For all its popularity as a psychological construct, willpower is irremediably polysemous. A more helpful construct is self-control, defined as the self-regulation of conflicting impulses. We show how the process model of self-control provides a principled framework for examining how undesirable impulses may be weakened and desirable impulses may be strengthened.

Postnatal parent-infant physiological regulatory effects described in the previous paper (Part I) are viewed here as being biologically contiguous with events that occur prenatally, preparing and sensitizing the fetus to the average microenvironment into which the infant is expected, based on its evolutionary past, to be born. Following McKenna (1986), evidence (some of which is circumstantial) is presented concerning fetal hearing and fetal amniotic liquid breathing as they are affected both by maternal cardiovascular blood flow sounds in the uterus and (...) by fluctuating maternal blood sugar levels. These data are linked in turn to the infant’s postulated postnatal responsivity to parental sensory cues, including auditory and vestibular respiratory cues that may assist infants as they “learn” to breathe and, for some, to resist a SIDS event. Data on the respiratory and vocalizing behavior of normal and hearing-impaired persons are used to show that not all forms of human breathing are innate; some forms develop with experience. These data reveal how human infants learn, for example, to coordinate higher and lower brain respiratory nuclei in the context of learning initially to cry with intent and purpose and later to speak. Voluntary, cortex-based breathing emerges at the same time that infants are most likely to die from SIDS, between 2 and 4 months of age. This switch between voluntary and involuntary breathing during both sleep (while dreaming) and wake cycles, which depends on the integration of higher cortical and lower brain stem nuclei, is complex and is possibly the basis of the human species’ unique susceptibility to SIDS—a syndrome as yet unrecognized in other species. These human infant vulnerabilities, including delayed maturity, can explain in part why natural selection ought to favor increased infant sensitivity to parental sensory cues provided by a caregiver—stimuli available in the evolving parental care environment that included parent-infant co-sleeping for more than 4–5 million years of human evolution. (shrink)

This is a book about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do.The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The (...) author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision—and what this book is about. (shrink)

The biopolitics of intervening directly in the body with drugs, genes, and wires have always been far more fraught than the issues surrounding the use of gadgets. This chapter explores the way that conscience apps and morality software are an underexplored bridge between the traditional forms of moral enhancement and the more invasive methods that we will develop eventually. It discusses the core elements such as self‐control, caring, moral cognition, mindfulness, and wisdom or intelligence. Critics of morality apps point to (...) the alleged inauthenticity and shallowness of behavior change when it is technologically assisted. But humans have long enlisted technology in the aid of moral enhancement, from visible markers of vows like rings and uniforms, to self‐ or state‐imposed castration. The forms of pharmaceutical and genetic modification of moral behavior currently being discussed as forms of “moral enhancement.”. (shrink)

This volume -- a companion to Thomas Reid: Selected Philosophical Writings (2012) -- makes available material from Thomas Reid's autograph manuscripts and student notes of his lectures. It includes an introductory essay by Nicholas Wolterstorff.

The late Professor Friedländer’s work on Plato was originally published in two volumes at Berlin-Leipzig in 1928 and 1930. Of these the first volume discussed a large number of general Platonic themes, and the second commented on the dialogues in sequence. A substantial revision and expansion of the work was begun with the publication of Platon I: Seinswahrheit und Lebenswirklichkeit, corresponding to the original first volume. The original second volume was however now divided into two and the first part of (...) this revised second edition appeared as Band II Die Platonischen Schriften. The second and major part of this second volume appeared at Platon III: Die Platonischen Schriften, Zweite und Dritte Periode. Friedländer was now living in America and English translations of the three volumes by Hans Meyerhoff with further additions, revisions and notes appeared as Plato IH An Introduction ; Plato: The Dialogues, First Period ; and lastly the present volume Plato: The Dialogues, Second and Third Periods. (shrink)

In the present research, we qualitatively document the process by which spiritual leader and leadership emerge in religion-based organizations. Data from 26 participants in three religion-based organizations revealed three cardinal themes that depict the development of spiritual leader and spiritual leadership, the process of developing a spiritual leader and spiritual leadership, and outcomes of spiritual leader and leadership development. Based on the results, we propose a model that depicts the phases involved in the development of spiritual leader/leadership in the religion-based (...) workplace. These phases are proposed to impact the outcomes for the leader, followers, and the organization. The implications of our results are discussed. (shrink)

People have sought ways to improve their physical and mental capabilities for thousands of years. For those of us who believe that human enhancement technologies include clothes, tools and weapons, the politics of enhancement started in prehistory. The norms of pre-industrial societies that only certain castes or genders could touch specific tools or wear certain clothes were preliminary politics of enhancement. Prosthetic limbs are thousands of years old, and by the 15th century, there were multiple experiments with vaccination around the (...) world. Although it would be appropriate to write a history of the various forms of empowerment that have taken place since the dawn of civilisation, this volume – that now we can present to the lectors – will be on the debates about human enhancement that began in the early 20th century, once modern medicine had begun to suggest actual technologies for human augmentation. Before examining the relationship between human enhancement and biopolitics (the subject of our work), it is helpful to say a few words about the series in which this volume appears, a series that bears the same title as this first text and which opens with contributions from the best scientific experts on the subject. (shrink)

In the target article, Bowers et al. dispute deep artificial neural network (ANN) models as the currently leading models of human vision without producing alternatives. They eschew the use of public benchmarking platforms to compare vision models with the brain and behavior, and they advocate for a fragmented, phenomenon-specific modeling approach. These are unconstructive to scientific progress. We outline how the Brain-Score community is moving forward to add new model-to-human comparisons to its community-transparent suite of benchmarks.

