There is a growing literature demonstrating a link between lower socioeconomic status (SES) and poorer neuroanatomical health, such as smaller total and regional gray and white matter volumes, as well as greater white matter lesion volumes. Little is known, however, about the relation between SES and white matter integrity. Here we examined the relation between SES and white matter integrity of the brain’s primary cortical regions, and evaluated potential moderating influences of age and self-identified race. Participants were 192 neurologically intact, (...) community-dwelling African American and White adults (mean age = 52 years; 44% male, 60% White, low SES = 52%) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) SCAN study. Participants underwent 3.0-T cranial magnetic resonance imaging. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to estimate regional fractional anisotropy (FA) to quantify the brain’s white matter integrity and trace to capture diffusivity. Multiple regression analyses examined independent and interactive associations of SES, age, and race with FA of the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes bilaterally. Sensitivity analyses assessed the influence of several biopsychosocial risk factors on these associations. Exploratory analyses examined these relations with trace and using additional SES indicators. Results indicated there were no significant interactions of SES, age, and race for any region. Individuals with low SES had lower FA in all regions, and higher trace in the right and left frontal, right and left temporal, and left occipital lobes. Findings remained largely unchanged after inclusion of sensitivity variables. Older age was associated with lower FA and greater trace for all regions, except for the right temporal lobe with FA. No main effects were found for race in FA, and Whites had higher trace values in the parietal lobes. Novel findings of this study indicate that relative to the high SES group, low SES was associated with poorer white matter integrity and greater diffusivity. These results may, in part, reflect exposures to various biopsychosocial risk factors experienced by those of lower SES across the lifespan, and may help explain the preponderance of cognitive and functional disparities between socioeconomic groups. (shrink)

This article reviews existing state laws related to autonomous vehicle (AV) safety, equity, and automobile insurance. Thirty states were identified with relevant legislation. Of these, most states had one or two relevant laws in place. Many of these laws were related to safety and insurance requirements. Data are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of these laws in order to guide further policy development.

We discuss how the law and scholars have approached three questions. First, what acts count as acts of entrapment? Secondly, is entrapment a permissible method of law-enforcement and, if so, in what circumstances? Thirdly, what must criminal courts do, in response to the finding that an offence was brought about by an act of entrapment, in order to deliver justice? While noting the contrary tendency, we suggest that the first question should be addressed in a manner that is neutral about (...) the answers to the other two. On the second question, we summarize various arguments about the permissibility of entrapment, while remaining largely neutral about their merits. With regard to the third question, we summarize the approaches to entrapment in various jurisdictions, and we note some patterns, across the jurisdictions here surveyed, concerning shifts from one sort of entrapment remedy to another. (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

Benjamin Schnieder has argued that several traditional definitions of truth-functionality fail to capture a central intuition informal characterizations of the notion often capture. The intuition is that the truth-value of a sentence that employs a truth-functional operator depends upon the truth-values of the sentences upon which the operator operates. Schnieder proposes an alternative definition of truth-functionality that is designed to accommodate this intuition. We argue that one traditional definition of ‘truth-functionality’ is immune from the counterexamples that Schnieder proposes and is (...) preferable to Schnieder’s alternative. (shrink)

Kit Fine has proposed a new solution to what he calls ‘a familiar puzzle’ concerning modality and existence. The puzzle concerns the argument from the alleged truths ‘It is necessary that Socrates is a man’ and ‘It is possible that Socrates does not exist’ to the apparent falsehood ‘It is possible that Socrates is a man and does not exist’. We discuss in detail Fine’s setting up of the ‘puzzle’ and his rejection, with which we concur, of two mooted solutions (...) to it. (One of these uses standard, Kripkean, notions, and the other rests on work done by Arthur Prior.) We set out, and reject, the philosophy of modality underlying Fine’s new solution, and we defend an alternative response to the alleged puzzle. Our solution follows the work of David Wiggins in distinguishing between the sentential operator ‘It is necessary that’ and the predicate modifier ‘necessarily’. We briefly provide this distinction with a possible- world semantics on which it is neither a necessary truth, in some sense, that Socrates exists nor true, in some sense, that Socrates necessarily exists. (shrink)

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)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

