Suddendorf & Corballis (S&C) argue that animals are not capable of mental time travel (MTT) or its components. However, new results on chimpanzees suggest that they plan for the future and possess some MTT components. Moreover, future-oriented behaviour and episodic-like memory in other animals suggest that not all animals are limited to the present. Animals' capacities should not be dismissed without testing them.

To what extent should we focus on implicit bias in order to eradicate persistent social injustice? Structural prioritizers argue that we should focus less on individual minds than on unjust social structures, while equal prioritizers think that both are equally important. This article introduces the framework of transactive memory into the debate to defend the equal priority view. The transactive memory framework helps us see how structure can emerge from individual interactions as an irreducibly social product. If this is right, (...) then debiasing interventions are structural interventions. One upshot is that the utility of the individual versus structural distinction is not apparent for the purposes of intervention. (shrink)

L'histoire de la philosophie a toujours vu en Plotin un metaphysicien. Porphyre ne dit-il pas de son maitre qu'il connaissait parfaitement la geometrie, l'arithmetique, la mecanique, l'optique et la musique, mais qu'il n'etait pas enclin a approfondir davantage ces disciplines? Ce peu de gout pour les mathematiques et la physique n'a pourtant pas empeche Plotin de rediger quelques traites exclusivement connsacres a des questions de physique et de cosmologie, traites qui furent les grands oublies des etudes neioplatoniciennes. Parmi ceux-ci, le (...) traite Sur le ciel est d'une importance capitale aussi bien en raison du sujet qu'il aborde que du debat philosophique qu'il engage avec la tradition. La vision plotinienne du monde et du ciel doit en effet trouver sa place au sein des theories cosmologiques dominantes de son epoque: celles transmises par le Timee de Platon, le De Caelo d'Aristote et la vision stoicienne de l'univers. Il va sans dire que Plotin se veut un exegete des doctrines platoniciennes, mais le present traite montre peut-etre plus que tout autre la difficile cohabitation de l'independance d'esprit et de la fidelite aux textes du maitre. Ce qui se presente comme une exegese du Timee devient en fait une trahison des enseignements qui y sont contenus. Le traite II, 1 [40] fut le theatre d'une rebellion, celle d'un interprete platonicinen qui tente de lire dans le Timee une theorie qui ne s'y trouve pas. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the effect of sound on visual motion perception. One model involves the illusion created when two identical objects moving towards each other on a two-dimensional visual display can be seen to either bounce off or stream through each other. Previous studies show that the large bias normally seen toward the streaming percept can be modulated by the presentation of an auditory event at the moment of coincidence. However, no reports to date provide sufficient evidence to (...) indicate whether the sound bounce-inducing effect is due to a perceptual binding process or merely to an explicit inference resulting from the transient auditory stimulus resembling a physical collision of two objects. In the present study, we used a novel experimental design in which a subliminal sound was presented either 150 ms before, at, or 150 ms after the moment of coincidence of two disks moving towards each other. The results showed that there was an increased perception of bouncing when the subliminal sound was presented at or 150 ms after the moment of coincidence compared to when no sound was presented. These findings provide the first empirical demonstration that activation of the human auditory system without reaching consciousness affects the perception of an ambiguous visual motion display. (shrink)

Sugar, pork, beer, corn, cider, scrapple, and hoppin' John all became staples in the diet of colonial America. The ways Americans cultivated and prepared food and the values they attributed to it played an important role in shaping the identity of the newborn nation. In A Revolution in Eating, James E. McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques throughout colonial America. Confronted by strange new animals, plants, and landscapes, settlers in the colonies and West (...) Indies found new ways to produce food. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. From the kitchen tables of typical Puritan families to Iroquois longhouses in the backcountry and slave kitchens on southern plantations, McWilliams portrays the grand variety and inventiveness that characterized colonial cuisine. As colonial America grew, so did its palate, as interactions among European settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves created new dishes and attitudes about food. McWilliams considers how Indian corn, once thought by the colonists as "fit for swine," became a fixture in the colonial diet. He also examines the ways in which African slaves influenced West Indian and American southern cuisine. While a mania for all things British was a unifying feature of eighteenth-century cuisine, the colonies discovered a national beverage in domestically brewed beer, which came to symbolize solidarity and loyalty to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary era. The beer and alcohol industry also instigated unprecedented trade among the colonies and further integrated colonial habits and tastes. Victory in the American Revolution initiated a "culinary declaration of independence," prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine. McWilliams demonstrates that this was a shift not so much in new ingredients or cooking methods, as in the way Americans imbued food and cuisine with values that continue to shape American attitudes to this day. (shrink)

