Since Stalbaum’s 1838 translation revived interest in Plato’s Timaeus, commentators have tended to bracket the discourse on Necessity, reading it as either mythical or mystical. This essay offers an interpretation of Necessity that is also an assertion of its importance for understanding the philosophically important conception of chora-space found therein. Beginning with throwing ourselves back into the Presocratic milieu, I examine what remains of Presocratic notions of kreon and ananke (necessity) in order to move forward a more robust interpretation of (...) the discourse on Necessity and chora-space. (shrink)

Since Stalbaum’s 1838 translation revived interest in Plato’s Timaeus, commentators have tended to bracket the discourse on Necessity, reading it as either mythical or mystical. This essay offers an interpretation of Necessity that is also an assertion of its importance for understanding the philosophically important conception of chora-space found therein. Beginning with throwing ourselves back into the Presocratic milieu, I examine what remains of Presocratic notions of kreon and ananke (necessity) in order to move forward a more robust interpretation of (...) the discourse on Necessity and chora-space. (shrink)

This essay is about experience, and not only about ideas. I have been drawn to write about John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus for a number of reasons: First, I find his work to be part of a new turn in LGBT art and media that take queer lives as a point of departure, and not only as narrative focus, for their work. These areworks that are not just about being queer, but cross the line into being queer works. Of those who (...) can be said to be a part of this recent turn, I find Mitchell’s work to be both especially philosophical and formally interesting. Not only does his work take up philosophical questions over what it means to be human, and the nature of love and sex, but also his works are produced through an organic, cooperative process that re-frames what it could mean to queer representation, political or otherwise. (shrink)

Since Stalbaum’s 1838 translation revived interest in Plato’s Timaeus, commentators have tended to bracket the discourse on Necessity, reading it as either mythical or mystical. This essay offers an interpretation of Necessity that is also an assertion of its importance for understanding the philosophically important conception of chora-space found therein. Beginning with throwing ourselves back into the Presocratic milieu, I examine what remains of Presocratic notions of kreon and ananke (necessity) in order to move forward a more robust interpretation of (...) the discourse on Necessity and chora-space. (shrink)

As third wave feminist philosophers attending graduate schools in different parts of the country, we decided to use our e-mail discussion as the format for presenting our thinking on the subject of third wave feminism. Our dialogue takes us through the subjects of postmodernism, the relationship between theory and practice, the generation gap, and the power relations associated with feminist philosophy as an established part of the academy.

What ethical framework should be used as a basis for teaching business ethics? Should business ethics be taught by ethicists in a separate course, by business faculty in business courses, or perhaps by both? These are some of the issues this paper will address. The paper begins with a review of the literature concerning approaches to teaching business ethics. Next, some ethical frameworks for teaching business ethics are considered. Finally, the paper proposes that students should apply their own personal values (...) to business ethical issues in the classroom, thus providing future business leaders with a process for resolving ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

The interaction of humans, cholera bacteria, the zooplankton host of the bacterium , and the environment in the case of cholera can be employed to make reasonable predictions about this climate-driven disease. The issues are truly international and represent those that comprise a global scientific enterprise and encompass many other infectious diseases.

This article presents a case that former President of the United States Donald Trump was a tyrant-like leader in the mold of the tyrant in Plato’s Republic. While he does not perfectly embody the tyrant as presented in the Republic, he captures its core feature. Like the tyrant, Trump is driven by unregulated desires that reflect what Plato describes as an extreme freedom that underlies and threatens democratic regimes. Extreme freedom is manifested in Trump’s disregard for social and legal norms, (...) which mirrors the lawlessness of the tyrant. The people, in turn, interpret that posture as a mark of authenticity. Understanding Trump’s appeal in the United States helps alert friends of democracy to the possible rise of tyrant-like figures. In closing, and as a way of remedying the harm done by the tyrannical soul, the article recommends that society help temper tyrant-like passions in the people through a rededication to civic equality. (shrink)

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess economic decision-making. However, the research tradition on aging and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been mainly focused on the overall performance of older adults in relation to younger or clinical groups, remaining unclear whether older adults are capable of learning along the task. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine older adults’ decision-making on the IGT, to test the effects of aging on reversal learning (45 studies) (...) and to provide normative data on total and block net scores (55 studies). From the accumulated empirical evidence, we found an average total net score of 7.55 (± 25.9). We also observed a significant reversal learning effect along the blocks of the IGT, indicating that older adults inhibit the prepotent response towards immediately attractive options associated with high losses, in favor of initially less attractive options associated with long-run profit. During block 1, decisions of older adults led to a negative gambling net score, reflecting the expected initial pattern of risk-taking. However, the shift towards more safe options occurred between block 2 (small-to-medium effect size) and blocks 3, 4, 5 (medium-to-large effect size). These main findings highlight that older adults are able to move from the initial uncertainty, when the possible outcomes are unknown, to decisions based on risk, when the outcomes are learned and may be used to guide future adaptive decision-making. (shrink)

