In interdisciplinary research scientists have to share and integrate knowledge between people and across disciplinary boundaries. An important issue for philosophy of science is to understand how scientists who work in these kinds of environments exchange knowledge and develop new concepts and theories across diverging fields. There is a substantial literature within social epistemology that discusses the social aspects of scientific knowledge, but so far few attempts have been made to apply these resources to the analysis of interdisciplinary (...) science. Further, much of the existing work either ignores the issue of differences in background knowledge, or it focuses explicitly on conflicting background knowledge. In this paper we provide an analysis of the interplay between epistemic dependence between individual experts with different areas of expertise. We analyze the cooperative activity they engage in when participating in interdisciplinary research in a group, and we compare our findings with those of other studies in interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have fueled widespread academic discourse on the ethics of AI within and across a diverse set of disciplines. One notable subfield of AI ethics is machine ethics, which seeks to implement ethical considerations into AI systems. However, since different research efforts within machine ethics have discipline-specific concepts, practices, and goals, the resulting body of work is pestered with conflict and confusion as opposed to fruitful synergies. The aim of this paper is to explore ways to (...) alleviate these issues, both on a practical and theoretical level of analysis. First, we describe two approaches to machine ethics: the philosophical approach and the engineering approach and show how tensions between the two arise due to discipline specific practices and aims. Using the concept of disciplinary capture, we then discuss potential promises and pitfalls to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Drawing on recent work in philosophy of science, we finally describe how metacognitive scaffolds can be used to avoid epistemological obstacles and foster innovative collaboration in AI ethics in general and machine ethics in particular. (shrink)

Doubt, Conflict, Mediation is an interdisciplinary examination and reassessment of standard assumptions in social theory about modern time. Rethinks capitalist and neo-liberal conceptions of time from both a sociological and anthropological perspective Blends innovative and rich ethnographic studies from around the world with clear theoretical approaches Examines the timescapes of a variety of institutions and social movements, such as biotech laboratories, civic organizations, planning offices, global sea-trade, urban squatting, and state bureaucracies.

Reparations is an idea whose time has come. From civilian victims of war in Iraq and South America to descendents of slaves in the US to citizens of colonized nations in Africa and south Asia to indigenous peoples around the world--these groups and their advocates are increasingly arguing for the importance of addressing historical injustices that have long been either ignored or denied. This volume contributes to these debates by focusing the attention of a group of highly distinguished international experts (...) on the ways that reparations claims figure in contemporary political and social justice movements. Four broad types of reparations claims are examined, those involving indigenous peoples, the legacy of slavery in the United States, victims of war and conflict, and colonialism. In each instance, scholars and activists argue about the character of the injustice for which reparations are owed, why it is important to take these demands seriously, and what form redress should take. The aim is not consensus but to exhibit better the complexity of the issues involved--a goal which the interdisciplinary nature of the volume furthers--as well as the importance of taking seriously both conceptual issues and the actual politics of reparations. (shrink)

Álvarez J.F. (2016) Conflicts, Bounded Rationality and Collective Wisdom in a Networked Society. In: Scarafile G., Gruenpeter Gold L. (eds) Paradoxes of Conflicts. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning (Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences), vol 12. Springer, Cham -/- The adoption of an individualistic perspective on reasoning, choice and decision is a spring of paradoxes of conflicts. Usually the agents immerse in conflicts are drawn or modelled as rational individuals with targets well defined and (...) full capabilities to access to information, without both temporal limitations and perfect reasoning abilities to obtain their preferences are taken account. -/- However, other models of agent, in the bounded rationality perspective, could help to understand better the interrelationships. I adopt embedded argumentative reasoning processes as satisfying criteria to analyze the expert function in a new socio technical environment that has changed deeply the mechanism and tools to access and to aggregate information. The open access to information and institutional arrangements addressed towards team knowledge could offer other kind of tools to affront the conflict, even its possible benefits. -/- The “crowd expertise” is emerging as an actual possibility and it must be incorporated to affront with conflicts. The very possibility of obtaining knowledge generated by “many minds”, collective wisdoms, brings up a real challenge to the conservative or elitist conception of the masses, because masses now emerge as a smart collective user, with new mechanisms to select and produce quality knowledge. These new collective actions differ deeply from the traditional modes of social organization. A new mass society is emerging now as a hybrid one that breaks some conceptual traditional models, such as Ortega y Gasset’s ones, and induces a structured way of flourishing both new practices and new knowledge with transforming capabilities. (shrink)

This anthropological essay provides a meditation on mass tourism while analysing the mechanisms of conflict between the needs of mass tourism and the local urban environment, extraterritorial spaces that fit into the universal heritage of humanity. Historical districts/ entertainment districts in capital cities are discussed as extraterritorial areas treated as ambivalent, bypassed, business bases. The tourists themselves constitute thoroughly ambivalent figures as tame strangers, treated simultaneously as a potential source of maximum earnings and intruders.

