Ames, Roger. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. 332 pp.

In the last decade, the migrant population in Chile has substantially increased, where the rates have not only increased in the adult population, but also among children and adolescents, creating a potential for social and cultural development in the educational system. The present work analyzes the relationship between self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in native and migrant adolescents in Santiago de Chile. The sample consisted of 406 students, 56.65% women, with an age range that fluctuated between 12 and 16 years, (...) with an average of 13.36 years. Student’s t-tests were used to compare the average of the constructs evaluated between natives/migrants and boys/girls participants. Subsequently, two multivariate models of simple mediation were constructed, one for natives and another for migrants, which assumed subjective well-being as a dependent variable, academic self-concept as an independent variable and the general self-efficacy as a mediating variable. In both models, gender was considered as a control variable. Results show that migrant students present higher levels of academic self-concept and general self-efficacy than native students. There are no differences with regard to well-being. In the case of gender, differences are observed only for the case of general self-efficacy, where boys present higher levels. On the other hand, a partial mediation is observed for the model of native students and a total mediation for the model of migrant students. The study yielded interesting results regarding the differences in the evaluation of the constructs of self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in both groups. Such data can be used as inputs for the development of public policies for adolescents. (shrink)

There are two main meanings in Kant’s concept of moral certainty (moralische Gewissheit, certitudo moralis): first, it applies to the kind of certainty embodied in rational faith in the existence of God and a future life; second, it applies to the conscientiousness (Gewissenhaftigkeit) required of an agent in the practice of moral judgement. Despite the growing attention to Kant’s theory of conscience and his concept of conscientiousness, this article is the first to discuss ‘moral certainty’ as the aim of ‘conscientiousness’ (...) and to highlight the relevance of both notions in regard to moral education and the purposes of Kant’s ethical doctrines of method. (shrink)

Although expected utility theory has proven a fruitful and elegant theory in the finite realm, attempts to generalize it to infinite values have resulted in many paradoxes. In this paper, we argue that the use of John Conway's surreal numbers shall provide a firm mathematical foundation for transfinite decision theory. To that end, we prove a surreal representation theorem and show that our surreal decision theory respects dominance reasoning even in the case of infinite values. We then bring our theory (...) to bear on one of the more venerable decision problems in the literature: Pascal's Wager. Analyzing the wager showcases our theory's virtues and advantages. To that end, we analyze two objections against the wager: Mixed Strategies and Many Gods. After formulating the two objections in the framework of surreal utilities and probabilities, our theory correctly predicts that (1) the pure Pascalian strategy beats all mixed strategies, and (2) what one should do in a Pascalian decision problem depends on what one's credence function is like. Our analysis therefore suggests that although Pascal's Wager is mathematically coherent, it does not deliver what it purports to, a rationally compelling argument that people should lead a religious life regardless of how confident they are in theism and its alternatives. (shrink)

It is now the majority view amongst philosophers and theologians that any world could have been better. This places the choice of which world to create into an especially challenging class of decision problems: those that are discontinuous in the limit. I argue that combining some weak, plausible norms governing this type of problem with a creator who has the attributes of the god of classical theism results in a paradox: no world is possible. After exploring some ways out of (...) the paradox, I conclude that the classical theist should accept Marilyn Adams’s view that no norms apply to gods. (shrink)

Molinists hold that there are contingently true counterfactuals about what agents would do if put in specific circumstances, that God knows these prior to creation, and that God uses this knowledge in choosing how to create. In this essay we critique Molinism, arguing that if these theses were true, agents would not be free. Consider Eve’s sinning upon being tempted by a serpent. We argue that if Molinism is true, then there is some set of facts that fully explains both (...) Eve’s action and everything else Eve does that influences that action; and that if this is the case, Eve does not act freely. The first premise of this argument follows from the explanatory relations the Molinist is committed to, and the second premise follows from libertarian intuitions about free will. (shrink)

