Critical readings of the novels and essays by the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid tend to emphasize the social and political aspects of his work. In his discussion of Hamid's best known novel, Peter Morey, for example, affirms that "in both its form … and its content, The Reluctant Fundamentalist addresses contemporary questions about national vs globalized structures of power."1 He then goes on to cite Matthew Hart and Jim Hansen, for whom the novel "is concerned with subjects like cross-cultural (...) romance, transnational capitalism, and the limits of cosmopolitan space."2 As they see it, the story of Changez, the novel's protagonist, "is about the resurgence of inter-national politics from within the carapace of... (shrink)

The United States has long been a model for accessible, affordable education, as exemplified by the country's public universities. And yet less than 60 percent of the students entering American universities today are graduating. Why is this happening, and what can be done? Crossing the Finish Line provides the most detailed exploration ever of college completion at America's public universities. This groundbreaking book sheds light on such serious issues as dropout rates linked to race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Probing graduation (...) rates at twenty-one flagship public universities and four statewide systems of public higher education, the authors focus on the progress of students in the entering class of 1999--from entry to graduation, transfer, or withdrawal. They examine the effects of parental education, family income, race and gender, high school grades, test scores, financial aid, and characteristics of universities attended. The conclusions are compelling: minority students and students from poor families have markedly lower graduation rates--and take longer to earn degrees--even when other variables are taken into account. Noting the strong performance of transfer students and the effects of financial constraints on student retention, the authors call for improved transfer and financial aid policies, and suggest ways of improving the sorting processes that match students to institutions. An outstanding combination of evidence and analysis, Crossing the Finish Line should be read by everyone who cares about the nation's higher education system. (shrink)

In the multidisciplinary field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, statistical associations between levels of description play an increasingly important role. One example of such associations is the observation of correlations between relatively common gene variants and individual differences in behavior. It is perhaps surprising that such associations can be detected despite the remoteness of these levels of description, and the fact that behavior is the outcome of an extended developmental process involving interaction of the whole organism with a variable environment. Given (...) that they have been detected, how do such associations inform cognitive-level theories? To investigate this question, we employed a multiscale computational model of development, using a sample domain drawn from the field of language acquisition. The model comprised an artificial neural network model of past-tense acquisition trained using the backpropagation learning algorithm, extended to incorporate population modeling and genetic algorithms. It included five levels of description—four internal: genetic, network, neurocomputation, behavior; and one external: environment. Since the mechanistic assumptions of the model were known and its operation was relatively transparent, we could evaluate whether cross-level associations gave an accurate picture of causal processes. We established that associations could be detected between artificial genes and behavioral variation, even under polygenic assumptions of a many-to-one relationship between genes and neurocomputational parameters, and when an experience-dependent developmental process interceded between the action of genes and the emergence of behavior. We evaluated these associations with respect to their specificity, to their developmental stability, and to their replicability, as well as considering issues of missing heritability and gene–environment interactions. We argue that gene–behavior associations can inform cognitive theory with respect to effect size, specificity, and timing. The model demonstrates a means by which researchers can undertake multiscale modeling with respect to cognition and develop highly specific and complex hypotheses across multiple levels of description. (shrink)

Drug Safety Communications are used by the Food and Drug Administration to inform health care providers, patients, caregivers, and the general public about safety issues related to FDA-approved drugs. To assess patient knowledge of the messaging contained in DSCs related to the sleep aids zolpidem and eszopiclone, we conducted a large, cross-sectional patient survey of 1,982 commercially insured patients selected by stratified random sampling from the Optum Research Database who had filled at least two prescriptions for either zolpidem or (...) eszopiclone between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013. Among the 594 respondents, two-thirds reported hearing generally about drug safety information prior to starting a new drug, with the remaining one-third “rarely” or “never” hearing such information. Providers and pharmacists were primary sources of drug safety information. Two-thirds of zolpidem users and half of eszopiclone users reported having heard about the related DSC messages, ability to accurately identify the major factual messages was limited. Respondents reacted to new drug safety information about their sleep aids by reporting that they would want to learn about alternative ways to help them sleep and seek out more information about the safety of their specific sleeping pill. Opportunities may exist for the FDA to work with providers and pharmacies to help ensure the DSC information is more widely received and is more fully understood by those taking the affected medications. (shrink)

