Recent experiments have shown that when individuals with a substance use disorder are confronted with drug-related cues, they exhibit an automatically activated tendency to approach these cues. The strength of the drug approach bias has been associated with clinically relevant measures, such as increased drug craving and relapse, and activations in brain reward areas. Retraining the approach bias by means of cognitive bias modification has been demonstrated to decrease relapse rates in patients with an alcohol use disorder and to reduce (...) alcohol cue-evoked limbic activity. Here, we review empirical and theoretical literature on the drug approach bias and explore two distinct models of how the drug approach bias may be embodied. First, we consider the “biological meaning” hypothesis, which grounds the automatic approach bias in the natural meaning of the body. Second, we consider the “sensorimotor hypothesis,” which appeals to the specific sensorimotor loops involved in the instantiation of addictive behaviors as the basis of the automatic approach bias. In order to differentiate between the adequacies of these competing explanations, we present specific, predictions that each model should make. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the legal position of those who perform caregiving work within the context of a cohabiting relationship through a novel relational vulnerability lens. I argue that the state, through privatising and devaluing caregiving labour, situates carers within an unequal and imbalanced relational framework, exposing them economic, emotional, and spatial harms. Unlike universal vulnerability, which is inherent and unavoidable, relational vulnerability can be avoided and reduced if the state were to acknowledge that humans are embodied and relational (...) rather than self-sufficient and rational. Law’s treatment of cohabiting carers reflects the state’s broader tendency to value economic self-sufficiency, while confining caregiving to the private family. I argue that the state has a duty to respond directly to relational vulnerability and should aim to make cohabiting carers resilient. Resilience must involve the provision of material resources but should also have a normative commitment to achieving autonomy and equality for those marginalised by law and state policies. (shrink)

The international law regulating resort to armed force, still known by the Latin phrase, the jus ad bellum, forms a principal substantive subfield of international law, along with human rights law, international environmental law, and international economic law. Among theologians, philosophers, and political scientists, just war theory is a major topic of study. Nevertheless, only a minority of scholars and practitioners know both jus ad bellum and just war theory well. Lack of knowledge has led to the erroneous view that (...) the two areas are in conflict. This article responds to this misapprehension, explaining the deep compatibility of international law and just war theory. Today's jus ad bellum, especially the peremptory norm against aggression, is not only the law; it also forms the minimum threshold of a just war under just war theory. In other words, for a war to be morally just, it must at least be lawful. To go to war in violation of the jus ad bellum is both a legal and a moral wrong. Compliance not only fulfills the general moral good of obedience to law; it forms the first step toward fulfilling moral obligations in the grave area of war. This characterization of the relationship between law and morality is seen in the history of the legal prohibition on force and in the actual set of rules that make up the contemporary regime. Comprehensive and persuasive accounts of the jus ad bellum and just war theory consistently reflect this thesis. (shrink)

Most readers of Louis Althusser first enter his work through his writings on ideology. In an important new essay Étienne Balibar, friend and colleague of Althusser, offers an original reading of Althusser’s idea of ideology, drawing on both recently published posthumous writing and Althusser's work on the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Balibar’s essay uncovers the intricate workings of interpellation through Althusser’s essays on the theater. If debates on dialectical materialism belong to a distant history, Balibar suggests, the question of ideology (...) remains crucial for thinking the present. The issue includes commentaries on Balibar’s essay from five influential scholars who engage critically with Althusser’s philosophy: Judith Butler, Banu Bargu, Adi Ophir, Warren Montag, and Bruce Robbins. This issue reanimates Althusser’s concept of ideology as an analytic tool for contemporary cultural and political critique. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study of the conception of emotions in premodern, or more specifically, pre-Han Chinese philosophical traditions, ranging from the early-5th to the late-3rd centuries BCE. This era is known as the "Warring States period" in China and marked by the flourishing of a number of different schools of philosophers who advocated their visions of how society should be run. The author looks at wide-ranging views about the nature of emotions and their proper role in moral life (...) espoused by representative thinkers of the time. The approach taken by the author is based on a premise that what constitutes emotions as phenomena in the world is of primary importance to questions concerning the... (shrink)

The plot thickens--in novels and our lives--forcing us from the fairy tale into a bewildering, even heartbreaking narrative. We look at the god we're holding, and find it too fragile, too brittle to meet reality. Cling tighter? Move on godless? In fact, rejecting a god image (or as C. S. Lewis puts it, allowing God to smash our limited god) opens space for deeper faith in the midst of painful life experience. In OMG, Mary Ellen Ashcroft invites readers to (...) look over her shoulder as she traces her god growth, beginning with a capricious childhood god. The loving savior who embraced her when she was eighteen, followed her into strict fundamentalism, while the god she met in an Anglican seminary shocked her by caring more about poverty than a seven-day creation, but then called her to a South Africa tipping toward revolution. An interweaving of narrative theology and creative nonfiction, OMG invites readers to grow into deeper faith, retelling their stories in the light of the biblical one, dropping inadequate gods to grasp a mysterious, awesome one. (shrink)