We discuss recent progress in the development of cognitive ontologies and summarize three challenges in the coordinated development and application of these resources. Challenge 1 is to adopt a standardized definition for cognitive processes. We describe three possibilities and recommend one that is consistent with the standard view in cognitive and biomedical sciences. Challenge 2 is harmonization. Gaps and conflicts in representation must be resolved so that these resources can be combined for mark-up and interpretation of multi-modal data. Finally, (...) Challenge 3 is to test the utility of these resources for large-scale annotation of data, search and query, and knowledge discovery and integration. As term definitions are tested and revised, harmonization should enable coordinated updates across ontologies. However, the true test of these definitions will be in their community-wide adoption which will test whether they support valid inferences about psychological and neuroscientific data. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers endeavor to improve our concepts. But their endeavors face serious practical difficulties. One such difficulty – rational conceptual conflict - concerns the degree to which agents are incentivized to impede the efforts of conceptual engineers, especially in many of the contexts within which conceptual engineering is viewed as a worthwhile pursuit. Under such conditions, the already difficult task of conceptual engineering becomes even more difficult. Consequently, if they want to increase their chances of success, conceptual engineers should pay (...) closer attention to – and devise strategies to mitigate – rational conceptual conflict. After outlining the phenomenon at greater length and mapping its connections to other similar practical problems (Section 1), I explore the dynamics of such conflict by way of several detailed case studies (Section 2). In particular, I focus on cases driven by material, social, and moral incentives. I then consider some important methodological implications of rational conceptual conflict (Section 3). Among other things, I argue that conceptual engineers should focus more heavily on cultivating settings that modify the payoffs and penalties associated with conceptual conflict. By such indirect means, they can incentivize conceptual cooperation rather than conflict, thus making it easier to achieve success in conceptual engineering. Section 4 concludes. (shrink)

Western democracies experience profound conflicts that induce concerns about polarization and social cohesion. Yet although conflicts are a core feature of democracies, the forms, functions, and dynamics of democratic conflicts have rarely been subject of political theory. This paper aims at furthering our understanding of democratic conflicts. It analyzes the theory of conflict in Mouffe's agonistic pluralism, confronts it with sociological conflict theory, and presents concrete points of departure for a more comprehensive theory of democratic (...) class='Hi'>conflicts. The paper, thus, contributes to two lines of research: (1) Regarding agonistic theories, the paper shows that agonistic pluralism fails to provide a convincing theory of conflict since it underestimates the mechanisms and effects of conflict dynamics (e.g. intergroup cohesion, intragroup conflict, domination, and escalation) and fails to account for the variety of conflict interactions. Proponents of agonistic pluralism should therefore invest more into clarifying their core concept. (2) For a general account of democratic conflicts, the paper proposes to pursue interdisciplinary research on the cognitive concepts shaping conflict interactions, the linked practices of conflict regulation, and the processual dynamics of conflicts. (shrink)

This special issue gathers together a selection of papers presented by international experts during a workshop entitled ‘Ethics of Cyber-Conflicts’, which was devoted to fostering interdisciplinary debate on the ethical and legal problems and the regulatory gap concerning cyber conflicts. The workshop was held in 2013 at the Centro Alti Studi Difesa in Rome under the auspices of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence . This NATO-accredited international military organisation that has always placed a high (...) value on an interdisciplinary approach to cyber defence, uniting as it does perspectives from technical, policy, legal, and strategic domains. The Centre’s mission is to enhance capability, cooperation, and information-sharing between NATO, its member states, and partner countries in the area of cyber defence by virtue of research, education, and consultation. The workshop was one of the projects supported by the Centre to achieve this mission.Readers may .. (shrink)

