This paper considers Chinese Communist Party policies in Tibet from Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist perspectives. I first explain how these three traditions are unified in the sanjiao heyi, but I contend that this practice has been neglected in favor of state repression. I then elucidate Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism with respect to their general principles and application in Tibet. I conclude that a fuller embrace of the sanjiao heyi where Confucian tenets are balanced by insights from Daoism and Buddhism would (...) cultivate an anti-oppressive response to governmental control. (shrink)

To what extent is any individual morally obligated to live environmentally sustainably? In answering this, I reject views I see as constituting two extremes. On one, it depends entirely on whether there exists a collective agreement; and if no such agreement exists, no one is obligated to reduce her/his consumption or pollution unilaterally. On the other, the lack of a collective agreement is morally irrelevant, and regardless of what others are doing, each person is obligated to limit her/his pollution and (...) consumption to a level that would be sustainable if everyone were to act in this way. I argue that the truth is somewhere between these, but that a very precise specification of the extent of one's responsibility is impossible. Roughly, what can be said is that each individual ought constantly to strive to do more than she/he does currently and to push her/himself into new, uncomfortable territory, though no one is obligated to martyr her/himself for an environmental cause. (shrink)

This study examines how and why peoples of African descent access and utilize community-based pedagogical spaces that exist outside schools. Employing a theoretical framework that fuses historical methodology and border-crossing theory, the researchers review existing scholarship and primary documents to present an historical examination of how peoples of African descent have fought for and redefined education in nonschool educative venues. These findings inform the authors? analysis of results from an oral history project they conducted into how Black Bermudian men utilized (...) learning spaces outside schools, such as the family, Black church, and athletics clubs, to augment their personal and scholastic development. Based on their historical and empirical research findings, the authors argue that educational actors (including teachers, administrators, policy makers, and researchers) focused on school-based issues like the academic achievement gap would do well to recognize the impact learning spaces outside of schools may have on student scholastic success, particularly for minority men. (shrink)

Recent attempts to view personal love as a response to value fail to capture the lover's distinctive compulsion to intimacy with the beloved. Their common mistake is to hold that the grounding value of love must be other than the beloved person herself. This view condemns theorists to describe an attachment comparatively impersonal and undiscerning. The present paper argues that the beloved person is the object of love, particularly when she is regarded in light of her virtues. Virtues are aspects (...) of character that embody the unique value of the person they help constitute and cannot be valued appreciably apart from her. One person can love another for her virtues, indeed for the goodness that lies within them without loving her for something that someone else could instantiate. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that indigenous men in the Pacific engage in gender practices that historically have had widely different consequences for their positions of power or marginality. I focus my analysis on the production of modern Polynesian masculinities in Hawai'i and Aotearoa (New Zealand), highlighting the importance of the intersection of European and American colonialism(s) with indigenous forms of social organization. I look specifically at the participation of indigenous men in the military and sports, two of the most (...) important sites for the production of masculinities where indigenous men contend with hegemonic ideologies of gender and culture. I end with some critical reflections on the possibilities and limitations of reviving traditional indigenous masculinities in decolonization movements in Hawai'i and Aotearoa. (shrink)

This article attempts to think historically about the relationship between nationalism and same-sex sexuality in Proust's novel and in readers’ responses to the novel from the time of its publication to the present. The article uses a column written on the first part of Sodome et Gomorrhe by nationalist literary critic and author Binet-Valmer in 1921 in order to illuminate some of the sexual and political contexts of Proust's representation of same-sex sexuality. It then turns to two twenty-first-century uses of (...) Proust by right-wing thinkers to theorize a particularly French, anti-communitarian, anti-politically correct form of homosexuality. Ultimately, these examples demonstrate that there is no one relationship between same-sex sexuality and nationalism or the national community; rather, same-sex sexuality often serves as a convenient tool for defining the national community and its outsiders, in a wide variety of ways that move beyond a simple equivalency between outlaw and gay. (shrink)