Abstract Daniel H. H. Ingalls referred to Gaudap?da's M?nd?kya K?rik?, a very early Advaita text, as ? ... the most puzzling perhaps, of all Sanskrit philosophical texts?. This article shows that some of the philosophical quandaries associated with this text are the result of inappropriately imposing a graphic and prose model of textuality upon a text composed in the k?rik? (memorial verse) genre and in an oral cultural context. Developing a model of textuality consistent with the literary genre and (...) cultural context, the article is not only able to resolve some of the philosophical problems associated with the text, but also raises the possibility that this inappropriate hermeneutical process has contributed to mislabelling Gaudap?da as an idealist. (shrink)

Book Reviews in this article Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against its Graeco‐Roman Background. By A.J.M. Wedderburn. Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians. By Frances Young and David Ford. Jesus and God in Paul's Eschatology. By L. Joseph Kreitzer. The Acts of the Apostles : By Hans Conzelmann. The Genesis of Christology: Foundations for a Theology of the New Testament. By Petr Pokorny. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought as Prolegomena to a Future Christology. (...) By Hans Küng, translated by J.R. Stephenson. The Incarnation: Collected Essays in Christology. By Brian Hebblethwaite. Models for God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age. By Sallie McFague. Pp. xv, 224, London, SCM Press, 1987, £8.50 Symbol and Sacrament: A Contemporary Sacramental Theology. By Michael G. Lawler. The Sacrifice We Offer: The Tridentine Dogma and its Reinterpretation. By David N. Power. New Eucharistic Prayers: An Ecumenical Study of their Development and Structure. Edited by Frank C. Senn. To Join Together: The Rite of Marriage. By Kenneth W. Stevenson. Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God. By George Guiver. The Long‐Legged Fly. By Don Cupitt. Approaches to Auschwitz. By Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth. Natural Law and Justice. By Lloyd L. Weinreb. Christian Morality: The Word Becomes Flesh. By Josef Fuchs S.J., translated by Brian McNeil. Medicine in Contemporary Society: King's College Studies 1986–87. Edited by Peter Byrne. Military Ethics: Guidelines for Peace and War. By N. Fotion and G. Elfstrom. Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action. By Alan Donagan. Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry. Edited by Arthur Peacocke and Grant Gillet. The Rationality of Emotion. By Ronald de Sousa. The Psychology of Personality: An Epistemological Inquiry. By James T. Lamiell. Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art. By Anne Sheppard. The Ascetic Element in Culture and Criticism. By Geoffrey Gait Harpham. Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing. By Michael Heim. Education and Philosophical Anthropology: Toward a New View of Man for the Humanities and English. By David Holbrook. Evolution and the Humanities. By David Holbrook. Further Studies in Philosophical Anthropology. By David Holbrook. Women in Western Political Philosophy. Edited by Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus. The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche and Descartes. By Nicholas Jolley. Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas. By Stephen M. Nadler. Later Medieval Philosophy : An Introduction. By John Marenbon. Either/Or. By Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Howard and Edna Hong, Princeton University Press, 1987: Vol. One, Wittgenstein. By A.C. Grayling. Questions on Wittgenstein. By Rudolf Haller. The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy. By David Pears, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Vol. One, The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method. By S. Stephen Hilmy. Knowledge of God: Calvin, Einstein and Polanyi. By Iain Paul. Conceptual Change and Religious Practice with Special Reference to Jews in Britain and Israel. By Janice Williams. The World's Religions. Edited by Stewart Sutherland, Leslie Houlden, Peter Clarke and Friedhelm Hardy. Religions in Conversation: Christian Identity and Religious Pluralism. By Michael Barnes. Theravāda Buddhism, A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modem Colombo. By Richard Gombrich. Mahāyāna Buddhism, The Doctrinal Foundations. By Paul Williams. Hinduism in Great Britain: The Perpetuation of Religion in an Alien Cultural Milieu. Edited by Richard Burghart. The Way of the Black Messiah. By Theo Witvliet. The Meaning of Religious Conversion in Africa. By Cyril C. Okorocha. Common Ground: Christianity, African Religion and Philosophy. By Emmanuel K. Twesigye. Islamic Spirituality I: Foundations. Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. By Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor. Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine. By J. Neusner. Language and the Worship of the Church. Edited by David Jasper and R.C.D. Jasper. The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development and Meaning of Stational Liturgy. By John E. Baldovin. Leontii Presbyteri Constantinopolitani Homiliae. Edited by Cornells Datema and Pauline Allen. Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. By James A. Brundage. Melchior Hoffman: Social Unrest and Apocalyptic Visions in the Age of Reformation. By Klaus D Alonso de Zorita: RoyalJudge and Christian Humanist, 1512–1585. By Ralph H. Vigil. Pedro Moya de Contreras: Catholic Reform and Royal Power in New Spain, 1571–1591. By Stafford Poole. Archbishop William Laud. By Charles Carlton. The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730. By Callum G. Brown. Pastors and Pluralism in Württemberg, 1918–1933. By David J. Diephouse. The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. One: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918–1934. By Klaus Scholder. Reforming Fundamentalism. Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. By George M. Marsden. The Hellenistic Philosophers Vol. II: Greek and Latin Texts with Notes and Bibliography. By A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley. Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed. Edited by R.C.D. Jasper and G. J. Cuming. The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart. By Cyprian Smith. Meister Eckhart: The Man from whom God Hid Nothing. Edited by Ursula Fleming. The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola: A New Translation. Translated by Elisabeth Meier Tetlow. Courtfield and the Vaughans: An English Catholic Inheritance. By Mary Vaughan. Trinity College, Washington D.C.: The First Eighty Years, 1897–1977. By Columba Mullaly. John Henry Newman on the Idea of Church. By Edward Jeremy Miller. Journey from Paradise: Aft Athos and the Interior Life. By Ralph Harper. (shrink)