According to the standard version of discourse ethics (e.g. as formulated by Apel, Habermas, and others), the objectivity of moral norms resides in their intersubjective acceptability under idealized conditions of discourse. These accounts have been criticized for not taking sufficient account of contextual particularities and the realities of actual discourse. This essay addresses such objections by proposing a more realistic, contextualist 'principle of real moral discourse' (RMD). RMD is derived from a more comprehensive concept of objectivity that links intersubjective objectivity (...) with a factual objectivity based in features of social conflicts and the moral problems they pose. To clarify RMD and make this approach more plausible, a number of theoretical and practical questions are addressed concerning the notions of reasonability and inclusivity entailed by RMD. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity is often framed as crucial for addressing the complex problems of contemporary society and for achieving new levels of innovation. But while science policy and institutions have provided a variety of incentives for stimulating interdisciplinary work throughout Europe, there is also growing evidence that some aspects of the academic system do not necessarily reward interdisciplinary work. In this study, we explore how mid-career researchers in an environmental science research center in Sweden relate to and handle the distinct (...) forms of uncertainty that arise from conflicting institutional and policy impulses. Our material suggests that interdisciplinary academics are often confronted with and at times themselves operate with a surprisingly dichotomous, value-laden view of their research practice. Disciplinarity is primarily associated with the ideals of scientific rigor, while interdisciplinarity becomes conflated with application-oriented work and a lack of ‘theory.’ We also draw attention to the underlying practical dynamics that reproduce this tension and entangle it with the very process of academic socialization. Specifically, we analyze the ambivalent consequences of the various work-arounds that researchers rely on to carve out opportunities for ongoing interdisciplinary research within heterogeneous funding landscapes. These tactics turn out to be undermined by the overriding normative power of formal career incentives at universities, which continue to emphasize the ideals of the individual high-performing academic who publishes in disciplinary journals and attracts the most selective grants. Under such circumstances, the work-arounds themselves become an insidious mechanism that allows researchers to stay in academia but systematically marginalizes their voices and epistemic ambitions in the process. (shrink)

How are group-based identities related to intergroup conflict? When and how do ethnic, religious, and national identities lead to oppression, violence, rebellion, war, mass-murder, and genocide? How do intergroup conflicts change people's identities? How might social identity be harnessed in the service of reducing conflict between groups? The chapters in this book present a sophisticated and detailed interdisciplinary analysis of the most topical and fundamental issues involved in understanding identity and conflict.

This paper considers the issue of fear in the field of international relations studies. Fear is a typical condition of international relations because of the anarchical nature of the international political system characterized by a common threat perception among states. Since the very beginning of international political thought the notion of fear has been given great consideration due to its correlation with conflict which is the main object of international relations. The paper argues that in order to better understand what (...) fear and perception in international relations is about is necessary to undertake the notion of political identity. In that sense we propose a would be political identity account of state that might share light on the perception of fear. We claim that the perception of fear depends on the type of identity of a given state. Hence we discuss three type of state political identity: weak-tribal, medium-ideological, strong-pluralistic. (shrink)

In recent work, Rawls, Nozick, and the ?democratic?socialist? theory of Markovi? and Gould, attempt to ground rival models of just economic relations on the basis of conflicting interpretations of human freedom. Beginning with a philosophical conception of humans as essentially free beings, each derives a different system of basic rights and freedoms: (1) the familiar democratic civil and political rights of citizenship in the West (Rawls); (2) the classical bourgeois market freedoms ? ?life, liberty, and property? (Nozick); and (3) democratic (...) socialist rights of self?management of the work?place (Gould and Markovi?). I argue that each of these theorists implicitly assumes a different but ungrounded ?social paradigm of human agency? concerning the particular forms of human choice which are singled out as most important for a free, human life. None of these theories contains the methodological resources for showing why the forms of human agency it ?emancipates? are more important than the forms it suppresses or ignores. In order to overcome this impasse and provide a way of evaluating such rival paradigms of free agency, I elaborate a methodology based on the idea that a free society must provide its members with ?equality in the social bases of self?respect?. I use this methodology to argue that all three of the above conceptions are blind to problems of human agency, freedom, and dignity posed by the modern phenomena of welfare dependency, unemployment, and a self?stultifying division of labor. (shrink)

From the world's foremost authority on the interdisciplinary study of time comes this remarkable work on the intersection of time and human values.

