Mind attribution may be divided into the subcategories of attribution of agency, associated with moral agency, and attribution of experience and emotion, associated with moral concern and moral patiency (Gray et al. Science 315(5812):619, 2007; Gray et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108(2):477–479, 2011b; Robbins and Jack Philosophical Studies 127(1):59–85, 2006). In this paper I attend to social context and the different psychological needs influencing the different types of mind attribution. A (...) need for social connection drives the attribution of experiences and emotions. The individual’s capacity to regulate emotional reactions is crucial for empathic concern. I further relate differences of mind attribution, attention, and emotional processing, to two different modes of functioning: In an interactive state of mind (comparable to the “second-person perspective” described by Schilbach et al. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in press), social and emotional cues are attended to; In a detached task-oriented state of mind it may be beneficial to predict the behaviors of others but emotional information may not be attended to. The complexity and plasticity of mind attribution, including the possibility to train attentional mechanisms and regulation of emotions, is promising for the field of moral enhancement. (shrink)

One of the main features of Italian feminism of "difference," as seen from an international perspective, is its distinctly political vocation. This vocation is not only, nor especially, limited to the perimeter of a gender politics, but is to be found in the radical critique or in the rethinking of traditional political categories, in the invention of new practices, in the redefinition of the very sphere of politics and in the modes of its transformation. The Italian case, as far as (...) feminism is concerned, is also characterised by the fact that this feminist political critique has been carried on for more than three decades alongside a crisis of traditional politics. The aim of this essay is twofold: one the one hand I analyse the relationship between political crisis and a critique of politics as seen in the larger framework of the relationship between the demise of patriarchy and the end of modern politics; on the other, I examine the resources which may derive from a feminist thought and practice in the present season, which, in Italy, seems marked not only by a crisis but by the collapse of democratic politics. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the interpersonal support, i.e., scaffolding, that agents provide to one another to share emotions. Moreover, the main target of this paper is to identify those scaffolds and their features that effectively function to boost, support, or enable emotional sharing interactions. To do so, I engage with the “multi-dimensional framework of environmental scaffolding” proposed by Sterelny (_Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences_ 9:465–481, 2010). This framework highlights various types of environmental resources, including social and interpersonal factors, that (...) serve as scaffolds for human cognitive agency. Furthermore, the model identifies the functional characteristics associated with these resources, which significantly contribute to scaffolding cognitive (and emotional) performance and skillfulness. Mainly concentrating on social interaction, I argue that individual, familiar social interaction behaviors, shared references, and shared bodily-affective and habitual patterns scaffold the interacting individuals allowing them to effectively share emotions. By examining the functional relationship between these particularly interpersonal scaffolds and shared emotions, I suggest that we can better understand the complex, situationally unfolding dynamics and the versatility of conditions that can boost emotional sharing. As a result, my analysis reveals that there are different types of social interactional scaffolds that vary in familiarity, predictability, robustness, individualization, and mutual adaptation. These features boost and trigger emotional sharing in degrees and different functions and different degrees of these functional features; therefore, different types of social interaction scaffolds are required depending on the situation to situation. (shrink)

An increasing number of people worldwide are living with chronic conditions that have an aspect of bodily fragility as part of the condition or as an effect of treatment. In this article, I explore the temporal experience of bodily fragility and the particularities of consciousness states among people with the chronic condition osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) in Denmark. My aim is threefold. First, my goal is to give an insight into life with OI, a rare and rarely studied condition. Second, I (...) shed light on bodily fragility, a theme that lives in the shadows of other analytical foci in anthropology. Third, I will contribute to the anthropological understanding of the connection among body, physical environment, and consciousness. I argue that the lifeworlds of people with OI are haunted by mental and bodily memories and fearful future scenarios, which makes the past and the future collapse into the present. (shrink)

