The Exclusion Argument has afflicted non-reductionists for decades. In this article, I attempt to show that emergentism—the view that mental entities can downwardly cause physical entities in a non-overdetermining way—is the most plausible approach to solving the exclusion problem. The emergentist approach is largely absent in contemporary philosophy of mind, because emergentism rejects the Causal Closure of Physics, a doctrine embraced by almost all physicalists. This article, however, challenges the consensus on causal closure and defends a physicalist version of emergentism. (...) On closer examination, I find that neither physical evidence nor physicalist considerations can satisfactorily support causal closure. Moreover, I argue that two competing approaches that accept causal closure, compatibilism and autonomism, involve ad hoc postulations of mental causation. Therefore, all things considered, emergentism is the best option available to non-reductive physicalists. (shrink)

A growing number of philosophers are bringing interventionism into the field of supervenient causation. Many argue that interventionist supervenient causation is exempted from the fixability condition. However, this approach looks ad hoc, inconsistent with the general interventionist requirement on fixation. Moreover, it leads to false judgments about the causal efficacy of supervenient/subvenient properties. This article aims to develop a novel interventionist account of supervenient causation that respects the fixability requirement. The treatment of intervention and fixation that I propose can accommodate (...) some theoretical constraints on causation and deliver correct causal verdicts in classic examples. It is also worth noting that this interventionist account offers a promising defense of mental causation without postulating mental-physical overdetermination. (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument, which aims to deny the causal efficacy of irreducible mental properties, is probably the most serious challenge to non-reductive physicalism. Many proposed solutions to the exclusion problem can only reject simplified exclusion arguments, but fail to block a sophisticated version I introduce. In this paper, I attempt to show that we can refute the sophisticated exclusion argument by appeal to a sophisticated understanding of causation, what I call the 'Dual-condition Conception of Causation'. Specifically, I argue that the (...) dual-condition account of causation gives strong support to the so-called 'Autonomy Solution', which contends that even if mental properties are unable to cause (fundamental) physical properties, they can still cause higher-level properties (such as mental, behavioral, and social properties)—if so, human agency would be preserved in the physical world. (shrink)

According to social learning theory, we explored the relation between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. We developed a moderated mediation model of the psychological safety linking ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. Surveying 436 employees in 78 teams, we found that ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, and that this relation was mediated by psychological safety. We further found that the effect of ethical leadership on knowledge hiding was contingent on a mastery climate. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were (...) discussed for leadership and knowledge management. (shrink)

Research based on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) argues that firms will actively adopt strategic actions to respond to performance that falls below aspirations, that is performance shortfalls. However, most previous studies have focused on market-related strategic actions, paying less attention to the impact of performance shortfalls on non-market-related strategic actions, especially corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). In this study, we propose that firms facing performance shortfalls are likely to reduce CSR levels and increase (...) CSI levels. In addition, we also propose that board characteristics (board size, board age and board tenure) have a significant moderating effect on the above relationship. Empirical analyses based on an unbalanced panel data of China's listed firms from 2010 to 2018 show that our arguments are largely supported. (shrink)

A quite popular approach to solving the Causal Exclusion Problem is to adopt a counterfactual theory of causation. In this paper, I distinguish three versions of the Causal Exclusion Argument. I argue that the counterfactualist approach can block the first two exclusion arguments, because the Causal Inheritance Principle and the Upward Causation Principle upon which the two arguments are based respectively are problematic from the perspective of the counterfactual account of causation. However, I attempt to show that the counterfactualist approach (...) is unable to refute a sophisticated version (i.e. the third version) of the exclusion argument in that the Downward Causation Principle, a premise of the third exclusion argument, is actually implied by the counterfactual theory of causation. Therefore, even if other theories of causation might help the non-reductive physicalist to solve the exclusion problem, the counterfactual theory of causation cannot. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that supervenience is a minimal commitment of physicalism. In this article, however, I aim to argue that physicalism should be exempted from the supervenience requirement. My arguments rely on a parallel between ontological dependence and causal dependence. Since causal dependence does not require causal determination, ontological dependence should not require ontological determination either. Moreover, my approach has a significant theoretical advantage: if physicalism is not committed to supervenience, then the metaphysical possibility of zombies—which is still wide (...) open after all these years—would pose no challenge to physicalism. (shrink)

Although physicalism is a dominant position in contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics, there are surprisingly very few serious arguments for physicalism, which may contribute to the revival of anti-physicalism in recent decades. In this article, I develop a causal argument for physicalism in general, inspired by the causal argument for reductive physicalism. By comparing each pair of premises, I argue that, while the causal argument for reductive physicalism is controversial, the causal argument for physicalism simpliciter is promising.

