It is well documented and widely recognized that both Buddhism and Christianity have common themes of nonviolence, pacifism, and peace found throughout their teachings. In the beginning, the adherents of these two faiths consistently held to a strong form of pacifism and nonviolence. Yet as time progressed and the religions continued in their development, nonviolence and pacifism ceased to be normative practices for Christians and Buddhists. Although in our modern context the core teachings have remained consistent, on a practical level, (...) many adherents of both religions do not hold to pacifism and the concepts of nonviolence. This article intends to examine the concepts of nonviolence and pacifism in Buddhism and Christianity, through viewing their respective theological, philosophical, and historical traditions, and then decipher how central and necessary these concepts are to the authentic practice of their faiths. In other words, the paper intends to answer the question, “Are the teachings of nonviolence and pacifism obligatory or supererogatory in Buddhism and Christianity?” After coming to a conclusion about the nature of the ethics of nonviolence and pacifism in both faith traditions, it intends to then ascertain what the implications are for the religions and their followers and to express how the concept of pacifism and nonviolence should create common ground in religious dialogue between the two faiths. The hope is that this dialogue and commonality could promote beneficial societal change. (shrink)

Thailand has a rich history of using aesthetics as a means of communication. This is seen not only in the communication of basic ideas, but aesthetics are also used to communicate the cultural values of the nation. Aesthetical images in Thailand have the tendency to dwell both in the realm of the mundane and the supernatural, in the daily and the esoteric. Historically, many faith traditions have used aesthetics as an effective form of communication, including Buddhism, Brahmanism, as well as (...) other local expressions of deities across the country. Art plays a large role in the daily communication of religious values and concepts. -/- While Christianity has a rather long history in Thailand, the large-scale impact that Christianity, and specifically Protestantism, has had is rather minimal. There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but one potential possibility is Christianity’s lack of an aesthetical engagement upon and within Thai culture. This potentially is not an issue of only the Protestant church in Thailand but also stems from some of the western Christian roots throughout its faith tradition. One finds a chasm between aesthetical practices and faith from the Heidelberg Confession, in which Christians became so worried about the ramifications of idol worship, that they threw out the proverbial ‘baby with the bathwater’ and basically condemned the use of icons and other forms of art in western Protestantism. -/- Therefore, this paper will examine the relationship between Thai culture and Christianity, trying to remove the western biases in Christianity and will attempt to suggest new ways that the Thai Christian Church may develop organic, indigenous Thai art, that can be used as a more effective means of communication. If Christianity wants to effectively convey its concepts into Thai culture, it must value aesthetics as a means of communication. Is it possible that Christianity could not only communicate a more effective message in Thailand, but also that Christianity could experience a more robust self-analyzation of its core concepts through Thai aesthetics? Therefore, one needs to explore the ways that Christianity may be able to better understand itself through current Thai aesthetical practices. These concepts will be explored to develop a more robust and organic way of communicating the Christian concepts through a Thai paradigm. (shrink)

The perspectives of genomic citizen scientists on ownership of research outputs are not well understood, yet they are useful for identifying alignment of participant expectations and project practices and can help guide efforts to develop innovative tools and strategies for managing ownership claims. Here, we report findings from 52 interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 to understand genomic citizen science stakeholders’ conceptualizations of, experiences with, and preferences for ownership of research outputs. Interviewees identified four approaches for recognizing genomic citizen scientists’ (...) ownership and related credit interests in research outputs: shared governance via commons models; fractional ownership of benefits; full and creative attribution; and offensive and defensive patenting. Interviewees also agreed that the model selected by any project should at least maximize access to research outputs and, as appropriate and to the extent possible, broadly distribute rights of control and entitlements to research benefits. (shrink)

Sen’s Liberal paradox describes a conflict between weak Pareto, minimal liberalism, and either transitivity or a best element over a domain of individual preferences. This paper examines variants of that paradox with varying amounts of unconditional preferences. We define a notion of unconditional preferences under which, in the absence of Pareto, there can be no cycles. We then define a stronger condition, that makes an individual’s preferences for her own private attributes independent of all other attributes. Under this assumption, there (...) can be no cycles with or without Pareto. We also show there exists a social decision function satisfying those conditions. We then determine the probability of a cycle assuming a much weaker independence condition that does not restrict the domain. This probability converges to one as the number of non-private attributes within the social states increases. Finally, we use simulations to determine the probability that liberalism and Pareto conflict with best elements, maximal elements, and transitivity separately. (shrink)

This study uses a quasi-experimental design to assess how the incorporation of an embedded writing centre tutor in the experimental class affects student achievement in comparison with the control...