Moral functioning is a defining feature of human personhood and human social life. Moral Psychology provides an integrative and evaluative overview of the theoretical and empirical traditions that have attempted to make sense of moral cognition, prosocial behavior, and the development of virtuous character.This is the first book to integrate a comprehensive review of the psychological literatures with allied traditions in ethics. Moral rationality and decisionmaking; the development of the sense of fairness and justice, and of prosocial dispositions; as well (...) as the notion of moral self and moral identity and their relation to issues of character and virtue are fully discussed in the rich contexts provided by psychological and philosophical paradigms. Lapsley emphasizes parenting and educational strategies for influencing moral behavior, reasoning, and character development, and charts a line of research for the “post-Kohlbergian era” in moral psychology.This book will be an invaluable text for advanced courses in moral psychology, as taught in departments of psychology, education, and philosophy. It will also prove to be a standard reference work for researchers and ethicists alike. (shrink)

edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics.

Distant Harms, Distant Markets looks at moral complicity in markets, employing resources from sociology, early Christian history, feminism, legal theory, and Catholic moral theology today. The authors skillfully explore the causal and moral responsibilities which consumers bear for the harms that markets cause to distant others.

Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) is the ''social'' encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, one of many papal encyclicals over the last 120 years that address economic life. This volume, based on discussions at a symposium co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, analyzes the situation of the Church and the theological basis for Benedict's thinking about the person, community, and the globalized economy.

Daniel Whiting’s excellent new book, The Range of Reasons (2022), makes a number of noteworthy contributions to the philosophical literature on reasons and normativity. A good deal has been written on normative reasons, and it is no easy thing to make novel and promising arguments. Yet, this is what Whiting manages to do. We are sympathetic to some of his ideas and critical of others. It makes sense for us to focus on the first half of his book, where (...) Whiting presents two accounts of normative reasons (the first superseded by, although possibly also compatible with, the second). We welcome this opportunity to clarify our own current views on the nature of normative reasons by contrasting them with Whiting’s views. (shrink)

Most psychology begins with a distinction between organism and environment, where the two are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) conceptualized as flipsides of a skin-severed space. This paper examines that conceptualization. Dewey and Bentley's (1949) account of firm naming is used to show that psychologists have, in general, (1) employed the skin as a morphological criterion for distinguishing organisms from backgrounds, and (2) equated background with environment. This two-step procedure, which in this article is named the morphological conception of organism, is (...) shown to inform the writings of the well-known psychologist B. F. Skinner. A review of difficulties with the morphological conception is followed with a review and preliminary integration of four attempts at an alternative conception of organism, and thus environment. Together, these four attempts converge on an analysis of living systems as transdermal (through and across skin) processes only within which organism and environment are distinguishable as complementary phases. The notion of a biological total process, or bioprocess, is employed to clarify this alternative analysis, in which an organism is an ongoing organization rather than a skin-bound body. (shrink)