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and how do such explanations relate to individualistic ones? This article explores recent philosophical debates concerning the nature and usages of social structural explanation. I distinguish between two central kinds of social structural explanation: those that are autonomous from psychology, and those that are not. This distinction will help clarify the explanatory power (...) that each type of SSE has, points of convergence with methodological traditions such as critical theory and rational choice theory, and the difficulties that each type of SSE faces. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that what we ought to do collectively does not imply anything about what each of us ought to do individually. According to this line of reasoning, if cooperating will make no difference to an outcome, then you are not morally required to do it. And if cooperating will be personally costly to you as well, this is an even stronger reason to not do it. However, this reasoning results in a self-defeating, yet entirely predictable outcome. If (...) everyone is rational, no one will cooperate, resulting in an aggregate outcome that is devastating for everyone. This dismal analysis explains why climate change and other collective action problems are so difficult to ameliorate. The goal of this paper is to provide a different, exploratory framework for thinking about individual reasons for action in collective action problems. I argue that the concept of commitment gives us a new perspective on collective action problems. Once we take the structure of commitment into account, this activates requirements of diachronic rationality that give individuals instrumental reasons to cooperate in collective action problems. (shrink)

As of this writing, twenty‐one states have passed laws barring transgender youth‐athletes from competing on public‐school sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. Proponents of these regulations claim that transgender females in particular have inherent physiological advantages that threaten a “level playing field” for their cisgender competitors. Existing evidence is limited but does not support these restrictions. Gathering more robust data will require allowing transgender youth to compete (rather than preemptively barring them), but even if trans females are shown (...) to retain some advantage, this would not have greater moral significance than the many other “fair” physical and economic advantages found across sports. These regulations deprive transgender youth, an exceptionally vulnerable population, from the vast physical, mental, and social benefits of sports. While we advocate for transgender inclusion under our current, gender‐segregated model of sport, we propose changes to the overarching structure that would promote a more inclusive and fairer athletic environment. (shrink)

How should you live? Should you devote yourself to perfecting a single talent or try to live a balanced life? Should you lighten up and have more fun, or buckle down and try to achieve greatness? Should you try to be a better friend? Should you be self-critical or self-accepting? And how should you decide among the possibilities open to you? Should you consult experts, listen to your parents, or should you do lots of research? Should you make lists of (...) pros and cons, or go with your gut? These are not questions that can be answered in general or in the abstract. Rather, these questions are addressed to the first person point of view, to the perspective each of us occupies when we reflect on how to live without knowing exactly what we're aiming for. To answer them, this book focuses on the process of living one's life from the inside, rather than on defining goals from the outside. Drawing on traditional philosophical sources as well as literature and recent work in social psychology, this book argues that to live well, we need to develop reflective wisdom: to care about things that will sustain us and give us good experiences, to have perspective on our successes and failures, and to be moderately self-aware and cautiously optimistic about human nature. Further, we need to know when to think about our values, character, and choices, and when not to. A crucial part of wisdom, the book maintains, is being able to shift perspectives: to be self-critical; to be realistic; to examine life when reflection is appropriate, but not when we should lose ourselves in experience. (shrink)

This paper argues that some widely used laws of implication are false, and arguments based upon them invalid. These laws are Exportation, Commutation, (as well as various restricted forms of these), Exported Syllogism and Disjunctive Syllogism. All these laws are false for the same reason – that they license the suppression or replacement in some position of some class of propositions which cannot legitimately be suppressed or replaced. These laws fail to preserve the property of sufficiency of premiss set for (...) conclusion. They are false, and can be seen to be false, independently of their respon- sibility for the paradoxes. Hence the main ‘independent’ argument for the paradoxes – that they follow from an allegedly immaculate set of laws – is undermined. Counterexamples to all these laws are produced. (shrink)