This essay considers the question of conversion unto repentance, as an act of cognition and volition, by the separated soul in the post‐mortem state. It primarily explicates and interrogates Thomas Aquinas's various attempts to rule out this possibility for the damned. Since Thomas's arguments for such impossibility feature his commitment to the radical immateriality of the human soul—and, like it, the angelic spirit—the essay highlights the ontological and moral tensions within that account. The case is thus made for the ontological, (...) logical, and moral inconsistencies of his position, in pursuit of a more holistic anthropology across the soul's various states and a more rationally and coherent eschatology—namely, an affirmation of the irreducible mutability of the created soul on its way towards likeness to God, perhaps, if not certainly, towards universal salvation. (shrink)

This essay considers distinct ways of understanding these complexities, specifically by reference to the anthropological and metaphysical thought of St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ understanding of human knowledge and volition and desire are interpreted in light of his commitments concerning doctrine of God, read through his systematic correction of a broadly “Origenist” aversion to metaphysical motion.

This essay considers distinct ways of understanding these complexities, specifically by reference to the anthropological and metaphysical thought of St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ understanding of human knowledge and volition and desire are interpreted in light of his commitments concerning doctrine of God, read through his systematic correction of a broadly “Origenist” aversion to metaphysical motion.

Wessling’s treatment of divine love raises several questions for systematic consideration. My goal here is to articulate some of these questions and their rationale insofar as they relate to the Creator-creature distinction. I begin with the nature of “creaturely love,” with its material content and methodological contours in Wessling’s account. Then I move to questions about the Creator’s love with regard to divine aseity. Finally, I ask about the Creator’s relationship to creatures in the hypostatic union of the Son with (...) a human nature. (shrink)

In the First Discourse, Rousseau complains that modern morals encourage us to think of ourselves in an impersonal and hygienic manner, and to present ourselves in public space as dimensionless members of society. Submission to modern morals encourages conformism, Rousseau argues, and conformism precludes us from having selves of the sort upon which moral freedom depends. In this paper, I argue that Rousseau’s vision of the redemptive promise of amour-propre should be understood in light of his concern to reverse the (...) existential catastrophe of conformism and to precipitate a social climate more hospitable to self-creation. This concern informs the moral purpose of Rousseau’s austerely republican societies, and it determines the role of amour-propre in animating the best citizens. Recent interpretive trends give too little scope to the indicated concern. In consequence, they obscure one of the richest dimensions of Rousseau’s social theory. (shrink)

In the wake of Aristotle, it is often thought that moral virtue is a matter of feeling and acting for the right reasons. This notion is not incorrect, but it obscures one of the most interesting dimensions of virtue. It overlooks the formative role that virtue can play in bringing forth the kinds of considerations that count as reasons. To illustrate this point, I discuss some instances of love and resentment that are not plausibly conceived as responses to reasons, but (...) which exemplify virtue nonetheless. They do so, I argue, because they positively assert human worth. (shrink)

That some animals need to prey on others in order to live is lamentable. While no one wants predators to die of starvation, a world in which no animal needed to prey on others would, in some meaningful sense, be a better world. Predation is lamentable for four primary reasons: predation often inflicts pain on prey animals; it often frustrates prey animals’ desires; anything other than lamentation—which would include relishing predation as well as being indifferent to it—is in tension with (...) sensitivity to many other forms of hardship and suffering; and lamenting is demanded by the virtues of compassion and gentleness. One can lament predation even while acknowledging respects in which predation is genuinely praiseworthy. One can esteem admirable traits developed through and displayed in predation without esteeming the mechanism through which they are developed or the activity in which they are displayed. In addition, appreciating the check on population that predation provides does not preclude lamenting predation. While holding these positions does involve opposing nature itself and failing to appreciate predators for exactly what they are, doing so does not disqualify a person as an environmentalist. Finally, one can lament predation without being logically committed thereby to preventing or disrupting it. (shrink)

This paper defends two main claims. First: although it is easy to lose sight of this, what cost-benefit analysis really demands, in order to approve of a prospective policy, is that it be possible for those who would gain through the policy change to compensate those who would lose through it. And second: in cases where a policy change does, or can reasonably be expected to, lead to someone's death, the demand of compensability is much harder to satisfy than economists (...) typically think. More specifically, their standard move—maintaining that compensability should be judged ex ante, and that it is thus really just risk of death, not death itself, that must be (and often is) compensable—is unsuccessful. Then, the implications of these claims are briefly explored. (shrink)

