Stress induction reduces people's ability to modify their instrumental choices following changes in the value of outcomes, but the mechanisms underpinning this effect have not been specified because previous studies have lacked crucial control conditions. To address this, the current study had participants learn two instrumental responses for food and water, respectively, before water was devalued by specific satiety. Choice between these two responses was then measured in extinction, reacquisition and Pavlovian to instrumental transfer tests. Concurrently during these tests, a (...) negative emotional appraisal group evaluated aversive images, whereas a control group evaluated neutral images, at the same time as choosing between the two instrumental responses. Negative emotional appraisal abolished the impact of water devaluation on instrumental choice in the extinction test, but did not affect instrumental choice in the reacquisition or PIT tests. These findings suggest that negative emotional appraisal selectively impaired participants’ ability to retrieve the expected value of outcomes required to make goal-directed instrumental choices in the extinction test, and that this effect was not due to task disengagement, nullification of the devaluation treatment or impaired knowledge of response-outcome relationships. (shrink)

The radical nub of Byrne & Russon's argument is that passive priming effects can produce much of the evidence of higher-order cognition in nonhuman primates. In support of their position we review evidence of similar behavioral priming effects n humans. However, that evidence further suggests that even program-level imitative behavior can be produced through priming.

As our powerful medical technology continues rapidly to develop, we seem to be confronted by fresh bioethical dilemmas at an ever increasing rate. This volume provides an introduction to modern thinking on these issues, concentrating particularly on paternalism, informed consent and euthanasia.

Suppose an accountant discovers evidence of shady practices while ex amining the books of a client. What should he or she do? Accountants have a professional obligation to respect the confidentiality of their cli ents' accounts. But, as an ordinary citizen, our accountant may feel that the authorities ought to be informed. Suppose a physician discov ers that a patient, a bus driver, has a weak heart. If the patient contin ues bus driving even after being informed of the heart (...) condition, should the physician inform the driver's company? Respect for patient confidentiality would say, no. But what if the driver should suffer a heart attack while on duty, causing an accident in which people are killed or seriously injured? Would the doctor bear some responsibility for these consequences? Special obligations, such as those of confidentiality, apply to any one in business or the professions. These obligations articulate, at least in part, what it is for someone to be, say, an accountant or a physician. Since these obligations are special, they raise a real possibility of con flict with the moral principles we usually accept outside of these spe cial relationships in business and the professions. These conflicts may become more accentuated for a professional who is also a corporate employee-a corporate attorney, an engineer working for a construction company, a nurse working as an employee of a hospital. (shrink)

Clinical trials emerged in rapid succession as the COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for life-saving therapies. Fair and equitable subject selection in clinical trials offering investigational therapies ought to be an urgent moral concern. Subject selection determines the distribution of risks and benefits, and impacts the applicability of the study results for the larger population. While Research Ethics Committees monitor fair subject selection within each trial, no standard oversight exists for subject selection across multiple trials for the same disease. (...) Drawing on the experience of multiple clinical trials at a single academic medical centre in the USA, we posit that concurrent COVID-19 trials are liable to unfair and inequitable subject selection on account of scientific uncertainty, lack of transparency, scarcity and, lastly, structural barriers to equity compounded by implicit bias. To address the critical gap in the current literature and international regulation, we propose new ethical guidelines for research design and conduct that bolsters fair and equitable subject selection. Although the proposed guidelines are tailored to the research design and protocol of concurrent trials in the COVID-19 pandemic, they may have broader relevance to single COVID-19 trials. (shrink)

Neuroscience communication is increasingly taking place on multidirectional social media platforms, creating new opportunities but also calling for critical ethical considerations. Twitter, one of the most popular social media applications in the world, is a leading platform for the dissemination of all information types, including emerging areas of neuroscience such as optogenetics, a technique aimed at the control of specific neurons. Since its discovery in 2005, optogenetics has been featured in the public eye and discussed extensively on social media, but (...) little is known about how this new technique is portrayed and who the users participating in the conversation are. To address this gap, we conducted content analysis of a sample of 1000 tweets mentioning “optogenetics” over a one-year period between 2014 and 2015. We found that academic researchers are the largest group contributing to the conversation, that the tweets often contain links to third-party websites from news organizations and peer-reviewed journals, and that common thematic motifs include the applications of optogenetics specifically for the control of brain activity and the treatment of disease. We also found that the majority of the tweets are neutral in their tone regarding optogenetics. As Twitter serves as a current and dynamic forum for exchange about advances in neuroscience, the conversation about optogenetics on this engaging platform can inform socially-responsive knowledge dissemination efforts in this area. (shrink)