Theorists of legal translation generally describe it as an interdisciplinary activity whose methodology draws deeply upon comparative law. In practice, how can we apply this theoretical paradigm to translator training? This article examines methods of integrating comparative law with the acquisition of knowledge and know-how that constitute the translator’s core competences, emphasizing the resolution of legal terminology problems resulting from incongruencies between legal systems. Given that the goal is to compare law for the purposes of translation, it is useful to (...) approach these problems from a functionalist viewpoint, principally through confronting a range of cases and situations likely to challenge the professional translator. Therefore, the author proposes including, along with other teaching methods, targeted work on terminological problems which necessitate the study of comparative law. A set of learning activities is presented for that purpose. (shrink)

The number of distributors selling Fair Trade products is constantly increasing. What are their motivations to distribute Fair Trade products? How do they organise this distribution? Do they apply and communicate the Fair Trade values? This research, based on five case studies in Switzerland, aims at understanding and structuring the strategies and the managerial practices related to Fair Trade product distribution, as well as analysing if they denote an engagement with Fair Trade principles. The results show a high heterogeneity of (...) strategies and engagement. In general, strategies implemented by mainstream actors contribute to increase Fair Trade global sales but do not convey the transformative message of Fair Trade through their engagement. The latter is rather communicated through alternative channels. Problems and potential solutions to this issue are discussed. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 153-155.

Price is a central analytic concept in both neoclassical and old institutional economics. Combining the social network perspective with old and new institutionalist approaches to price formation, this article examines technological, economic, institutional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910. We show that certain characteristics of electricity supply led to ambiguities in how the product should be priced, which created a politics of pricing among electricity producers. In (...) particular, we investigate why the “Wright system,” arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900. We argue that this outcome resulted in part from the political and organizational clout of its supporters, as well as from their particular conceptions of the boundaries and future of the industry itself. The Wright system best suited the “growth dynamic” strategy promoted by the managers of large central stations in their fierce competition with smaller and more decentralized installations. Thus, even in this apparently highly technical and mainly economic issue of how to price the product, there was ample room for social construction and political manipulation. The outcome reached was by no means inevitable and had a highly significant impact on the shape of the American industrial infrastructure. (shrink)

What is well-being? This is one of humanity's oldest and deepest questions; Valerie Tiberius offers a fresh answer. She argues that our lives go well to the extent that we succeed in what matters to us emotionally, reflectively, and over the long term. So when we want to help others achieve well-being, we should pay attention to their values.

Freedom of conscience is a core element of human rights respected by most European countries. It allows abortion through the inclusion of a conscience clause, which permits opting out of providing such services. However, the grounds for invoking conscientious objection lack clarity. Our aim in this paper is to take a step in this direction by carrying out a systematic review of reasons by midwives and nurses for declining, on conscience grounds, to participate in abortion. We conducted a systematic review (...) of ethical arguments asking, “What reasons have been reported in the argument based literature for or against conscientious objection to abortion provision by nurses or midwives?” We particularly wanted to identify any discussion of the responsibilities of midwives and nurses in this area. Search terms were conscientious objection and abortion or termination and nurse or midwife or midwives or physicians or doctors or medics within the dates 2000–2016 on: HEIN legal, Medline, CINAHL, Psychinfo, Academic Search Complete, Web of Science including publications in English, German and Dutch. Final articles were subjected to a rigorous analysis, coding and classifying each line into reason mentions, narrow and broad reasons for or against conscientious objection. Of an initial 1085 articles, 10 were included. We identified 23 broad reasons, containing 116narrow reasons and 269 reason mentions. Eighty one narrow reasons argued in favour of and 35 against conscientious objection. Using predetermined categories of moral, practical, religious or legal reasons, “moral reasons” contained the largest number of narrow reasons. The reasons and their associated mentions in this category outnumber those in the sum of the other three categories. We identified no absolute argument either for or against conscientious objection by midwives or nurses. An invisibility of midwives and nurses exists in the whole debate concerning conscientious objection reflecting a gap between literature and practice, as it is they whom WHO recommend as providers of this service. While the arguments in the literature emphasize the need for provision of conscientious objection, a balanced debate is necessary in this field, which includes all relevant health professionals. (shrink)