Channeling affinities with certain motifs of Daoism, Walter Benjamin renews a form of dialectical thought that diffuses ideological notions of progress and grants minimal weight to the ontological distinction of the Subject. In fleeting yet pivotal moments of contact with Chinese aesthetics, Benjamin moves attention toward the practice of ‘thinking by way of resemblance’ – a phenomenon he variously enacts. Calling forth resonances within late-capitalist modernity, he retrieves from Daoist literature a notion of dialectical reversal freed from progressive synthesis, as (...) well as image-repertoires of self-forgetting, which he understands to be irreducible to reification. The Daoist imaginary offers Benjamin resources for breaking open the anthropocentric closure of Hellenic accounts of mimesis. He theorizes similitude more capaciously as something that can flash up across temporally discontinuous phenomena – without deferring to predetermined categories of Being. Benjamin thus recasts resemblance – regarded by Enlightenment rationality as an impoverished mode of cognition – as a medium of historical apprehension that resists the occlusion of transience by the ontology of the victors. (shrink)

Cet article propose la critique d’un concept relativement nouveau en jeu dans la détention et l’exclusion des migrants « irréguliers », à savoir que l’État-nation a une « capacité d’accueil » limitée et objective quant à l’accueil des étrangers – une capacité qui, lorsqu’elle est dépassée, justifie une défense militarisée. Distincte des rationalités gouvernementales plus explicitement racistes qui ont sous-tendu les premiers quotas d’immigration aux États-Unis, la notion de « capacité d’accueil » nationale a une logique propre dans laquelle écologie (...) et économie sont rendues fatalement inextricables. L’expression « charge maximale » d’un territoire donné s’est développée dans le contexte de l’environnementalisme américain comme moyen de régulation des populations de gibier non humain et s’est ensuite transformée en un langage pour évaluer le potentiel des marchés émergents. La théorie de Freud sur les blessures psychiques commence par postuler par contre une « capacité de réception » infinie [Aufnahmefähigkeit] propre au système perceptif humain – une capacité illimitée à accueillir ce qui est extérieur, qui est à la fois la condition d’origine de la vie incarnée et ce qui doit être géré et régulé pour survivre. Les spéculations de Freud dans Au-delà du principe de plaisir aident à dissoudre une conception mythopoétique de la Vie qui est depuis devenue centrale dans l’imaginaire racial anti-immigrant. (shrink)

BackgroundTrait anxiety is a pervasive tendency to attend to and experience fears and worries to a disproportionate degree, across various situations. Decreased vulnerability to trait anxiety has been linked to having higher working memory capacity and better emotion regulation; however, the relationship between these factors has not been well-established.ObjectiveThis study sought to determine if participants who undergo emotional working memory training will have significantly lower trait anxiety post-training. The study also sought to determine if emotion regulation mediated the relationship between (...) working memory training and trait anxiety.MethodAn experimental group comprising of 49 participants underwent 20 days of computerized emotional working memory training, which involved viewing a continuous stream of emotionally-charged content on a grid, and then remembering the location and color of items presented on the grid. The control group comprised of 51 participants.ResultsParticipants of the experimental group had significantly lower trait anxiety compared to controls, post-training. Subsequent mediation analysis determined that working memory training capacity gains were significantly related to anxiety reduction as measured by form Y2 of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Emotion regulation, as measured by the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, was found not to mediate between working memory capacity gains and trait anxiety reduction.ConclusionWorking memory capacity gains and reductions in levels of trait anxiety were observed following emotional working memory training. The study may therefore be useful in informing interventions targeted at improving working memory capacity, and reducing levels of trait anxiety. Moreover, it proposes for future research to further look into the mediating role of emotion regulation via the development or utilization of more comprehensive measures of emotion regulation. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To (...) comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