Erik Wielenberg [2014] and Mark Murphy [2017], [2018] have defended a series of arguments for the conclusion that creatures are not good intrinsically. In response, I take two steps. First, I introduce a conception of intrinsic value that makes created intrinsic value unproblematic. Second, I respond to their arguments in turn. The first argument is from the sovereignty-aseity intuition and an analysis of intrinsicality that makes derivative good extrinsic. I challenge the analysis. The second comes from a conception of perfection (...) where God exhausts all possibilities for goodness. I challenge this conception. The third comes from the contingency of creation and the internal logic of intrinsic value. I challenge the assumption that connects the two. I then present an argument from reference magnetism that the only conception of God, God's perfections, and religious language that makes it plausible that the sentence "God is intrinsically good and creatures are not" is true involves a strongly univocalist position. A view that is either unstatable or places strong demands on our conception of God, God's perfections and religious language thereby loses plausibility. (shrink)

Quine taught us the difference between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. Ontology is the things a theory’s quantifiers must range over if it is true, Ideology is the primitive concepts that must be used to state the theory. This allows us to split the theoretical virtue of parsimony into two kinds: ontological parsimony and ideological parsimony. My goal is help illuminate the virtue of ideological parsimony by giving a criterion for ideological innocence—a rule for when additional ideology does not (...) count against parsimony. I propose the expressive power innocence criterion: if the ideology of theory one is expressively equivalent to that of theory two, then neither is ideologically simpler than the other. In its favor I offer the argument from accuracy, showing that any account of a theoretical virtue that is supposed to make theories that have it more likely to be true than theories that do not must respect it. Next I consider its ramifications, eliminating rival views and passing judgment on some arguments from parsimony that can be found in the literature. Finally, I consider two objections. First: I address an objection arising from the possibility of languages with a ‘primitive’ operator that allows us to list a theory’s primitives in the object-language. Second: I address an objection raised by Nelson Goodman against attempts to reckon simplicity by expressive power. Both objections fail. (shrink)

Problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion can take on new forms in light of contemporary physical theories. Here we discuss how the problem of evil is transformed by the Everettian "Many-Worlds" theory of quantum mechanics. We first present an Everettian version of the problem and contrast it to the problem in single-universe physical theories such as Newtonian mechanics and Bohmian mechanics. We argue that, pace Turner (2016) and Zimmerman (2017), the Everettian problem of evil is no more extreme (...) than the Bohmian one. The existence and multiplicity of (morally) terrible branches in the Everettian multiverse in contrast to the mere possibility of them in the Bohmian universe does not entail there is "more evil" in the former than in the latter. Low probability in the Bohmian case and low branch weight in the Everettian case should modulate how we respond to them in exactly the same way. We suggest that the same applies to the divine decision of creating an Everettian multiverse. For an empirically adequate Everettian quantum mechanics that justifies the Born rule, there is no special problem of evil. In order for there to be a special Everettian problem of evil, the Everettian interpretation must already have been exposed to decisive refutation. In the process, we hope to show how attention to the details of physical and metaphysical theories can and should impact the way we think about problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The creative process has the potential to increase wellbeing and foster human flourishing (Dolan and Metcalfe, 2012 ; Forgeard and Eichner, 2014 ; O’Brien and Murray, 2015 ; Conner et al., 2018 ; Kaufman, 2018 ), yet has received little attention in the humanistic management literature. In this paper, we present three experiments showing that idea originators experience greater relationship conflict with counterparts who have committed perceived “idea theft”, i.e., proposed identical or related ideas. We test a model that identifies (...) a mechanism—self-threat—that mediates the relationship between idea theft and relationship conflict and identifies an intervention to ameliorate that self-threat via self-affirmation. Study 1 demonstrates the idea originator’s attribution of malign attributions to, and negative moral emotions toward, the counterpart. Study 2 demonstrates that idea originators ostracize both those who propose identical ideas and those who propose merely related ideas. In Study 3, evidence for self-threat as the mechanism underlying the negative relational consequences is provided via both a direct test of mediation as well as via moderation by self-affirmation. Our research contributes to the nascent idea theft literature and suggests a way to reduce its negative consequences. (shrink)

