Genetic analysis of Drosophila has shown that a morphogenetic gradient of the Transforming Growth Factor‐β family member dpp patterns the embryonic dorsalventral axis. Molecular and embryological evidence from Xenopus has strongly suggested a similar role for Bmp‐4, the dpp homolog, in patterning the dorsalventral axis of chordates. A recent report has now identified mutations in two genes, dino and swirl, that disrupt dorsal‐ventral patterning in the zebrafish Danio rerio(1). Characterization of these mutations parallels findings from Drosophila, thus establishing a genetic (...) framework for the analysis of dorsalventral patterning in a vertebrate. (shrink)

Visual attentional processing was examined in adult meditators and non-meditators on behavioral measures of change blindness, concentration, perspective-shifting, selective attention, and sustained inattentional blindness. Results showed that meditators noticed more changes in flickering scenes and noticed them more quickly, counted more accurately in a challenging concentration task, identified a greater number of alternative perspectives in multiple perspectives images, and showed less interference from invalid cues in a visual selective attention task, but did not differ on a measure of sustained inattentional (...) blindness. Together, results show that regular meditation is associated with more accurate, efficient, and flexible visual attentional processing across diverse tasks that have high face validity outside of the laboratory. Furthermore, effects were assessed in a context separate from actual meditation practice, suggesting that meditators’ better visual attention is not just immediate, but extends to contexts separate from meditation practice. (shrink)

Richard Feldman has argued that in cases of religious disagreement between epistemic peers who have shared all relevant evidence, epistemic rationality requires suspense of judgment. I argue that Feldman’s postulation of completely shared evidence is unrealistic for the kinds of disputes he is considering, since different starting points will typically produce different assessments of what the evidence is and how it should be weighed. Feldman argues that there cannot be equally reasonable starting points, but his extension of the postulate of (...) completely shared evidence to evidence for starting points involves an illicit assimilation of ordinary cases of evidence assessment to cases in which substantial agreement about background assumptions is lacking. I also clarify why even if Feldman were correct about what epistemic norms require, his conclusion would not show that we should actually suspend judgment about religious or anti-religious truth claims. (shrink)

Moral intuitions vary with regard to how much information a salesperson needs to disclose to a potential buyer. Through an analysis of the social role of salesperson and ethical argument, it is established that there is a general obligation to disclose what a buyer would need to make a reasonable judgment about whether to purchase the product. This rule is interpreted and shown to be superior to alternatives when appropriately qualified.

This study brings together various images of enslaved women characterized as jawārī (sing. jāriya) across Fatimid visual culture to shed light on the frequency with which jawārī are represented in the corpus of Fatimid art and to offer an explanation for their ubiquity in the visual archive. This study argues that the oft-repeated visual motif of jawārī highlights the required visibility of enslaved women in Fatimid society. In addition to their labor being exploited as well as their bodies being sexually (...) accessible to their owners, jawārī were also visually available to those they served. In this sense, the jawārī represented in Fatimid visual culture became mere objects on the surface of objects, things on things, constructed to provide pleasurable experiences for their audiences – their owners, of course, but also members of elite society at large. Carved in wood and ivory, painted on ceramics and walls of architectural spaces, drawn on paper, and crafted in sculptural form, representations of jawārī sought to beautify physical and sexual labor, superimposing an aesthetic element on the representation of enslavement. Representations of jawārī thus reveal less about the day-to-day experience of enslaved women in the Fatimid world and more about the carefully constructed ideologies and desires undergirding enslavement in the period. Slavery and its images were therefore not hidden features of the Fatimid visual landscape but rather spectacles to be commodified, consumed, and enjoyed. (shrink)

When theists and atheists argue about the existence of God, the dispute is most often framed by a shared assumption: that the appropriate way to consider God's existence is to think of it as a hypothesis posited to explain observational data. Theists argue that such a hypothesis provides the best explanation for agreed-upon facts, while atheists argue that no such explanation is needed or that theistic explanation is incoherent. This way of structuring discussion of God's existence interprets the question as (...) a theoretical issue to be decided by considering empirical evidence objectively and dispassionately in order to determine the most reasonable way of accounting for the observational data. (shrink)

A causal-comparative, mixed methods design was used to study a partnership between a university and school district formed with the goal of improving history teachers’ United States history content knowledge to raise student engagement and achievement. Data were collected from middle and high school history teachers including teacher interviews, classroom observations, and student work. Student engagement surveys and academic performance data were also collected. Student academic performance was positively impacted and changes in classroom practice were found in the treatment group. (...) However, differences in student engagement between groups were not found to be statistically significant. (shrink)