Casual sexual relationships are frequent relationship experiences in young adulthood that provide opportunities for many to explore sexual relationships and to construct their sexual identity. Empirical research on casual sex is still lacking outside North-American countries, despite evidence pointing to the need to contextualize sexual interactions in their own sociocultural context. In order to better understand casual sexual relationships, these should be examined in with novel samples in other countries where a “hookup culture” as it is described in the North-American (...) university campus is apparently absent. Through a qualitative study, we explored what casual sexual relationships consist of according to the perceptions of Portuguese college students. The thematic analysis of eight focus group interviews resulted in the generation of six themes, three of which are presented here: What CSRs are, regarding features and types of CSRs, Why individuals engage in CSRs, focusing on positive and negative motivations, and What one gets from CSRs, focusing on positive and negative outcomes of CSRs. Our findings showed that Portuguese emerging adults are familiarized with CSRs, particularly with one-night stand, friends with benefits and “curte”/hookup. Sexual interactions associated with other CSRs, such as booty call or fuck buddies, were mentioned but rarely associated with a distinctive label and established characteristics. Participants described the CSRs in a partially overlapping manner presenting some areas of ambiguity, such as with regard to sexual exclusivity and still-unlabeled sexual interactions. CSRs are generally evaluated as positively motivated and mainly beneficial. This study adds to the literature around casual sexual relationships by exploring and describing CSRs in a different sociocultural context, as well as indicating directions for future research in order to better prepare and empower young adults in their sexual and relational trajectories. (shrink)

Cultural routines, such as reading and writing direction (script direction), channel attention orientation. Depending on one's native language habit, attention is biased from left‐to‐right (LR) or from right‐to‐left (RL). Here, we further document this bias, as it interacts with the spatial directionality that grounds time concepts. We used a spatial cueing task to test whether script direction and the grounding of time in Portuguese (LR, Exp. 1) and Arabic (RL, Exp. 2) shape visuomotor performance in target discrimination. Temporal words (e.g., (...) tomorrow, yesterday) were presented as cues in two modalities: visual (Exp. 1–2) and auditory (Exp. 1). Gaze movement (Exp. 1) and speed of discrimination decisions (Exp. 1–2) of targets presented to the left or right sides of the screen were assessed. As predicted, the interaction between target location and time concepts was significant across both modalities and linguistic communities. Additionally, LR participants detected the target on the right side of the screen faster after a future word than the target on the left side of the screen after a past word cue. In contrast, RL participants detected the target on the left side of the screen faster when the cue word was a future word than the target on the right side of the screen cued by a past word. In both modalities, the initial eye‐gaze movement (Exp. 1) was responsive to the cue's time referent, further confirming that time orients attention. An additional bias was observed for the first fixation onset, which landed earlier on the target set that matched habitualized spatial routines. We conclude that scanning regularities are shaped by writing habits and bodily grounded categorical features. (shrink)

This essential new text is designed for courses in contemporary moral issues, applied ethics, and leadership. Emphasizing personal choice in the study of ethics, the authors take the reader on a journey of self-discovery rather than a mere academic survey of the field of ethics.A Practical Guide to Ethics: Living and Leading with Integrity helps students develop their skills in ethical decision-making and put those decisions into effective practice. Its unique focus on leadership, especially the moral dimensions of understanding one's (...) own values, teaches students to understand and, through dialog and negotiation, communicate their own beliefs as a step to building coalitions with those who may hold different views. It is also distinctive in combining ethical theory with both multicultural ethics and a practical orientation to moral decision-making and leadership. (shrink)

Today's college students have more knowledge available to them than can be absorbed; mastery of a subject area creates siloes where nearly every course is tailored to comprehending subject matter that may be outdated before they graduate. But learning is more than subject-matter expertise. Our fast-paced environment requires instantaneous reactions to complex questions. Our instant-messaging age champions quick response over reflection or thought--even the president governs by Twitter. Yet the ethical dilemmas are no less complex than the subject matter; cyber (...) security, prison reform, labor rights, abortion, artificial intelligence, or gun laws are common table topics over lunch. Struggling through that complexity is central to understanding its implications for our culture. This book brings together some of the leading ethicists in the country to consider the rightful place of ethics in the university today. The authors make the case that higher education has a special duty to empower students to cultivate their character, ethically assess situations, and prepare them for an increasingly complex world. -- back cover. (shrink)

Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky's (D&M-S's) model of affiliation meets the criteria advanced for the definition of behavior systems and endophenotypes. We argue that its application in psychiatry could be useful for identifying a biological pathophysiology common to a variety of conditions that are currently classified in very different categories of psychiatric nosography, including autism, schizoid personality, primary psychopathy, and dismissing attachment.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

A common financial model used in business decisions is the cost/benefit comparison. The costs of a proposed project are compared with the benefits, and if the benefits outweigh the costs, the project is accepted; if the costs exceed the benefits, the project is rejected. This model is applicable when tangible costs and benefits can be reasonably measured in monetary units. However, it is difficult to consider intangible factors in this model because intangible factors cannot be readily quantified in money.While some (...) might argue that the financial model should not apply to healthcare decisions, the fact is that costs do enter into the picture. People may decide to forego needed healthcare because they cannot afford it. Healthcare providers may make choices based in part on the costs of diagnosis and treatment, rather than solely on medical information and what is best for the patient. Should financial issues enter into healthcare decisions – decisions about human health and well being? If so, how should the costs and benefits be measured and evaluated? What are some ethical issues and dilemmas involved in such decisions? (shrink)