Recent analytic theology has seen a wave of excellent work on the fundamental problem of Christology, the question of how one and the same person can be human full stop and divine full stop. Along the way, new objections have been raised for a venerable family of Christological views, whose distinctive is the employment of qua-devices to dissolve the difficulties stemming from the dual nature doctrine of Chalcedon and its successors. My objective in this article is twofold. First, I propose (...) to lay out a hierarchy of principles that should guide the search for a Christological theory. I then use these principles to illuminate the best qua-theoretic approach to Christology. Finally, I argue that the best qua-theory is at worst on a par with major recent views. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, the key issue in developmental Theory of Mind has been if and when children are capable of representing false beliefs. Moving away from this research question, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of attentional processes in false-belief tasks. We focused on the design of the test phase and investigated two factors that may be critical for 3-year-old children’s success: the form of the wh-question and the salience of the target object. The (...) results of two experiments confirmed that 3-year olds are able to explicitly choose the correct answer in a false-belief task provided that they are allowed to focus on the protagonist throughout the task. The salience of the target object, however, was a critical factor in the design of the test phase, as increasing it had a negative effect on children’s performance. These results suggest that the experimental record of the last 30 years may be skewed since standard false-belief tasks do not control for the relative salience of the wrong response, potentially hindering the performance of children under 4. We conclude that a careful investigation of performance factors in false-belief tasks has the potential to reveal deep insights into the development of Theory of Mind skills, even if not directly focused on children’s representation of beliefs. (shrink)

There are several lessons that can already be drawn from the current research programs on strong AI and building conscious machines, even if they arguably have not produced fruits yet. The first one is that functionalist approaches to consciousness do not account for the key importance of subjective experience and can be easily confounded by the way in which algorithms work and succeed. Authenticity and emergence are key concepts that can be useful in discerning valid approaches versus invalid ones and (...) can clarify instances where algorithms are considered conscious, such as Sophia or LaMDA. Subjectivity and embeddedness become key notions that should also lead us to re-examine the ethics of decision delegation. In addition, the focus on subjective experience shifts what is relevant in our understanding of ourselves as human beings and as an image of God, namely, in de-emphasizing intellectuality in favor of experience and contemplation over action. (shrink)

Language and Theory of Mind come together in communication, but their relationship has been intensely contested. I hypothesize that pragmatic markers connect language and Theory of Mind and enable their co-development and co-evolution through a positive feedback loop, whereby the development of one skill boosts the development of the other. I propose to test this hypothesis by investigating two types of pragmatic markers: demonstratives and articles. Pragmatic markers are closed-class words that encode non-representational information that is unavailable to consciousness, but (...) accessed automatically in processing. These markers have been associated with implicit Theory of Mind because they are used to establish joint attention and mark shared knowledge. Here I develop a theoretical account of how joint attention is the basis for children’s later tracking of common ground. The developmental path from joint attention to common ground parallels language change, with demonstrative forms giving rise to definite articles. This parallel opens the possibility of modelling the emergence of Theory of Mind in human development in tandem with its routinization across language communities and generations of speakers. I therefore propose that, in order to understand the relationship between language and Theory of Mind, we should study pragmatics at three parallel timescales: during language acquisition, language use, and language change. (shrink)

Epicurus (in)famously argued that death is not harmful and therefore our standard reactions to it (like deep fear of death and going to great lengths to postpone it) are not rational, inaugurating an ongoing debate about the harm of death. Those who wish to resist this conclusion must identify the harm of death. But not any old harm will do. In order to resist both the claim that death is not harmful and the claim that our standard reactions to it (...) are irrational, we must identify a harm associated with death that rationalizes our standard reactions. We can divide the potential harm properties death might have along two axes: intrinsic/extrinsic and instrumental/final. This gives us four places to search for the harm of death. I argue that it is nowhere to be found. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analiza críticamente la propuesta de Kittler de renovar las ciencias sociales y humanas mediante una reflexión orientada hacia los medios de comunicación. Para ello, se sitúa tal propuesta en el debate, impulsado por el giro medial en Filosofía de los Medios, acerca de la pertinencia (o no) del enfoque trascendentalista sobre los medios. En un primer momento, se presenta en términos generales el planteo kittleriano en cuanto enfoque trascendentalista. En un segundo momento, se reconstruye y analiza la (...) estrategia kittleriana consistente en eliminar la noción de sentido para concentrarse, en cambio, en la noción de información. (shrink)

