Academic file-sharing services encourage students to upload materials, sometimes their own study notes for example, but can also include copyrighted university documents, in exchange for access to downloading resources from a common repository. In this process, the lines between legitimate study help and academic misconduct are unclear. Integrity-based strategies to combat these transactions have been limited. Removal by copyright mechanisms has been identified as a potential approach but has been hampered by the enormity of the task and the resource intensity (...) required to make an impact at scale. This explorative study at a large Australian university sought to remove a percentage of copyrighted material from two commonly used academic file-sharing websites and to understand the experience of users in uploading files. Findings from the study were encouraging and informative, resulting in a suite of initiatives being introduced across the institution to prevent uploading in the first instance as well as, where possible, addressing misconduct when it occurred. Limitations included that the study was only undertaken as one university and therefore does not represent the contexts of different institutions. Further, it only investigated two websites out of many available. Future research could explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by academic file-sharing services to retain existing users and attract new ones. This work provides a clearer picture of how an institution’s copyrighted material is hosted on two academic file-sharing websites and offers an effective and potentially scalable copyright approach that could be adapted by other higher education institutions. (shrink)

A theory of customary international law -- Case studies -- A theory of international agreements -- Human rights -- International trade -- A theory of international rhetoric -- International law and moral obligation -- Liberal democracy and cosmopolitan duty.

I argue that in order to apply the most common type of criteria for logicality, invariance criteria, to natural language, we need to consider both invariance of content—modeled by functions from contexts into extensions—and invariance of character—modeled, à la Kaplan, by functions from contexts of use into contents. Logical expressionsshould be invariant in both senses. If we do not require this, then old objections due to Timothy McCarthy and William Hanson, suitably modified, demonstrate that content invariant expressions can display intuitive (...) marks of non-logicality. If we do require this, we neatly avoid these objections while also managing to demonstrate desirable connections of logicality to necessity. The resulting view is more adequate as a demarcation of the logical expressions of natural language. (shrink)

Geoengineering is defined as the ‘deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming’. The technological proposals for doing this are highly speculative. Research is at an early stage, but there is a strong consensus that technologies would, if realisable, have profound and surprising ramifications. Geoengineering would seem to be an archetype of technology as social experiment, blurring lines that separate research from deployment and scientific knowledge from technological artefacts. Looking into the experimental (...) systems of geoengineering, we can see the negotiation of what is known and unknown. The paper argues that, in renegotiating such systems, we can approach a new mode of governance—collective experimentation. This has important ramifications not just for how we imagine future geoengineering technologies, but also for how we govern geoengineering experiments currently under discussion. (shrink)

The process of dehumanization, or thinking of others as less than human, is a phenomenon with significant societal implications. According to Haslam's model, two concepts of humanness derive from comparing humans with either animals or machines: individuals may be dehumanized by likening them to either animals or machines, or humanized by emphasizing differences from animals or machines. Recent work in cognitive neuroscience emphasizes understanding cognitive processes in terms of interactions between distributed cortical networks. It has been found that reasoning about (...) internal mental states is associated with activation of the default mode network and deactivation of the task positive network ; whereas reasoning about mechanical processes produces the opposite pattern. We conducted two neuroimaging studies. The first examined the neural bases of dehumanization and its relation to these two brain networks, using images and voice-over social narratives which either implicitly contrasted or implicitly likened humans to either animals or machines. The second study addressed a discrepancy between findings from the first study and prior work on the neural correlates of dehumanization: using a design similar to prior work we examined neural responses to pictures of humans, animals and machines, presented without any social context. In both studies, human and humanizing conditions were associated with relatively high activity in the DMN and relatively low activity in the TPN. However, the non-human and dehumanizing conditions deviated in different ways: they demonstrated more marked changes either in the DMN or in the TPN. Notably, differences between the animal dehumanizing and humanizing conditions were most evident in regions associated with mechanistic reasoning, not in the mentalizing network. Conjunction analysis of contrasts from both paradigms revealed that only one region was consistently more active when participants saw human, a medial parietal region regarded as the central hub of the DMN. These findings provide a neural basis for Haslam's distinction between two types of dehumanization, and suggest that the DMN and TPN play opposing roles in creating a sense of moral concern. (shrink)

Drawing on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, Turner offers an original reconstruction of democratic individualism in American thought.

Revolutions have shaped world politics for the last three hundred years. This volume shows why revolutions occur, how they unfold, and where they created democracies and dictatorships. Jack A. Goldstone presents the history of revolutions from America and France to the collapse of the Soviet Union, 'People Power' revolutions, and the Arab revolts.

The growing demand for societal impact of teaching, research, and operations necessitates fresh approaches to our analysis of business school rankings. I discuss the Financial Times’ approach and the need for fresh methods, metrics, and standards.