Amid increasing demands from students and the public, universities have recently reinvigorated their efforts to increase the number of faculty from underrepresented populations. Although a myriad of piecemeal programs targeting individual recruitment and development have been piloted at several institutions, overall growth in faculty diversity remains almost negligible and highly localized. To bring about genuine change, we hypothesize a consortia approach that links individuals to hiring opportunities within a state university system might be more effective. Here we present a case (...) study describing the progress of the NSF-funded Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate PROMISE Academy Alliance, a consortium within the University System of Maryland collaborating to develop, implement, self-study, evaluate, and disseminate a unique postdoc-to-faculty conversion model in the biomedical sciences. The initiative centers on diversifying faculty across five institutions in the USM, including teaching-focused institutions, comprehensive universities, research institutions, and professional schools. Components of this approach include enhanced recruiting and hiring practices to attract outstanding postdoctoral scholars from underrepresented backgrounds, multi-institutional networking and professional development, and facilitated processes to transition postdocs into tenure-track positions at their postdoctoral institution or another institution in the state system. This model is distinct from more deficit-based approaches because it goes beyond focusing on building the individual’s skills to enter the professoriate. This program restructures the traditionally short-term nature of postdoctoral employment and incorporates a pathway to a tenure-track professorship at the same institution or within the same statewide system where the postdoc is trained. This multi-institutional model leverages collaboration and distinct institutional strengths to create cross-institutional support, advocacy, and policy. Importantly, it uses a decentralized financial structure that makes this approach distinctly replicable. Recognizing the immediate need for more collaborative approaches to diversify faculty and a lack of literature about such approaches, this case study describes the development of, and potential benefits of, a state university system, as well as the qualitative lessons learned from self-study, internal evaluation, external evaluation, and NSF site visits. The AGEP PROMISE Academy can serve as a model for replication at other university systems hoping to diversify their faculty. (shrink)

Background: In the context of new reimbursement systems like diagnosis-related groups, moral distress is becoming a growing problem for healthcare providers. Moral distress can trigger emotional and physical reactions in nurses and can cause them to withdraw emotionally from patients or can cause them to change their work place. Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to develop an instrument to measure moral distress among acute care nurses in the German-speaking context, to test its applicability, and to obtain initial (...) indications of the instrument’s validity. Method: The study was designed in 2011 as a cross-sectional pilot survey. Conducted on eight units of one university hospital in German-speaking Switzerland, 294 registered nurses were asked to fill out a web-based questionnaire on moral distress. Ethical considerations: The study proposal was approved by the cantonal ethics committee. All participating nurses provided informed consent and were assured of data confidentiality. Results: The survey had a response rate of 55%. The results show the prevalence of statements on the questionnaire indicating situations with the potential to trigger moral distress. The entire range of answers was used in the responses. Most participants found the questionnaire comprehensible, while some criticized the phraseology of certain statements. Many more found the registration process prior to online access to be too time consuming. Nurses confirmed that the results reflect their subjective assessment of their situation and their experience of moral distress. Conclusion: The newly developed moral distress questionnaire appears to produce face validity and is sufficiently applicable for use in our study. The results indicate that moral distress appears to be a relevant phenomenon also in Swiss hospitals and that nurses were experiencing it prior to the introduction of Swiss diagnosis-related groups. (shrink)

This essay argues that for Paul and John, the cross is an act of divine self-exegesis, or self-explanation. It reveals the divine attributes of love, humility/vulnerability, power, wisdom, and righteousness/justice. The cross is also intended to draw us into the life of God to share in these divine attributes.