This paper analyzes the ethical-political dilemma in Kant’s work, sometimes expressed through the metaphor of the “crooked wood of humanity.” Kant separates external and internal freedom and the types of legislation each form of freedom requires (coercive and noncoercive). Yet, he also argues that corrupt political institutions adversely affect individual ethical development, and, reciprocally, corrupt inner dispositions of a populace adversely affect the establishment of just political institutions. I argue that a major way in which Kant addresses this vicious circle (...) is through ethical institutions, that is, noncoercive public resources for articulating and disseminating the principles of the moral law. I discuss the idea of an ethico-civil society or ethical community formulated in the Religion as an ideal model for ethical institutions mediating the ethical and the legal-political in a noncoercive, progressive manner. (shrink)

It examines three core questions. First, what is the scope and direction of neuroscientific inquiry?

The nature of the doctor–patient relationship is central to the practice of medicine and thus to bioethics. The American Medical Association (in AMA principles of medical ethics, available at: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/patient-physician-relationships, 2016) states, “The practice of medicine, and its embodiment in the clinical encounter between a patient and a physician, is fundamentally a moral activity that arises from the imperative to care for patients and to alleviate suffering.” In this issue of Christian Bioethics, leading scholars consider what relevance (if any) Christianity (...) brings to the relationship between physician and patient: does Christianity make a difference? The contributors consider this question from several different perspectives: the proper model of medicine, the role that the Christian moral tradition can play in medicine in a secular pluralistic society, how a Christian understanding of virtue can inform practices such as perinatal hospice and physician-assisted suicide, and whether or not appeals to Christian values can (or should) ground a physician’s right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

A critical discussion of Aristotle's thoughts on moral weakness, or Akrasia, with a look at the contributions of other philosophers, such as, Socrates and Plato on this subject.

This classic book by Theodor W. Adorno anticipates many of the themes that have since become common in contemporary philosophy: the critique of foundationalism, the illusions of idealism and the end of epistemology.

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.

We use an event study to capture the investor reaction to the first Newsweek Green Rankings in September 2009, a notable, multi-dimensional recent development in the rating of corporate environmental CSR performance. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we develop hypotheses about market investor reaction to the disclosure of new, relevant corporate environmental performance in both the short and longer term, whether market investors’ reaction reflects industry context, and whether firm-level contextual variables representing firm size, and market legitimacy significantly impacts the investor (...) reaction. We find that, for the sample of the largest 500 US firms ranked by Newsweek, investors react positively both to the raw and within-industry rankings of green performance in terms of both short-term and longer-term returns. Moreover, the investor reaction is significantly influenced by contextual variables such as firm size and firm market legitimacy. Our results are compatible with the inference that rating agencies like Newsweek serve a valuable information dissemination function such that investors in better ranked firms anticipate larger future cash flows due to more positive reactions from key stakeholders such as environmentally-conscious customers, employees, NGOs, regulators, and thus reward these firms with stock price increases. Finally, larger, more visible firms benefit more, while firms which have more market legitimacy benefit less. We believe these findings will be of considerable interest to scholars of environmental corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Abstract:As a flagship program of the New Deal, the CCC was one of several federal agencies which turned to the natural and built environment to promote socio-cultural homogenization between the First and Second World War. This article investigates the CCC's role as an agent of national transformation and considers the links between the New Deal's treatment of the American landscape and its promotion of a new, more pluralistic national identity. While historians of the interwar United States are quick to note (...) the social and environmental significance of the CCC, the cultural role of this program remains largely overlooked. Specifically, relevant scholarship has neglected to address the architectural output of this program and the way it related to the New Deal's broader socio-cultural initiatives. With camps in each of the forty-eight states and overseas territories, the CCC reconfigured much of the American landscape and deployed a regionally diverse blend of vernacular architecture, all while fostering a mythologized sense of cultural heritage from coast to coast. In order to better understand both the role and rationale behind this process, this article considers several examples of CCC-produced architecture and landscape design across the greater United States. It argues that these designs were key vehicles of the unifying message that drove the New Deal and its many so-called ‘alphabet agencies’ from the depths of economic depression to a state of preparedness as the country approached the precipice of global war. This article also considers the Corps' role in the New Deal's construction of popular historical consciousness and draws attention to the frequent transregional interactions between enrollees and local populations. (shrink)

Review of: Wood, Allen W., Kant and Religion, Cambridge, Cambridge U.P., 2020, 250 pp. ISBN: 978-0521799980.