Greenleaf’s foundational work on servant leadership has evolved considerably over the past 50 years. Servant leadership has been found to have positive outcomes on group and organisational effectiveness. While servant leadership characteristics and outcomes have been measured, is a need to be better understand how servant leaders navigate when they disagree. Using a social and cultural analysis, the conflict between Paul and Barnabas is explored. Social and cultural analysis allows interpreters to understand what the characters in the narrative ‘see and (...) hear.’ The analysis of Acts 15:36–41 yielded three emerging themes related to how these servant leaders navigated conflict: (1) the tension created by conflict, (2) leader maturity and conflict and (3) the effectiveness of servant leadership amid differences. It was found that servant leaders are not immune from conflict, and when two servant leaders disagree it creates tension between the various servant leader behaviours. Furthermore, a leader’s experience and maturity influence their responses to conflict. Lastly, it was found that servant leaders do not allow conflict to derail their mission.Contribution: This article contributes to the body of knowledge on servant leadership by exploring how servant leaders navigate conflict from a biblical perspective. By exploring servant leadership behaviours from a biblical perspective, this article contributes to the interdisciplinary focus of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, engaging social scientific constructs through a New Testament paradigm. (shrink)

Early-career philosophers of science often find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, facing conflicting demands. While they have to meet the rigorous standards of a career in philosophy, they are at the same time expected to possess detailed knowledge of the sciences they study. By pulling in different directions, these two poles can be difficult to bridge. Interdisciplinarily engaged philosophers of science face not just an increased workload but also institutional conditions that are not always supportive for (...) their engagement. For instance, while the need for interdisciplinary research is impressed upon young researchers by their advisers and by the subject matters of their research, universities and funding institutions, by contrast, still follow rather conservative and disciplinary policies when they fill positions or allocate funding. In March 2013, the interdisciplinarity of philosophy of science and the resulting situation for early career researchers was the subject of a workshop and a panel discussion funded by the Andrea von Braun Foundation. This paper takes up several of the issues that were controversially disputed at that event. (shrink)

Sociology, being the science of social relations, has always been reluctant to enphasize conflicts. This may be politically a prudent stance but may also lead to undestimate the relevance and/or seriousness of conflict as a source of both social change and/or crisis. In _La sicurezza e la sua ombra_ the Author argues that in order to curb a perception and the opportunistic use of it by some actors we have to identify the sources not to blame the effects. As (...) to the sources it is crucial to distinguish among _danger_ ; _risk_ ; _threat _. The distinction is not only analytical but implies paramount differences in policy choices. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged among science˗and˗theology thinkers – or at least desired – that we have left behind the era of conflict between science and religion. An approach which avoids conflict by pointing out that science and religion employ two different methodologies and therefore occupy two separate magisteria, is, however, unsatisfactory for both – the advocates of a fruitful dialogue between these two realms of human activity as well as the most vigorous opponents of possible conciliation, and the latter still (...) speak of unavoidable conflict. One of the most widely known examples of a conflict between science and religion is the Galileo's case. It can be shown that in the clash between Galileo and the theologians of the time, the latter were right from the point of view of scientific methodology while they were wrong as far as their theological views are concerned. Does this lesson from the history imply any solutions in contemporary disputes over certain scientific achievements? Is it – for instance – a theological fault to impose some constraints on scientific research in genetic engineering? The ‘typology’ of errors committed in the Galileo’s case, offered in the paper, serve as a basis for answering these questions. In the paper it is suggested that a meta-theoretical approach to the interdisciplinary research, which shows the difference between the merits of given disciplines (in this case: science and theology) and the worldview they contribute to together, allows the acknowledgement that contemporary reservations with regard to genetic engineering and techniques are not in danger of committing a 'Galileo case type' error. It is suggested, that such reservations may stem from other than purely ethical opinions, which opens up an interesting field for discussion between those who do not share the same ethics, by leaving ethical arguments aside in discussions about biotechnology. (shrink)

To understand human action in general we must look toward its determinants in the agent's cognitive assessment of an existing situation and in the attitudes this has prompted. But we cannot fully determine why a deed is done without reference also to evaluative appraisal which reveals basic commitment to prescripts. Naturalism either overlooks the autonomy of commitment vis- -vis attitude and cognitive assessment or, erroneously assimilating it to attitude, wholly distorts the plain fact of the clash of duty and inclination. (...) Since the roots of conflict derive from the same source as those of action we respond to it appropriately only if we first identify its components. To ignore commitment distorts conflict as grievously as it does action. (shrink)

This book examines the role of military virtues in today's armed forces. -/- Although long-established military virtues, such as honor, courage and loyalty, are what most armed forces today still use as guiding principles in an effort to enhance the moral behavior of soldiers, much depends on whether the military virtues adhered to by these militaries suit a particular mission or military operation. Clearly, the beneficiaries of these military virtues are the soldiers themselves, fellow-soldiers, and military organizations, yet there is (...) little that regulates the behavior of soldiers towards civilian populations. As a result, troops trained for combat in today's missions sometimes experience difficulty in adjusting to the less aggressive ways of working needed to win the hearts and minds of local populations after major combat is over. It can be argued that today's missions call for virtues that are more inclusive than the traditional ones, which are mainly about enhancing military effectiveness, but a convincing case can be made that a lot can already be won by interpreting these traditional virtues in different ways. -/- This volume offers an integrated approach to the main traditional virtues, exploring their possible relevance and proposing new ways of interpretation that are more in line with the military tasks of the 21st century. -/- The book will be of much interest to students of military ethics, philosophy, and war and conflict in general. (shrink)