Workers in distant nations who produce the products we buy frequently suffer from accidents, managerial malfeasance, and injustice. Are consumers who bought the products made by these workers in any way morally responsible for those injustices? And what about the far more frequent, less severe injustices, such as the withholding of wages, the denial of bathroom breaks, forced overtime, and harassment of various sorts? Could buying a shirt at the local department store create for you some responsibility for the horrendous (...) death in a factory fire of the women who sewed it half a planet away? (shrink)

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nineteenth century; secondly, it is a history of a music that claims to have no history - absolute music. The book therefore writes against that notion of absolute music which tends to be the paradigm for most musicological and analytical studies. It is concerned not so much with what music (...) is, but with why and how meaning is constructed in instrumental music and what structures of knowledge need to be in place for such meaning to exist. From the thought of Vincenzo Galilei to that of Theodore Adorno, Daniel Chua suggests that instrumental music has always been a critical and negative force in modernity, even with its nineteenth-century apotheosis as 'absolute music'. (shrink)

The _Analects_ is a compendium of the sayings of Confucius (551-479 b.c.e.), transcribed and passed down by his disciples. How it came to be transformed by Zhu Xi (1130-1200) into one of the most philosophically significant texts in the Confucian tradition is the subject of this book. Scholarly attention in China had long been devoted to the _Analects._ By the time of Zhu Xi, a rich history of commentary had grown up around it. But Zhu, claiming that the _Analects_ was (...) one of the authoritative texts in the canon and should be read before all others, gave it a still more privileged status in the tradition. He spent decades preparing an extended interlinear commentary on it. Sustained by a newer, more elaborate language of metaphysics, Zhu's commentary on the _Analects_ marked a significant shift in the philosophical orientation of Confucianism--a shift that redefined the Confucian tradition for the next eight centuries, not only in China, but in Japan and Korea well. Gardner's translations and analysis of Zhu Xi's commentary on the _Analects_ show one of China's great thinkers in an interesting and complex act of philosophical negotiation. Through an interlinear, line-by-line "dialogue" with Confucius, Zhu effected a reconciliation of the teachings of the Master, commentary by later exegetes, and contemporary philosophical concerns of Song-dynasty scholars. By comparing Zhu's reading of the _Analects_ with the earlier standard reading by He Yan (190-249), Gardner illuminates what is dramatically new in Zhu Xi's interpretation of the _Analects._ A pioneering study of Zhu Xi's reading of the _Analects,_ this book demonstrates how commentary is both informed by a text and informs future readings, and highlights the importance of interlinear commentary as a genre in Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

In preparing for a lecture on the ethics of surgical complications, it became apparent that confusion exists about the definition of a ‘‘surgical complication.’’ Is it, as one medical website states, ‘‘any undesirable result of surgery?’’ [1]. In the European Journal of Surgery, Veen et al. [2] provide a more elaborate definition: ‘‘every unwanted development in the illness of the patient or in the treatment of the patient’s illness that occurs in the clinic’’ [2]. An esteemed historian of science suggests (...) yet another definition in a recent volume on surgical complications: ‘‘a complication, in any sphere of endeavour, is something out of the norm, and the product of extraneous and unexpected factors’’ [3]. Such is the discrepancy in definitions that Rampersaud et al. [4] declared in 2006 that ‘‘presently, there is no clear or consistent definition of a complication in the surgical literature.’’ Much research in surgery aims to reduce the risk of surgical complications. However, until we have a stable and agreed definition of what counts as a surgical complication, we cannot reliably compare different studies to discover what best reduces the chance of surgical complications [5]. Therefore, the topic is more than mere pedantry; defining surgical complications will help us with the broader question of how to improve surgical practice. A basic PubMed search returned nearly 800 articles with the phrases ‘‘surgical complications’’ or ‘‘surgical complication’’ in the title. But unlike the sources above. (shrink)

Daniel K. Gardner explores the major philosophical ideas of the Confucian tradition, showing the profound social and political impact it had and continues to have in China.