The dominant way to define physical entities is by appeal to ideal physics (as opposed to current physics). However, it has been worried that physicalism understood in terms of ideal physics would be too liberal to rule out “psychism”, the view that mentality exists at the fundamental metaphysical level. In this article, I argue that whereas physicalism is incompatible with some psychist cases, such as the case of “phenomenalism” in which ideal physics adopts mental concepts to denote fundamental entities, physicalism (...) should accommodate a certain type of psychist case in which fundamental mental entities are denoted by non-mental concepts in ideal physics. In so doing, I propose a distinctive account of physical entities, which asserts that physical entities are entities denoted by non-mental natural concepts in ideal physics. Physicalism thus understood is expected to be neither too liberal nor too demanding. (shrink)

Whether, how and when do leaders engage in ethical leadership as a response to status threat? We propose that leaders facing status threat are likely to develop ethical leadership behaviors toward subordinates. Drawing on power dependence theory, we theorize that experiencing status threat augments leaders’ dependence on subordinates who can provide them with status-relevant resources. Dependence on subordinates further motivates leaders to absorb the resource constraints through displaying ethical leadership. However, if leaders are able to obtain alternative resources to cope (...) with status threat, their dependence on subordinates is weakened. We conducted two studies to test the predictions. Using a moderation-of-process design, Study 1 found that when participants experienced status threat, they displayed more ethical leadership behaviors, but particularly so when their reward structure was team- rather than individual-based. Study 2 was a field study using a sample of 104 teams from two Chinese firms listed in the “Top 500 private enterprises in China.” We found that leaders who experienced more status threat were perceived to be more ethical by their subordinates, which was mediated by leaders’ perceptions of dependence on subordinates. The mediated effect was stronger for leaders who were less skilled in networking. Implications for theory on the contextual factors of ethical leadership, dependence, and status threat are discussed. (shrink)

Semantic normativism, which is the view that semantic properties/concepts are some kind of normative properties/concepts, has become increasingly influential in contemporary meta-semantics. In this paper, I aim to argue that semantic normativism has difficulty accommodating the causal efficacy of semantic properties. In specific, I raise an exclusion problem for semantic normativism, inspired by the exclusion problem in the philosophy of mind. Moreover, I attempt to show that the exclusion problem for semantic normativism is peculiarly troublesome: while we can solve mental-physical (...) exclusion by adopting the so-called ‘autonomy approach’, a similar autonomy solution to semantic exclusion is implausible if semantic properties are understood as normative properties. (shrink)

Many philosophers insist that the most plausible solution to the exclusion problem is to adopt the so-called ‘autonomy approach’, which denies either upward or downward causation between mental and physical properties. But the question of whether the autonomy approach is compatible with respectable theories of causation has seldom been discussed in the literature. This paper considers two influential theories of causation, the counterfactual account and the regularity account. I argue that neither the counterfactual theory nor the regularity theory can support (...) the autonomy approach – while the counterfactual approach fails to block downward causation, the regularity approach is unable to refute upward causation. (shrink)

As an imitation of the biological nervous systems, neural networks, which have been characterized as powerful learning tools, are employed in a wide range of applications, such as control of complex nonlinear systems, optimization, system identification, and patterns recognition. This article aims to bring a brief review of the state-of-the-art NNs for the complex nonlinear systems by summarizing recent progress of NNs in both theory and practical applications. Specifically, this survey also reviews a number of NN based robot control algorithms, (...) including NN based manipulator control, NN based human-robot interaction, and NN based cognitive control. (shrink)

This paper examined the relationship between coaches and youth athletes in China by comparing data collected before and after the lockdown. A total of 221 youth athletes aged 13-19 years in one professional football school completed coach-athlete relationship questionnaires. The rank-sum test was used to verify the differences in the data. The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed that the mean value of the three dimensions of the coach-athlete relationship (closeness, commitment, and complementarity) increased after the COVID-19 lockdown. The (...) results also showed that athletes of different age categories showed different changes in the coach-athlete relationship after the lockdown, and the changes were not significantly related to the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