We examine the opportunities children have for interacting with others and the extent to which they are the focus of others’ visual attention in five societies where extended family communities are the norm. We compiled six video-recorded datasets collected by a team of anthropologists and psychologists conducting long-term research in each society. The six datasets include video observations of children among the Yasawas, Tanna, Tsimane, Huatasani, and Aka. Each dataset consists of a series of videos of children ranging in age (...) from 2 months to 12 years in their everyday contexts. We coded 998 videos and identified with whom children had opportunities to interact as well as the number of individuals and the proportion of observed time that children spent with these individuals. We also examined the proportion of time children received direct visual gaze. Our results indicate that children less than 5 years old spend the majority of their observed time in the presence of one female adult. This is the case across the five societies. In the three societies from which we have older children, we find a clear shift around 5 years of age, with children spending the majority of their time with other children. We also coded the presence or absence of a primary caregiver and found that caregivers remained within 2 ft of target children until 7 years of age. When they were in the company of a primary caregiver, children older than seven spent the majority of their time more than 2 ft from the caregiver. We found a consistent trend across societies with decreasing focal attention on the child with increasing child age. These findings show remarkable consistency across these societies in children’s interaction opportunities and that a developmental approach is needed to fully understand human development because the social context is dynamic across the lifespan. These data can serve as a springboard for future research examining social development in everyday contexts. (shrink)

Since Darwin, there has been a long and arduous struggle to understand the source and maintenance of natural genetic variation and its relationship to phenotype. The reason that this task is so difficult is that it requires integration of detailed, and as yet incomplete, knowledge from several biological disciplines, including evolutionary, population, and developmental genetics. In this ‘post‐genomic’ era, it is relatively easy to identify differences in the DNA sequence between individuals. However, the task remains to delineate how this abundant (...) genetic diversity actually contributes to phenotypic diversity. This necessitates tackling the problem of hidden genetic variation. Genetic polymorphisms can be conditionally cryptic, but have the potential to contribute to phenotypic variation in particular genetic backgrounds or under specific environmental conditions. A recent paper by Lauter and Doebley highlights the contribution of hidden genetic variation to traits characterizing the morphological evolution of modern maize from its wild grass‐like progenitor teosinte.1 This work is the first to demonstrate hidden variance for selected (agronomically ‘adaptive’) traits in a well‐characterized model for morphological evolution. BioEssays 24:685–689, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The development of the Functional Genomics Investigation Ontology (FuGO) is a collaborative, international effort that will provide a resource for annotating functional genomics investigations, including the study design, protocols and instrumentation used, the data generated and the types of analysis performed on the data. FuGO will contain both terms that are universal to all functional genomics investigations and those that are domain specific. In this way, the ontology will serve as the “semantic glue” to provide a common understanding of data (...) from across these disparate data sources. In addition, FuGO will reference out to existing mature ontologies to avoid the need to duplicate these resources, and will do so in such a way as to enable their ease of use in annotation. This project is in the early stages of development; the paper will describe efforts to initiate the project, the scope and organization of the project, the work accomplished to date, and the challenges encountered, as well as future plans. (shrink)

This article describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a complex methotrexate ethics case used in teaching a Pharmacy Law and Ethics course. Qualitative analysis of student reflective writings provided useful insight into the students’ experience and comfort level with the final ethics case in the course. These data demonstrate a greater student appreciation of different perspectives, the potential for conflict in communicating about such cases, and the importance of patient autonomy. Faculty lessons learned are also described, facilitating adoption of (...) this methotrexate ethics case by other healthcare profession educators. (shrink)

Although the participants in the initial situation of justice in John Rawls’ Theory of Justice choose principles of justice only, their choices have implications for other moral concerns. The only check on the self-interest of the participants is that there be unanimous acceptance of the principles. But, since animals are not participants, it is possible that principles will be adopted which confiict with what Rawls calls“duties of compassion and humanity” toward animals. This is a consequence of the initial situation’s assumption (...) that principles of justice can be determined independently of other moral considerations. We question this assumption, and show that satisfactory modifications of Rawls’ initial situation undermine its contractarian basis and require the rejection of exclusively self-interested participants. (shrink)