This article argues that in order to understand the form of modern political freedom envisioned by Rousseau, we have to understand his theory of taste as refined Epicureanism. Rousseau saw the division of labour and corrupt taste as the greatest threats to modern freedom. He identified their cause in the spread of vulgar Epicureanism – the frenzied pursuit of money, vanity and sexual gratification. In its place, he advocated what he called ‘the Epicureanism of reason’, or refined Epicureanism. Materially grounded (...) on an equitable proportion of needs and faculties, this was a hedonist theory of self-command designed to cultivate the temperate enjoyment of sensual pleasure. I argue that Rousseau hoped that a shift from vulgar to refined Epicureanism would secure political freedom in modernity by grounding the politics of the general will in an economics of balanced growth and a reinvigorated appreciation of natural beauty. This perspective provides a new way of both clarifying the role of economic justice and aesthetic judgment in Rousseau's republican state theory, and of assessing the consistency of his moral and political thought. (shrink)

This essay addresses the new phenomenon of network warfare as a realisation of modernity's inner potential and surprising capacities rather than its failure. A feature of the complex capillaries of global governance, network warfare has been endemic for some time in many border regions of the world and reflects an increasing conflation of development and security.

Although philosophic tradition has often drawn a sharp contrast between philosophy and rhetoric, Philosophical argument exhibits a rhetorical dimension. Attempts to eliminate the rhetorical aspect have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, The nature of philosophy requires the philosopher to seek to transcend particular rhetorical contexts by imagining the possibility of challenging what is not in fact challenged.

This chapter contains sections titled: Examining Presuppositions? Forced Choices Burden of Proof and Default Positions A Misleading Picture Thinking About A Way of Life: A Case Study Notes.

SUMMARYThis article argues that the term ‘Epicurean’ had multiple meanings in the moral and political thought of the eighteenth century. Concentrating on the reception of Epicureanism in France, it shows that some critics focused on Epicurus’ hedonistic moral psychology and labelled Epicurean those thinkers who denied natural sociability; for others, who instead focused on Epicurus’ materialist natural philosophy, to label a thinker an Epicurean was to label them an atheist. This polyvalence is presented as a salutary caution against essentialising claims (...) about the content of eighteenth-century Epicureanism per se. Despite this sceptical stance, however, the article goes on to argue that it is nevertheless fruitful to investigate the engagement with Epicureanism by particular thinkers or in particular texts. Indeed, a comparative reading of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie entry on ‘Epicuréisme’ and his source material in Johan Jakob Bruker and Pierre Bayle demonstrates that Diderot used his discussion of Epicureanism to intervene directly in contemporary theological controversies over the immortal soul and a providential god. (shrink)

This study is the most comprehensive account to date of modern treatments of the love commandment. Gene Outka examines the literature on agape from Nygren's Agape and Eros in 1930. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant writings are considered, including those of D'Arcy, Niebuhr, Ramsey, Tillich, and above all, Karl Barth. The first seven chapters focus on the principal treatments in the theological literature as they relate to major topics in ethical theory. The last chapter explores further the basic normative (...) content of agape and discusses some of the most characteristic problems. "The book is in my judgment the best recent work in religious ethics. Outka brings together analytic moral philosophy and theological ethics, providing a masterly survey of views and issues arising in the past forty years.... I can think of few books of interest to scholars in both philosophy and theology, but Outka's is one. Unlike some scholars who are at home in continental theology, Outka is also at home in secular analytic philosophy; he brings them together in a mutually illuminating way."--Donald Evans "Outka has mastered this vast literature on love, and has brought a critical and clarifying analysis to bear upon it. This is a most important book on a most important subject, and brings the whole discussion into a new phase."--John Macquarrie "The first thing to be said about Outka's book quite simply is that it is excellent; in fact, it is probably the very best available book about contemporary Christian ethical theory."--The Humanities Association Review. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Life‐Orienting Beliefs Belief in God Religious Belief and Its Counterfeits Alternative Stories Orienting Stories and Truth Fallibilism Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Naturalism, Science, and Scientism The Naturalist Vision The Appeal of a Nonreligious Way of Life Naturalist Values Naturalism and Moral Order The Place of Authoritative Norms Is Naturalism a Faith Position? Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Truth and Receptivity Receptivity and God Overwhelming Evidence Sufficient Evidence Pascal and the Search for God Brainwashing Yourself? The Practice of Atheism Resisting Belief Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Theoretical and Practical Points of View Life‐Orienting Stories Stories About God Reflecting on a Theistic Story Attitudes and the Discernment of Meaning Priority of the Story Notes.