Historians of science have long recognized the field as a socially heterogeneous space wherein different groups jostle for access and to assert the priority of their activities. This essay offers a new take on this heterogeneity by considering recreation as a form of moralized social belonging that scientists bring to the field. In the 1940s, when North American glaciology was emerging as a military-supported geophysical science, many glaciologists were also mountaineers. The essay analyzes a dispute between a mountaineer and a (...) scientist-mountaineer that took place at this time, in which the scientist turned to mountaineering ethics to confront accusations of pseudoscience. The dispute is unintelligible unless one recognizes mountaineering as a form of social belonging with its own ends, techniques, standards, and virtues, capable of influencing how scientists negotiate life in the field. On this account, social heterogeneity and the means for navigating it not only arise through borrowings and appropriations from other social groups but are brought to the field through scientists’ prior commitments to other forms of social life. This suggests a new role for recreation in the history of science: identification with an avocational pursuit may shape moral and social life in the field. (shrink)

From an early age, humans exhibit a tendency to identify, adopt, and enforce the norms of their local communities. Norms are the social rules that mark out what is appropriate, allowed, required, or forbidden in different situations for various community members. These rules are informal in the sense that although they are sometimes represented in formal laws, such as the rule governing which side of the road to drive on, they need not be explicitly codified to effectively influence behavior. There (...) are rules that forbid theft or the breaking of promises, but also rules which govern how close it is appropriate to stand to someone while talking to them, or how loud one should talk during the conversation. Thus understood, norms regulate a wide range of activity. They exhibit cultural variability in their prescriptions and proscriptions, but the presence of norms in general appears to be culturally universal. Some norms exhibit characteristics that are often associated with morality, such as a rule that applies to everyone and prohibits causing unnecessary harm. Others norms apply only to certain people, such as those that delimit appropriate clothing for members of different genders, or those concerning the expectations and responsibilities ascribed to individuals who occupy positions of leadership. The norms that prevail in a community can be more or less fair, reasonable, or impartial, and can be subject to critique and change. This entry provides an overview of interdisciplinary research into the psychological capacity for norm-guided cognition, motivation, and behavior. The notions of a norm and normativity occur in an enormous range of research that spans the humanities and behavioral sciences. Researchers primarily concerned with the psychology distinctive of norm-governed behavior take what can be called “cognitive-evolutionary” approaches to their subject matter. These approaches, common in the cognitive sciences, draw on a variety of resources and evidence to investigate different psychological capacities. This entry describes how these have been used to construct accounts of those cognitive and motivational features of minds that underpin the capacity to acquire, conform to, and enforce norms. It also describes how theories of the selective pressures and adaptive challenges prominent in recent human evolution have helped to inform and constrain theorizing about this psychological capacity, as well as how its features can influence the transmission and cultural evolution of norms. By way of organization, the entry starts with basics and proceeds to add subsequent layers of intricacy and detail. Researchers taking cognitive-evolutionary approaches to norms come from a wide range of disciplines, and have formulated, explored, and debated positions on a large number of different issues. In order to present a comprehensible overview of these interconnected literatures, the entry starts by laying out main contours and central tenets, the key landmarks in the conceptual space common to different theories and claims. It goes on to provide a more detailed description of the kinds of theoretical resources that researchers have employed, and identifies important dimensions along which more specific accounts of the psychology of norms have varied. It then canvasses different sources of empirical evidence that have begun to illuminate other philosophically interesting features of the capacity for norms. Finally, it ends with a discussion of the relationship between norm cognition and morality, with a few illustrations drawn from recent debates in moral theory. (shrink)

Psychologists sometimes discuss the need to refine clear designations of the observable units comprising their subject matter. This paper links such discussions to (a) Dewey and Bentley's (1949) account of specification as relatively accurate unit-designation, and (b) the logical base of scientific classifications and abstractions in observable particulars. The paper then reviews, clarifies, evaluates, and contrasts the psychological units proposed by Kantor (behavior segment), Skinner (operant), and Lee (deed). Overall, Lee's deed is found to be the sharpest, least ambiguous designation, (...) and the only specification. Deeds, fields of contributors, and contingencies are then used to selectively integrate aspects of all three units. The resulting integration is consistent with field-based approaches to causal relations within and among units, where the noun cause is synonymous with one of many contributors. It is also applicable to the analysis of feedback loops, which are designated as circular networks of dependency among subclasses of deeds. (shrink)

The ever-growing acceptance and use of assisted human reproduction techniques has caused demand for “donated” sperm and eggs to outstrip supply. Medical professionals and others argue that monetary reward is the only way to recruit sufficient numbers of “donors”. Is this a clash between pragmatics and policy/ethics? Where monetary payments are the norm, alternative recruitment strategies used successfully elsewhere may not have been considered, nor the negative consequences of commercialism on all participants thought through. Considerations leading some countries to ban (...) the buying and selling of sperm, eggs and embryos are outlined and a case made that the collective welfare of all involved parties be the primary consideration in this, at times heated, debate. (shrink)