Although the participants in the initial situation of justice in John Rawls’ Theory of Justice choose principles of justice only, their choices have implications for other moral concerns. The only check on the self-interest of the participants is that there be unanimous acceptance of the principles. But, since animals are not participants, it is possible that principles will be adopted which confiict with what Rawls calls“duties of compassion and humanity” toward animals. This is a consequence of the initial situation’s assumption (...) that principles of justice can be determined independently of other moral considerations. We question this assumption, and show that satisfactory modifications of Rawls’ initial situation undermine its contractarian basis and require the rejection of exclusively self-interested participants. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Western Michigan University’s Center for the Study of Ethics in Society has always had a “generalist” approach—that is to say, an interdisciplinary orientation toward studying a broad range of ethical issues. This article explains how the center’s “generalist” orientation developed and why it is desirable for promoting public reflection about ethical issues. It focuses on these dimensions: valuing an across-the-curriculum approach to promote understanding of complex ethical issues; adopting a broad, rather than narrow focus, when it comes to ethics; committing (...) to practical ethics, which bridges theory and practice to shed light on issues of practical relevance to all; and decentering philosophy as the arbiter for what counts as “doing ethics.” The article ends with a look at challenges concerning stable funding and administrative support for a center that does not fit neatly into a single academic unit or specialty and shares some lessons learned. (shrink)

This article is an ethnographic analysis of the mutuality that is possible in relationships between caregivers and women with intellectual disabilities who live together in L'Arche homes. Creating mutuality through which both parties grow and exercise agency requires that caregivers learn to negotiate delicate power relations connected to the physics of care and to reframe dominant stereotypes of disability. This helps them to support the women with intellectual disabilities to name and achieve their desires.

: This article is an ethnographic analysis of the mutuality that is possible in relationships between caregivers and women with intellectual disabilities who live together in L'Arche homes. Creating mutuality through which both parties grow and exercise agency requires that caregivers learn to negotiate delicate power relations connected to the physics of care and to reframe dominant stereotypes of disability. This helps them to support the women with intellectual disabilities to name and achieve their desires.

This is the first volume dedicated solely to the topic of epistemological disjunctivism. The original essays in this volume, written by leading and up-and-coming scholars on the topic, are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of chapters addresses the historical background of epistemological disjunctivism. It features essays on ancient epistemology, Immanuel Kant, J.L. Austin, Edmund Husserl, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The second section tackles a number contemporary issues related to epistemological disjunctivism, including its relationship with perceptual disjunctivism, radical skepticism, (...) and reasons for belief. Finally, the third group of essays extends the framework of epistemological disjunctivism to other forms of knowledge, such as testimonial knowledge, knowledge of other minds, and self-knowledge. Epistemological Disjunctivism is a timely collection that engages with an increasingly important topic in philosophy. It will appeal to researches and graduate students working in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of perception. (shrink)

In Europe ≈15,000 patients receive larval therapy for wound treatment annually. Over the past few years, clinical studies have demonstrated the success of larvae of Lucilia sericata as debridement agents. This is based on a combination of physical and biochemical actions. Laboratory investigations have advanced our understanding of the biochemical mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of larval secretions, including removal of dead tissue, reduction of the bacterial burden, and promotion of tissue regeneration. The present article summarizes our current understanding of (...) the microbiological, immunological, and wound healing actions of larval therapy, and the molecules involved in these beneficial effects. Future studies will focus on the isolation, identification, and (pre)clinical testing of the effective molecules of L. sericata larvae. These molecules may be candidates for the development of new agents for the treatment of several infectious and inflammatory diseases, including chronic wounds. (shrink)

Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call "religious" so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Revised and updated in this second edition, Eight Theories of Religion considers how these fundamental questions have engaged the most important thinkers of the modern era. Accessible, systematic, and succinct, the text examines the classic interpretations (...) of religion advanced by theorists who have left a major imprint on the intellectual culture of the twentieth century. The second edition features a new chapter on Max Weber, a revised introduction, and a revised, expanded conclusion that traces the paths of further inquiry and interpretation traveled by theorists in the most recent decades.Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, begins with Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer--two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It then considers the great "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, all of whom have exercised wide influence up to the present day. The discussion goes on to examine the leading challenges to reductionism as articulated by sociologist Max Weber and Romanian-American comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, it explores the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. Each chapter offers biographical background, theoretical exposition, conceptual analysis, and critical assessment. This common format allows for close comparison and careful evaluation throughout. Ideal for use as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the central text in sociology of religion and courses centered on the explanation and interpretation of religion, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject. (shrink)