For decades, interdisciplinary research efforts have accumulated insights that diminish the significance of the classic nature versus nurture dichotomy, instead calling for a nuanced, multifactorial approach to ontogeny. Similarly, the role of genes in both phylogeny and ontogeny, once seen as rather deterministic, is now conceptualized as highly dependent on environmental factors, including behavior. Linguistic theories have, in principle, made an effort to incorporate these changing views. However, the central claim of the given paper is that this apparent compliance (...) with biological insights remains superficial. As such, considerable disconnects between linguistic theory and what is known about the biological underpinnings of complex traits persist, negatively impacting pertinent views on language acquisition, language universals and the evolution of language. Given the breadth of these fields of study, the aim of this paper is to tackle the root of the problem: It begins by sketching out linguistic nativism as conceptualized within generativism, pointing to aspects within this position that stand in conflict with the interdisciplinary literature. It will then review select areas of research in a succinct manner in order to substantiate the criticism and characterize the counterposition as found within the biological sciences. The paper will culminate in addressing these disconnects on conceptual grounds, i.e. invoking the term emergence as employed in neuroscience as a possible means to reconcile those biological insights with linguistic nativism. (shrink)

As Elster suggests in his chapter 'Contradictions of the Mind', in Logic and Society, akrasia and self-deception represent the most common psychological functions for a person in conflict and contradiction. This article develops the theme of akrasia and conflict. Section I says what akrasia is not. Section II describes the character of the akrates, analyzing the sorts of conflicts to which he is subject and describing the sources of his debilities. A brief account is then given of the attractions (...) of the akratic alternative: its power to focus or dominate the agent's attention; its being strongly habitual; its having the pull of social streaming: following the charismatic leader, the mechanisms of sympathetic or antipathetic infection, the models of role casting. Following these strategies is by no means pathological: these are relatively automatic (though still voluntary) psychological functions. That is precisely their power and attraction: they provide the conflicted akrates with an action solution, though not one that accords with his preferred judgment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Through an interdisciplinary literature review, this propositional paper explores the emergence and unfolding of professionals’ moral identity conflicts involving important but contrasting values. Building on the exemplary case of physicians’ professional-religious dilemmas in End-of-Life circumstances, we develop a multilevel model of professional-personal identity conflict dynamics in ethically-charged situations in which we integrate individual-level mechanisms with organizational-level boundary conditions, namely peer social support and ethical climate, in relation to psychological well-being. Our conceptual model contributes to the ethics, identity (...) and human behavior literature by advancing suggestions of how professionals may prevent or/and resolve moral conflicts concerning also other identities and contexts. (shrink)

This book is the first study to engage with the relationship between cosmopolitan political thought and the history of global conflicts. Accompanied by visual material ranging from critical battle painting to the photographic representation of ruins, it showcases established as well as emerging interdisciplinary scholarship in global political thought and cultural history. Touching on the progressive globalization of conflicts between the eighteenth and the twentieth century, including the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years’ War, the (...) Napoleonic wars, the two World Wars, as well as seemingly ‘internal’ civil wars in eastern Europe’s imperial frontiers, it shows how these conflicts produced new zones of cultural contact. The authors build on a rich foundation of unpublished sources drawn from public institutions as well as private archives, allowing them to shed new light on the British, Russian, German, Ottoman, American, and transnational history of international thought and political engagement. (shrink)

This book focuses on the regional political ecologies (RPEs) of environmental conflicts in India. It explores broadly, landscape-based analyses of political, economic and social issues, which impact environmental changes, challenges and conflicts at local and micro-local levels. The chapters in this volume examine the intervention of different stakeholders in the management of various regional ecological landscapes in India, including forests, rivers, canals, creeks and wetlands. The volume is an interdisciplinary endeavour, weaving together contextual narratives through a combination (...) of approaches from sociology, anthropology, geography, political studies and environmental history. Using such core approaches, the book studies the place-based dynamisms within the regional environmental conflicts in the selected conservation landscapes. It provides empirical reflections on transboundary issues, rural-urban transitions, middle-class environmentalism, identity conflicts, decentralized natural resource management and the role of political institutions. Regional Political Ecologies and Environmental Conflicts in India will be of great interest to students and scholars of Political Ecology and South Asian Environmental Studies. (shrink)