Euan Macphail’s work and ideas captured a pivotal time in the late 20th century when behavioral laws were considered to apply equally across vertebrates, implying equal intelligence, but it was also a time when behaviorism was challenged by the view that language was unique to humans, and bestowed a superior mental status. Subsequent work suggests greater continuity between humans and their forebears, challenging the Chomskyan assumption that language evolved in a single step (“the great leap forward”) in humans. Language is (...) now understood to be based on an amalgam of cognitive functions, including mental time travel, theory of mind, and what may be more broadly defined as imagination. These functions probably evolved gradually in hominin evolution and are present in varying degrees in non-human species. The blending of language into cognition provides for both interspecies differences in mental function, and continuity between humans and other species. What does seem to be special to humans is the ability to communicate the contents of imagination, although even this is not absolute, and is perhaps less adaptive than we like to think. (shrink)

We examined the hypothesis that a tendency to experience the world in terms of a sense of ‘special’ connection is responsible for the self-transcendent value dimension identified by multi-dimensional scaling and constitutes a common factor for different religious and non-religious interpretations of spirituality. Eight different groups were studied including: six different types of faith leaders in India and the UK, people who self-rated as spiritual but not religious, and those self-rating as neither spiritual nor religious. They completed a questionnaire that (...) assessed the strength of their spirituality irrespective of type and the experience of special connection to the following categories: people, nature, places and the universe, with and without using the term spiritual. For all eight samples the different types of connection were highly inter-correlated, and self-perceived spirituality correlated with the sum of connection items irrespective of whether items included the term spiritual or not. Variation between groups in the size of the latter correlation was consistent with different interpretations of spirituality in those groups. Although the meaning of spirituality is socially constructed, variability within faith leader groups suggests that its interpretation is also affected by personality. (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

In this study, we comprehensively examine the relationships between ethical leadership, social exchange, and employee commitment. We find that organizational and supervisory ethical leadership are positively related to employee commitment to the organization and supervisor, respectively. We also find that different types of social exchange relationships mediate these relationships. Our results suggest that the application of a multifoci social exchange perspective to the context of ethical leadership is indeed useful: As hypothesized, within-foci effects (e.g., the relationship between organizational ethical leadership (...) and commitment to the organization) are stronger than cross-foci effects (e.g., the relationship between supervisory ethical leadership and commitment to the organization). In addition, in contrast to the “trickle down” model of ethical leadership (Mayer et al. in Org Behav Hum Decis Process 108:1–13, 2009), our results suggest that organizational ethical leadership is both directly and indirectly related to employee outcomes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ALISTER McGRATH ON CROSS AND JUSTIFICATION MICHAEL RooT Imtitute for liloumenical Research Strasbourg, France Ay REGULAR reader of theological book advertisements has encountered the name of Alister McGrath. Since 1984, he has published a two volume history of the doctrine of justification, a study of Luther's theofogy of the cross, a general introduction to the thought of the Reformation, a study of the late medieval background (...) of the Reformation, a history of German Protestant Christology from the Enlightenment through the present, and popular books on the cross, the Trinity, and Christology. All the while he has lectured in Christian doctrine and ethics at Oxford. What is McGrath saying in this amazing flow of publications? Here I wiH look at three representative works. Iustitia Dei, which traces the understanding of the doctrine of justification from the Bible to Gerhard Ebeling, must be considered the centerpiece of his work to date.1 Luther's Theology of the Cross can be taken as typical of his more monographic work.2 Fina;lly, The Mys.tery of the Cross can exemplify his popular writings.3 I. lustitia Dei has an obvious claim on our attention. As McGrath notes in the first sentence of the Preface, this has 1[ustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doct1·ine of Justification, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 2 Luther's Theology of the Gross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985). a The Mystery of the Gross (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). 705 706 MICHAEL ROOT been a history waiting to be written (except perhaps for the first volume of Ritschl's The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation). The Reformers stated that the docrtrine of justification was the root of their movement. McGrath has chosen an ecumenically decisive topic to survey. Although the length of McGrath's history (378 pages of text) may not justify its separation into two volumes, the division of the volumes follows a clear structural division of the work, a division McGrath finds in the history of the doctrine. After a definition of the subject and a six page discussion.of the pre~Augustinian tradition, the first volume rapidly comes to Augustine, the " fountainhead '' of the Western discussion of justification. The tradition from Augustine to the Reformation is sufficiently unitary that it can be discussed topically under such headings as " the righteousness of God," " the concept of merit,'' and " the relation between predestination and justification." In fact, the topics are so arranged that something of a chronological progression is produced, with the problems that dominated the late medieval period coming last. While the first volume deals with continuity, the second is structured by the major discontinuities of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. A major contention of McGrath is that the Reformation constitutes a break with a relatively continuous tradition. Another, even more radical break comes with the Enlightenment. Thus, the second volume is arranged chronologically and discusses developments from the Reformation through recent hermeneutically oriented interpretations of the doctrine. This outline of the structme of McGrath's hisrtory should make clear its most important characteristic. lt is a history of the discussion of justification in the West on the terms set by Augustine. After a six page leap from the New Testament to the late fourth century, the East is quickly dismissed, never to appear again. Even within the West, the history is selective. The six eenturies between Augustine and Anselm are passed over with only brief mention of the Semi-Pdagian disputes ON ALISTER MC GRATH 707 following Augustine's death and the controversies surrounding Gottschalk rGodescalc] of Orbais. Well over half the book deals with the period between 1050 and 1600 in the West. Following the Reformation, attention is given only to selected figures from the German and English Enlightenment, to Kant and Schleiermacher as critics of the Enlightenment (though Schleiermacher's own doctrine of justification, which in important ways recaptures that of the Reformation, is ignored), to Newman, and to the most prominent German Protestant theologians of recent times (Ritschl, Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, Ebeling). Except for Newman, who is treated in the context of Anglicanism, no Roman Catholic is mentioned after the condemnation of Jansenism... (shrink)