Intellectualists about knowledge-how state that knowledgehow is a kind of propositional knowledge. Anti-intellectualists try to show that there are cases where the agent has knowledge-how without knowing-that. This paper focuses on recent anti-intellectualists’ arguments by Carter and Pritchard. I argue that Carter and Pritchard’s arguments are not well succeeded and that, if we apply virtue epistemology to this debate, we can conclude that knowledge-how shares the same epistemic properties as propositional knowledge. If this is correct, we can say (...) that knowledge-how is a kind of propositional knowledge and intellectualism is safe again. (shrink)

Pritchard defends virtue epistemology from epistemic situationism by appealing to the notion of epistemic dependence: if knowledge acquisition is sometimes allowed to depend on factors outside the cognitive agency of the subject, then this modest form of virtue epistemology escapes the threat of the situationist challenge. This lowering of the threshold of cognitive agency required for knowledge raises the question of how to demarcate between acquisitions of true belief influenced by situational factors that count as knowledge, and those that (...) do not. I fill this gap by proposing that the dependence of knowledge acquisition on external factors comes in degrees, which allows us to look for a right degree of epistemic dependence such that it both agrees with the situationist research and preserves the normative appeal of virtue epistemology. (shrink)

Pada 11 Oktober 2012 Gereja Katolik merayakan 50 tahun dibukanya Konsili Vatikan II. Namun demikian, 16 dokumen yang dihasilkan selama Konsili itu berlangsung (11 Oktober 1962-7 Desember 1965) belum dikenal oleh semua umat Katolik. Bahkan ada tidak sedikit umat Katolik yang belum pernah melihat dokumen-dokumen tersebut. Ada pula yang mengatakan bahwa kendati sudah membacanya, namun merasakan sangat sulit untuk memahaminya. Ada pula yang ketika melihat buku tebal yang memuat dokumen-dokumen tersebut langsung merasa terintimidasi dan ketakutan (intimadated), lalu tidak berani membukanya. (...) Sudah ada berbagai macam upaya untuk menyampaikan isi dan semangat dari Konsili Vatikan II kepada seluruh anggota Gereja Katolik. Salah satu cara adalah menerbitkan buku untuk mengulas isi dokumen-dokumen tersebut. Salah satu dari sekian banyak buku yang pantas dibaca adalah karya Maureen Sulivan, seorang assistant professor ilmu Teologi di Saint Anselm College, Manchester, New Hapshire, Amerika Serikat. Buku yang ditulis dalam bentuk tanya jawab ini dibagi menjadi 9 bab. Bab 1 berbicara mengenai “Pengumuman” diadakannya Konsili yang menggemparkan para pemimpin Gereja, khususnya anggota Dewan Kardinal dan Kuria di Vatikan, yang merasa bahwa Konsili tidak diperlukan. Dalam bab ini dibicarakan tentang arti dari Konsili yang disebut sebagai ekumenis dan pastoral, alasan perlu diadakannya Konsili, persiapan yang dibutuhkan, serta tujuan yang ingin dicapai dengan diadakannya Konsili Vatikan II. Secara khusus disebutkan peran almarhum Paus Johanes XXIII, yang ketika mengumumkan untuk mengadakan Konsili, beliau baru tiga bulan diangkat menjadi Paus. Lewat Konsili ini beliau menginginkan agar Gereja mampu menemukan cara agar iman Kristiani dapat disampaikan kepada dunia dan dimengerti oleh dunia. Demi tujuan itu Gereja perlu “membuka jendela” agar “angin segar memasuki dirinya (hlm. 29).” Gereja perlu melakukan aggiornemento, pembaruan diri. Bab 2 mengulas mengenai orang-orang yang berperan dalam KonsiliVatikan II, ketegangan-ketegangan yang muncul antara mereka yang ingin mengadakan pembaruan dengan mereka yang ingin mempertahankan status quo Gereja, serta peran media massa. Selain sekitar 2200 peserta (Kardinal, Uskup, dan Abas), juga terdapat ratusan teolog yang berperan sebagai penasihat bagi para peserta Konsili (periti), antara lain dengan memberikan seminar-seminar mengenai topik-topik teologis kepada para peserta Konsili (hlm. 35-36). Selain itu