The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel Modeling (MLM) (...) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from this study support the employment of SDT to examine the use of moral exemplars in moral education and were consistent with previous exemplar studies. (shrink)

Moral circles help define the boundaries of one’s moral consideration. One’s moral circle may provide insight into how one perceives or treats other entities. A data-driven model exploration was conducted to explore predictors and prediction models. Candidate predictors were built upon past research using moral foundations and political orientation. Moreover, we also employed additional moral psychological indicators, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy, based on prior research in moral development and education. We used model exploration methods, i.e., Bayesian model (...) exploration, Bayesian model averaging, and elastic-net regression. The study successfully replicated past research supporting the relationship between moral foundations, political orientation, and the moral circle. Additional moral psychological constructs, such as post-conventional moral reasoning and moral identity, significantly predicted the moral circle width. The identified components of the moral circle were conceptually related to phronesis, i.e., practical wisdom. We discussed the educational implications of the findings, particularly those related to moral education focusing on phronesis cultivation, multiculturalism and global citizenship, and climate justice. (shrink)

The significance of big data for driving health research and improvements in patient care is well recognised. Along with these potential benefits, however, come significant challenges, including those concerning the sharing and linkage of health and social care records. Recently, there has been a shift in attention towards a paradigm of data sharing centred on the ‘trusted research environment’ (TRE). TREs are being widely adopted by the UK’s health data initiatives including Health Data Research UK (HDR UK),1 Our Future Health2 (...) and Genomics England.3 A recent review commissioned by the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (hereafter referred to as the ‘Goldacre Review’) places TREs at the heart of its recommendations around the future of National Health Service (NHS) health data sharing for research, describing them as the ‘clear path forward’ to a health data system in which trust is ‘earned’ through ‘provable, credible steps to protect patient privacy, and by being transparent with everyone about everything that is done with their deepest medical secrets’.4 We argue that rather than building public trust, the TRE model actually reduces the need for trust in the use and sharing of patient health data. This is because trust is importantly connected to vulnerability and uncertainty; an essential part of trusting someone is accepting that one’s trust could be disappointed or betrayed. In attempting to provide assurances or guarantees of data privacy and security, TREs strive to remove this vulnerability, and so remove the need for trust. We do not see this as a problem and are broadly supportive of this kind of data sharing model because of the increased security and oversight it provides. However, having argued that TREs are not actually concerned with trust, we consider the importance of being precise about the words that we use …. (shrink)

A brief celebration of the contributions of the late Eliot Deutsch to Asian, comparative, and world philosophy, and to the academic community more generally.

This chapter presents a different and complementary take on the nature of realism and antirealism, one which has a clearer application to value when our journey is almost over than it would have here just as we embark. It argues that realism can be characterized as the affirmation of three important logical gaps. First, there is the gap between appearance and reality — the logical gap which constitutes the possibility of illusion or distortion. Second, there is the gap between reality (...) and belief — the logical gap which constitutes the possibility of error. Third, there is the gap between appearance and belief — the logical gap which constitutes the possibility of incoherence between percept and concept. Various versions of antirealism try to close these gaps, thereby handily blocking the possibility of a certain kind of shortcoming. (shrink)

As Holderlin was to Martin Heidegger and Mallarme to Jacques Derrida, so is H.P. Lovecraft to the Speculative Realist philosophers. Lovecraft was one of the brightest stars of the horror and science fiction magazines, but died in poverty and relative obscurity in the 1930s. In 2005 he was finally elevated from pulp status to the classical literary canon with the release of a Library of America volume dedicated to his work. The impact of Lovecraft on philosophy has been building for (...) more than a decade. Initially championed by shadowy guru Nick Land at Warwick during the 1990s, he was later discovered to be an object of private fascination for all four original members of the twenty-first century Speculative Realist movement. In this book, Graham Harman extracts the basic philosophical concepts underlying the work of Lovecraft, yielding a weird realism capable of freeing continental philosophy from its current soul-crushing impasse. Abandoning pious references by Heidegger to Holderlin and the Greeks, Harman develops a new philosophical mythology centered in such Lovecraftian figures as Cthulhu, Wilbur Whately, and the rat-like monstrosity Brown Jenkin. The Miskatonic River replaces the Rhine and the Ister, while Holderlin's Caucasus gives way to Lovecraft's Antarctic mountains of madness. (shrink)

(2001). A sociolinguistic approach to applied epistemology: Examining technocratic values in global 'knowledge' policy. Social Epistemology: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 155-169.