Christian ethics has from the beginning been concerned with moral agency and culture, and Christian social ethics has acknowledged the power of social structures for the last 150 years. But ethics has yet to employ extensively the resources of that discipline that specializes in understanding structure and culture: sociology. Out of a concern to defend human freedom, Catholic social teaching has employed an individualistic approach that misdescribes the characteristics of social evil as little more than the sum of individual choices (...) and proposes individual conversion as a remedy. This book presents a refined sociological understanding of social structures and culture: critical realist sociology. It briefly describes the roots of critical realism in the natural sciences, its understanding of social structure and culture, and how structure and culture have causal impact on human decisions - through freedom, not cancelling it. It makes clear how, in most cases, people "go along" with the restrictions and opportunities offered them but, when there is sufficient frustration with these, how decisions can transform both structure and culture. The analysis is then applied in more detail to provide needed illumination in three areas: the ecological crisis, economic life, and virtue ethics. The core claims of the volume, offering an explanatory account of moral-agency-amidst-structure-and-culture for use in social ethics, would be of great interest to all those working in the field, both Catholic and Protestant. (shrink)

We discuss the implications of the findings reported in the target article for moral theory, and argue that they represent a clear and genuine case of fundamental moral disagreement. As such, the findings support a moderate form of moral anti-realism – the position that, for some moral issues, there is no fact of the matter about what is right and wrong.

This article argues that killing animals for food represents an extreme case within Christian moral thinking comparable to Karl Barth's Grenzfall argument against such violent acts as suicide, abortion, killing in self‐defense, capital punishment, and war. This position is in contrast to the view of many environmental philosophers who hold human hunting to be comparable to animal predation. It also disputes the language of substitutionary sacrifice prevalent in some Christian discussions of meat eating.

This volume provides a new account of business ethics from the perspective of Catholic social thought. Focusing on the sense of agency of the business person and the interests of business firms, this volume addresses business from both "the outside" (with questions about economic life in Catholic social thought) and "the inside" (with attention to the internal dynamics of business firms). The result is a creative account of fundamental issues confronting the moral business leader and any firm committed to responsible (...) business practice. This volume is unique in the depth of the questions from Catholic social thought that it brings to bear on business. It begins with interviews of three CEOs to ensure a grounding in experience and a consideration of the intellectual history of business issues in Christianity. Most importantly, it deals with fundamental moral concerns: the character of agency, autonomy, practical wisdom, and the technocratic paradigm, along with other elements of Catholic social thought. The book then applies these concepts to assess management science, the motivations of business leaders, the role of luck in personal success, the traditional moral justifications of business, and more. (shrink)

In this engaging volume, Daniel Gardner explains the way in which the Four Books--_Great Learning_, _Analects_, _Mencius_, and _Maintaining Perfect Balance_--have been read and understood by the Chinese since the twelfth century. Selected passages in translation are accompanied by Gardner's comments, which incorporate selections from the commentary and interpretation of the renowned Neo-Confucian thinker, Zhu Xi. This study provides an ideal introduction to the basic texts in the Confucian tradition from the twelfth through the twentieth centuries. It guides the (...) reader through Zhu Xi's influential interpretation of the Four Books, showing how Zhu, through the genre of commentary, gave new coherence and meaning to these foundational texts. Since the Four Books with Zhu Xi's commentary served as the basic textbook for Chinese schooling and the civil service examinations for more than seven hundred years, this book illustrates as well the nature of the standard Chinese educational curriculum. (shrink)

In this book, Daniel K. Miller articulates a new vision of human and animal relationships based on the foundational love ethic within Christianity. Framed around Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, Animal Ethics and Theologythoughtfully examines the shortcomings of utilitarian and rights-based approaches to animal ethics. By considering the question of animals within the Christian concept of neighbourly love, Miller provides an alternative narrative for understanding the complex relationships that humans have with other animals. This book addresses significant theological (...) questions such as: Does being created in the image of God present a meaningful distinction between humans and other animals? What does it mean for humans to have dominion over animals? Is meat eating a moral problem for Christians? In addition to drawing out the significance of Christian theology for field of animal ethics this book also engages environmental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. mental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. (shrink)