In this article, I defend a biconditional counterfactual account of causation, which places equal emphasis on what I call “the presence condition” and “the absence condition,” whereas Lewis's classical counterfactual theory focuses only on the absence condition. I attempt to show that biconditionalism provides a promising treatment of supervenient causation, namely, causal cases involving the supervenience relationship. Although some philosophers confuse this account with the proportionality constraint on causation, I argue that biconditionalism is distinct from and superior to proportionalism in (...) accommodating our reliable causal intuitions. (shrink)

In this paper we show that some orthogeometries, i.e. projective geometries each defined using a ternary collinearity relation and equipped with a binary orthogonality relation, which are extensively studied in mathematics and quantum theory, correspond to Kripke frames, each defined using a binary relation, satisfying a few conditions. To be precise, we will define four special kinds of Kripke frames, namely, geometric frames, irreducible geometric frames, complete geometric frames and quantum Kripke frames; and we will show that they correspond to (...) pure orthogeometries, irreducible pure orthogeometries, Hilbertian geometries and irreducible Hilbertian geometries, respectively. The discovery of these correspondences raises interesting research topics and will enrich the study of logic. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

In Zhong (Philos Phenomenol Res 83:129–147, 2011; Analysis 72:75–85, 2012), I argued that, contrary to what many people might expect, the counterfactual theory of causation will generate (rather than solve) the exclusion problem. Recently some philosophers raise an incisive objection to this argument. They contend that my argument fails as it equivocates between different notions of a physical realizer (see Christensen and Kallestrup in Analysis 72:513–517, 2012). However, I find that their criticism doesn’t threaten the central idea of my view. (...) In this paper, I make two separate responses that appeal to two unequivocal notions of physical realizers, respectively. I aim to show that a modified argument that uses either notion would work. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 61-63.

Several theories, both ancient and recent, suggest that having the time to contemplate a decision should increase moral awareness and the likelihood of ethical choices. Our findings indicated just the opposite: greater time for deliberation led to less ethical decisions. Post-hoc analyses and a followup experiment suggested that decision makers act as if their previous choices have created or lost moral credentials: after an ethical first choice, people acted significantly less ethically in their subsequent choice but after an unethical first (...) choice, people acted significantly more ethically in their subsequent choice. These findings provide the basis for a model of compensatory ethics. (shrink)

This article seeks to shed light on civil commitment in the context of the opioid crisis, to sketch the existing legal landscape surrounding civil commitment, and to illustrate the relevant medical, ethical, and legal concerns that policymakers must take into account as they struggle to find appropriate responses to the crisis.

AimTo investigate the status of positive mental characters and humanistic care ability among Chinese nursing students, and confirm the association between positive mental characters and humanistic care ability.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted. Nine hundred eighty-one Chinese nursing students were recruited from hospitals and community healthcare services in Changsha, Hunan, China. Three different self-reported questionnaires were applied: The Demographic Characteristics Questionnaire, Humanistic care ability of Nursing Undergraduates Assessment Scale and Positive Mental Characters Scale for Chinese College Students. Pearson correlation analysis and (...) multiple liner regression analysis were performed to analyze the association between positive mental character and humanistic care ability for Chinese nursing students.ResultsThe mean scores of nursing students' humanistic care ability and positive mental character were 125.94 ± 21.19, 233.18 ± 38.59, respectively. The Pearson correlation results showed that positive mental character was significantly associated with humanistic care ability. Multiple liner regression analysis indicated that positive mental characters, four dimensions of courage, humanity, justice and transcendence in positive mental character, care from classmates were found to be independent predictors of humanistic care ability.ConclusionPositive mental characters are important considerations in the development, implementation and evaluation of humanistic care ability interventions. (shrink)

Whether risk events can be effectively controlled and mitigated is largely influenced by people’s perceptions of risk events and their behavioral cooperation. Therefore, this study used a web-based questionnaire to investigate the specific factors influencing people’s risk perceptions and behaviors, and included a test for the difference in the effect of positive and negative emotions of the audiences. The results show that the overall model has good explanatory power for the behavioral variables, and how people’s use of different media significantly (...) influenced their positive and negative emotions; how people’s frequency of TV use significantly influenced their risk susceptibility and how online media use significantly influenced their risk severity ; how people’s sense of efficacy for risky events is the strongest predictor of their risk control behavior; and that there are different mediating effects of different emotions and risk severity and sense of efficacy between the frequency of media use and risk control behavior. (shrink)

