David DeGrazia’s stated purposes for Taking Animals Seriously are to apply a coherentist methodology to animal ethics, to do the philosophical work necessary for discussing animal minds, and to fill in some of the gaps in the existing literature on animal ethics.

This study reassesses the concept of the Anthropocene as a new geological age as it is influencing contemporary debates in social theory. As a unit of geological time whose changes are allegedly caused, directly and indirectly, by human beings, this scientific concept challenges the existing constructions of theoretical binaries, such as nature/culture, environment/society, objectivity/subjectivity or happenstance/design, in social theory. The analysis suggests many understandings of the Anthropocene in social theory are politicized over-interpretations of natural events, and these moves appear to (...) be developing moral rhetorics of, and operational plans for, managing the Anthropocene to create specific outcomes for those who are the managers as well as the managed. The fact that human beings do not, in fact, have this measure of technical control is ignored by advocates of Anthropocenarian politics to advance their policy agendas. (shrink)

I analyze the “Sportsman’s Code,” arguing that several of its rules presuppose a respect for animals that renders hunting a prima facie wrong. I summarize the main arguments used to justify hunting and consider them in relation to the prima facie case against hunting entailed by the sportsman’s code. Sport hunters, I argue, are in a paradoxical position—the more conscientiously they follow the code, themore strongly their behavior exemplifies a respect for animals that undermines the possibilities of justifying hunting altogether. (...) I consider several responses, including embracing the paradox, renouncing the code, and renouncing hunting. (shrink)

This study focuses on the managerial issue of should social enterprises become more marketing oriented. It adapts the Kohli et al. MARKOR marketing orientation scale to measure the adoption of marketing by SEs. The items capture Vincentian-based values to leverage business in service to the poor as a measure of a Vincentian marketing orientation. A VMO is an organisational wide value-driven philosophy of management that focuses a SE on meeting its objectives by adopting a more marketing orientated approach to serve (...) the needy and poor in a just and sustainable manner. SEs that exhibit a VMO seek to understand and respond to both the needs of their beneficiaries and stakeholders. They are constantly generating, disseminating, and responding to environmental, beneficiary, and stakeholder information and develop their business propositions to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the poor, while guided by a philosophy of leveraging business for social good. This study of SEs in Australia found that a VMO is strongly and positively correlated with social, economic, and environmental performance. These findings suggest that SEs may benefit by leveraging marketing capabilities to better serve their beneficiaries and stakeholders. (shrink)

As militarization of bodies politic continues apace the world over, as military organizations again reveal themselves as primary political, economic and cultural forces in many societies, we argue that the emergent and potentially dominant form of political economic organization is a species of neo-feudal corporatism. Drawing upon Bourdieu, we theorize bodies politic as living habitus. Bodies politic are prepared for war and peace through new mediations, powerful means of public pedagogy. The process of militarization requires the generation of new, antagonistic (...) evaluations of other bodies politic. Such evaluations are inculcated via these mediations, the movement of meanings across time and space, between formerly disparate histories, places, and cultures. New mediations touch new and different aspects of the body politic: its eyes, its ears, its organs, but they are consistently targeted at the formation of dispositions, the prime movers of action. (shrink)

Human trafficking is associated with a variety of adverse health and mental health consequences, which should be accurately addressed and documented in electronic health records.

As the suspect interview is one of the key elements of a police investigation, it has received a great deal of merited attention from the scientific community. However, suspect interviews in child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations is an understudied research area. In the present mixed-methods study, we examine Swedish (n= 126) and Norwegian (n= 52) police interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotional experiences when conducting interviews with suspected CSA offenders. The quantitative analyses found associations between the interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, (...) and emotions during these types of suspect interviews. Interviewers who reported experiencing more negative emotions were more likely to employ confrontational tactics. Specifically, anger was positively associated with the goal of obtaining a confession and with aggressive tactics like raising one's voice and emphasizing the seriousness of the crime. Frustration and disgust displayed similar patterns. Somewhat contrasting these quantitative results, the thematic analysis identified a strong consensus that emotions should not and do not affect the police interviewers' work. Furthermore, the police interviewers described a range of strategies for managing emotions during the interview and for processing their emotional reactions afterwards. The present findings highlight the relevance of emotional processes in CSA suspect interviews and provide an initial exploration of the potentially complex relationship between the goals, tactics, and emotional experiences of police interviewers who question CSA suspects. (shrink)

