A prominent view of psychopathic moral reasoning suggests that psychopathic individuals cannot properly distinguish between moral wrongs and other types of wrongs. The present study evaluated this view by examining the extent to which 109 incarcerated offenders with varying degrees of psychopathy could distinguish between moral and conventional transgressions relative to each other and to nonincarcerated healthy controls. Using a modified version of the classic Moral/Conventional Transgressions task that uses a forced-choice format to minimize strategic responding, the present study found (...) that total psychopathy score did not predict performance on the task. Task performance was explained by some individual subfacets of psychopathy and by other variables unrelated to psychopathy, such as IQ. The authors conclude that, contrary to earlier claims, insufficient data exist to infer that psychopathic individuals cannot know what is morally wrong. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 201-209, February 2022.

Ethics teaching in engineering can be problematic because of student perceptions of its subjective, ambiguous and philosophical content. The use of discipline-specific case studies has helped to address such perceptions, as has practical decision making and problem solving approaches based on some ethical frameworks. However, a need exists for a wider range of creative methods in ethics education to help complement the variety of activities and learning experiences within the engineering curriculum. In this work, a novel approach is presented in (...) which first-year undergraduate students are responsible for proposing ethics education activities of relevance to their peers and discipline area. The students are prepared for the task through a short introduction on engineering ethics, whereby generic frameworks for moral and professional conduct are discussed, and discipline and student-relevance contexts provided. The approach has been used in four departments of engineering at Imperial College London, and has led to the generation of many creative ideas for wider student engagement in ethics awareness, reflection and understanding. The paper presents information on the premise of the introductory sessions for supporting the design task, and an evaluation of the student experience of the course and task work. Examples of proposals are given to demonstrate the value of such an approach to teachers, and ultimately to the learning experiences of the students themselves. (shrink)

Researchers have evaluated how broad categories of emotion influence judgments of learning relative to neutral items. Specifically, JOLs are typically higher for emotional relative to neutral items. The novel goal of the present research was to evaluate JOLs for fine-grained categories of emotion. Participants studied faces with afraid, angry, sad, or neutral expressions and with afraid, angry, or sad expressions. Participants identified the expressed emotion, made a JOL for each, and completed a recognition test. JOLs were higher for the emotional (...) relative to neutral expressions. However, JOLs were insensitive to the categories of negative emotion. Using a survey design in Experiment 3, participants demonstrated idiosyncratic beliefs about emotion. Some people believed the fine-grained emotions were equally memorable, whereas others believed a specific emotion was most memorable. Thus, beliefs about emotion are nuanced, which has important implications for JOL theory. (shrink)

The recent development and growth oforganic livestock farming and the relateddevelopment of national and internationalregulations has fueled discussions amongscientists and philosophers concerning theproper conceptualization of animal welfare.These discussions on livestock welfare inorganic farming draw on the conventionaldiscussions and disputes on animal welfare thatinvolve issues such as different definitions ofwelfare (clinical health, absence of suffering,sum of positive and negative experiences,etc.), the possibility for objective measuresof animal welfare, and the acceptable level ofwelfare. It seems clear that livestock welfareis a value-laden concept and (...) that animalwelfare science cannot be made independent ofquestions of values and ethics. The questioninvestigated here is whether those values thatunderpin organic farming, in particular, alsoaffect the interpretation of livestock welfare,and, if so, how. While some of the issuesraised in connection with organic farming arerelatively uncontroversial, others are not. Theintroduction of organic farming values seems tointroduce new criteria for what counts as goodanimal welfare, as well as a different ethicalbasis for making moral decisions on welfare.Organic farming embodies distinctive systemicor communitarian ethical ideas and the organicvalues are connected to a systemic conceptionof nature, of agriculture, of the farm, and ofthe animal. The new criteria of welfare arerelated to concepts such as naturalness,harmony, integrity, and care. While the organicvalues overlap with those involved in theconventional discussion of animal welfare, someof them suggest a need to set new prioritiesand to re-conceptualize animal welfare – forexample, with respect to ``naturalness,'''' inrelation to the possibilities for expression ofnatural behavior and in relation to animalintegrity as a concept for organismic harmony.The organic perspective also seems to suggest awider range of solutions to welfare problemsthan changes in farm routines or operations onthe animals. The systemic solutions include thechoice and reproduction of suitable breeds,changes in the farm structure, and changes inthe larger production and consumption system – including consumer perceptions andpreferences. But the organic values may alsocall for sacrifices of individual welfare in aconventional sense in order to advance welfarefrom the perspective of organic farming.Whether this is good or bad cannot be decidedwithout entering into an inquiry and discussionof the values and ethics involved. (shrink)

This paper discusses recent evidence that violations of core knowledge offer special learning opportunities for infants and young children. Children make predictions about the world from the youngest ages. When their fail to match observed data, they show an enhanced drive to seek and retain new information about entities that violated their expectations. Finally, the authors draw comparisons between children and adults, and with other species, to explore how surprise shapes thought more broadly.