juga terdapat para pengamat dari Gereja Ortodoks, Gereja-gereja Protestan main streams (Lutheran, Episkopalian, Anglikan, Metodis, Presbyteran, dan Quakers), dan Yudaisme. Hadirnya para pengamat dari kalangan khusus ini merupakan sesuatu yang baru dan revolusioner dalam Konsili. Secara khusus ditampilkan seorang tokoh pembaru: Kardinal Bea, ketua Sekretariat untuk Kesatuan Umat Kristiani. Ia begitu dikenal dengan ucapannya yang sangat menggemparkan di depan para wartawan: “Members of the other Christian Churches who are living today never ’left’ the Church. So they cannot ‘return,’ can they? We are talking about going together, hand in hand, toward a new future” (hlm. 33). Tokoh pembaru lain adalah Kardinal Achile Liénart, seorang Kardinal senior dari Prancis, yang pada hari ketiga Konsili menolak untuk memilih dari daftar nama yang sudah disiapkan (kebanyakan adalah anggota Kuria) untuk menjadi ketua dari 10 komisi yang akan mengendalikan agenda Konsili. Ia mengusulkan supaya para peserta Konsili memilih orang-orangnya sendiri. Usulan ini didukung oleh Kardinal Josef Fring dari Jerman, dan kemudian diterima oleh semua perserta Konsili. Tokoh pembaru lain adalah Kardinal Jan Alfrink dari Belanda, dan Kardinal Leo Josef Suenens dari Belgia (hlm. 38-38). Di pihak lain, ada tokoh sangat konservatif yang mencoba menghambat jalannya Konsili: Kardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, seorang anggota Kuria dan ketua The Holy Office (sekarang dikenal sebagi Kogregasi untuk Ajaran Iman), yang terkenal dengan ucapannya “Semper idem” (Selalu sama). Ia antara lain melawan hadirnya para pengamat dalam Konsili (hlm. 33), mencoba melarang kuliah-kuliah yang diberikan kepada para peserta Konsili oleh para Yesuit dari Institut Biblis di Roma, bahkan meminta Paus Yohanes XXIII untuk mengusir teolog Yesuit, Karl Rahner dari Roma, yang tentu saja ditolak oleh Paus (hlm. 35). Ia menolak penggunaan bahasa-bahasa lokal untuk Misa, yang intinya adalah pemindahan kekuasaan dari hierarki kepada Umat (hlm. 43), menghambat disahkannya kolegialitas para Uskup dan menandaskan bahwa Komisi Teologi yang ia pimpin memiliki otoritas di atas Konsili (hlm. 55). Dalam bab ini juga disebutkan hal yang baru dalam Konsili ini adalah hadirnya para wartawan dari pelbagai media massa dari seluruh dunia........................................... Sebagai penutup, dalam bab 9, Sullivan menegaskan bahwa ada dua hal yang benar-benar perlu diperhatikan untuk zaman ini sebagai agenda yang belum selesai dari Konsili Vatikan II: kolegialitas (relasi atara Paus dan Uskup) dan peran kaum perempuan dalam Gereja. Akhirnya, pada awal abad ke-21 ini Sullivan mengajak kita semua untuk bertanya: Apakah Gereja kita sungguh-sungguh dapat menjawab tantangan-tantangan pada zaman ini?; Apakah Gereja kita dapat membuat pesan Injil relevan untuk zaman ini?; Apakah Gereja kita dapat membangkitkan entusisme baru yang dapat membangun sebuah generasi baru?; Apakah Gereja dapat meredakan berbagai macam ketegangan yang akhir-akhir ini menggoncang “bahtera Petrus?” Dengan bijak Sullivan mengatakan bahwa kita perlu terus berharap, dan harapan itu akan menjadi semakin produktif kalau kita selalu berpegang pada nasihat almarhum Yohanes XXIII: “Untuk hal-hal yang mendasar, kesatuan; untuk hal-hal yang meragukan, kebebasan; dan untuk segala sesuatu, cinta kasih” (hlm. 124). Buku ini sangat komprehensif mengulas Konsili Vatikan II dan disampaikan dengan bahasa yang sederhana. Buku ini sangat membantu para pembaca karena dilengkapi dengan daftar isi yang mendetil, daftar semua dokumen yang dihasilkan oleh Konsili Vatikan II beserta dengan waktu promulgasinya, daftar istilah-istilah yang penting berkaitan dengan Konsili Vatikan II, serta indeks subjek. Semoga dengan membaca buku ini para pembaca terdorong untuk membuka dan menemukan pesan-pesan penting dari dokumen-dokumen Konsili Vatikan II. (Ignatius Madya Utama, Program Studi Ilmu Teologi, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