We have seen that proofs of soundness of (Boolean) DS, EFQ and of ABS — and hence the legitimation of these inferences — can be achieved only be appealing to the very form of reasoning in question. But this by no means implies that we have to fall back on classical reasoning willy-nilly. Many logical theories can provide the relevant boot-strapping. Decision between them has, therefore, to be made on other grounds. The grounds include the many criteria familiar from the (...) philosophy of science: theoretical integrity (e.g., paucity of ad hoc hypotheses), adequacy to the data (explaining the data of inference —all inferences, not just those chosen from consistent domains!) and so on. This paper has not attempted to address these issues in general. All it demonstrates is that the charge that a dialetheist solution to the semantic paradoxes can be maintained only by making some intelligible notion ineffable cannot be made to stick. The dialetheist has a coherent position, endorsing the T-scheme, but rejecting DS, EFQ (even Boolean DS and EFQ) and ABS. And any argument to the effect that the relevant notions are both ineffable and intelligible begs the question. The case against consistent “solutions” to the semantic paradoxes therefore remains intact. (shrink)

How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger (...) natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms. (shrink)

A number of different theories of truthlikeness have been proposed, but most can be classified into one of two different main programmes: the probability-content programme and the likeness programme.1 In Brink and Heidema [1987] we are offered a further proposal, with the attraction of some novelty. I argue that while the heuristic path taken by the authors is rather remote from what they call ‘the well-worn paths’,2 in fact their point of arrival is rather closer to existing proposals within the (...) likeness approach than might at first appear. It is the purpose of this note to outline the logical connections and to assess the reasons which have been offered in favour of the new proposal. (shrink)

(2004). Normativity, Justification,and (MacIntyrean) Practices: Some Thoughts on Methodologyfor the Philosophy of Sport. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport: Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 15-33.

The claim is that some collective entities can be thought of as part of the moral realm by virtue of their status as objects of moral concern. Collectivities are defined in terms of irreducibly corporate action and distinctive conditions of persisting identity. Their lack of sentience does not preclude moral concern, and their raison d'être may render moral concern for them appropriate. Recent attempts by Pettit, McMahon, and Broome to limit the moral realm to individuals are considered. They are rebutted (...) on the grounds that they rest heavily on pre-existing moral intuitions; they ascribe a stronger thesis than is necessary to the sponsors of the moral significance of non-individuals; and they wrongly assume that what has value for individuals must have value because it has value for individuals. Collectivities can have moral importance even if they lack the intrinsic moral importance attaching to human beings, and substantial consequences follow from that fact. In particular, routine appeals to the distinctness of persons become more problematic when collectivities, themselves composed entirely of persons, have independent moral significance which needs to be taken into account. That will affect both assessment of moral consequences and the process of moral decision-making. (shrink)

The evolution of a relevant nosological concept reflects changes in the distinction between what is recognized and defined as normal and pathologic. Attention is directed to the rationale and value of detecting subclinical aging-related modifications in cognitive performance. The position that different kinds of dementias may have precedents in etiological-specific kinds of early or mild cognitive impairments (MCI) supports targeting people earlier for study of these subclinical symptoms. Because heterogeneous disorders can be expected to have multiple patterns of cognitive and (...) behavioral changes, useful conceptual nosologies should be flexible. Yet clinical research primarily restricts its focus to a single pathway where MCI leads to Alzheimer's disease (AD), and uses selective recruitment, washout screenings, repeated trialing of similar compounds, and other methods that bank the published evidence in favor of the existing therapies and their modest efficacy. This focus on AD recursively colors MCI, not as a flexible "human kind" in need of more careful research, but like AD, as an essential "natural kind." Early determination of MCI targets a potential pharmaceutical market of a quarter to a half of the population over sixty-five and the individual experiencing cognitive decline in its early stages is aware and sensitive to their surroundings, to a linked sociodegeneration with neurodegeneration. This paper examines how classifying people changes both the classifier and the subject of classification. The potential for conflict of interest is raised regarding what new causal knowledge and techniques for ascertainment are selected. Reading evidence from epidemiology, neurology, and clinical studies through science studies and bioethics lenses, we explore the possibility of a pluralistic model of cognitive impairment nosology where biological/pathologic processes respond and interrelate with a normal healthy state. (shrink)