It has been generally assumed in the Theory of Mind literature of the past 30 years that young children fail standard false-belief tasks because they attribute their own knowledge to the protagonist. Contrary to the traditional view, we have recently proposed that the children's bias is task induced. This alternative view was supported by studies showing that 3 year olds are able to pass a false-belief task that allows them to focus on the protagonist, without drawing their attention to the (...) target object in the test phase. For a more accurate comparison of these two accounts, the present study tested the true-belief default with adults. Four experiments measuring eye movements and response inhibition revealed that adults do not have an automatic tendency to respond to the false-belief question according to their own knowledge and the true-belief response need not be inhibited in order to correctly predict the protagonist's actions. The positive results observed in the control conditions confirm the accuracy of the various measures used. I conclude that the results of this study undermine the true-belief default view and those models that posit mechanisms of response inhibition in false-belief reasoning. Alternatively, the present study with adults and recent studies with children suggest that participants' focus of attention in false-belief tasks may be key to their performance. (shrink)

Literature reports that depressive symptoms may precede suicidal ideation. Several studies have identified social support and substance use as moderators of this relationship. However, no study has evaluated these variables together by testing how substance use can affect the moderating effect of social support in this relationship. The purpose of this article is to individually evaluate dimensions of social support (friends, family, significant others, and school) and substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs), as moderators of the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation; as well as analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderation exerted by social support in this relationship. This study, quantitative and cross-sectional, considered 775 adolescents [Average age = 15.48 (SD = 0.96), 45.9% women], from 20 randomly selected schools in Santiago de Chile. Simple moderation models were used to analyze possible moderators separately, and double moderation models were used to analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderating effect of social support. The results show that the four dimensions of social support moderate the relationship between depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation, showing the strongest interaction in the case of family support, followed by support of a significant person, support at school, and support of friends, in that order. On the other hand, alcohol was the only drug that moderated the relationship in question. In addition, the results show that the use of alcohol limits the moderating effect of social support in the fields of family, significant person, and school support, but not in the case of support of friends. The use of marijuana and other illicit drugs did not affect the moderating effects of social support for any of the areas evaluated. The results are discussed according to the different roles that alcohol use can play in adolescence, and how these, together with perceived social support, are related to the emergence of suicidal ideation from depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza dos proyectos de renovación programática de las Humanidades, los cuales se centran en la noción de información. Consideraremos, por una parte, la propuesta de Friedrich Kittler acerca de un materialismo teórico-informacional, y por otra, la axiomática de las ciencias humanas de Gilbert Simondon. La pregunta que guía nuestro examen crítico es la siguiente: ¿de qué manera, en cada uno de esos proyectos, la noción de información funge como centro para una propuesta renovadora de las Humanidades? Nuestra hipótesis (...) sostiene que hay un común denominador en ambas propuestas, el cual puede formularse en términos foucaultianos del siguiente modo: la información es entendida allí como el a priori histórico actual. (shrink)

nowadays it is necessary to understand the Character and Destiny topic from the point of view of emotions because we can integrate some philosophical and neurobiological perspectives better than ever. in this paper the result is deliberately ambiguous for life and for anthropology and Ethics, far away from the usual notions (subject, consciousness, free will, determinism…) and opened, on the contrary, to a multiform discussion in relation to different elements and circumstances.

The aims of my paper are triple: 1) to offer a panoramic view on the evolution of theoretical reflections on documentary definition, specially into the contemporary analytic aesthetics; 2) to evaluate the solution proposed by Carl Plantinga defining documentary as AVR (Assserted Veridical Representation); and 3) to contrast the aforementioned theoretical problem with an example of new documentary film, My Architect (2003) by N. Kahn, wich I find particulary interesting and significant concerning that problem. My thesis is that new documentary (...) emphasis in subjective involvement of both filmmaker and spectator results in a more deep understanding of documentary nature. (shrink)

This article identifies and examines the arguments put forward in the last decades by the proponents of a «non eschatological / non apocalyptic Jesus», in order to assess their explanatory value. It concludes that not one of them withstands critical examination because they are all built on arbitrary grounds and are refuted by extant literary evidence and/or by sound reasoning. Furthermore, the fact that this kind of untenable arguments reappears time and time again in the history of research powerfully suggests (...) that they are the result of an immunisation strategy, contrived by scholars who are embarrassed by the implications of an apocalyptic Jesus. (shrink)