This book explores topical issues in military ethics by according peace a central role within an interdisciplinary framework. Whilst war and peace have traditionally been viewed through the lens of philosophical enquiry, political issues and theological ideas - as well as common sense - have also influenced people's understanding of armed conflicts with regards to both the moral issues they raise and the policies and actions they require. Comprised of fourteen essays on the role and application of peace, (...) the book places emphasis on it's philosophical, moral, theological, technological, and practical implications. Starting with an overview of Kantian perspectives on peace, it moves to discussions of the Just War debates, religious conceptualizations of peace, and the role of peace in modern war technology and cyber-security. Finally concluding with discussions of the psychological and medical impacts of war and peace on both the individual and the larger society, this collection offers a contribution to the field and will be of interest to a wide audience. Chapters 4, 6 and 10 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. (shrink)

Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs in these issues, which we refer to as “social ethics.” A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to (...) faculty from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools. (shrink)

This synthesis of 5 prominent conflict management paradigms uses power differential as the single most contributing variable to their process and outcome of conflict. Efforts of scholars to integrate or synthesize conflict paradigms have been unsuccessful or clumsy by the scholars’ own assessments. The 5 selected paradigms represent an interdisciplinary set of normative and descriptive paradigms from different social contexts and intellectual frameworks. The 5 share the common traits of rival goals, three levels of socially constructed power differential, and (...) outcomes relative to the total value of the rival goal. An inverse relationship between power differential and the total value of conflict outcomes is supported by all 5 paradigms and empirical data. Explanatory metatheory is the methodology used for synthesis. An increase in power differential results in a decrease in total value of the rival goal. Power differential is constructed using Max Weber’s ideal-type method. The power differentials are abstracted from the paradigms themselves. Empirical work form secondary sources and case studies complete the analysis. (shrink)

Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs in these issues, which we refer to as “social ethics.” A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to (...) faculty from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools. (shrink)

Many Big Science projects and networks experience conflict. A plethora of disciplines have examined conflict causes in science collaboration and Big Science, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of why conflicts emerge. Yet, so far, there is no theoretical model that explains which mechanisms connect conflict cause and outbreak in Big Science. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature on science collaboration and Big Science as well as on scholarship on strategic action fields (SAFs), I address this blind spot by proposing (...) a model that outlines which mechanisms induce and fuel conflict in Big Science projects and networks. Five interlinked mechanisms – attribution of threat or opportunity, mobilization of resources, coalition-building, boundary deactivation and innovative action – are central to it. Tracing these mechanisms in conflictual episodes which emerged in three typical, yet most-different, Big Science cases – the International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER), the Human Brain Project (HBP) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) – this study also provides a proof of concept for the model. (shrink)

A large body of experimental evidence in the empirical sciences shows that writing about life experiences can be beneficial for mental and physical health. While empirical data regarding the health benefits of writing interventions have been collected in numerous studies in psychology and biomedicine, this literature has remained almost entirely disconnected from scholarship in the humanities and cognitive neuropsychology. In this paper, I review the literature from psychological and biomedical writing interventions, connect these findings to views from philosophy, cognitive neuropsychology (...) and narratology and argue that examining established regularities in how narratives are structured can shed further light on the psychological processes engaged during writing interventions. In particular, I argue that the narratological concept of conflict can be applied to resolve patterns of seemingly conflicting empirical findings in psychological studies. More generally, I propose that an interdisciplinary perspective can provide a broader theoretical basis for understanding the psychological processes underlying the health benefits of autobiographical writing and provide directions for future research in psychology and biomedicine. (shrink)

Although there are many historical and philosophical analyses of evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo), its development in the 1980s, when many individual or collective attempts to synthesize evolution and development were made, has not been examined in detail. This article focuses on some interdisciplinary studies during the 1980s and argues that they had important characteristics that previous historical and philosophical work has not recognized. First, we clarify how each set of studies from the 1980s integrated the results or approaches from (...) different biological fields, such as paleontology, developmental genetics, comparative morphology, experimental embryology, theoretical developmental biology, and population genetics. Second, after close examination we show that the interdisciplinary studies during the 1980s adopted different and conflicting views of genes, such as developmental-genetic, epigenetic, or population-genetic ones. We conclude that EvoDevo in the 1980s was a motley aggregation of various kinds of local integration. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis by comparing these early EvoDevo studies with those of the Modern Synthesis and with the present state of EvoDevo. (shrink)

Scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals are currently developing a variety of new devices under the category of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Current and future applications are both medical/assistive (e.g., for communication) and non-medical (e.g., for gaming). This array of possibilities comes with ethical challenges for all stakeholders. As a result, BCIs have been an object of both hope and concern in various media. We argue that these conflicting sentiments can be productively understood in terms of personhood, specifically the impact of BCIs (...) on what it means to be a person and to be recognized as such by others. To understand the dynamics of personhood in the context of BCI use and investigate whether ethical guidance is required, a meeting entitled "BCIs and Personhood: A Deliberative Workshop" was held in May 2018. In this article, we describe how BCIs raise important questions about personhood and propose recommendations for BCI development and governance. (shrink)

Technological developments affect and disturb all aspects of human existence and values more than any other factor in our modern man-made world. This calls for responsive higher education which will produce better decision-makers capable of being actively, rationally, and creatively involved in the continuous search for solutions to our current and future problems in a world of conflicting interests and values. Consequently, science teaching in future higher education should be drastically changed in order to be relevant to needs of both (...) students and society rather than to reflect the needs of the disciplines per se. (shrink)

In this paper I critically explore the possibility that the hope for engaging in democratic discourse and coalition-building across deep— potentially irreconcilable— moral, religious divisions in current U.S. public life depends less upon further calls for “more tolerance,” and instead in thinking creatively and transformatively about how to democratize and constructively utilize conflict and intolerance. Is it possible to distinguish between constructive and destructive forms of intolerance? If so, what are the prospects for re-orienting analysis of democratic practices and processes (...) so that what typically appear as forms of simple intolerance (and thus, as candidates for marginalization or exclusion from political processes) might be reconceived and re-directed for the purposes of constructively transforming those practices and processes? Further, what would an analytical framework that aimed to distinguish and cultivate “healthy conflict” in contrast to degenerative or destructive conflict look like? How would such an approach facilitate efforts on the ground to recognize, understand and transform religiously-motivated conflict? I pose answers to these questions by bringing strands from the “religion in public life” debates that have unfolded over recent decades among ethicists and political philosophers into conversation with conflict transformation literature in peace studies. Bridging these resources will help to re-conceptualize basic assumptions about tolerance and conflict as a pivotal first step in constructively transforming conflicts motivated by, or identified with, moral commitments and religious identities. (shrink)

This book reviews and presents antitrust law compliance programmes from different angles. These programmes have been increasingly implemented and refined by firms over recent years, and various aspects of this topic have been researched. The contributions in this book extend beyond the treatment of legal issues and show how lawyers, economists, psychologists, and business scholars can help design antitrust law compliance programmes more effectively and run them more efficiently.

This volume is devoted to exploring a subject which, on the surface, might appear to be just a trending topic. In fact, it is much more than a trend. It relates to an ancient, permanent issue which directly connects with people's life and basic needs: the recognition and protection of individuals' dignity, in particular the inherent worthiness of the most vulnerable human beings. The content of this book is described well enough by its title: 'Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in (...) the Age of Rights'. Certainly, we do not claim that only the human dignity of vulnerable people should be recognized and protected. We rather argue that, since vulnerability is part of the human condition, human vulnerability is not at odds with human dignity. To put it simply, human dignity is compatible with vulnerability. A concept of human dignity which discards or denies the dignity of the vulnerable and weak is at odds with the real human condition. Even those individuals who might seem more skilled and talented are fragile, vulnerable and limited. We need to realize that human condition is not limitless. It is crucial to re-discover a sense of moderation regarding ourselves, a sense of reality concerning our own nature. Some lines of thought take the opposite view. It is sometimes argued that humankind is - or is called to be - powerful, and that the time will come when there will be no vulnerability, no fragility, no limits at all. Human beings will become like God (or what believers might think God to be). This perspective rejects human vulnerability as in intrinsic evil. Those who are frail or weak, who are not autonomous or not able to care for themselves, do not possess dignity. In this volume it is claimed that vulnerability is an inherent part of human condition, and because human dignity belongs to all individuals, laws are called to recognize and protect the rights of all of them, particularly of those who might appear to be more vulnerable and fragile. (shrink)