SummaryIn this article I react to dismissive remarks made about my Jacob Vernet, Geneva and the philosophes (1994) in a recent book by David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment (2008). Vernet, a distinguished Genevan pastor and theologian, who fell foul of d'Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau, is one of six figures studied by Sorkin, who claims that the religious dimension of the Enlightenment has been much underestimated and that the philosophes were considerably less significant than has usually been thought. Reacting to the (...) accusation that my treatment of Vernet's theology was superficial and unreliable, I reconsider the latter's major theological works (including his Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne, Instruction chrétienne, and Pièces fugitives sur l'eucharistie) in an attempt to validate my previous interpretation, and illustrate that Vernet refused to acknowledge ideas that he had actually published. The second part of the article draws more general conclusions, pointing out spectacular errors in Sorkin's depiction of eighteenth-century Geneva and arguing that he has a clear agenda, which, in my opinion, is wrong-headed, easy to refute and—above all—often based on gratuitous accusations and statements lacking any evidence. (shrink)

Jacob Vernet (1698-1789) was the most important and influential Genevan pastor of his day, successively holding the posts of Professor of Belles-Lettres (1739) and of Theology (1756) at the city's Acad mie. A 'liberal' theologian, he had personal contacts with several of the leading philosophes, all of which turned sour after a time. This book describes Vernet's contacts with Montesquieu, d'Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau. It also investigates a charge made repeatedly by his enemies, namely that he was a hypocrite who (...) disguised his real beliefs. Vernet's religious and philosophical opinions are thus reviewed as expressed in his major works, Trait de la v rite de la religion chr tienne, Instruction chr tienne and Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglais. The connection between Vernet's ideas and the social and political situation in his native Geneva is also studied in depth. The pastor's relations with Montesquieu have often been seen as a cause for congratulation, for he edited the first edition of De l'Esprit des lois, but a close reading of Montesquieu's correspondence shows that this episode was far from being an unqualified success. Similarly, Vernet's contacts with Rousseau give pause for thought: the relevant evidence that he was on occasion somewhat devious in his dealings with the great author is reviewed comprehensively. Particular attention is given to Vernet's relations with Voltaire. In 1760 the pastor was vilified in the second of the Dialogues chr tiens, accused of greed and dishonesty. But did Voltaire actually write the second Dialogue? If not, who did? These intriguing questions are discussed in detail, special attention being given to Vernet's own essays of self-justification, the Lettre Monsieur le Premier Sindic(1760) and M moire Mr. le Premier Sindic (1766, both of which are reproduced in appendices. Jacob Vernet's long life and many works give a fascinating insight into the problems and inconsistencies of liberal Protestantism during the various stages of the Enlightenment. (shrink)

This article proposes a reading of Michel de Certeau’s TheWriting of History which derives an understanding of the concept of practice as authoritative to the establishment and development of Enlightenment rationality. It is seen as a new form of legitimation established in the redeployment of religious ‘formalities’ in early modernity, supportive of the ostensible deliverance of the projects of reason.Subversive of its moral and ideological operations and geneses, this is an understanding of practice whose subject is the state. Practice, as (...) de Certeau advances it, led to the development of a concept of education productive of a regulatory ambit of social utility, and the student as both a figure of the utile and its moral postulate.This article thematizes the authoritative formality of the concept of practice in its hegemonic origins from early modernity to the thought of Karl Marx. It provides a needed supplement to Marx’s still provocative contribution to a persistent counternarrative, one which elides,and thus reinforces, significant prior,and no less persistent, functions of the concept of practice as here elaborated from de Certeau’s TheWriting of History. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Political liberalism and the democratic ideal together supply the foundation of almost all contemporary political thinking. This essay explores the relation between them. It argues that, despite common parlance, there is an inevitable tension between the two. Furthermore, attempts to resolve this tension by showing that democracy is a good thing in its own right, or that it is the inevitable development of liberal aspirations, or that it is conceptually connected to fundamental liberal ideas, all fail. The conclusion to (...) be drawn is that liberalism requires a pragmatic rather than a principled approach to democratic aspirations. (shrink)