Although research has examined factors influencing understanding of informed consent in biomedical and forensic research, less is known about participants' attention to details in consent documents in psychological survey research. The present study used a randomized experimental design and found the majority of participants were unable to recall information from the consent form in both in-person and online formats. Participants were also relatively poor at recognizing important aspects of the consent form including risks to participants and confidentiality procedures. Memory effects (...) and individual difference characteristics also appeared to influence recall and recognition of consent form information. (shrink)

I served as a medical student and resident in the 1960s. Science as a belief system had reached a pinnacle. Yet Not infrequently in those days, I found myself caring, with little available backup, for a hospital ward filled with sick and dying people. It was a lonely and often frightening responsibility. I began to encounter situations that were at odds with our collective certainty that science would provide the answers. Some of these memories I repressed for almost a decade. (...) I was unable to process them until I had personally experienced a more humanistic side of medicine. (shrink)

Expert knowledge regularly informs personal and civic-decision making. To decide which experts to trust, lay publics —including policymakers and experts from other domains—use different epistemic and non-epistemic cues. Epistemic cues such as honesty, like when experts are forthcoming about conflicts of interest, are a popular way of understanding how people evaluate and decide which experts to trust. However, many other epistemic cues, like the evidence supporting information from experts, are inaccessible to lay publics. Therefore, lay publics simultaneously use second-order social (...) cues in their environment to inform decisions to trust. These second-order social cues, or ‘social indicators of trust’, prevent lay publics from having to trust blindly. Social indicators of trust therefore inform lay publics’ epistemic vigilance, or constant low level-monitoring of testimony from experts. This special issue examines the nature, acquisition and application of social indicators of trust for scientific experts and institutions. It also raises questions about the types of trust asked of lay publics and challenges traditional normative assumptions about the relationship between science and lay publics through study of attitudes, values, and experiences. The issue descriptively re-examines the structure of institutions, their role and methods for ferrying information, as well as how social indicators operate in times of crisis. In this collection of works, we bridge history, science, philosophy of science, science and technology studies, science communication and social epistemology, to broaden the discourse on trust in experts and more accurately reflect the imperfect yet indispensable endeavour that trusting is. (shrink)

Publics trust experts for personal and pro-social reasons. Scientists are among the experts publics trust most, and so, epistemic trust is routinely afforded to them. The call for epistemic trust to be more socially situated in order to account for the impact of science on society and public welfare is at the forefront of enhanced epistemic trust. I argue that the value-free ideal for science challenges establishing enhanced epistemic trust by preventing the inclusion of non-epistemic values throughout the evaluation of (...) evidence and communication of these values. By selectively silencing non-epistemic values, the ideal cannot take into account publics’ social and moral responses to inductive risk, which are instrumental for defining and determining public welfare. Furthermore, by emphasising epistemic values almost exclusively in science education and communication, the value-free ideal is presented to publics in such a way that it becomes a social indicator of trust. I show this through examination of the importance of values in decisions to trust, and conclude that values (and restrictions on them) can be used by lay publics to help decide which experts to trust. (shrink)

The recent proposal by the Independent Expert Panel of the Stop Ecocide initiative to include the crime of ecocide in the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute has raised expectations for preventing and remedying severe environmental harm through international prosecution. As alluring as this image is, we argue that ecocide prosecutions may be the most difficult, perhaps even impossible, in precisely the cases that the ICC would need to be concerned with; namely, the gravest global incidents of environmental harm, including those (...) associated with planetary climate change. We explore a series of questions about the panel's formulation of ecocide that resonate with longer debates around criminalizing environmental harm but take on new dimensions amid the Anthropocene and after twenty years of ICC trials. Ecocide must contend with the hard lessons learned concerning the ICC's limitations in realizing justice in a fraught international political context and also with fundamental challenges to knowledge and legitimacy arising from the uncertainty and dynamic socioenvironmental context of the Anthropocene. The proposed amendment, if adopted, risks ineffective prosecutions or even perverse outcomes for the environment itself. This risk, however, may characterize any effort to prosecute ecocide internationally in the Anthropocene unless the terms of international criminal law are fundamentally rethought. (shrink)