Universal access to health care is still a dream rather than a reality in the United States. This is partly because a rule of rescue, by impelling us to help people in need, urges us to ignore the limits of our health care policies wherever those limits would adversely affect a given individual. As the rule of rescue undermines whatever limits we set on health care entitlements, it can thwart the cost containment so essential to expanding access. Rather than accept (...) unlimited expense, we have thus far declined to universalize health care. The situation is exacerbated by an economic insulation shielding patients and physicians from the costs of care, prompting both to regard health care as free, an unlimited right. To reverse this costly entitlement mentality and place reasonable limits on rescue, patients must exercise greater personal responsibility for the costs of their care by directly experiencing some of the economic consequences of their health care decisions. Several mechanisms are available to accomplish this goal without posing economic barriers to needed care or penalizing people for becoming ill. Keywords: Clinton health plan, rationing, rule of rescue CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The foundation of the Christian counselling movement -- Christian counselling in the UK -- The aims of Christian counselling -- Integrating psychological and biblical truth -- Sigmund Freud--the founding father of psychotherapy -- The individual psychology of Alfred Adler -- Abraham Maslow--the man with new age tendencies -- Carl Rogers--a man who believed in himself -- Albert Ellis--the aggressive atheist -- The Bible's verdict on psychological 'truth' -- The case against Larry Crabb -- Self-esteem: the secular foundation -- Self-esteem and (...) the Christian counselling movement -- Self-esteem dogma in the light of scripture. (shrink)

The book mirrors the psychoanalytic situation, mediating between the interiority of Nietzsche's biography (and the philosophical world he created for himself) ...

This article proposes a geostatistical solution for area-to-point spatial prediction (downscaling) taking into account boundary effects. Such effects are often poorly considered in downscaling, even though they often have significant impact on the results. The geostatistical approach proposed in this article considers two types of boundary conditions (BC), that is, a Dirichlet-type condition and a Neumann-type condition, while satisfying several critical issues in downscaling: the coherence of predictions, the explicit consideration of support differences, and the assessment of uncertainty regarding the (...) point predictions. An updating algorithm is used to reduce the computational cost of area-to-point prediction under a given BC. In a case study, area-to-point prediction under a Dirichlet-type BC and a Neumann-type BC is illustrated using simulated data, and the resulting predictions and error variances are compared with those obtained without considering such conditions. (shrink)

This paperback edition of Dodds's standard edition of Plato's Gorgias is designed to meet the needs both of undergraduates and professional scholars. The text and apparatus criticus are based on a fresh survey of the evidence: two major manuscripts are here for the first time fully collated, and account has been taken both of new papyri and of the exceptionally rich indirect tradition. The text is supplemented by a full introduction giving details on the subject and structure of the dialogue, (...) its characters and intended historical setting, the real date of composition, and the background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition. The commentary, besides explaining Platonic usages and discussing textual points, aims to treat the historical, philosphical, and literary questions which arise from the text. (shrink)

Professor Bonnie Steinbock writes ‘… I am not going to discuss rights, important as the issue is’; but she adds, en passant , ‘According to the view of rights held by H. L. A. Hart and S. I. Benn, infants do not have rights, nor do the mentally defective, nor do the insane, in so far as they all lack certain minimal conceptual capabilities for having rights’.

It has often been argued that Thomas More’s Utopia is fundamentally concerned with outlining and theoretically justifying an ideal model of society and not with determining what would be the practical steps required for its establishment in the real world. Even if we were to accept this widespread interpretation, I consider that it is possible to recognize in the text indications that suggest two different and even opposing paths along which the political construction of Utopia could take place. The first, (...) and strictly speaking, the only one that the work is trying to put forward, is individual, elitist, coercive, and top-down. The second that, for its part, seems to be presented rather with the intention of preventing it from coming to fruition is hence, on the contrary, collective, popular, insurrectionary and from below. The present article tries, first, to show how and through what arguments these two models of action are presented in More’s work, taking note, in addition, of the important difficulties involved in the one which it intends to propose. After this, two historical realizations immediately after Utopia was published that illustrate them are developed. Finally, the present article tries to establish what relationship these two paths have with each other according to the work’s approach and, also, suggest what alternative relationship they could maintain if a different point of view was attempted. (shrink)