In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)

In recent years, attempts to reconcile God's exhaustive providential control over the future and human freedom frequently appeal to Molinism. Through the theory of Middle Knowledge, it is claimed, God can exercise meticulous providence over free creatures while preserving the libertarian agency of those creatures. Historically, both Thomist and Reformed theologians have critiqued the theory of Middle Knowledge for effectively eliminating God's aseity, making God's knowledge in some sense dependent on some non-God reality. In this paper, I aim to push (...) the discussion forward by integrating Thomist, Molinist, and Reformed perspectives in the view I call Molinist Thomist Calvinism. By resourcing each of these views, I try to offer a coherent way to affirm God's meticulous providence, including God's unconditional election of some and not others, and morally significant human freedom. (shrink)

A commentary on: The Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy and the Mature Sciences by Ross, D., and Ladyman, J. (2010). The Extended Mind, ed R. Menary (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 155–166.

Actual causes - e.g. Suzy's being exposed to asbestos - often bring about their effects - e.g. Suzy's suffering mesothelioma - probabilistically. I use probabilistic causal models to tackle one of the thornier difficulties for traditional accounts of probabilistic actual causation: namely probabilistic preemption.

Why did the triune God summon creation into being? What did God aim at in the creation of the world? There are two main camps in the Christian tradition in response to this question: divine amorism and divine glorificationism. Recently, Jordan Wessling has forcefully argued for the former. But it seems to me that divine glorificationism follows from doctrinal cornerstones most Christians take to be true. In this paper, I will argue that the metaphysics of creation entailed by the conjunction (...) of divine aseity and divine perfectionism (e.g. the notion that God is the Source and Sum of all Being, Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and Value—all perfections derive from God’s perfections) necessarily entail divine glorificationism. This paper will proceed as follows. First, I will outline both divine glorificationism and divine amorism, briefly sketching arguments for both positions with an emphasis on objections to glorificationism. Second, I will sketch the doctrines of divine aseity and divine perfectionism and argue that both doctrines yield a doctrine of divine ideas and a particular metaphysics of creation’s relationship to God. Third, I will argue that this metaphysics necessarily entails a version of divine glorificationism that answers the concern of divine amorists. Finally, I will conclude by responding to potential objections. (shrink)

Rationale Treatment guidelines recommend a more conservative surgical approach than mastectomy for early stage breast cancer and a stronger emphasis on adjuvant therapy. Registry data at South Australian teaching hospitals have been used to monitor survivals and treatment in relation to these guidelines.Aims and objectives To use registry data to: (1) investigate trends in survival and treatment; and (2) compare treatment with guidelines.Methods Registry data from three teaching hospitals were used to analyse trends in primary courses of treatment of breast (...) cancers during 1977–2003 (n = 4671), using univariate analyses and multiple logistic regression. Disease-specific survivals were analysed using Kaplan–Meier product limit estimates and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression.Results The 5-year survival was 79.9%, but with a secular increase, reaching 83.6% in 1997–2003. The relative risk of death (95% confidence limits) was 0.74 (0.62, 0.88) for 1997–2003, compared with previous diagnoses, after adjusting for tumour node metastasis stage, grade, age and place of residence. Treatment changes included an increase in conservative surgery (as opposed to mastectomy) from 51.7% in 1977–1990 to 76.8% in 1997–2003 for stage I (P < 0.001) and from 31.1% to 52.2% across these periods for stage II (P < 0.001). Adjuvant radiotherapy also became more common (P < 0.001), with 20.6% of patients receiving this treatment in 1977–1990 compared with 60.7% in 1997–2003. Radiotherapy generally was more prevalent when conservative surgery was provided, although also relatively common in mastectomy patients when tumour diameters exceeded 50 mm or when there were four or more involved nodes. The proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy increased (P < 0.001), from 19.6% in 1977–1990 to 36.9% in 1997–2003, and the proportion having hormone therapy also increased (P < 0.001), from 34.3% to 59.4% between these periods.Conclusions Survivals appear to be increasing and treatment trends are broadly consistent with guideline directions, and the earlier research on which these recommendations were based. (shrink)

