When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just individual consumers taken as an aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

Since 1994, eleven ministerial public juridic persons have been established in Australia to take the education, health and community service ministries of the instigating religious institutes purposely into the future as ministries of the Catholic Church. Subsequently other ministries have been entrusted to established MPJPs, including some diocesan and parish health and aged care services. In the period from 2012 to 2016, representatives of the MPJPs explored means of fostering collaboration between the respective entities, leading to the founding of the (...) Association of Ministerial PJPs Ltd in May 2016. These are historic developments for the Australian Church in relation to lay ecclesial leadership, and offer a canonically recognised means of expanding lay women and men's participation in church governance. Table 1, in the pages that follow, summarises details of the Australian MPJPs. (shrink)

The essays in this collection engage with Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale Genji as a work of philosophical significance, analyzing the text from a wide range of perspectives. The essays touch on almost all branches of philosophy and engage with topics such as the exercise of power, the concept of space, construction of personhood, cultural and artistic practices, and gender.

In a September 2004 interview, Donald Trump agreed with Howard Stern’s statement that his daughter Ivanka is “a piece of ass.” This utterance is a synecdochical utterance targeting women, by which I mean that its form is such that a term for an anatomical part is predicated of, or could be used by a speaker to refer to, a woman. I propound a theory of what SUTW speakers do in undertaking an SUTW on which the SUTW speaker prompts the hearer (...) to engage in a certain derogatory pattern of associational thinking—that is, taking a “perspective” in Elisabeth Camp’s sense—on the female subject. This perspective is one that reduces her to the bodily part in question—that is, fragments her and biologizes her. Essentially, the hearer thinks of the woman as a “piece of meat.”. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just consumers in aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

Increasing efficient production of commercial animal products has resulted in decreased quality of life and shorter life spans for animals being farmed and bred. Should this animal welfareproblem be blamed on farmers or consumers? Or should we blame the capitalist system? I argue that those elements that make the market economy successful also result in poor outcomes for animals in the system. Understanding the way in which capitalism is the problem allows us to think clearly about what reforms are necessary (...) to improve the lives of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

A number of researchers have focused on the distinction between upward counterfactuals that simulate a better reality and downward counterfactuals that simulate a worse reality. In this chapter the authors will discuss the important aspects of a model (Markman and McMullen 2003) that attempts to explain how the very same counterfactual can engender dramatically different affective reactions. According to the model, the consequences of simulation direction are moderated by what we have termed simulation mode--relatively stronger tendencies to engage in (...) reflective versus evaluative processing. In turn, the authors will describe how the interaction between simulation direction and mode produces important consequences for affect, motivation, and behavior. (shrink)

Three studies examined the motivational implications of thinking about how things could have been worse. It was hypothesized that when these downward counterfactuals yield negative affect, through consideration of the possibility of a negative outcome, motivation to change and improve would be increased (the wake-up call). When downward counterfactuals yield positive affect, through diminishing the impact of a potentially negative outcome, motivation to change and improve should be reduced (the Pangloss effect). Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. Studies 1 (...) and 2 showed that a manipulation of the counterfactual made about an investment influenced decisions toward that investment. Study 3 showed that students’ academic motivation was influenced by a manipulation of the type of downward counterfactual they made after an exam and that affect mediated the relationship between the counterfactual and motivation. (shrink)

Byrne (2005) assumes that counterfactual thinking requires a comparison of facts with an imagined alternative. In our view, however, this assumption is unnecessarily restrictive. We argue that individuals do not necessarily engage in counterfactual simulations exclusively to evaluate factual reality. Instead, comparative evaluation is often suspended in favor of experiencing the counterfactual simulation as if it were real.

Explanation of the philosophical position (siddhānta) of the Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, Yogācārya, and Mādhyamika schools of Buddhism.

According to regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000), when people make decisions with strategies that sustain their regulatory focus orientation, they “feel right” about what they are doing, and this “feeling-right” experience then transfers to subsequent choices, decisions, and evaluations. The present research was designed to link the concept of regulatory fit to functional accounts of counterfactual thinking. In the present study, participants generated counterfactuals about their anagram performance, after which persistence on a second set of anagrams was measured. Under promotion (...) framing (i.e., find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward counterfactual thinking in general elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward counterfactual thinking in general, but under prevention framing (i.e., avoid failing to find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward evaluation (comparing reality to a better reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did upward reflection (focusing on a better reality), whereas downward reflection (focusing on a worse reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward evaluation (comparing reality to a worse reality). In all, the present findings suggest that the generation of counterfactuals enhances the likelihood that individuals will engage in courses of action that fit with their regulatory focus orientation. (shrink)

Selected works of author predominantly on Buddhist dialectical and logical study.