Just war thinking serves a social and psychological role that international law cannot fill. Law is dispassionate and objective, while just war thinking accounts for emotions and the situatedness of individuals. While law works on us externally, making us accountable to certain people and institutions, just war thinking affects us internally, making us accountable to ourselves. Psychologically, an external focus leads to feelings of shame, while an inward focus generates feelings of guilt. Philosophers have long recognized the importance of these (...) two moral emotions. Recently, psychologists have found that feelings of guilt are linked to positive social outcomes, such as the desire for reconciliation and reparation, while shame generates anger and hostility. Just war thinking, as an inward-looking tradition, has a special relationship with guilt. By focusing on moral emotions, just war thinking can move beyond the law in four ways, by developing an ethic of accountability, by providing a foundation for addressing moral injury, by providing a common language for discussing the costs of war, and for identifying ethical problems in radically new contexts. (shrink)

Hermeneutic research in nursing: developing a Gadamerian‐based research method This paper takes the stance that although there are many different approaches to phenomenological and hermeneutic research, some of these have become blurred due to multiple interpretations of translated materials. Working from original texts by the German philosophers, this paper reconsiders the relevance of phenomenology and hermeneutics to nursing research. We trace the development of Gadamer's philosophy in order to propose a research method based in this tradition. Five steps have been (...) identified as a guide for nurse researchers. These are deciding upon a question, identification of preunderstandings, gaining understanding through dialogue with participants, gaining understanding through dialogue with text and establishing trustworthiness. (shrink)

On assiste aujourd'hui à un renouvellement et à une intensification du questionnement juridique, lesquels ne vont pas sans susciter une interpellation de la réflexion philosophique par le droit. Plusieurs motifs concourent à cette situation. Cette interpellation de la philosophie est le signe d'un besoin d'élucidation, d'éclaircissement et de nouvelles délimitations conceptuelles, au sein d'une situation historique où les schèmes traditionnels d'interprétation du droit font sentir leurs insuffisances.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to contextualize young people’s lived experiences of privacy and invasion online. Social negotiations in the construction of privacy boundaries are theorized to be dependent on individual preferences, abilities and context-dependent social meanings.Design/methodology/approach– Empirical findings of three related Ottawa-based studies dealing with young people’s online privacy are used to examine the benefits of online publicity, what online privacy means to young people and the social importance of privacy. Earlier philosophical (...) discussions of privacy and identity, as well as current scholarship, are drawn on to suggest that privacy is an inherently social practice that enables social actors to navigate the boundary between self/other and between being closed/open to social interaction.Findings– Four understandings of privacy’s value are developed in concordance with recent privacy literature and our own empirical data: privacy as contextual, relational, performative and dialectical.Social implications– A more holistic approach is necessary to understand young people’s privacy negotiations. Adopting such an approach can help re-establish an ability to address the ways in which privacy boundaries are negotiated and to challenge surveillance schemes and their social consequences.Originality/value– Findings imply that privacy policy should focus on creating conditions that support negotiations that are transparent and equitable. Additionally, policy-makers must begin to critically evaluate the ways in which surveillance interferes with the developmental need of young people to build relationships of trust with each other and also with adults. (shrink)

Feminist Political Theory provides both a wide-ranging history of western feminist thought and a lucid analysis of contemporary debates. It offers an accessible and thought-provoking account of complex theories, which it relates to 'real-life' issues such as sexual violence, political representation and the family. This timely new edition has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the most recent developments in feminism and feminist scholarship throughout, in particular taking into account the impact of black and postmodern feminist thought on feminist political theory.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Most studies investigating the relationship between cultural constructs and ethical perception have focused on individual- and societal-level values without much attention to other type of cultural constructs such as social beliefs. In addition, we need to better understand how social beliefs are linked to ethical perception and the level of analysis at which social beliefs may best predict ethical perceptions. This research contributes to the cross-cultural ethical perception literature by examining the relationship of individual-level social cynicism belief, one of five (...) universally endorsed social beliefs, together with individual social dominance orientation and the perception of unethical behavior. By means of two studies, we examine these relationships across societies that significantly differ on societal-level social cynicism belief. Using 371 business students from Russia and the U.S. in Study 1 and 268 professionals from Portugal and the U.S. in Study 2, we found that individual-level social cynicism belief was positively associated with social dominance orientation. Social dominance orientation, in turn, mediated the relationship between individual social cynicism belief and the perception of unethical behavior. Although we found significant societal-level differences in social cynicism belief in both studies, the relationships between individual-level social cynicism belief, social dominance orientation, and the perception of unethical behavior were structurally equivalent across societies in both studies, suggesting that societal-level differences did not significantly affect these relationships. Implications for cross-cultural business ethics research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

(2014). Tin Men: Ethics, Cybernetics and the Importance of Soul. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 3-19. doi: 10.1080/15027570.2014.908011.