O conflito de convicções traz consigo frequentes interrogações éticas em diferentes esferas das relações sociais. As convicções religiosas não são as únicas nesse sentido. Este ensaio usa um método interdisciplinar em vista de esclarecer alguns conceitos e critérios subjacentes ao tema, que podem ajudar no discernimento ético de tais conflitos. A Bioética Clínica é aqui uma particularização temática que ajuda uma concentração do discurso, ao mesmo tempo em que permite o aproveitamento desta reflexão para outras esferas. Ajuda também a perceber (...) a estreita relação das convicções pessoais com a esfera pública em torno de questões vitais. Entre seus resultados, este ensaio ressalta que os conflitos de convicções podem ser fonte de benefícios para a convivência na sociedade plural. Seus desafios éticos se concentram na necessária abertura das convicções ao diálogo com os diferentes. No exercício do diálogo, a reflexão da Bioética se distingue da Biopolítica e sugere que as convicções subjetivas por vezes se vejam contraditadas por ordenamentos jurídicos, antes que se amadureçam consensos sobre critérios éticos.Palavras-chave: Convicções – Bioética Clínica – Conflitos éticosthe conflict of convictions brings frequent ethical questions in different spheres of social relations. Religious convictions are not the only in this sense. This essay uses an interdisciplinary method in order to clarify some concepts and criteria underlying this issue, which can help in ethical discernment of such conflicts. Clinical Bioethics is a particularization theme here that helps a concentration of discourse, while allowing the use of this reflection to other spheres. It also helps to understand the close relationship of personal convictions with the public sphere around vital issues. Among their results, this paper points out that conflicts of convictions can be a source of benefits to living in a plural society. His ethical challenges are mainly pointed to a necessary openness to dialogue with the different. In exercising this dialogue, reflection of Bioethics is distinguished from Biopolitics and suggests that the subjective convictions sometimes find themselves contradicted by legal before they ripen consensus on ethical criteria.Key words: Convictions - Clinical Bioethics - Ethical Conflicts. (shrink)

Research in the humanities and social sciences thrives on critical reflections that unfold with each research project, not only in terms of knowledge created, but in whether chosen methodologies served their purpose. Ethics forms the bulwark of any social science research methodology and it requires continuous engagement and reengagement for the greater advancement of knowledge. Each chapter in this book will draw from the empirical knowledge created through intensive fieldwork and provide an account of ethical questions faced by the contributors, (...) placing them in the context of contemporary debates surrounding the theory and practice of ethics. The chapters have been thematically organized into five sections: Feminist Ethics: Cross-Cultural Reflections and Its Implications for Change; Researching Physical and Sexual Violence in Non-Academic Settings: A Need for Ethical Protocols; Human Agency, Reciprocity, Participation and Activism: Meanings for Social Science Research Ethics; Emotions, Conflict and Dangerous Fields: Issues of “Safety” and Reflective Research; and Social Science Education: Training in Ethics or “Ethical Training” and “Ethical Publicizing." This inter-disciplinary volume will interest students and researchers in academic and non-academic settings in core disciplines of Anthropology, Sociology, Law, Political Science, International Relations, Geography, or inter-disciplinary degrees in Development Studies, Health Studies, Public Health Policy, Social Policy, Health Policy, Psychology, Peace and Conflict studies, and Gender Studies. The book features a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama. (shrink)

It is imperative that creative techniques be designed for the conduct of active conflict. The failure to explore alternatives to violent force is fostered by an inbred literature which is preoccupied with descriptive analyses of small group conflict or with policy and the implications of nuclear warfare. An entirely new concept is required based upon the union of technique with theory. Psychoanalytic experience with intrapsychic conflict should be brought to bear upon problems of large-scale conflict in a manner not yet (...) attempted. The central questions and their answers may require the fielding of an experimental corps to refine constructive techniques for engaging in conflict. (shrink)

Polish-German relations in the first half of 2014 were dominated by the Ukraine crisis. This study is an attempt to answer the question of how Polish and German press assessed the cooperation of both countries in resolving the conflict in Ukraine; to what extent the most widely read magazines associated themselves with the decisions of their politicians and the feelings of their own societies and how much understanding they showed for the arguments of their EU partner. The analysis focuses on (...) the unprecedented mission of the Weimar Triangle foreign ministers to Ukraine in February 2014, which led to an agreement between the Ukrainian opposition and President Viktor Yanukovych. A turning point was the visit paid by Radoslaw Sikorski and Frank-Walter Steinmeier to St. Petersburg in June 2014. The next meetings agreed on by EU partners were held without inviting the Polish partner. In view of the speed of events in the selected time interval, the articles subjected to analysis were taken from the most widely read online editions of national daily newspapers in Poland and Germany. (shrink)