Recent developments in children's rights have led to increased criticism of the presumption of total incompetency until adulthood, a concept inconsistently defined by state law. Citing proposals from several disciplines, this article calls for increasing actual competency in decision-making through systematic education in conjunction with developmental levels and experience. The elements of informed consent are suggested as one mechanism for learning to make educated decisions in a variety of settings. The treatment of hyperkinetic children is discussed as a case example.

Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading contemporary political theorist who has elaborated an innovative approach to the history of political thought, the social history of political theory .

A 1999–2000 national study of U.S. hospitals raised concerns about ethics consultation (EC) practices and catalyzed improvement efforts. To assess how practices have changed since 2000, we administered a 105-item survey to “best informants” in a stratified random sample of 600 U.S. general hospitals. This primary article details the methods for the entire study, then focuses on the 16 items from the prior study. Compared with 2000, the estimated number of case consultations performed annually rose by 94% to 68,000. The (...) median number of consults per hospital was unchanged at 3, but more than doubled for hospitals with 400+ beds. The level of education of EC practitioners was unchanged, while the percentage of hospitals formally evaluating their ECS decreased from 28.0% to 19.1%. The gap between large, teaching hospitals and small, nonteaching hospitals widened since the prior study. We suggest targeting future improvement efforts to hospitals where needs are not being met by current approaches to EC. (shrink)

Wojtasiewicz (2006) raises an intriguing and concerning possibility: that end-of-life conflict resolution processes—“futility” policies—may compound discrimination against African Americans, who ha...

Ellen Feder's monograph is an attempt to think about the categories of race and gender together. She explains and then employs some critical tools derived from Foucault, in order to advance her main argument: that the institution of the family is the locus of the production of gender and race, and that gender is best understood as a function of a "disciplinary" power that operates within the family, while race is the function of a "regulatory" power acting upon the (...) family from outside. Her interdisciplinary work will be of interest to feminist philosophers and theorists because it plays into a recent expansion of interest in the family, as well as to literary scholars of Foucault, to scholars of race and race theory, and to other feminist scholars in political science, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary hospital ethics committees have been the most common response to the mandates for ethical review procedures set forth by the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, the American Hospital Association, and within institutions themselves. A 1989 national survey reported that 60% of hospitals had ethics committees. However, little is still known about the current state of these committees in hospitals, their composition, what functions are performed, or what issues are discussed.

To address the current lack of knowledge about clinical ethics fellowship programs (CEFPs), we surveyed all 36 programs in the U.S. and Canada. The number of CEFPs has grown exponentially over the last 40 years and far exceeds previous estimates. Commonalities among CEFPs include: 88.8% require an advanced degree or rarely accept applicants without one; 91.7% of programs do not restrict applicants to a specific background such as medicine or philosophy; and 88.9% of programs compensate fellows. CEFPs vary widely on (...) numbers of fellows trained in the last 3 years (1–111), numbers of consultations performed by each fellow (0–450), and salaries paid ($0-$95,000). Less than half of programs meet CEFP standards established by ABPD. Nonpaying programs and larger programs tend to have lower admission standards and lower expectations for fellows. We hope these data will help inform CEFP standards that promote quality and consistency without stifling desirable diversity and innovation. (shrink)

Extensive research has documented the harmful effects associated with working for a narcissistic supervisor. However, little effort has been made to investigate ways for victims to alleviate the burdens associated with exposure to such aversive persons. Building on the tenets of conservation of resources theory and the documented efficacy of functional assets to combat job-related stress, we hypothesized that subordinates’ resource management ability would buffer the detrimental impact of narcissistic supervisors on affective, cognitive, and behavioral work outcomes for subordinates. We (...) found support for our hypotheses across three independent samples of US workers. Specifically, higher levels of subordinate resource management ability attenuated the harmful effects of supervisor narcissism on employee-reported emotional exhaustion, job tension, depressed mood, task performance, and citizenship behavior. Conversely, these relationships further deteriorated for subordinates with lower levels of resource management ability. Overall, our research contributes to the literature that, although extensively documenting the harmful ramifications of narcissism in organizations, has neglected to investigate potentially mitigating factors. (shrink)

Coverage error is an important type of error that occurs in survey studies when there is a mismatch between the target population and the sampling frame from which a sample is drawn. Coverage error...

