Do we know what we're doing, and why? Psychological research seems to suggest not: reflection and self-awareness are surprisingly uncommon and inaccurate. John M. Doris presents a new account of agency and responsibility, which reconciles our understanding of ourselves as moral agents with empirical work on the unconscious mind.

Much of the developing world, including Kenya, is rapidly urbanizing. Rising food and fuel prices in recent years have put the food security of the urban poor in a precarious position. In cities worldwide, urban agriculture helps some poor people gain access to food, but urban agriculture is less common in densely populated slums that lack space. In the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya, households have recently begun a new form of urban agriculture called sack gardening in which vegetables such (...) as kale and Swiss chard are planted into large sacks filled with topsoil. This paper examines relationships among sack gardening, social capital, and food security in Kibera. We used a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with a household survey, as well as focus group discussions with both farmers and non-farmers. We present evidence that sack gardening increases social capital, especially for those households that undertake sack gardening in groups. We also find that sack gardening in the Kibera slums has a positive impact on household food security by improving household dietary diversity and by reducing the need to resort to painful coping mechanisms that are used during food shortages. (shrink)

Sexual reproduction is the dominant reproductive mode in eukaryotes but, in many taxa, it has never been observed. Molecular methods that detect evidence of sex are largely based on the genetic consequences of sexual reproduction. Here we describe a powerful new approach to directly search genomes for genes that function in meiosis. We describe a “meiosis detection toolkit”, a set of meiotic genes that represent the best markers for the presence of meiosis. These genes are widely present in eukaryotes, function (...) only in meiosis and can be isolated by degenerate PCR. The presence of most, or all, of these genes in a genome would suggest they have been maintained for meiosis and, implicitly, sexual reproduction. In contrast, their absence would be consistent with the loss of meiosis and asexuality. This approach will help to understand both meiotic gene evolution and the capacity for meiosis and sex in putative obligate asexuals. BioEssays 30:579–589, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Usain Bolt’s Lightning Bolt pose, one arm highly extended to one side, suggests action. Likewise, static pictures of animals, legs extended, show animation. We tested a new cue for motion perception—extension—and in particular extension of dancer’s legs. An experiment with pictures of a dancer finds larger angles between the legs suggest greater movement, especially with in-air poses and in lateral views. Leg positions graded from simply standing to very difficult front and side splits. Liking ratings were more related to Difficulty (...) ratings than Movement ratings. (shrink)

To the Editor: Daniel Callahan is correct when, in “Rationing: Theory, Politics, and Passions”, he tells us that the combination of ever-rising medical costs and ever-increasing demand for expensive resources by physicians and their patients will—in the absence of any workable, generally acceptable mode of official rationing—lead to covert rationing. Or, more precisely, it will encourage us to extend the covert rationing that already exists, where those with more get more. As things stand now, this is unavoidable. However..

Published data show that new HIV prevention strategies including treatment-as-prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) using oral antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are highly, but not completely, effective if regimens are taken as directed. Consequently, their implementation may challenge norms around HIV prevention. Specific concerns include the potential for ARV-based prevention to reframe responsibility, erode beneficial sexual norms and waste resources. This paper explores what rights claims uninfected people can make for access to ARVs for prevention, and whether moral claims justify the provision (...) of ARV therapy to those who do not yet clinically require treatment as a way of reducing HIV transmission risk. An ethical analysis was conducted of the two strategies, PrEP and treatment-as-prevention, using a public health stewardship model developed by the Nuffield Bioethics Council to consider and compare the application of PrEP and treatment-as-prevention strategies. We found that treating the person with HIV rather than the uninfected person offers advantages in settings where there are limited opportunities to access care. A treatment-as-prevention strategy that places all the emphasis upon the positive person's adherence however carries a disproportionate burden of responsibility. PrEP remains an important option for receptive partners who face increased biological vulnerability. We conclude that the use of ARV for prevention is ethically justified, despite imperfect global to drugs for those in clinical need. The determination of which ARV-based HIV prevention strategy is ethically preferable is complex and must take into account both public health and interpersonal considerations. (shrink)

In this book John Ziman seeks the answers to crucial questions facing scientists who need to change the direction of their careers.