What did Rousseau's readers mean when they called him an ‘Epicurean’? A seemingly simple question with complex implications. This article attempts to answer it by reconstructing Rousseau's contemporary reception as an Epicurean thinker. First, it surveys the earliest and most widely read critics of the second Discourse: Prussian Astronomer Royal Jean de Castillon, Jesuit priest Louis Bertrand Castel, and Hanoverian biblical scholar Hermann Samuel Reimarus. These readers branded Rousseau an Epicurean primarily to highlight his atheism, his anti-providential and materialist natural (...) philosophy. Then, it discusses Genevan pastor Jacob Vernet's positive assessment of Rousseau as a critic of ‘fashionable’ Epicureanism, before reconstructing Rousseau's critique of the reception of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man as an Epicurean text. These sources elucidate Rousseau's engagement with a range of ideas and argumentative positions that would inform his later self-identification as a ‘refined’ Epicurean. In particular, they highlight his interest in how a sentimental awareness of beauty might mitigate the potentially vicious effects of hedonism. The article concludes with novelist Mme. de Genlis’ critique of Rousseau's Wise Materialism, using his thoughts on the imagination to suggest some of the ways the neglected aesthetic dimensions of Rousseau's reception of Epicureanism might be developed. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Asking for Reasons Narrative Framing Alternative Narratives Revelation and Reason Mystery Notes.

When questioned about what ought to be done in a particular scenario, students often ignore moral considerations and appeal to what is in an individual’s self-interest. This paper shows how an instructor can use a student’s habitual inclination to think in a self-interested fashion to guide them into thinking about moral considerations. Rather than drawing a sharp distinction between self-interested thinking and moral considerations, a more plausible account contends that self-interested thinking does not function independently of moral considerations. That is, (...) self-interested thinking reveals itself to be incomplete without some normative conception of the self. In addition to arguing and responding to objections to this position, the paper offers pedagogical advice on how instructors can use a student’s thinking about self-interest to guide them into moral thought. (shrink)

: Much of the appeal of religious pluralism for those who take religious truth claims seriously arises from the sense that confessionalist alternatives to pluralism that affirm the truth of one particular religion are unacceptable. Pluralists try to foster this sense by portraying confessionalist views as implausible for one who is fully informed about the facts of religious diversity. However, when pluralists attempt to rule out confessionalism, they tend to characterize it in ways that overlook the possibility of what I (...) call humble confessionalism. When humble forms of confessionalism are considered, representations of pluralism as the only viable option become less persuasive. (shrink)

People often speak as if the behaviour of others is relevant to the question of whether they are justified in violating a rule. This paper explores three lines of argument which might be used to justify rule violation on grounds appealing to what others do. The appeal to self‐defence as a justification does not succeed, since it must expand the concept to involve a cumbersome weighing of harms. The argument that complying with a rule may involve too great a sacrifice (...) in some cases needs to be developed by an account of when a sacrifice is morally significant. It is tempting, but problematic, to do this by weighing consequences of individual acts. An alternative approach is to argue that the behaviour of others is sometimes relevant to determining what rule is actually functioning in some context as a part of a particular moral system. (shrink)

How can someone confidently believe that God exists, but also have moments of serious doubt about whether the belief is true? A religiously significant belief that God exists is a by-product of adopting a perceptual framing narrative which presupposes God's existence. Using such a narrative is a type of skilled performance that results in an awareness of theistic significance which may at times be disrupted. At such times, doubts may arise about theistic meanings, which can exist in tension with confidence (...) derived from using the theistic narrative as a practical guide. The relevant reflective question for believers with serious doubts is whether some alternative framing narrative is more believable and also capable of engaging them in a way of life. (shrink)

