (W 361-62), Tillotson claims that the atheist will naturally dread a superior being who can defeat one's plans and judge one's actions.11. See also "The Efficacy, Usefulness, and Reasonableness Of Divine Faith," Sermon 223 in Works of Tillotson, 9:258-79. The idea of a grand lie is first found in Plato; see Republic 3:389, 414, 5:459.12. "Pascalian Wagering," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16, no. 3 (1986): 437-54.13. Though Tillotson mentions "odds" and "hazards," he does not incorporate probability values in his version of the wager. His wager is a decision under uncertainty and not a decision under risk: he does not, that is, calculate the expected utility of theistic belief. Pascal was the first to formulate the wager as a decision under risk where the probability-weighted averages of the utility values (the expected utility) determine the right choice.14. Of course, these principles were not stated explicitly until much later. See Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (London, 1975).15. For an example of the many-gods objection, see M. Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia, 1990), 232-34. For a response to the many-gods objection see my "Pascal's Wager and the Many-Gods Objection," International Philosophical Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1991): 309-17.16. See David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. N. Kemp Smith (1778; reprint, Indianapolis, 1947), 214, 218 (hereafter cited as "D").17. It should be noted that Philo's first point is interrupted by the second and is not completed until after the second is completed.18. I will assume that Philo speaks for Hume in this exchange with Cleanthes (D 219-27). Of the three points asserted by Philo in this exchange all three are asserted elsewhere by Hume. On the first point, see The Natural History of Religion (1757), secs. 9 and... (shrink)

When making decisions, humans can observe many kinds of information about others' activities, but their effects on performance are not well understood. We investigated social learning strategies using a simple problem-solving task in which participants search a complex space, and each can view and imitate others' solutions. Results showed that participants combined multiple sources of information to guide learning, including payoffs of peers' solutions, popularity of solution elements among peers, similarity of peers' solutions to their own, and relative payoffs from (...) individual exploration. Furthermore, performance was positively associated with imitation rates at both the individual and group levels. When peers' payoffs were hidden, popularity and similarity biases reversed, participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered. We conclude that when peers' solutions can be effectively compared, imitation does not simply permit scrounging, but it can also facilitate propagation of good solutions for further cumulative exploration. (shrink)

This paper proposes a reconciliation between libertarian freedomand causal indeterminism, without relying on agent-causation asa primitive notion. I closely examine Peter van Inwagen's recentcase for free will mysterianism, which is based in part on thewidespread worry that undetermined acts are too chancy to befree. I distinguish three senses of the term ‘chance’ I thenargue that van Inwagen's case for free will mystrianism fails,since there is no single construal of the term ‘change’ on whichall of the premises of his argument for (...) free will–causalindeterminism incompatibilism are true. By use of a particularevent-causal indeterminist account of free action, I support thecase for free will–indeterminism compatibilism. (shrink)

Lars Løvlie, Paul Standish; Introduction: Bildung and the idea of a liberal education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 36, Issue 3, 16 December 2002.

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

We have arrived at an inflection point, a moment in history when the sentience, conscious- ness, intelligence, agency, and even the moral agency of many nonhuman animals can no longer be questioned without ignoring centuries of accumulated scientific knowledge. Nowhere is this more true than in our understanding of nonhuman primates (NHPs). A neu- roethics committed to probing the ethical implications of brain research must be able to respond to and anticipate the challenges ahead as brain projects globally prepare to (...) increase the use of NHPs in research. This requires adopting a less anthropocentric focus that includes nonhuman animals within its scope. But the Neuroethics Roadmap represents a missed opportunity to critically examine the future direction of research with NHPs in an ethically-responsive neuroscience. (shrink)