The relationship between analysts' forecasts and corporate fraud is a vital theoretical and practical question that needs to be clarified. Based on a strict distinction between negative performance gaps relative to analyst forecasts (negative forecast gaps hereinafter) and analyst coverage, this study investigates the influence of analyst forecasts on corporate fraud from a panoramic perspective. Using panel data on listed companies in China from 2008 to 2019, we find that short-term performance pressure caused by negative forecast gaps is significantly positively (...) correlated with firms’ possibility for fraudulent behavior. However, this positive correlation is weaker in state-owned enterprises than in their non-state-owned counterparts. Further, as a key external governance mechanism, analyst coverage enhances the negative moderator effect of state ownership on the positive relationship between negative forecast gaps and the likelihood of corporate fraud. (shrink)

Physical literacy has received considerable attention in the field of physical education and physical activity worldwide. According to recent studies, the level of physical fitness among Chinese university students is gradually decreasing. This study aims to examine the impact of the PF level on PA and PL, as well as the relationships among PF, PA, and PL, in Chinese university students. Participants comprised 798 university students in Chongqing, China. Participants completed the tests of vital capacity, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, and (...) flexibility, according to the National Physical Fitness Measurement Standards Manual, as well as questionnaires on PA and PL. The independent t-tests were conducted to examine sex differences in the evaluated variables, and the Pearson’s correlation between each PF test and PL attributes and PA was calculated according to sex. In addition, the independent t-tests were conducted to determine whether the PF level had an effect on PL attributes and PA at various intensities. Significant sex differences were found in the PF domains of vital capacity, muscular strength, and aerobic fitness, with higher scores in men than in women, but not in the PF domain of flexibility and total PL score. Furthermore, the PF domains of muscular strength and aerobic fitness were significantly and positively correlated with the PL attributes of confidence and physical competence in both men and women, while the PF domains of vital capacity and aerobic fitness were significantly and positively correlated with the PL attribute of motivation in men. In addition, PL was significantly and positively associated with cardiorespiratory fitness, vital capacity, muscular strength, and flexibility among participants in the fit group. These findings support advocating for increased participation in PA in university students and using PL as a tool to improve PF components. (shrink)

This study focused on the frequency of social media use. Through investigating and verifying the correlations between social media use frequency, online political participation, and social capital, we derived two models of socialization that affect citizen well-being and, accordingly, proposed strategic suggestions for democratic society construction and network management. This study drew upon the 2019 Taiwan Communication Survey database and used structural equation modeling as a statistical method to explore the causal relationship between these four variables. The data analysis yielded (...) an overall good fit with the overall fit indicators: χ2 = 214.417, df = 84, p = 2.293, RMSEA = 0.028, GFI = 0.998, CFI = 0.986, SRMR = 0.066, and CN = 993.411. Future communication scholars who wish to explore issues related to new media users can draw on this model for subsequent research. (shrink)

Wet markets, a ‘traditional’ form of food retail, have maintained their popularity in urban China despite the rapid expansion of ‘modern’ supermarket chains. Their continued popularity rests in the freshness of their food. Chinese consumers regard freshness as the most important aspect of food they buy, but what constitutes ‘freshness’ in produce is not simply a given. Freshness is actively produced by a range of actors including wholesalers, vendors as well as consumers. The paper examines what fresh food means to (...) consumers in the Chinese market. It argues that wet markets create a sense of freshness that resonates with this culinary culture through their sensoria, atmosphere, and trust between food vendors and consumers. Together these respond to desires for and reproduce criteria used to evaluate freshness. Within a fragmented food trade system, wet market vendors have an advantage in offering ‘freshness’ through their ability to connect various wholesalers, agencies, and middlemen, and shorten supply chains. The paper is based on participatory observation, a consumer survey and in-depth interviews of various stakeholders in southern China, especially Sanya in Hainan and Guangzhou in Guangdong. This study suggests that this cultural construction of freshness creates a niche for small-scale players and ‘traditional’ markets in an increasingly concentrated global food system. (shrink)