What is the relation between words and action? How does a person decide, based on what someone is saying, what would be an appropriate response? We argue that every move combines independent semiotic features, to be interpreted under an assumption that social behavior is goal directed; responding to actions is not equivalent to describing them; and describing actions invokes rights and duties for which people are explicitly accountable. We conclude that interaction does not involve a ‘binning’ procedure in which the (...) stream of conduct is sorted into discrete action types. Our argument is grounded in data from recordings of talk-in-interaction. (shrink)

Providing the first extended analysis of Audre Lorde’s critique of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, this essay argues that Lorde’s critique models a form of anti-imperial consciousness that is still morally and politically instructive. Anti-imperial consciousness entails examining oneself for complicities with empire’s ravages, on the one hand, and solidarities with empire’s subjects, on the other. Lorde aims to generate in her readers (1) a sense of horror at the ways they may be morally implicated in U.S. imperial injustice (...) and (2) a more intense identification with empire’s non-U.S. victims. Lorde’s goal is to free her audience from what she calls the “mistaken mirage of patriotism” and propel them to anti-imperial action. Illuminating Lorde’s economic socialism and anti-imperialist internationalism—two subjects still overshadowed by her more famous work on anger, the erotic, and the master’s tools—the essay contributes to the ongoing elaboration of the Afro-modern tradition of political thought. (shrink)

I offer two interpretations of independence between experts: (i) independence as deciding autonomously, and (ii) independence as having different perspectives. I argue that when experts are grouped together, independence of both kinds is valuable for the same reason: they reduce the likelihood of erroneous consensus by enabling a greater variety of critical viewpoints. In offering this argument, I show that a purported proof from Finnur Dellsén that groups of more autonomous experts are more reliable does not work. It relies on (...) a flawed ceteris paribus assumption, as well as a false equivalence between autonomy and probabilistic independence. A purely formal proof that more autonomous experts are more reliable is in fact not possible – substantive claims about how more autonomous groups reason are required. My alternative argument for the value of autonomy between experts rests on the claim that groups that triangulate a greater range of critical viewpoints will be less likely to accept hypotheses in error. As well as clarifying what makes autonomy between experts valuable, this mechanism of critical triangulation, gives us reason to value groups of experts that cover a wide range of relevant skills and knowledge. This justifies my second interpretation of expert independence. (shrink)

I’d like to begin my comments by reminding all necessary preconditions for finding a new us that democracy is not a good in itself. We..

MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS HAD NO SINGLE RESPONSE to the difficult question of how souls are related to the bodies they animate. In this respect, the theory of psychological inherence advanced by the noted Parisian philosopher John Buridan is a case in point. Buridan offers different accounts of the soul-body relation, depending upon which of two main varieties of natural, animate substance he is explaining. In the case of human beings, he defends a version of immanent dualism: the thesis that the soul (...) is an immaterial, everlasting, and created entity, actually inhering in each and every body it animates, and thus numerically many. But when his explanandum is the relation between nonhuman animal or plant souls and their bodies, Buridan is a materialist; that is, he regards the sensitive and vegetative souls of such creatures as no more than collections of material, extended powers exhaustively defined by their biological functions, and hence as corruptible as the particular arrangements of matter they happen to animate. (shrink)

In his story entitled "Toenails," the surgeon Richard Selzer (1982) warns readers that total immersion in medicine is wrongheaded. Rather, to ensure their own health, doctors should discover other passions that permit them periodically to disconnect from medical practice. Selzer's surgeon character devotes his Wednesday afternoons to the public library, where he joins "a subculture of elderly men and women who gather … to read or sleep beneath the world's newspapers" (p. 69). Among these often eccentric personages is Neckerchief, an (...) arthritic man in his 80s who suffers from severe foot pain. His toenails, never trimmed because of his inability to reach them, have grown so long that they curve beneath his toes and .. (shrink)

In a clear, nontechnical account, Jack Goldstein tells the story of this entrepreneurial American scientist who played an essential part in experiments important to the development of quantum mechanics, who later became an advisor to the government during much of the Cold War period, and whose leadership in educational reform resulted in the restructuring of the entire American high school science curriculum. Jerrold Zacharias was a physicist well placed by historical circumstance to take a central part in the development (...) of American science, science policy, and science education. In a clear, nontechnical account, Jack Goldstein tells the story of this entrepreneurial American scientist who played an essential part in experiments important to the development of quantum mechanics, who later became an advisor to the government during much of the Cold War period, and whose leadership in educational reform resulted in the restructuring of the entire American high school science curriculum. Zacharias lived at a time when an individual with imagination and courage could make a difference, whether at the forefront of science or in matters of public policy. He believed that every citizen, even those with modest scientific sophistication and knowledge, could learn to think like a scientist. Now, at a time when the issues of science education and science literacy are again of compelling national interest, his ideas merit close attention.Goldstein describes Zacharias's coming of scientific age in the early 1930s, as a member of 1. 1. Rabi's group at Columbia, and examines the leading role he played during World War II at MIT's Radiation Laboratory and at the Manhattan Project. From about 1955 on, Goldstein observes, Zacharias made significant contributions to science education in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics at the primary, secondary, and college levels. As a result of his initiatives, science and mathematics curriculum development flourished in a number of third-world countries. (shrink)