Mammalian outer hair cells generate mechanical forces at acoustic frequencies and can thus amplify the sound stimulus within the inner ear. The mechanism of force generation depends upon the plasma membrane potential but not upon either calcium or ATP. Forces are generated in the lateral cortex along the full length of the cell. The cortex includes a two‐dimensional cytoskeletal lattice composed of circumferential filaments 6–7 nm thick that are cross‐linked by filaments 3–4 nm thick and 40–60 nm long. The two (...) filament types may, respectively, be actin and some form of spectrin. The lattice reinforces the cylindrical shape of the cell and permits limited changes in length. Beneath it lie the lateral cisternae, a regular system of multi‐layered membranes. Force–generation may depend upon voltage‐dependent shape changes in proteins that lie either in the plasma membrane or in the cytoskeletal lattice. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick regarded his failure to reconcile the claims of rational egoism with those of utilitarianism to reveal a fundamental contradiction within practical reason. However, the conflict that concerns him arises only in relation to a particular kind of agent. While Sidgwick construes his version of the problem to be a systematic formulation of a conflict that arises within the practical reasoning of ordinary people, it is actually an example of a worst-case scenario that reflects the common philosophical tendency to (...) deal with issues in their most challenging form. But such a transformation of ordinary conflicts between self-interest and morality into an insoluble philosophical problem obscures the nature of the more typical practical conflict. (shrink)

Tom Carson’s recent paper on “Deception and Withholding Information in Sales” contains a critique of my contribution to sales ethics. In this response I outline the approach I develop in two earlier papers and address the four criticisms Carson makes. These criticisms are largely based on a misunderstanding of my position. I suggest that our fundamentally different approaches to applied ethics may lie at the root of Carson’s misunderstanding. Carson uses what I call a theory-application model in which the search (...) for justification interms of fundamental rules is central, while I attempt to contextualize ethical judgments and consider alternative ways of structuring social roles. In contrasting these approaches I raise the question of which way of doing applied ethics is likely to be more fruitful. (shrink)

Religious communities that speak of faith typically affirm the ideal of a highly confident faith. If we understand confidence in terms of the quality of assent to faith-claims, however, it is difficult to reconcile a high degree of confidence with intellectual virtue. As an alternative, I propose to construe confident faith as a kind of trusting perception. The sort of confidence that I envision here makes sense as a religious ideal. In addition it leaves room for the recognition of epistemic (...) risk needed for intellectual humility as well as for the kind of openness to revising the content of faith in the light of relevant evidential considerations that intellectual integrity demands. Furthermore, someone with this type of confidence can find a particular faith compelling, while also acknowledging some faiths that make conflicting claims to be reasonable options. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Conflicting Truth Claims Hick's Pluralism Responses to Religious Diversity Openness to Other Traditions Attitudes Toward Those Who Disagree Certainty and Doubt Is God a Hypothesis? The Practice of Belief Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Religious Questions and Metaphysical Questions God of the Philosophers The Kind of Belief that Matters Philosophical Foundations What Metaphysical Reasoning Can Do Belief and Experience Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Complaining About God God as Micro‐Manager Philosophical Questions and Religious Questions Finding Meaning in Life Is God Needed for Meaning? Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Is God Relevant to Determining What is Right or Wrong? Divine Revelation and Morality Submission and Autonomy Fanaticism Rewards and Punishments Morality and Happiness Transformative Ideals An Objection to Religious Motivation Notes.

This article reframes the approach to Rousseau in political philosophy and histories of political thought by emphasizing some neglected aesthetic dimensions of amour-propre and the general will. I argue that Rousseau's account of the origins of amour-propre in aesthetic judgment alerts us to his view that the potentially dangerous effects of amour-propre can be mitigated if its 'extension' to others is grounded in an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This pushes back against the predominant 'revisionist' interpretation of amour-propre in terms of (...) Hegelian 'recognition' or Rawlsian 'social bases of self-respect'. It also clears the ground for my recovery of Rousseau's neglected analogy between the general will and what he called the general taste. I argue that reconstructing the general taste and reconsidering the general will in its light yields a significant argument by analogy: like the general taste, the general will is democratically determined by majority vote, not constrained by transcendent standards. (shrink)

Time was when you could bite a tomato and not ingest fish genes. Time was when you could eat french fries and just worry about the fat and salt, not the bacterial genes that produce insecticides in the potato. Those times are over, thanks to corporate control over both genetic engineering and the lack of food-labeling. Unless you are a “hard core” consumer of organic foods, you eat genetically engineered foods everyday. While 80-90% of US consumers believe genetically engineered foods (...) should be labeled, only 3% know they already on the market.[1] Today 60-70% of the food in a grocery store contains components from genetically modified crops. Moreover, this technology was unleashed on over 45 million acres of US farmland last year alone, after having been commercially introduced only four years ago.[2] Here we will provide a brief background on the types of genetically engineered crops that are being surreptitiously forced upon consumers, then argue against their current widespread use. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Mental Toolkits God as Personal Agent Anthropomorphism Perfect Being Theology Do Words Apply? Alternatives to God as Agent God as Object and Subject Notes.