To design effective strategies to improve ethics consultation (EC) practices, it is important to understand the views of ethics practitioners. Previous U.S. studies of ethics practitioners have overrepresented the views of academic bioethicists. To help inform EC improvement efforts, we surveyed a random stratified sample of U.S. hospitals, examining ethics practitioners’ opinions on EC in general, on their own EC service, on strategies to improve EC, and on ASBH practice standards. Respondents across all categories of hospitals had very positive perceptions (...) of their own ethics consultation service (ECS) and few concerns about quality. Our findings suggest that the ethics-related needs of small, rural, non-teaching hospitals may be very different from those of academic medical centers, and therefore, different approaches to addressing ethical issues might be warranted. (shrink)

There is strong theoretical support for a relationship between various characteristics of religiousness and attitudes towards business ethics. This paper examines three frequently- studied dimensions of religiousness (fundamentalism, conservatism, and intrinsic religiousness) and their ability to predict students' willingness to behave unethically. Because prior research indicated a possible relationship between the religious affiliation of an institution and its members' ethical orientation, we studied students at universities with three different types of religious affiliation: evangelical, Catholic, and none.Results of the study lend (...) support to a negative relationship between the above-mentioned dimensions of religiousness and willingness to behave unethically. In addition, students at the Evangelical university were far less willing to engage in unethical behavior than were students at either the Catholic or the unaffiliated institutions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHow does practice change our behaviors such that they go from being awkward, unskilled actions to elegant, skilled performances? This is the question that I wish to explore in this paper. In the first section of the paper, I will defend the tight connection between practice and skill and then go on to make precise how we ought to construe the concept of practice. In the second section, I will suggest that practice contributes to skill by structuring and automatizing the (...) motor routines constitutive of skilled actions. I will cite how this fact about skilled action has misled many philosophers to conclude that skills are mindless or bodily. In the third section of the paper, I will challenge this common misconception about automaticity by appealing to empirical evidence of motor chunking. This evidence reveals that there are two opposing processes involved in the automaticity of skilled action: one process that is largely associative, which I will call “concatenation,” and a second which is a contro... (shrink)

Although affective facial pictures are widely used in emotion research, standardised affective stimuli sets are rather scarce, and the existing sets have several limitations. We therefore conducted a validation study of 490 pictures of human facial expressions from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces database (KDEF). Pictures were evaluated on emotional content and were rated on an intensity and arousal scale. Results indicate that the database contains a valid set of affective facial pictures. Hit rates, intensity, and arousal of the 20 (...) best KDEF pictures for each basic emotion are provided in an appendix. (shrink)

The annual volume of ethics consultations (ECs) has been a topic of interest in the bioethics literature, in part because of its presumed relationship to quality. To better understand factors associated with EC volume, we used multiple linear regression to model the number of case consultations performed in the last year based on a national survey. We found that hospital bed size, academic affiliation, and urban/rural location were all associated with EC volume, but were not the primary drivers. Instead, these (...) variables affected EC volume through three other variables, all of which relate to ethics staffing: the percentage of case consultations performed by a single individual; whether the survey respondent’s main role at the hospital contained the word “ethics”; and especially, the number of full-time ethics program staff. We conclude that EC is an example of supply-sensitive care, and further research is needed to determine the optimal level of EC activity. (shrink)

Biological theory demands a clear organism concept, but at present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that counting particular units, and not counting others, allows them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality, which reconciles conflicting definitions of ‘organism’ by interpreting them as describing alternative realisers of a common functional role, and then defines individual (...) organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role. (shrink)

The blindness to ontological questioning in feminist theory has left a lacuna in scholarly study that Touching Thought—a study at the intersection of ontological meditation and feminist theorizing on sexual difference—seeks to fill. Ellen Mortensen's new work critiques the language and theoretical pathways of contemporary feminist theorists such as Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz, Luce Irigaray, Theresa de Lauretis, and Donna Haraway to reveal a problematic predilection for technological language at the expense of ontological inquiry. The volume ranges (...) across feminist epistemology and ethics, the politics of performativity, the aesthetics of body/power, and the question of sexual difference and concludes with an examination of the different philosophical and theoretical attempts at undertaking an ontological questioning of sexual difference. This foundational work will serve as preparation for scholars of feminist and queer theory and continental philosophy seeking alternative pathways of feminist thought that encourage fundamental thinking on the subject of individual freedom. (shrink)