The origin and the development of scientific disciplines has been a topic of reflection for several decades. The few extensive case studies support the thesis that scientific disciplines are not monolithic structures but can be characterized by distinct social, organizational and scientific–technical practices. Nonetheless, most disciplinary histories of genetics confine themselves largely to an uncontested account of the content of the discipline or occasionally institutional factors. Little attention is paid to the large number of researchers who, by their joint efforts, (...) ultimately shaped the discipline. We contribute to this aspect of disciplinary historiography by discussing the role of women researchers at the Institute for Heredity Research, founded in 1914 in Berlin under the directorship of Erwin Baur, and the sister of the John Innes Institute at Cambridge. This paper investigates how and why Baur built a highly successful research programme that relied on the efforts of his female staff, whose careers, notably Elisabeth Schiemann's, are also assessedin toto. These women undertook the necessary ‘technoscience’ and in some cases innovative work and helped increase the prestige of the institute and its director. Together they played a pivotal role in the establishment of genetics in Germany. Without them the discipline would have developed much more slowly and along a divergent path. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the role of self-construal in sharpening reputation judgment on earnings management cases. This study involves a personality variable that can provide sharper insights into individual assessments, namely self-construal. The study uses an experimental case with involved participants to judge the ethics of earnings management done by other managers (the target managers). Participants of this study consist of 109 master’s degree students majoring in accounting and management who acts as fellow managers. Participants provide ethical judgment and (...) reputation judgment of the target managers. This study indicates that ethical judgment on earnings management behavior differs depending on the target managers’ self-construal. In addition, ethical judgment has a positive and significant effect on reputation judgment. The following analysis showed that ethical judgment mediates the effect of earnings management behavior that self-construal moderates on reputation judgment. Studies that highlight the impact of managers’ reputation engaging in earnings management are still limited. This study used a behavioral approach, especially involving self-construal, to scrutinize the behavior of individuals within the organization, which is previous studies have not yet involved that personality factor. This research’s results imply that a manager’s response to peer’s behavior is helpful to design an appropriate management control system for organizations. This study only used earnings management scenarios in order to increase earnings. Earnings management can be in the form of actions to increase or decrease earnings. (shrink)

The sexual exploitation of children in Indonesia is a serious crime that threatens the fundamental rights of children and their physical, emotional, and mental development. Cases of child sexual exploitation continue to rise, whether in the form of human trafficking, pornography, or sexual abuse, yet the response remains far from optimal. Although regulations and prevention programs are in place, the lack of coordination among law enforcement agencies and the low level of public awareness are major obstacles to resolving these cases.This (...) study employs a qualitative approach using a normative-empirical method, involving an analysis of the legal framework as well as in-depth interviews with legal practitioners and relevant stakeholders. The results indicate that although there is a strong legal foundation, policy implementation is often hindered by bureaucracy, limited human resources, and low legal awareness in society. Additionally, social stigma against victims exacerbates the situation, especially in rural areas.The study recommends an interconnected approach involving substantive law, legal structure, and legal culture as an effective solution to address the escalation of child sexual exploitation. These findings imply the need for improved inter-agency coordination, law enforcement training, and more extensive public awareness campaigns. (shrink)

Advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture is a recognised development goal, also within crop breeding. Increasingly, breeding teams are expected to use ‘market-based’ approaches to design more ‘demand-led’ and ‘gender-responsive’ crop varieties. Based on an institutional ethnography that includes high-profile development-oriented breeding initiatives, we unpack these terms using perspectives from political agronomy and feminist science and technology studies. By conceptualising the market as an ongoing, relational performance made up of discourses, practices and human and nonhuman actors, we trace (...) how the market is understood as an effective socioeconomic institution for soliciting demand, but also becomes a normative agenda. Construed as a demand variable, the relational and structural dimensions of gender are rendered less visible, which might strengthen rather than transform power relations’ status quo. On the other hand, a feminist science and technology perspective broadens the field of vision not only to the gendered dimensions of crop breeding, but also to the nonhuman actors, such as the crops and traits falling outside the market sphere of interest. By putting political agronomy and feminist science and technology studies into conversation, the article contributes to the development of a feminist political agronomy. (shrink)