What is religion? How did it originate? How does it operate? How can it be explained? Introducing Religion: Readings from the Classic Theorists presents the key writings of eleven theorists that explain the phenomenon of religion - its origin, historical growth, and world-wide variations - without relying on the authority of the Bible or the articles of dogma. With the hope of uncovering core principles, these influential theorists sought to understand and to discover what makes peoplefrom a variety of cultures (...) believe and behave as they do when it comes to religion. An ideal companion to Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, also by Daniel L. Pals, which shares its organization, Introducing Religion begins with a look at the ideas of Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer - two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It continues with the "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, still very much alive in current debates. Countering these approaches are the writings of philosopher-psychologist William James, theologian Rudolf Otto, sociologist Max Weber, and comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, the book ends with the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. (shrink)

Moral sensitivity affects whether and how we see others, note moral concerns, respond with delicacy, and navigate complex social interactions. Scholars from a variety of fields explore the concept of moral sensitivity and how it develops, beginning with a natural moral capacity for sensitivity towards others that is shaped in a variety of ways through relationships, forms of teaching, and social institutions. Each of these influences alters the capacity as well as one’s responses in complex ways. The concept of moral (...) sensitivity deepens as progressive chapters demonstrate its increasing complexity through development within individuals, over time, as they mature, and as their relationships and social contexts expand. The chapters integrate research from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, literature, education, and media and technology studies, with key chapters by Darcia Narváez, Nancy E. Snow, Michael S. Pritchard, and Stephen J. Thoma and a Foreword by Owen Flanagan. It is the only comprehensive presentation of interdisciplinary work on moral sensitivity that integrates a theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical analysis. This highly interdisciplinary approach provides a new way of thinking about the relationship of individuals to society and moral sensitivity as a social phenomenon, extending current research in ethics, moral psychology, and psychology toward situated, embodied, and contextual analyses. (shrink)

Extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 51-57. Dans son grand livre Les Nuer, Evans-Pritchard apporte tout un ensemble de matériaux qui permettent de porter encore un peu plus loin notre réflexion sur les rythmes de l'individuation. Grâce à lui, nous disposons du portrait psycho-sociologique d'une population archaïque établi par une observation de terrain. Or, le résultat est saisissant. Mauss avait déjà montré que l'idée traditionnelle au XIXe siècle – - Anthropologie.

Contextualising the seemingly esoteric and exotic aspects of Tibetan Buddhist culture within the everyday, embodied and sensual sphere of religious praxis, this book centres on the social and religious lives of deceased Tibetan Buddhist lamas. It explores how posterior forms - corpses, relics, reincarnations and hagiographical representations - extend a lama's trajectory of lives and manipulate biological imperatives of birth, aging and death. The book looks closely at previously unexamined figures whose history is relevant to a better understanding of how (...) Tibetan culture navigates its own understanding of reincarnation, the veneration of relics, and different social roles of different types of practitioners. It analyses both the minutiae of everyday interrelations between lamas and their devotees, specifically noted in ritual performances and the enactment of lived tradition, as well as the sacred hagiographical conventions that underpin local knowledge. A phenomenology of Tibetan Buddhist life, the book provides an ethnography and insight of the embodiment of Tibetan Buddhism in everyday life. This unusual approach offers a valuable and a genuine new perspective on Tibetan Buddhist culture, and is of interest to researchers in the fields of social/cultural anthropology, religious, Buddhist and Tibetan studies. (shrink)

Each time we take a turn in conversation we indicate what we know and what we think others know. However, knowledge is neither static nor absolute. It is shaped by those we interact with and governed by social norms - we monitor one another for whether we are fulfilling our rights and responsibilities with respect to knowledge, and for who has relatively more rights to assert knowledge over some state of affairs. This book brings together an international team of leading (...) linguists, sociologists and anthropologists working across a range of European and Asian languages to document some of the ways in which speakers manage the moral domain of knowledge in conversation. The volume demonstrates that if we are to understand how speakers manage issues of agreement, affiliation and alignment - something clearly at the heart of human sociality - we must understand the social norms surrounding epistemic access, primacy and responsibilities. (shrink)