A fundamental tenet of the process philosophy founded by alfred north whitehead and charles hartshorne is that god's causal agency in the world is solely "persuasive," in contradistinction to much of traditional christian theism which portrays a more "coercive" god. The article, However, Seeks to show that hartshorne's God would appear to be somewhat coercive, E.G., In the imposition of the natural laws which are the limits to creaturely freedom and in the "luring" of creaturely actualizations of novel possibilities within (...) those limits. Divine coercion seems to be both a fact and a necessity in hartshorne's metaphysics, Despite his explicit denials. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the notion of technique and a phenomenon, or practice, that I call the detachment of technique, or DT, for short. I argue that the technique of a significant human activity, such as thinking or teaching, is always embodied in persons and must be understood in relation to the context of ends that provides the technique whatever intellectual and moral authority it may have. With the use of two extended examples — one from Kurt Vonnegut's novel, (...) Player Piano, and the other from the critical commentary of Harry Broudy — I explore the consequences of detaching the formal or mechanical aspects of technique from its traditional context of ends. DT and expert systems, the most advanced form of DT, are shown to distort the technique and destroy the traditions of significant human activities. I also explore DT as a technique that is informed by the tradition of technological rationality. The most serious problem of DT is that when technique is detached from the traditions of significant human activities, it is also separated from the educational process whereby intelligence is developed. (shrink)

Florida International University, USA edwardj{at}fiu.edu ' + u + '@ ' + d + ' '/ /- -> Several authors have analyzed the optimal k -majority rule based on a variety of criteria. Buchanan and Tullock argued that, in constitutional settings, the criterion should be that all changes meet the Pareto criterion; otherwise the status quo should be preferred. They then asserted that unanimity rule would be the preferred voting rule in this setting. In parliamentary settings, they claimed that a (...) near majority rule would be preferred because it minimizes the sum of decision costs and external costs. This article investigates both claims in an N -voter, two-alternative setting. We show the conditions under which unanimity rule is less likely to select BT preferred alternatives than other k -majority rules and prove that the difference in performance can be negligible when N is large and certain weak conditions are met. Furthermore, if we define external costs as the expected number of losers from a BT-inferior vote, then external costs become negligible for a range of supermajority rules. This implies that unanimity rule and a range of supermajority rules should be equally preferred when decision costs are added. Finally, we show that the external cost function can actually increase for certain populations. Many of the broader conclusions should also hold for multiple alternatives. Key Words: constitutional design • Pareto criterion • external costs • social contract. (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.

Since Hartshorne rejects Whitehead's doctrine of eternal objects, this seems to deny Hartshorne's God any causal influence via providing initial subjective aims to the world's creatures. If there are no specific eternal objects as possibilities to be actualized by creatures, there can be no specific initial aims. Hartshorne's metaphysics, however, can be rendered coherent at this point by interpreting the initial aims as hierarchies of indeterminate possibilities which are not specific until rendered so by creatures. Such an interpretation is coherent (...) with his doctrine of possibility understood as a hierarchy of indeterminate potentiality. A further issue remains, nevertheless, in regard to Hartshorne's claim that the possibilities offered by God to creatures are both infinite and yet limited. It is difficult to see how they can be both. (shrink)

Several authors have analyzed the optimal k-majority rule based on a variety of criteria. Buchanan and Tullock argued that, in constitutional settings, the criterion should be that all changes meet the Pareto criterion; otherwise the status quo should be preferred (we call this the BT criterion). They then asserted that unanimity rule would be the preferred voting rule in this setting. In parliamentary settings, they claimed that a near majority rule would be preferred because it minimizes the sum of decision (...) costs and external costs. This article investigates both claims in an N-voter, two-alternative setting. We show the conditions under which unanimity rule is less likely to select BT preferred alternatives than other k-majority rules and prove that the difference in performance can be negligible when Nis large and certain weak conditions are met. Furthermore, if we define external costs as the expected number of losers from a BT-inferior vote, then external costs become negligible for a range of supermajority rules. This implies that unanimity rule and a range of supermajority rules should be equally preferred when decision costs are added. Finally, we show that the external cost function can actually increase for certain populations. Many of the broader conclusions should also hold for multiple alternatives. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 12, December 2019, Page 60-62.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) offer a comprehensive framework for global sustainable development, embraced by both UN member states and multinational enterprises (MNEs). The SDGs take a holistic approach and emphasize the need to align public- and private-sector actions. However, understanding the effectiveness of the SDG framework in coordinating stakeholder actions remains a challenge. This study explores how MNEs engage with the SDGs as a function of their home countries’ SDG profiles. Leveraging institutional theory, we test competing mechanisms (...) by analyzing sustainability reports from 150 MNEs across 23 countries. Our results suggest that MNEs’ engagement with the SDGs aligns most closely with a “liability of origin” explanation, with firms showing greater SDG engagement when their home countries have lower progress on the SDGs. However, at the individual SDG level, the engagement patterns are more nuanced. Our findings have important implications for both theory and practice, providing insights into the complex dynamics that shape MNEs’ engagement with the SDGs and offering guidance for policymakers and businesses seeking to enhance their contributions to sustainable development. (shrink)