ExcerptWhat factors lead to any war being fought in a particular manner? How and why do those factors become institutionalized, or abandoned, as prime forms of war for typifying other armed conflicts in changing world orders? When and why do the prevailing parameters of world order shape the conduct of war? Questions about the forms of war became highly salient in 1945 when, by virtue of the United Nations Charter, “the peoples of the United Nations determined” to organize stronger institutions (...) for global governance with an elaborate apparatus of multiple functional agencies “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” by establishing conditions “under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained” as well as to “promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”1. (shrink)

In this paper, I formulate an alternative to the classical doctrine of divine simplicity. Simply stated, God’s nature is best understood as Holy Triune Love (HTL), and all attributes are best understood as aspects of HTL. This reformulation will allow us to affirm much of the content of classical simplicity without the actus-purus doctrine. This paper will proceed as follows. First, I will define CS and sketch its rationale in God's metaphysical ultimacy. Second, I will defend two critical objections from (...) the incarnation and divine knowledge I take to be decisive against CS. Third, I will sketch HTL in relation to the trinitarian processions and the attributes, showing how HTL best satisfies the doctrinal motivations for CS. Fourth, I will show how HTL responds to the challenges I’ve raised against CS. I will then conclude by answering five potential objections. (shrink)

ExcerptWhat is “the place of truth at the university”? This is more than a metaphysical question. To address it, this analysis first considers broader facets of this question and then examines more specific qualities in the concern with truth by focusing on how particular universities in the United States situate themselves with respect to this issue. Only by considering their everyday operations, as the contemporary creators and curators of the truths they tout in their workings today, can a more concrete (...) critical sense of this question be crafted. (shrink)

This is an essay introduction to a special edition of Critical Discourse Studies on the work of Phil Graham. It is a critical overview and reappraisal of his major interdisciplinary contribution to the field: an axiological approach that focuses on meaning and values in a materialist political economy of language. The contributors to this volume enlist Graham's approach to trace the aftermaths and discontents of neoliberalism: nothing less than resurgent nationalisms, monoculturalism and autocracy, fuelled by social media and digital communications. (...) This new political economy of discourse raises substantive ethical and moral challenges for the future of critical discourse studies. (shrink)

The latest collection of essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, based on talks given by their authors at Breaking Convention 2019, held at The University of Greenwich, London. The largest symposium of its kind, Breaking Convention features more than 120 academic presentations biennially, and is widely regarded as the foremost global platform for serious research into psychedelic science and culture. Within these pages are essays demonstrating a shift in psychedelia. Topics include sustainability, death, the shadow, archetypes, conservation, history, (...) phenomenology, war, power, madness, and the marriage of energy and matter. An eclectic collection that reflects the diverse array of speakers that present at Breaking Convention, and echoes the shifts currently occurring in psychedelia: a build up of tension before new ground is created. (shrink)

If crime is a social problem, then ways of preventing it must be sought. Punishment has been the traditional approach to preventing crime, either as a deterrent, or as a means of reforming the offender. Neither of these approaches is wholly acceptable. Even if deterrence punishment, as grounded in utilitarianism, effectively prevents crime, there may be other methods which produce better results. Reform fails to justify any form of punishment since not only does punishment not reform, but it interferes with (...) the reformative process. Reform is limited in scope to those people who commit crimes and are caught. If crime is to be prevented, then it is necessary to go beyond the crime and the criminal and consider the social contexts in which people act, and the ways in which they learn to react to them. By shaping both the environment and people's responses to it, society can solve the problem of preventing crime, without the need for punishment. (shrink)

This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Special Issue, and one of the enduring existential questions for International Relations: the nuclear...

Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform is an invaluable resource for policymakers, faculty, students, and anyone interested in how decisions made about the education system ultimately affect the quality of education, educational access, and social justice.

Choice overload is the phenomenon that increasing the number of options in an assortment makes choosing between options more difficult, sometimes leading to avoidance of making a choice. In this pre-registered online experiment, choice overload was tested in a charitable behavior context, where participants faced a monetary donation choice. Charity organization assortment size was varied between groups, ranging between 2 and 80 options. The results indicate that there were no meaningful differences in donation likelihood between the 16 organization assortment sizes, (...) neither for individuals with high preference certainty nor for individuals with uncertain preferences among charitable causes. Having more charitable organizations to choose from did not affect donation behavior. (shrink)

A collection of essays by Timothy W. Luke discussing social and political issues related to ecology, environmentalism, ecocriticism, global climate change, and the Anthropocene.