As is well known, it was only in 1926 that a comprehensive mathematical theory of braids was published—that of Emil Artin. That said, braids had been researched mathematically before Artin’s treatment: Alexandre Theophile Vandermonde, Carl Friedrich Gauß and Peter Guthrie Tait had all attempted to introduce notations for braids. Nevertheless, it was only Artin’s approach that proved to be successful. Though the historical reasons for the success of Artin’s approach are known, a question arises as to whether other approaches to (...) deal with braids existed, approaches that were developed after Artin’s article and were essentially different from his approach. The answer, as will be shown, is positive: Modesto Dedò developed in 1950 another notation for braids, though one, which was afterward forgotten or ignored. This raises a more general question: what was the role of Artin’s notation, or, respectively, Dedò’s, that enabled either the acceptance or the neglect of their theories? More philosophically, can notation be an epistemic technique, prompting new discoveries, or rather, can it also operate an as obstacle? The paper will analyze the method introduced by Dedò to notate braids, and also its history and implications. It aims to show that Dedò, in contrast to Artin, focused on factorizations of braids and the algebraic relations between the operations done on these factorizations. Dedò’s research was done against the background of Oscar Chisini’s research of algebraic curves on the one hand and of Artin’s successful notation of braids on the other hand. Taking this into account, the paper will in addition look into the epistemic role of notation, comparing Dedò’s work with Artin’s, as both presented different notations of braids and their deformations. (shrink)

For both Luther and Bonhoeffer God enters into and dwells in the world through weakness and suffering, rather than divine authority or strength. This article explores the significance of Luther’s theologia crucis and Bonhoeffer’s treatment of ‘the weakness of the Word’ in Discipleship. Moreover, it draws out some of the implications of these themes for Christian mission today. What does it mean for Christians to witness to and engage the world in weakness? How does this free Christians from needing a (...) fixed programme or governing ideal in their witness and evangelism? (shrink)

