This paper presents results from a modified dictator experiment aimed at distinguishing and quantifying intrinsic motivations for giving. We employ an experimental design with three treatments that vary the recipient and amount passed. We find giving to the experimenter not to be significantly different from giving to a charity, when the amount the subject donates crowds out the amount donated by the experimenter such that the charity always receives a fixed amount. This result suggests that the latter treatment, first used (...) by Crumpler and Grossman :1011–1021, 2008), does not provide a clean test of warm glow motivation. We then propose a new method of detecting warm glow motivation based on the idea that in a random-lottery incentive scheme, such as the one we employ, warm glow accumulates and this may lead to satiation, whereas purely altruistic motivation does not. We also provide bounds on the magnitudes of warm glow and pure altruism as motives that drive giving in our experiment. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo principal é desenvolver a compreensão do conceito existenciário de historicidade, no âmbito do gestar-se próprio do Dasein, tal como Heidegger explicita na na analítica existencial de Ser e Tempo. Primeiramente, busca-se discutir o conceito vulgar de historia em contraste ao qual o filósofo apresenta o gestar-se da existência. Após, trataremos do conceito de temporalidade originária, apontando para o âmbito no qual a existência sai da impessoalidade para o ser-resoluto. Por fim, apresentaremos a compreensão heideggeriana do conceito de historicidade (...) própria, desenvolvendo o modo pelo qual o Dasein assume seu destino no gesta-se de si mesmo enquanto resoluto. Nesse desenvolvimento, acreditamos explicitar que a preocupação principal do filósofo não está na mera análise abstrata do existir, mas, muito mais, no papel da existência na continuidade do tempo histórico. (shrink)

Introduction: The importance attached to ethical practice and related informed consent varies among health professionals and is further influenced by working environments, level of knowledge, experience and societal values and beliefs. The objective of this study is to evaluate the ethical conduct of professors, undergraduates and graduate students through questionnaires answered by patients. Methods: One hundred twenty patients at the dental clinics of three different dental schools in São Paulo State were interviewed based on objective and discursive questions about signed (...) informed consent, participation in scientific research, photographs during treatment, requested saliva samples, tooth donation requests, and information about tooth destination after removal. A frequency distribution was used for a statistical analysis of the data. Results: In all, 65.8% of the patients had given signed informed consent for treatment and 12.5% had not done so; 10.8% did not know if they had participated in scientific research; 54.2% were photographed during dental procedures and 47.1% of them had signed an authorization form; 6.6% were requested to provide a saliva sample and 66.6% of them had signed an authorization form to that effect; 16.1% had a tooth donation requested and 64.4% of them had signed an authorization form to that effect; and 61.3% did not know the destination of the tooth after removal, when donation was not requested. Conclusions: The majority of the patients had signed an informed consent form for treatment, photographs, saliva samples and tooth donation. This demonstrated ethical conduct towards patients on the part of professors, undergraduates and graduate students. doi: 10.5294/pebi.2017.21.1.2. (shrink)

A substantial guide providing an overview of both physicalism and metaphysical naturalism, reviewing both questions of formulation and justification for both doctrines. Includes a diagnostic strategy for understanding talk of naturalism as a metaphysical thesis.

Inside What Would Plato Do?, you'll find the basics of philosophy, written in an easy, digestible way we can all understand, along with questions to help you apply these important theories to your own life. So, after you've learned about a philosophical concept, you'll then be challenged to test yourself and see how the results can impact your daily life. For instance, after learning about Kant's theory of morality and the importance of intention you're challenged with questions like: Can good (...) people do bad things? Was there a time when you intended to do something helpful that ended up being hurtful? Does that make you a good person (because you intended to do good) or a bad person (because the results were bad)? What Would Plato Do? will not only help you better understand some of the greatest thinkers ever but will also help you think of the world around you in a whole new way! (shrink)

Ne vers 1180 a Aurillac, mort le 30 mars 1249, Guillaume d'Auvergne est nomme eveque de Paris des 1228. Son oeuvre est contemporaine de la querelle de l'aristotelisme qui gagne la faculte de theologie, et du bouleversement de l'histoire theorique qui l'accompagne. Quelle est la cause efficiente de la pensee? D'ou vient l'intelligible necessairement present dans l'ame qui pense? C'est a cela que repondent les neuf premieres parties du chapitre sept du De anima, ecrit vers 1240. La noetique de Guillaume (...) d'Auvergne, complexe, s'y deploie et sensiblement se demarque de l' augustinisme avicennisant qui traditionnellement la caracterise. L'ame, dans son rapport au sensible, est principium agens, lectrice, en tant qu'elle pense, d'un livre dont elle-meme est l'auteur, et dont la verite se passe en partie de l'illumination divine. (shrink)

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. Rather, (...) what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

This is a book grounded in the real ethical challenges of modern business practice, with a world-religious perspective so necessary in an era of globalization.

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

Reflection Principles are commonly thought to produce only strong axioms of infinity consistent with V = L. It would be desirable to have some notion of strong reflection to remedy this, and we have proposed Global Reflection Principles based on a somewhat Cantorian view of the universe. Such principles justify the kind of cardinals needed for, inter alia , Woodin’s Ω-Logic.

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

Father Williams explains how the conscience is formed through our training and experiences and informed by the Holy Spirit, making it an essential tool for daily living. He uses familiar and surprising characters to illustrate the positive choices conscience can direct--and the disaster that results when a conscience is undeveloped or ignored. Questions he tackles include "Is it more important to be smart or good?""Is there a morally right thing to do in every situation?" and "Is the Christian moral life (...) an exciting adventure, or a necessary burden?" Rich, provocative, and practical for everyday decision making, KNOWING RIGHT FROM WRONG is a must-read for all who hunger for personal holiness. (shrink)

Man (Islam); Islamic philosophy; Islamic ethics.