When reflecting on the nature of skilled action, it is easy to fall into familiar dichotomies such that one construes the flexibility and intelligence of skill at the level of intentional states while characterizing the automatic motor processes that constitute motor skill execution as learned but fixed, invariant, bottom-up, brute-causal responses. In this essay, I will argue that this picture of skilled, automatic, motor processes is overly simplistic. Specifically, I will argue that an adequate account of the learned motor routines (...) that constitute embodied skills cannot be given in a purely bottom-up, brute-causal fashion. Rather, motor control is intelligent all the way down. To establish this, I will first review two recent accounts of skill, Stanley and Krakauer and Papineau, which characterize the automatic motor control responsible for the fine-grained movements constitutive of motor skill as brute, low-level phenomena. I will then isolate five key features that should apply to skilled motor control, if these accounts are correct. Together, the accounts posit that motor control is: ballistic, invariant, independent of general action trajectories, Insensitive to semantic content, and independent of personal-level intentions. In the final section of this paper, I will appeal to optimal control theory for empirical evidence to challenge the commitment to skilled action as qualified by the above features. (shrink)

I identify and characterize the kind of personal-level control-structure that is most relevant for skilled action control, namely, what I call, “practical intention”. I differentiate between practical intentions and general intentions not in terms of their function or timing but in terms of their content. I also highlight a distinction between practical intentions and other control mechanisms that are required to explain skilled action. I’ll maintain that all intentions, general and practical, have the function specifying, sustaining, and structuring action but (...) that several functions that have been attributed to proximal intentions are actually implemented by other control mechanisms that are not themselves best identified as intentions. Specifically, I will claim that practical intentions do not initiate, monitor, specify or guide the fine-grained, online, kinematic aspects of action. Finally, I suggest that the way in which practical and general intentions should be differentiated is in terms of their content, where general intentions specify the overall goal, outcome, or end of an action as it is conceived of by the agent at a time, and practical intentions determine the means to that end. I conclude by providing empirical evidence to support this way of characterizing the intentions that “interface” with the mechanisms of motor control. Though this discussion has repercussions for action in general, I will limit my discussion to cases of skill. (shrink)

In this paper, I submit that it is the controlled part of skilled action, that is, that part of an action that accounts for the exact, nuanced ways in which a skilled performer modifies, adjusts and guides her performance for which an adequate, philosophical theory of skill must account. I will argue that neither Jason Stanley nor Hubert Dreyfus have an adequate account of control. Further, and perhaps surprisingly, I will argue that both Stanley and Dreyfus relinquish an account of (...) control for precisely the same reason: each reduce control to a passive, mechanistic, automatic process, which then prevents them from producing a substantive account of how controlled processes can be characterized by seemingly intelligent features and integrated with personal-level states. I will end by introducing three different kinds of control, which are constitutive of skilled action: strategic control, selective, top–down, automatic attention, and motor control. It will become clear that Dreyfus cannot account for any of these three kinds of control while Stanley has difficulty tackling the two latter kinds. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there are cases of explanatory induction in mathematics. To do so, I first introduce the notion of explanatory definition in the context of mathematical explanation. A large part of the paper is dedicated to introducing and analyzing this notion of explanatory definition and the role it plays in mathematics. After doing so, I discuss a particular inductive definition in advanced mathematics—CW\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${ CW}$$\end{document}-complexes—and argue that it is (...) explanatory. With this, we see that there are cases of explanatory induction. (shrink)

Traditional courtship norms delineate distinct gendered behaviors for men and women based on the model of a dominant, breadwinning male and a passive, dependent female. Previous research shows, however, that as women have increased their access to earned income, there has been a rising ideological and behavioral commitment to egalitarian relationships. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 38 college-educated women, this article explores how women negotiate these seemingly contradictory beliefs in order to understand how and why gendered courtship conventions persist even (...) as heterosexual romantic relationships become more egalitarian. My findings show that while the women reference essentialist beliefs about men’s “nature” to explain their commitment to courtship conventions, they draw on narratives of choice, individualism, and personal autonomy to assert that the symbolic gendering of courtship will not interfere with their desire for an egalitarian marriage. However, women’s behaviors and narratives reinforce notions of gender difference, potentially providing support for other forms of gender inequality. (shrink)

Purity has been recognized as an ideal of proof. In this paper, I consider whether purity continues to have value in contemporary mathematics. The topics (e.g., algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, category theory) and methods of contemporary mathematics often favor unification and generality, values that are more often associated with impurity rather than purity. I will demonstrate this by discussing several examples of methods and proofs that highlight the epistemic significance of unification and generality. First, I discuss the examples of algebraic (...) invariants and of considering a mathematical object from several different perspectives to illustrate that the methods used in contemporary mathematics favor impurity. Then I consider an example from category theory which demonstrates how unification and generality are related to impurity and that impure solutions can be explanatory. In light of this discussion, we see that purity only has marginal value within contemporary mathematics which instead prioritizes the epistemic values associated with impurity. (shrink)