This article reviews research on counterfactual, social, and temporal comparisons and proposes a Reflection and Evaluation Model (REM) as an organizing framework. At the heart of the model is the assertion that 2 psychologically distinct modes of mental simulation operate during comparative thinking: reflection, an experiential (“as if”) mode of thinking characterized by vividly simulating that information about the comparison standard is true of, or part of, the self; and evaluation, an evaluative mode of thinking characterized by the use of (...) information about the standard as a reference point against which to evaluate one’s present standing. Reflection occurs when information about the standard is included in one’s self-construal, and evaluation occurs when such information is excluded. The result of reflection is that standard–consistent cognitions about the self become highly accessible, thereby yielding affective assimilation; whereas the result of evaluation is that comparison information is used as a standard against which one’s present standing is evaluated, thereby yielding affective contrast. The resulting affect leads to either an increase or decrease in behavioral persistence as a function of the type of task with which one is engaged, and a combination of comparison-derived causal inferences and regulatory focus strategies direct one toward adopting specific future action plans. (shrink)

Collected works of Rol-paʼi-rdo-rje on the doctrines of Dge-lugs-pa (Sect) and Buddhist philosophy.

Compassion, by the Pound is an excellent volume on the economics of animal agriculture. The authors’ analysis of animal welfare includes important contributions to the practice of cost-benefit analysis and a groundbreaking study of consumer preferences for more ethically produced animal products. Undergirding their economic analysis, however, is an inadequate engagement with animal ethics and economic ethics. This review highlights the strengths of this book and then considers three problems with the authors’ implicit ethical framework. This book highlights both the (...) value and the difficulty of using standard economic methods to contribute to the field of animal ethics. (shrink)

Denis Crispin Twitchett was always at the forefront in exploiting the great changes that took place. He had every reason for confidence. Twitchett knew the European languages from his schooldays and, by virtue of his command of East Asian written languages, was well qualified to provide intellectual and scholarly leadership. His reading of academic Japanese was effortless and this gave him ready access to the best body of secondary scholarship on medieval Chinese economic history of the middle decades of the (...) 20th century. Twitchett once said of himself that he ‘began life as a physical geographer, graduated in the high tradition of European Sinology, worked in the field of economic history, and administer[ed] a department of languages and literature’. All these very different fields exerted profound influence on his scholarship, interacting to make him the rounded humanist scholar that he became. (shrink)

This book is a new study of the leading seventeenth-century samurai Confucian, Kumazawa Banzan (1619-91). It describes his stormy life as a samurai, his interpretation of Confucian philosophy, and his imaginative commentary on Japan's greatest literary monument, The Tale of Genji. More than warrior and philosopher, Banzan is presented as a critic of the Japanese society of his day.

The Second Vatican Council promoted the calling of all the baptised to the mission of the church and highlighted the 'indispensable role' of the laity. The 1965 Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People stated: An indication of this manifold and pressing need is the unmistakable work being done today by the Holy Spirit in making the laity ever more conscious of their own responsibility and encouraging them to serve Christ and the Church in all circumstances.

An original screenplay inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, retold through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy.

The problem of violence in the home is on the public agenda. Although many Christians are concerned to eliminate such abuse in their communities, the church has special problems when it tries to address the matter. Violence against family members is related to power and patriarchy, and solutions to the problem relate to the Christian understanding of the nature of the marriage bond, the confidentiality of the confessional and our understanding of the nature of God. In tackling this problem, the (...) church is as much part of the problem as an agent in the solution. (shrink)

An original screenplay inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, retold through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy.

This book presents several new ideas in the history and philosophy of science. Against the backdrop of the major events of William Harvey's times, the author provides new insights into Harvey's discovery of the blood's circulation. A major theme is how Harvey and other scientists based their work on the concept that God created the universe purposefully. The author also develops a new, historically-based pattern of scientific discovery and advance.

Study on the aspect of consciousness in Indic philosophy with special reference to the works of Vasubandhu, Śaṅkarācārya, and Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950, philosophers.