"This book does not treat Smith as an historical curiosity who has accomplished all that he was capable of. It treats Smith as someone with a contemporary message. That capitalism is the dominant political system in the contemporary world is almost without doubt. That capitalism is succeeding, however, is much more contentious. I will argue that Smith would challenge such claims of success. As the standard of living rises in most of the world, few could challenge the notion that vast (...) numbers of people are being left behind. While some countries gorge themselves into obesity, others starve. Furthermore, while the information revolution has made access to recorded knowledge easier than ever, global cultural experience is becoming whitewashed in a money- and media-driven frenzy of homogeneity. Every generation has complained that their successors are intellectually inferior and poorly educated. Sometimes the weaker of us are forced to wonder whether this time it might be true.". (shrink)

One of the best gimmicks on the cognitive science conference circuit is the demonstration of inattentional blindness. Many readers of this journal must have already been exposed to it. For the rest we will briefly describe a striking and popular demonstration. It typically evolves during a conference talk, where the presenter provides the audience with a stimulus in the form of a small video clip of six people, three in white, three in black, who pass two basket balls around. The (...) instruction is to count the number of passes made by the players in white. When the movie is over, the presenter asks for a response, someone provides it, and he then goes on to elicit a report: 'Did anyone notice something strange during the film?' Usually, only those who have seen the film before have, but they are not allowed to answer. The film is then replayed, but this time, the audience is instructed to look out for anything unusual. Muted, surprised laughter goes through the auditorium when someone dressed as a gorilla enters into the scene of kids playing, confronts the spectators, bangs his chest, and slowly walks out again. It seems incredible that it went unnoticed the first time around, and yet those who have been exposed to the experiment before can testify that the gorilla was indeed there in both showings of the film. (shrink)

Orthodox physicalism has a problem with mental causation. If physics is complete and mental events are not identical to physical events (as multiple-realisation arguments imply) it seems as though there is no causal work for the mental to do. This paper examines some recent attempts to overcome this problem by analysing causation in terms of counterfactuals or conditional probabilities. It is argued that these solutions cannot simultaneously capture the force of the completeness of physics and make room for mental causation.

ABSTRACT A brief reflection on the possibility of contingency in the midst of what cannot be said.

Using conclusions from contemporary evolutionary biology and psychology, I defend a new argument for the moral permissibility of abortion. My analysis shows the falsity of some of the empirical and moral claims in two popular and widely anthologized anti-abortion articles, one by the judge and legal scholar John T. Noonan and the other by the moral philosopher Don Marquis. My argument builds on my criticisms of Noonan and Marquis. People are contingent emergent beings, and cannot be reduced to their DNA (...) or fetus. My analysis of four theses, two for males and two for females, shows that the absence of consent is enough to establish every woman's broad moral right to terminate unwanted pregnancies. A final section presents the conclusion and responds to two important objections. (shrink)

Nicholas Phillipson’s biography of Adam Smith was published just forty-five days before the second edition of Ian Simpson Ross’s definitive biography The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford, 2010).The contrast is telling. Ross’s is a book for scholars with ubiquitous in-text references to recent scholarship. Phillipson’s is a narrative intellectual biography for a wider audience that relegates recent work to the bibliography. Ross is reticent to make claims about Smith’s motivations, but Phillipson thrives on it. Ross is usually explicit when he (...) takes positions on controversial issues, but Phillipson’s interpretations dominate the text. In short, it is easier to see how Ross’s work fits into contemporary debate, but it is .. (shrink)

John Rawls, the Harvard Professor, died rights open to any and all challenges, even stupid last month. He was, without question, the most ones. important political philosopher of the Twentieth What does a country do when faced century. It is a terrible time to lose him because with a person, group, or nation that claims that America, and the world, is faced with dire such rights are not obvious but dubious? What questions of justice, rights, and political stability. do we (...) do when faced with an enemy – foreign or These are questions that Rawls spent his life domestic – who rejects justice? Wars were pursuing, and his answers, while not always fought for much less; wars are being fought for convincing, taught us a great deal about much less. Believers in the rights announced by ourselves, and our political priorities. the Declaration of Independence need a theory Few people have heard of Rawls. In that can justify inalienable rights more part, this is because he shied away from convincingly than by simply appealing to publicity, but mostly this is because Americans Jefferson’s personal preference. This is where tend not to regard philosophy as important. John Rawls comes in. Many college students who become interested in In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, the subject are pressured by their parents to study Rawls attempted to provide a justification of something else because, their parents claim, rights that would apply to all people, for all time, philosophy is not practical. It is, in fact, quite that everyone would ultimately consent to no difficult to get a job as a philosopher, but matter who they are or what religious or cultural philosophy itself is far from useless. Virtually beliefs they held. This is a massive achievement, everything that we value comes out of and in addition to a lifetime of success in his philosophy in one form or another. chosen field, it won him the Medal of Honor Political philosophy, for example, is from Bill Clinton in 1999. responsible for the creation of individual rights, Rawls revised his theory throughout his theories of justice and equality, the creation of career but his early work will be his most lasting. capitalism and the free market (and, of course, It will be read for generations alongside the opposing theories such as communism and greatest of philosophers, partly because at its anarchy).. (shrink)