This article asserts that graduate study should include preparation for participation in the process of self-regulation to assure the responsible conduct of research in the scientific community. This article outlines the various ways in which doctoral study can incorporate such preparation. These suggested ways include the inculcation of general attitudes and values about professional self-regulation, various ways doctoral study can be configured so that future scientists are prepared to participate in the deterrence, detection and sanctioning of scientific wrongdoing. The stages (...) of doctoral study in the United States and their relevance to preparation for self-regulations are also discussed. Recommendations regarding an extended role for faculty advisors, graduate assistantships, coursework and departmental policies and activities are also advanced. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Tversky and Koehler's support theory attempts to explain why probability judgments are affected by the manner in which formally similar events are described. Support theory suggests that as the explicitness of a description increases, an event will be judged to be more likely. In the present experiment, experienced decision-makers from large, international accounting firms were given case-specific information about an audit client and asked to provide a series of judgments regarding the perceived likelihood of events. Unpacking a hypothesis into four (...) formally equivalent hypotheses more than doubled its perceived likelihood. These results are largely consistent with support theory, extending its generalizability to applied contexts involving business professionals. Further, the paper finds that task-specific factors, a previously untested area, can also affect support theory interpretations. (shrink)

The authors use social science methodology to determine whether a doctrinal shift—from an objectivist view of criminality in the common law to a subjectivist view in modem criminal codes—is consistent with lay intuitions of the principles of justice. Commentators have suggested that lay perceptions of criminality have shifted in a way reflected in the doctrinal change, but the study results suggest a more nuanced conclusion: that the modern lay view agrees with the subjectivist view of modern codes in defining the (...) minimum requirements of criminality, but prefers the common law's objectivist view of grading the punishment deserved. The authors argue that there is practical value in having criminal law track shared community intuitions of the proper rules for assigning liability and punishment. For that reason, the study results support the often criticized subjectivist view of modern codes in setting the minimum requirements of liability, but disapprove of the modern codes' shift away from the common law's objectivist view of grading. (shrink)

Most content externalists concede that even if externalism is compatible with the thesis that one has authoritative self-knowledge of thought contents, it is incompatible with the stronger claim that one is always able to tell by introspection whether two of one’s thought tokens have the same, or different, content. If one lacks such authoritative discriminative self-knowledge of thought contents, it would seem that brute logical error – non-culpable logical error – is possible. Some philosophers, such as Paul Boghossian, have argued (...) that this would present a big problem for externalism, forcing the externalist to overhaul our norms of rationality. I consider several externalist strategies to block this possibly unhappy epistemological consequence, but I argue that they all fail. (shrink)

"A consistently informative and often impressively detailed analysis of Anglo-Saxon heroic stories (especially Beowulf, Brunanburh, Maldon), this study pulls them out from under the pall of pseudo-mystical Germani-schism that has shrouded them for generations and returns them to something of their own historical, and especially political, origins."--R. A. Shoaf, University of Florida Anglo-Saxon poems and fragments seem to preserve a long-standing Germanic code of heroic values, but John Hill shows that these values are probably not much older than the (...) poems that record and advance them. In the first book-length application of anthropological research to Old English heroic literature, Hill demonstrates that the loyalties and values celebrated in "The Battle of Brunanburh," "The Battle of Maldon," and numerous other heroic episodes in Old English literature are not aspects of an archaic or ancient ethical life but instead political models serving the interests of West Saxon kingship and hegemony. Using the much more complicated Beowulf as an illuminating counterpoint, Hill works out the development in the heroic literature of these new ideals. Employing anthropological and psychoanalytic perspectives, Hill reopens for study an important subject of Old English literature long thought settled, and he provides a window onto the process of Anglo-Saxon state formation that should appeal to medievalists in both literary studies and history. John M. Hill is professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy and author of several books, including Chaucerian Belief and The Cultural World in Beowulf. (shrink)