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor vision and mission are to improve the people's living standards of Pakistan and China through bilateral investments, trade, cultural exchanges, and economic activities. To achieve this envisioned dream, Pakistan established the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority to further its completion, but Covid-19 slowed it down. This situation compelled the digitalization of CPEC. This article reviews the best practices and success stories of various digitalization and e-governance programs and, in this light, advises the implementation of the Ajman Digital (...) Governance model as a theoretical framework for CPEC digitalization. This article concludes that the Pakistani government needs to transform CPEC digitalization by setting up the CPEC Digitalization and Transformation Center at the CPECA office to attract more investors and businesses. (shrink)

This study investigated whether and how a person's varied series of lexical categories corresponding to different discriminatory characteristics of the same colors affect his or her perception of colors. In three experiments, Chinese participants were primed to categorize four graduated colors—specifically dark green, light green, light blue, and dark blue—into green and blue; light color and dark color; and dark green, light green, light blue, and dark blue. The participants were then required to complete a visual search task. Reaction times (...) in the visual search task indicated that different lateralized categorical perceptions of color corresponded to the various priming situations. These results suggest that all of the lexical categories corresponding to different discriminatory characteristics of the same colors can influence people's perceptions of colors and that color perceptions can be influenced differently by distinct types of lexical categories depending on the context. (shrink)

As cyberspace has become an important factor in modern-day life, the impact of the Internet on residents has also attracted more attention. Based on the data of China Family Panel Studies, this study empirically examines the impact of Internet use on Chinese residents’ subjective well-being from a multi-dimensional perspective. The research found that Internet use had a significant impact on residents’ SWB, which was mainly reflected in job satisfaction, happiness, social ties, and future confidence. The impacts of the Internet’s different (...) application fields are not consistent. Applying its use more in studying, working, socialize and commercial activities has a stronger effect, but has no significant impact on entertainment. Further heterogeneity tests also found that the marginal effect of Internet use increases with age, male and low-income groups can obtain greater benefit from the Internet, and there is almost no difference between urban and rural areas. This research provides micro evidence of the social effects of Internet use and provides enlightenment for how to further promote the quality of Internet use to better benefit people. (shrink)

Synthetic physicalism—understood as the view that while mental concepts are distinct from physical concepts, mental properties are nonetheless identical to physical properties—is the dominant type of reductive physicalism in the philosophy of mind. With a focus on phenomenal concepts, this article examines two competing versions of synthetic physicalism: the demonstrative approach and the constitutive approach, both of which attempt to cash out the common idea that phenomenal concepts directly refer to phenomenal properties. I aim to argue that the synthetic physicalist (...) is impaled on a dilemma in addressing what I call the problem of double aspect: the mental-physical conceptual distinction seems to imply property dualism at a new level. Either she adopts the demonstrative approach or she goes for the constitutive approach, but neither option is acceptable. (shrink)

From the Hilbert space formalism we note that five simple conditions are satisfied by the orthogonality relation between the (pure) states of a quantum system. We argue, by proving a mathematical theorem, that they capture the essentials of this relation. Based on this, we investigate the rationale behind these conditions in the form of six physical hypotheses. Along the way, we reveal an implicit theoretical assumption in theories of physics and prove a theorem which formalizes the idea that the Superposition (...) Principle makes quantum physics different from classical physics. The work follows the paradigm of mathematical foundations of quantum theory, which I will argue by methodological reflection that it exemplifies a formal approach to analysing concepts in theories. (shrink)

Contingent reinforcement behavior is generally regarded as one of the key elements of being a “good” leader, yet the question of what happens when this behavior is absent has received little attention in past empirical research. Drawing upon self-regulation theory, we develop and test a model that specifies the effects of leader reward omission on employes’ deviant behavior. Using the data of 230 workers from two manufacturing companies located in South China collected across three time points, we find that leader (...) reward omission is positively associated with deviant behavior. Moreover, the indirect effects of leader reward omission on employes’ deviant behavior are mediated by moral disengagement. Our study also reveals that Machiavellianism can aggravate the positive effect of leader reward omission on moral disengagement, and subsequently exacerbate the indirect effect on employes’ deviant behavior. Taken together, our findings reveal the consequences of leader reward omission, and the importance of examining subordinate self-regulation under the lack of positive reinforcement. (shrink)