In the past 20 years or so, the psychological research on imitation has flourished. However, our working definition of imitation has not adequately adapted in order to reflect this research. The closest that we've come to a revamped conception of imitation comes from the work of Michael Tomasello. Despite its numerous virtues, Tomasello's definition is in need of at least two significant amendments, if it is to reflect the current state of knowledge. Accordingly, it is our goal in this paper (...) to reformulate Tomasello's definition of imitation in order to account for both the latest empirical findings and the conceptual considerations that follow from them. Specifically, we argue that a satisfactory definition of imitation ought to be formulated as follows: imitation is the reproduction of an observed behavior where the agent imitating recognizes the behavior of the demonstrator as goal-directed and has some particular interest in or concern for replicating the precise technique performed by the aut.. (shrink)

Interest in teaching business ethics classes on college campuses has increased dramatically during the past decade. In the United States, virtually all graduate and undergraduate business programs teach business ethics in some form. While current pedagogy relies primarily on factual recounting of actual workplace incidents and actual and hypothetical case studies, calls for multidisciplinary approaches to teaching business ethics have not yet produced significant pedagogical change. We propose the use of fiction (novels, dramas, and short stories) to enrich current teaching (...) materials. This paper illustrates the tremendous power of stories which deal with ethical dilemmas in business to illuminate moral issues in ways that lead to a clearer understanding of ethical theory. The fiction cited in this paper is all drawn from American literature. It seems likely that similar sources could be found in the literature of other countries. (shrink)

It is not rare in philosophy and psychology to see theorists fall into dichotomous thinking about mental phenomena. On one side of the dichotomy there are processes that I will label “unintelligent.” These processes are thought to be unconscious, implicit, automatic, unintentional, involuntary, procedural, and non-cognitive. On the other side, there are “intelligent” processes that are conscious, explicit, controlled, intentional, voluntary, declarative, and cognitive. Often, if a process or behavior is characterized by one of the features from either of the (...) above lists, the process or behavior is classified as falling under the category to which the feature belongs. For example, if a process is implicit this is usually considered sufficient for classifying it as “unintelligent” and for assuming that the remaining features that fall under the “unintelligent” grouping will apply to it as well. Accordingly, if a process or behavior is automatic, philosophers often consider it to be unintelligent. It is my goal in this paper to challenge the conceptual slip from “automatic” to “unintelligent”. I will argue that there are a whole range of properties highlighted by the existing psychological literature that make automaticity a much more complex phenomenon than is usually appreciated. I will then go on to discuss two further important relationships between automatic processes and controlled processes that arise when we think about automatic processes in the context of skilled behavior. These interactions should add to our resistance to classifying automaticity as unintelligent or mindless. In Sect. 1, I present a few representative cases of philosophers classifying automatic processes and behaviors as mindless or unintelligent. In Sect. 2, I review trends in the psychology of automaticity in order highlight a complex set of features that are characteristic, though not definitive, of automatic processes and behaviors. In Sect. 3, I argue that at least some automatic processes are likely cognitively penetrable. In Sect. 4, I argue that the structure of skilled automatic processes is shaped diachronically by practice, training and learning. Taken together, these considerations should dislodge the temptation to equate “automatic” with “unintelligent”. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Open-Access-Buch zeigt, wie Kinder im Grundschulalter auf philosophische Gedanken reagieren. Diese werden den Kindern in Form von Kürzesttexten dargeboten. Auf Veranschaulichungen wird bewusst verzichtet. Dieser Zugang zum Philosophieren erscheint ungewöhnlich, wird doch in der Regel beim Philosophieren mit Kindern auf anschauliche Zugänge zurückgegriffen. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass Kinder auf diese ungewöhnliche Einladung auf ebenso ungewöhnliche, eigenwillige und kreative Weise reagieren. Die vorliegende empirische Studie kommt mithin zu dem Ergebnis: Der Einsatz von Kürzesttexten erweist sich als lohnend. Die (...) Autorin Ellen Franziska Möller ist ausgebildete Lehrerin (Sek I und Sek II) für die Fächer Philosophie, praktische Philosophie und Physik. Zwischen 2019 und 2022 hat sie am Philosophischen Seminar der Universität zu Köln das Forschungsprojekt "Philosophie in der Primarstufe" vertreten. (shrink)