The pandemic has been the most vivid agent of change that many of us have known. But it has not changed everything: plenty of the institutions, norms, and practices that sustain racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy have either weathered the storm of the crisis or been nourished by its effects. And yet enough has changed for us to see that the pandemic has profoundly recontextualised those structures and systems of violence, bringing us into a fresh negotiation with, for example, (...) the question of how we discuss and imagine freedom. Responding in part to this unexpected provocation, activist-scholars Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson forged a collaboration from the lockdown of 2020, corresponding by letter to create their forthcoming book, Rehearsals for Living, due to be published by Haymarket Books (US) and Knopf (Canada) in 2022. In this interview, we asked them to explain the epistolary form of the book and expand on the concept of “rehearsal”, before inviting them to reflect on a series of issues that animate our current crises: the politics of recognition; the notion of apocalypse; ways to disrupt linear temporalities; practises of reciprocity against proprietary logics; the gendered violence of state apparatuses; and worldbuilding as a method of resistance. In their expansive answers, Robyn and Leanne draw on their experiences as organisers and educators, commenting on anticolonial struggles, the Movement for Black Lives, and the rise of abolition discourse. Stressing the need to build a multiplicity of shared homespaces in the face of racial/colonial capitalism and organized abandonment, they challenge us to rethink the predicaments and possibilities of the present, enabling us to imagine futures liberated of extractivist, carceral governance – “planting more liberatory futures in the present”, as Robyn puts it. The task of sowing those seeds is a collective praxis of rewriting the narratives that constitute us, refusing to hear that nothing can change and insisting that everything must. (shrink)

This book is about the liberation of the concept of life from the bondage fashioned by the interpreters of life ever since biology began, and about the liberation of the life of humans and non-humans alike from the bondage of social structures and behaviour, which now threatens the fullness of life's possibilities if not survival itself. It falls into a tradition of writings about human problems from a perspective informed by biology. It rejects the mechanistic model of life dominant in (...) the Western world and develops an alternative 'ecological model' which is applicable to the life of the cell and the life of the human community. For the first time it brings together in one work the insights of modern biology with those of a modern holistic philosophy and a liberal theology in a way which challenges conventional approaches to science, agriculture, sociology, politics, economics, development and liberation movements. (shrink)

Sven Erik Nordenbo; Bildung and the Thinking of Bildung, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 36, Issue 3, 16 December 2002, Pages 341–352, https://doi.or.

Transcript of speeches by a Hindu philosopher, chiefly on Hindu philosophy and Hinduism.

This provocative study revives a classical idea about rationality by developing analogies between the structure of personality and the structure of society in the context of contemporary work in the philosophy of mind, ehtics, decision theory, and social choice theory.

Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume.Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary (...) focus on discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. This Oxford Handbook is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems. Several chapters in this volume explore matters that have never previously been examined by philosophers.The authors of the thirty-five chapters come from a diverse set of philosophical interests in the History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Biology, the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, the Philosophy of Language, Ethical Theory, and Practical Ethics. They explore many theoretical issues about animal minds and an array of practical concerns about animal products, farm animals, hunting, circuses, zoos, the entertainment industry, safety-testing on animals, the status and moral significance of species, environmental ethics, the nature and significance of the minds of animals, and so on. They also investigate what the future may be expected to bring in the way of new scientific developments and new moral problems.This book of original essays is the most comprehensive single volume ever published on animal minds and the ethics of our use of animals. (shrink)

This book presents three of the works of Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the Bahá'i Faith, dealing with social and political issues.00In 'The Secret of Divine Civilization' (1875) Abdu'l-Bahá supports the administrative and broader social reforms of Mirzá Hosayn Khán, but looks mainly for organic reform through the efforts of Iranian intellectuals to waken and educate the masses. In this work, Abdu'l-Bahá gives virtuous and progressive Islamic clerics a leading role among these intellectuals, indeed most of his appeals are (...) directed specifically to them. 'A Traveller's Narrative' (1889/90) is an authoritative statement of the broad lines of Bahá'i social and political thinking. 'The Art of Governance' (1892/93) was written as Iran entered a pre-revolutionary phase, and ideas that we recognise today as the precursors of political Islam were spreading. It sets out the principles underlying the ideal relationship between religion and politics and between the government and the people.00In addition to presenting the first parallel text translations of these works, the Persian texts incorporate notes on variants in the early published sources. An introduction outlines the intellectual and political landscape from which Abdu'l-Bahá wrote, and in which his expected readers lived. (shrink)