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7–8, Aristotle defends a striking view about the good for human beings. According to Aristotle, the single happiest way of life is organized around philosophical contemplation. According to the narrowness worry, however, Aristotle's contemplative ideal is unduly Procrustean, restrictive, inflexible, and oblivious of human diversity. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle has resources for responding to the narrowness worry, and that his contemplative ideal can take due account of human diversity.

Summary In this contribution, I discuss the perceptual potential of certain genres of experimental and contemporary music, commonly grouped under the label “sound-based music”. The sonic patterns typical of this music are mostly associated, during listening, with visual and tactile sensory qualities and can evoke mental representations as shapes in motion. These are the result of physical-acoustic energies organized according to a perceptual grammar whose organization follows a series of Gestalt and kinaesthetic principles. The paper explores the nature of the (...) relationship between sound patterns of sound-based music and their mental images. Based on morphodynamic theory, it is proposed the emergence of cognitive image schemas, which are at the centre of this relationship. The image schemas depict the forces and tensions of our experience of the world (e.g., figure-background, near-far, superimposition, compulsion, blockage), as being the cognitive and experiential response to the incoming sound patterns. The sense of this music activates precisely the basic structures of sensorimotor experience by which we encounter a world that we can understand and act within, leading to a rich series of high-level associations and responses. (shrink)

Psychopathic individuals are characterized by impaired affective processing, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, poor planning skills and heightened aggressiveness with poor self-regulation. Based on brain self-regulation studies using neurofeedback of Slow Cortical Potentials (SCPs) in disorders associated with a dysregulation of cortical activity thresholds and evidence of deficient cortical functioning in psychopathy, a neurobiological approach seems to be promising in the treatment of psychopathy. The results of our intensive brain regulation intervention demonstrate, that psychopathic offenders are able to gain control of their brain (...) excitability over fronto-central brain areas. After SCP self-regulation training, we observed reduced aggression, impulsivity and behavioral approach tendencies, as well as improvements in behavioral-inhibition and increased cortical sensitivity for error-processing. This study demonstrates improvements on the neurophysiological, behavioral and subjective level in severe psychopathic offenders after SCP-neurofeedback training and could constitute a novel neurobiologically-based treatment for a seemingly change-resistant group of criminal psychopaths. (shrink)

The claim that Spinoza has a conception of animal mentality and consciousness that is superior to Descartes's is criticized. It is also argued that Spinoza fails to provide a coherent way of establishing what he considers to be our morally unconstrained “rights” with regard to brutes. Despite Spinoza's claim that brutes “feel,” i.e., are capable of sentience, his view that we are nonetheless entitled to treat animals in any way convenient to us is criticized. Questions are also raised as to (...) whether Spinoza is entitled to distinguish human from bestial nature on the basis of the possession of reason. (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

In Plato’s Symposium, the mysterious Apollodorus recounts to an unnamed comrade, and to us, Aristodemus’ story of just what happened at Agathon’s drinking party. Since Apollodorus did not attend the party, however, it is unclear what relevance he could have to our understanding of Socrates’ speech, or to the Alcibiadean “satyr and silenic drama” (222d) that follows. The strangeness of Apollodorus is accentuated by his recession into the background after only two Stephanus pages. What difference—if any—does Apollodorus make to the (...) Symposium? Does his inclusion call the dramatic and philosophical unity of the work into question? I argue that despite initial appearances, Plato has important philosophical reasons for including Apollodorus as a character. Far from being an odd appendage to an otherwise complete narrative, the figure of Apollodorus is useful for our understanding of Socrates’s conception of eros later in the work. (shrink)

The central insight of Darwin's Origin of Species is that evolution is an ecological phenomenon, arising from the activities of organisms in the 'struggle for life'. By contrast, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution, which rose to prominence in the twentieth century, presents evolution as a fundamentally molecular phenomenon, occurring in populations of sub-organismal entities - genes. After nearly a century of success, the Modern Synthesis theory is now being challenged by empirical advances in the study of organismal development and (...) inheritance. In this important study, D. M. Walsh shows that the principal defect of the Modern Synthesis resides in its rejection of Darwin's organismal perspective, and argues for 'situated Darwinism': an alternative, organism-centred conception of evolution that prioritises organisms as adaptive agents. His book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The aim of this investigation is to explore the role of argumentation schemes in enthymeme reconstruction. This aim is pursued by studying selected cases of incomplete arguments in natural language discourse to see what the requirements are for filling in the unstated premises and conclusions in some systematic and useful way. Some of these cases are best handled using deductive tools, while others respond best to an analysis based on defeasible argumentations schemes. The approach is also shown to work reasonably (...) well for weak arguments, a class of arguments that has always been difficult to analyze without the principle of charity producing a straw man. (shrink)

There is increased interest in deviant behavior in the workplace. However, research is lacking on the moral economy of such behavior. Moral economy is particularly important in contexts where syncretic forces impinge on deviant behavior. Consequently, we use moral economy reasoning to examine the relationship between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior in the African context. In Study 1, data (_N_ = 27, 148) show an inverted U-shape effect of meta-agency and deviant behavior. In Study 2, difference-in-difference (DID) analysis of data (...) (_N_ = 25,387 in 2005 and _N _= 51,587 in 2013) shows significant DID effect of meta-agency. Primary data from Study 3 (_N_ = 229) shows a U-shaped effect of agency and deviant behavior. In Study 4 (_N_ = 333), a replication shows support for the U-shape effect in Study 3. The four studies thus show complex patterns that reflect U-shape and inverted U-shape relationships between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior as indicated by bribery, corruption, and unethicality. Robustness checks support the curvilinear relationships suggesting that the effects are not due to chance. We discuss implications for research and practice. (shrink)