We examine ethical considerations in access to facial transplantation (FT), with implications for promoting health equity. As a form of vascularised composite allotransplantation, FT is still considered innovative with a relatively low volume of procedures performed to date by a small number of active FT programmes worldwide. However, as numbers continue to increase and institutions look to establish new FT programmes, we anticipate that attention will shift from feasibility towards ensuring the benefits of FT are equitably available to those in (...) need. This manuscript assesses barriers to care and their ethical implications across a number of considerations, with the intent of mapping various factors relating to health equity and fair access to FT. Evidence is drawn from an evolving clinical experience as well as published scholarship addressing several dimensions of access to FT. We also explore novel concerns that have yet to be mentioned in the literature. (shrink)

The containment measures imposed during the first COVID-19 outbreak required economic, social, and behavioral changes to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. Some studies have focused on how personality predicts distinct patterns of adherence to protective measures with psychopathic and antisocial traits predicting reduced engagement in such measures. In this study we extended previous findings by analyzing how boldness, meanness, and disinhibition psychopathic traits relate with both risk perceptions and protective behaviors during the first COVID-19 outbreak. A sample of 194 (...) individuals engaged in the survey, were assessed for psychopathic traits with the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure, and completed a COVID-19 survey targeting risk perceptions and frequency of protective behaviors. Overall results show that boldness predicts reduced estimate of COVID-19 spread, reduced perceived risk of becoming infected, reduced state anxiety toward COVID-19, and reduced frequency of protective behaviors. Exploratory mediation models suggest that risk perceptions are not significant mediators of the association between psychopathic traits and reduced engagement in protective behaviors. Our results unveil that psychopathic traits affect risk perceptions and the propensity to engage in protective measures, emphasizing the need to accommodate these personality features in the public health strategy to control the COVID-19 spread. (shrink)

With respect to De Dreu and Gross's article, we comment on the psychological functions for attack and defense, focusing on associations between individual differences in psychopathic personality traits and the behavioral patterns observed in attack-defense conflicts. We highlight the dimensional nature of psychopathy and formulate hypothetical associations between distinct traits, their different behavioral outcomes, and associated brain mechanisms.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

The focus of this work is the analysis of changes in completed family size and possible determinants of that size over time, in an attempt to characterize the evolution of reproductive patterns during the demographic transition. With this purpose in mind, time trends are studied in relation to the mean number of live births per family (as an indirect measure of fertility), using family reconstitution techniques to trace the reproductive history of each married woman. The population surveyed is a Spanish (...) rural community called Lanciego, located at the southern end of the province of Alava (Basque Country). A total of 24,510 parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials made between 1800 and 1969 were examined to obtain the demographic data set. For each reconstituted family, the variables included in the study were the number of live births per family or family size (FAMS), year of marriage (YEAR), age at marriage of both partners (AMAN, AWOM), wife’s age at the end of marriage (WEND), duration of marriage (MARD), age at first maternity (A1CH), length of reproductive span (REPS) and number of children dying before their first anniversary (MINF). Through a principal component analysis, three factors were found that explained more than 75% of the total variance. Association of variables in factors I and III was particularly useful in characterizing the variability of mean family size in pre-transitional, transitional and post-transitional cohorts. During demographic transition, a decreasing trend is observed in the variables FAMS, REPS and MINF, while variables AWOM, AMAN, WEND and A1CH show a tendency to increase over the 20th century. Results obtained by multiple regression analysis confirm that the best predictors of family size (dependent variable) were REPS and MINF, which between them explained over 85% of the total variation in FAMS (R2=0·853). In Lanciego, birth control seems to be present on the evidence of an increase in age at first maternity and a decrease in age at last parturition, indicating that the beginning of the reproductive span is delayed and its end is brought forward. Interaction between family size and infant mortality is discussed in the light of various hypotheses, including replacement of descendants, the so-called biological effect and the theory of r and k selection. (shrink)

Estudos recentes vêm revisando a composição da literatura que, ao longo do século XVIII serviu como base às ciências em território britânico. Segundo esses estudos, os seiscentistas de fala inglesa dedicaram-se a duas linhagens de texto, originadas em concepções de ciência muito distintas. Uma dessas linhagens tinha como fonte principal a antiga “literatura do segredo” que incluía desde velhos e sigilosos manuais de ofício até os milenares e proibidos tratados de hermética, literatura antes reservada a poucos. Diferente dessa, a outra (...) ]inhagem de textos surgia como um direto da proposta baconiana para a nova ciência: um saber elaborado por muitos e ao alcance de todos. Exemplos conhecidos dessa linhagem são os livros de divulgação utilizados pelos comenianos ingleses ou mesmo os relatórios, atas e memórias das sociedades científicas, geradores dos primeiros embriões de periódicos dedicados às ciências. Todavia, sob essa aparente contraposição das duas linhagens, há indícios de um profícuo diálogo - expresso sobretudo na correspondência e diários pensadores da época. (shrink)