For ages, natural disasters, war and disease have been part of life, sharing themes of not only adversity, fear and death, but also hope. The year 2020 brought a new threat in the form of coronavirus disease 2019, which challenged what humankind understood of all they knew and believed. The significant difference today is the role of the media in sharing news and opinions on this disease that threatens not only lives, but also spiritual well-being. In this study, we focus (...) on people’s religious views on the origin and meaning of this invisible threat to establish how this pandemic impacts on people’s belief systems. The 20th century was marked by a shift whereby actions and events are intellectualised to rationalise cause and effect, and the philosophical theodicies are regarded to limit our critical reasoning. This study, however, shows that COVID-19 reactivates this debate in that it surpasses logic and rational thinking. Data are collected by means of comments, discussions and opinions shared on numerous social media platforms. During times of adversity, the same rhetorical ‘who’ and ‘why’ questions are asked and in this regard, theodicy as a philosophical framework informs this study. Applying a narrative inquiry, data are interpreted and three themes are identified, namely COVID-19 is an act God, COVID-19 has nothing to do with God and God remains in control amidst a devastating pandemic. The sample for this study is random and the medium used allows for representativity in terms of age group, gender, race, religious affiliation of South Africa, but not limited to this country.Contribution: This article provides insight into renewed debates on religious views on pandemics and suffering in the context of COVID-19. It contributes to an understanding of different perceptions on the origin of this disease, how people make sense and find meaning in being part of a global discourse. (shrink)

This study compares 20 subjects, in each of three different settings, with serious psychotic disorder who hear voices, and compares their voice-hearing experience. We find that while there is much that is similar, there are notable differences in the kinds of voices that people seem to experience. In a California sample, people were more likely to describe their voices as intrusive unreal thoughts; in the South Indian sample, they were more likely to describe them as providing useful guidance; and in (...) our West African sample, they were more likely to describe them as morally good and causally powerful. What we think we may be observing is that people who fall ill with serious psychotic disorder pay selective attention to a constant stream of many different auditory and quasi-auditory events because of different “cultural invitations”—variations in ways of thinking about minds, persons, spirits and so forth. Such a process is consistent with processes described in the cognitive psychology and psychiatric anthropology literature, but not yet described or understood with respect to cultural variations in auditory hallucinations. We call this process “social kindling.”. (shrink)

IntroductionThis study reports the findings on how Child life specialists implemented an innovative approach to providing therapeutic support to pediatric patients.MethodsPart of a larger study that uncovered themes about CLSs’ experiences while working with MEDi®, this study reports the reflections that CLSs have about the process of implementation. Seven CLSs participated in semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was conducted on interview data and three themes were generated.ResultsThe first was in regards to the adoption process whereby CLS challenges, successes, and surprises were (...) revealed. Second, CLSs explained how using MEDi® aligned with the roles and responsibilities of their profession. The third area of understanding was in CLS explanation of the friendly emotional impact MEDi® seems to have on the hospital environment.ConclusionChild life specialists are encouraged to use the MEDi® robot to support children at the bedside. (shrink)

This paper provides a roadmap for engaging in cross-cultural, developmental research in practical, ethical, and community-engaged ways. To cultivate the flexibility necessary for conducting cross-cultural research, we structure our roadmap as a series of questions that each research program might consider prior to embarking on cross-cultural examinations in developmental science. Within each topic, we focus on the challenges and opportunities inherent to different types of study designs, fieldwork, and collaborations because our collective experience in conducting research in multiple cultural contexts (...) has taught us that there can be no single “best practice”. Here we identify the challenges that are unique to cross-cultural research as well as present a series of recommendations and guidelines. We also bring to the forefront ethical considerations which are rarely encountered in the laboratory context, but which researchers face daily while conducting research in a cultural context which one is not a member. As each research context requires unique solutions to these recurring challenges, we urge researchers to use this set of questions as a starting point, and to expand and tailor the questions and potential solutions with community members to support their own research design or cultural context. This will allow us to move the field towards more inclusive and ethical research practices. (shrink)