Despite what Peter Singer and Peter Unger believe, no one violates the ‘rescue principle’ when she makes a frivolous purchase instead of giving to a charity like UNICEF. Nor does any one violate a collective action version of the rescue principle when she makes a frivolous purchase instead of giving to a charity. Garrett Cullity is also mistaken in believing that ‘the transitivity of wrongness’ can be used to reach the conclusion that a failure to give to charity is wrong (...) because a failure to save is. This makes it likely that the requirement to give to charity is based not on the requirement to rescue but instead on the moral requirement to marginally improve the ability of charitable organisations to do their important work. (shrink)

While improving the theoretical account of base-rate neglect, Barbey & Sloman's (B&S's) target article suffers from affect neglect by failing to consider the fundamental role of emotional processes in decisions. We illustrate how affective influences are fundamental to decision making, and discuss how the dual process model can be a useful framework for understanding hot and cold cognition in reasoning.

This article reports the results of marketing research that was undertaken as part of an information technology prototype development project. The project was devoted to the creation of a multimedia-based prototype system to provide timely and accurate information from government geographic information databases to government decision makers and the general public in an easy-to-use interactive visual format. The general public (i.e., private citizens, schools, and businesses—society in general) had to be able to access the product via broadband-to-the-home (-business/-school) technology. Because (...) of significant time and budget constraints, a satisficing approach to the marketing research was adopted. This approach led to the definition of several social categories of the general public whose opinions were thought to be critical to the commercial development of the prototype: (a) elementary and secondary education leaders (both technophiles and technophobes), (b) adults with a record as early adopters of information technologies, (c) adults with no previous interest in (or limited experience with) information technologies, and (d) high school students. Six focus groups were defined based on these social categories. The results of the marketing research devoted to information needs of the focus group participants are reported, and implications related to their expectations regarding emerging technologies are discussed. The research suggests that expectations in the portion of the market on which the success of the technologies depend are often inconsistent with the types of technologies that are being developed for that market. (shrink)

This paper discusses how language games might facilitate a reimagining of learning conversations in art education, by comparing them with Socratic, Kantian and post-structuralist dialogical perspectives that inform group critique. It proposes that language games may facilitate the construction of more personal and layered modes of conversation, instead of prescribing processes intended to seek universal truths, authentic self-knowledge, or disruptive critical scepticism. It argues that they promote the recognition of all co-learners as people who come with their own valuable original (...) ideas and backgrounds. (shrink)

This paper presents a challenge to Eurocentric world history on the grounds that it reifies and exaggerates the role of the West in the creation of modernity, while simultaneously ignoring India's seminal contributions. The groundwork is prepared in the first three sections, which refute the parochial biases of Eurocentrism by revealing India's impressive early developmental record and its place near the center of a nascent global economy. The paper culminates in an approach that places the "dialogue of civilizations" center-stage of (...) progressive world history, which is formulated as an antidote to parochial Eurocentric world history. This entails an extensive discussion of two key contributions that India made in enabling the rise of the modern West. These comprise the dissemination of Indian industrial methods that enabled the British industrial revolution on the one hand, and the transmission of Indian mathematical ideas that helped promote the European scientific revolution on the other hand. Moreover, this discussion is coupled with two speculative counterfactual historical scenarios. They are: first, that in the absence of British imperialism which sought to "contain" Indian development, India might have gone on to make the breakthrough to modernity, and second, that in the absence of Indian (as well as Chinese, African and Middle Eastern) help, the West might not have made the breakthrough to modernity. But whatever the veracity of such counterfactuals may or may not be, the ultimate upshot of the argument presented in this paper reveals that Eurocentrism's central claim - that the West made the breakthrough to modernity all by itself - can no longer hold true. (shrink)

Pictures are tactile as well as visual. Outline pictures stand for the same kinds of surface features in touch and vision. Vantage point geometry is used by blind and sighted perceivers in pictures. Limits of pictures may be comparable for the blind and sighted, and transcended in useful ways. Introduction In keeping with a conference on the multimodality of human communication, the purpose of this paper is to show that some aspects of pictures are tangible as well as visual. Many (...) means of communication are often considered to be exclusively visual or auditory, but the exclusionary view requires radical revision, the evidence from pictures tells us. (shrink)