In light of more contemporary interest in the concept of an immemorial past, this essay takes up the manner in which this idea figures in Merleau-Ponty’s works by turning to the famous reference to “a past that has never been present” in Phenomenology of Perception. In order to contextualize and think through what Merleau-Ponty means, I turn to a reference in the same text to “primary silence.” Merleau-Ponty’s concern is to disclose the differential between the concatenation of sensibility and expression (...) and what remains beyond the bounds of the sensible. The task of phenomenology, accordingly, is the disclosure of this primary silence, this primary non-sense. Finally, articulating that this differential never ceased to be a concern for Merleau-Ponty, and, turning to texts from the 1950s as well as to The Visible and the Invisible, we see the development of Merleau-Ponty’s thought as the consistent effort to think through this question. (shrink)

Starvation induces free‐living Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae to form slugs that typically contain 100,000 cells. Only recently have sufficient clues become available to suggest how coordinated cell actions might result in slug movement. We propose a “squeeze‐pull” model that involves circumferential cells squeezing forward a cellular core, followed by pulling up of the rear. This model takes into account the different classes of cells in the slug; it is proposed that prestalk cells are engines and prespore cells are the cargo.

The authors present an approach to conceptualising and predicting environmental conflicts in which conflicts are analysed as a continuum of disagreement over values and options. They also operationalise this approach using an online values-centred survey tool, the ‘public-to-public decision support system’ (P2P-DSS). The authors put values and conflict in environmental management into perspective. Next, they review how values are defined in scholarship and operationalised for decision support. The relevance of values research to con-flict management is presented. With reference to a (...) real-world aggregate-mining conflict, the authors demonstrate how P2P-DSS can be used to collect data and categorise conflicts to enhance environmental management decision-making. The authors argue that P2P-DSS has potential to support values-sensitive thinking for environmental conflict management. They then set out research priorities to investigate the theoretical and practical implications of this approach. This work contributes to advancing values research in environmental conflict management and expanding values-based decision-making. (shrink)

The effect of oxytocin on cognitive bias was investigated in rats in a modified conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Fifteen male rats were trained to discriminate between two different cue combinations, one paired with palatable foods (reward training), and the other paired with unpalatable food (aversive training). Next, their reactions to two ambiguous cue combinations were evaluated and their latency to contact the goal pot recorded. Rats were injected with either oxytocin (OT) or saline with the prediction that rats administered (...) oxytocin would display a shorter average latency to approach on ambiguous trials. There was no significant difference between latencies to approach on ambiguous trials compared to reward trials, but the rats were significantly slower on the aversive compared to the ambiguous conditions. Oxytocin did not affect approach time; however, it was unclear, after follow-up testing, whether the OT doses tested were sufficient to produce the desired effects on cognitive bias. Future research should consider this possibility. (shrink)

Through narrative reflections of Jack?s story of inclusive recreational sport, the meaning of dignity in professional practice is explored. Jack?s story is one of respect, strong humiliation and embarrassment, and vulnerability. Through the lens of relational ethics, the aggression of a stranger illustrates how the lack of mutual respect, compassion and knowledge creates experiences of indignity. Jack?s story highlights how relationships can shape, constrain and enable lives. Understanding that which constitutes a dignified recreational sport context for instructors and participants opens (...) opportunities for authentic social relationships based upon respect of oneself, as well as others to emerge. Jack?s narrative further reinforces the need to create pedagogical spaces for discussions of various forms of dignity and ethical professional practice in inclusive recreational sport contexts. (shrink)

In his target article, Yarkoni prescribes descriptive research as a potential antidote for the generalizability crisis. In our commentary, we offer four guiding principles for conducting descriptive research that is generalizable and enduring: prioritize context over control; let naturalistic observations contextualize structured tasks; operationalize the target phenomena rigorously and transparently; and attend to individual data.