The article explores the place of affect in community relations with respect to trauma following the closure of a steelworks for a working-class community in the South Wales valleys in 2002. A review of sociological approaches to community demonstrates the poor handling of relational and affective aspects which, it is argued, are central to the way in which community relations were formed and provided a safe and containing skin against the uncertainty of industrial production. Using psychoanalytic approaches to affect which (...) stress the importance of skin, particularly the work of Bick, Tustin, Winnicott and Anzieu, the article explores how a sense of a containing skin provides a feeling of ontological security for a community beset by uncertainty and insecurity. It is argued that, following the closure of the steelworks in 2002, this skin is ruptured and that it is difficult for the members of the community to find a way forward. Using examples taken from psychosocial interviews with community members, the case is made for a range of affective relations and practices through which the skin is created. The absence of these practices and relations creates a profound sense of lack of safety and fear of death within the inhabitants, which needs to be addressed, but is rarely discussed in approaches to community or regeneration. (shrink)

During the Covid‐19 pandemic, as resources dwindled, clinicians, health care institutions, and policymakers have expressed concern about potential legal liability for following crisis standards of care (CSC) plans. Although there is no robust empirical research to demonstrate that liability protections actually influence physician behavior, we argue that limited liability protections for health care professionals who follow established CSC plans may instead be justified by reliance on the principle of reciprocity. Expecting physicians to do something they know will harm their patients (...) causes moral distress and suffering that may leave lasting scars. Limited liability shields are both appropriate and proportionate to the risk physicians are being asked to take in such circumstances. Under certain narrow circumstances, it remains unclear that the standard of care is sufficiently flexible to protect physicians from liability. Given this uncertainty, the likelihood that physicians would be sued for such an act, and their desire for such immunity, this limited protection is morally legitimate. (shrink)

The rise of private standards, including those involving multi-stakeholder processes, raises questions about whose interests are served and the kind of power that is exerted to maintain these interests. This paper critically examines the battle for ideas—the way competing factions assert their own narratives about value chain relations, the role of standards and related multi-stakeholder processes. Drawing on empirical research on the horticulture and floriculture value chains linking Kenya and the United Kingdom, the analysis explores the framing of sustainability issues, (...) especially around labor issues and good agricultural practice, and the choice of response with respect to private standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives since the late 1990s. We identify four competing narratives currently in play: a dominant global sourcing narrative, a pragmatic development narrative, a broader development narrative and a narrative we term potentially transformative. This last narrative is currently emerging through the unpacking of narratives in relation to the framing of sustainability problems and solutions, and in terms of legislative, executive and judicial governance. The paper contributes to emerging understanding of power in value chains, moving beyond material power to a consideration of how ideational power is exerted and resisted. (shrink)

According to Alasdair Cochrane, liberty can have value for most animals only because it allows them to obtain other desirable things, such as well-being. With this he concludes that humans can continue to use other animals as long as they treat them well. In this article, I reject this conclusion by arguing against the positive conception of liberty in favor of its negative or republican conception. I suggest that it is sufficient for a being to be capable of agency in (...) order to have an interest in liberty, which deserves to be protected by the right to be free. (shrink)

Hubris among CEOs is generally considered to be undesirable: researchers in finance and in management have documented its unwelcome effects and the media ascribe many corporate failings to CEO hubris. However, the literature fails to provide a precise definition of CEO hubris and is mostly silent on how to prevent it. We use work on hubris in the fields of mythology, psychology, and ethics to develop a framework defining CEO hubris. Our framework describes a set of beliefs and behaviors, both (...) psycho-pathological and unethical in nature, which characterize the problematic relationship of the hubris-infected CEO towards his or her own self, others and the world at large. We then demonstrate how the development of authentic leadership may contribute to preventing or attenuating hubris by addressing its psycho-pathological nature through the true self and meaningful relationships with others. In addition to its psycho-pathological dimension, CEO hubris also contains an ethical dimension. We therefore propose that the development of the virtue of reverence might contribute to the prevention or attenuation of CEO hubris, because reverence makes the individual aware of his or her place in the world order and membership of the community of humans. (shrink)