Sur la toile de fond de la theologie negative, tissee par la discussion des apories que soulevent les notions de l'ineffable et de l'un, Damascius, le dernier diadoque de l'Ecole d'Athenes, elaboreson systeme metaphysique, sans se departir de la rigueur de sa methode aporetique, qui est une critique radicale du langage a l'interieur des coordonnees fixees par le Parmenide de Platon et par les Oracles Chaldaiques. Damascius, dans une enquete unique par son ampleur et son originalite questionne tour a tour (...) Porphyre, Jamblique, Syrianus et Proclus sur les principes; il examine les problemes que pose, en derivation de l'un, la formation de la trinite; de l'un-tout (la limite), du tout-un (l'infini) et de l'unifie (le mixte ou l'etre). Lien a priori entre l'un-tout et le tout-un, l'unifie est le principe de constitution de tout ordre et de toute realite. Damascius etudie sa nature de mixte originaire et autoconstituant, d'etre exemplaire et de premier intelligible. Cette notion lui permet de pas au crible, pour la mieux fonder, la problematique neoplatonicienne de la manence, de la procession et de la conversion. Les divers niveaux d'unification de la pluralite intelligible l'amenent a construire une theorie generale des elements, des parties et des formes Au passage, de nombreux textes, capitaux du point de vue de l'ontologie et de la doctrine de la connaissance, font regretter qu'ils aient ete inconnus du Moyen Age et qu'ils le demeurent pour beaucoup de nos contemporains. (shrink)

The objective of this study—a substudy to a phase I bioequivalence study—was to compare the effect of standard and concise consent forms on research volunteers’ comprehension of and satisfaction with consent forms, as well as to assess the effect of select volunteer characteristics, such as financial motivations to participate in research, on their comprehension. A 36-item questionnaire measured volunteers’ comprehension, satisfaction, and motivations for participation. Volunteers were randomized to the standard Pfizer consent form or a concise, easier-to-read form. We approached (...) 139 volunteers to participate, and 138 completed the questionnaire . The cohorts did not differ in sociodemographic characteristics. We found that the average comprehension scores for the standard consent form cohort and the concise consent cohort were about the same, and that satisfaction with the consent form was high in both cohorts. Surprisingly, volunteers with a financial motivation had significantly greater comprehension of the study. (shrink)

The phenomenon whereby severely disabled persons self-report a higher than expected level of subjective well-being is called the “disability paradox.” One explanation for the paradox among brain injury survivors is “response shift,” an adjustment of one’s values, expectations, and perspective in the aftermath of a life-altering, disabling injury. The high level of subjective well-being appears paradoxical when viewed from the perspective of the non-disabled, who presume that those with severe disabilities experience a quality of life so poor that it might (...) make their lives not worth living. This presumption has profound consequences, for it may inform end-of-life choices made in advance directives, or influence decisions made by surrogates on behalf of persons who are unable to direct their own medical treatment. -/- Peterson et al propose a cautious, well-considered plan to use fMRI-based brain-computer interfaces to assess the decision making capacity of covertly aware, behaviorally non-responsive individuals who retain high levels of preserved cognition. Their plan, if it succeeds, could eventually restore autonomy and empower some severely disabled persons, allowing them to participate in clinical decision making. Peterson et al discuss possible in-principle objections to their proposal, among them the “argument from psychological health,” and the “changing sets of values” objection. These objections both presume that deviations from a pre-injury norm could indicate diminished decision making capacity. This presumption threatens the autonomy of the patient who is capable of making decisions, but whose post-injury decisions appear to diverge from pre-injury preferences or values. In light of the potential for response shift, and the disability paradox, it should not be inferred that changes in values or preferences are unreflective of the true current preferences of a brain-injured person, nor are they conclusive evidence of diminished capacity. Presuming diminished capacity on the basis of unexpected or unconventional preferences has, in the past, been used to disempower patients whose autonomy and capacity would not have been doubted had they made choices that accorded with the expectations or values of others. We must be cautious, and vigilant, to prevent similarly diminishing the autonomy of covertly aware, behaviorally non-responsive individuals on the basis of empirically and ethically questionable inferences about their decision making capacity. (shrink)

This article explores Gerardus van der Leeuw’s view of phenomenology of religion. The phenomenological method he defended is basically a hermeneutical approach in which an observer relates personally and even existentially to the “phenomena” (s)he studies in order to determine their essence (Wesensschau). In his anthropology (that reflects on the basic structure of human beings) a similar way of relating to the world is discussed: the “primitive mentality” that is characterized by the “need to participate” (besoin de participation). Both phenomenology (...) and mentalité primitive imply a critique of modern scholarship. This fundamental criticism of the prevailing (historical) approach in the humanities including religious studies explains the growing distance between van der Leeuw and the majority of scholars of religion in the decades after his death in 1950. (shrink)