The Poetics of Resistance: Heidegger's Line is a well-informed, carefully written, and detailed treatment of the political implications of Heidegger's philosophy in its Derridean acceptation. It argues that what Heidegger calls poetic dwelling--an element of Heidegger's later thinking often ignored by his more vehement critics--is at once disruptive (of the smooth functioning of technology) and community-founding. To engage in such thoughtful, poetic dwelling is to "cross the line."Roth argues, with Derrida against Heidegger, that crossing this line is not a (...) move into irrationalism (to say nothing of National Socialism); and he argues, with Heidegger against Derrida, that crossing the line, successful resistance, is possible. Grounded in the classics of German scholarship but reaching out to its creative appropriation in postmodernism, The Poetics of Resistance makes an important and timely contribution to the recuperation of a political philosophy from postmodernity. (shrink)

A number of empirical studies have examined business ethics across cultures, focusing primarily on differences in ethical profiles between cultures and groups. When managers consider whether or not to develop a business relationship with those from a different culture, their decision may be affected by actual differences in ethical profiles, but potentially even more so by their perceptions of ethicality in the counterpart culture. The latter issue has been largely ignored in extant empirical research regarding cross-cultural ethical profiles. In (...) this study, we employ a design that allows for a more complete analysis of cross-cultural perspectives, examining both the manner in which selected cultures view themselves and the manner in which those same cultures perceive the ethical profiles of others. To this end, we surveyed master’s students in business fields at several universities in the United States and China—two countries/cultures that engage in a significant amount of business transactions—and examined differences in personal ethical profiles across cultures, differences in one group’s ethical profile and the way it is perceived by the other group, and differences in perceived ethical profiles across cultures; that is, differences in how groups view each other. Findings suggest meaningful discrepancies in the ethical perceptions formed toward the counterpart culture. Results support a role for ethical perceptions in future research, and further examination and inquiry into the development and adaptation of ethical perceptions in cross-cultural business dealings. (shrink)

This essay briefly explores the phenomenon of nepantla in three representative cross-cultural encounters, in both initial and later phases: Spain-Latin America, England-India, and the West-Japan. Nepantla is a mode of in-betweenness rooted in the historical encounter between cultures and leading to mediation of various kinds. For Latin America, the essay focuses on Columbus, the Cortés-Moctezuma encounter, the Aztec-Franciscan dialogues of 1524, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa. For India, the essay comments on the East India Company, English education (...) in India, Lord Macaulay, Dean Mahomet, Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, and a number of other writers from the early, mid and late twentieth century. For Japan, the essay considers, first, Japanese reactions to missionary activities in the sixteenth century, then the opening up of Japan in the nineteenth century, the Meiji Restoration and its literature, and in particular authors like Fukuzawa, Sōseki, Endō, Kawabata, and Ōe. The essay argues, finally, that nepantla is a useful and dynamic approach to intercultural encounters that complements approaches indicated by terms like colonialism, imperialism, contact zones, hybridity or métissage, liminality, de-colonization, or post-coloniality. (shrink)

This article reviews the origins of the concept of the shaman and the principal sources of controversy regarding the existence and nature of shamanism. Confusion regarding the nature of shamanism is clarified with a review of research providing empirical support for a cross-cultural concept of shamans that distinguishes them from related shamanistic healers. The common shamanistic universals involving altered states of consciousness are examined from psychobiological perspectives to illustrate shamanism’s relationships to human nature. Common biological aspects of altered states (...) of consciousness help explain the origins of shamanism while social influences on this aspect of human nature help to explain the diverse manifestations of shamanistic phenomena involving an elicitation of endogenous healing responses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:David Michael Levin ROUSSEAU'S CURSE Pretext Rousseau is the author of a text he called his Confessions. ' But neither a text nor a confession can exist without a reader, or an other. Like it or not, we readers are participants in the rite of Rousseau's confessions. Do we have anything to confess? When the reading of a confession uncovers the spelling of a curse, so that the (...) self-accused author appears to accuse his readers, the discoverers of the curse can no longer pretend their neutrality and innocence. In fact, the detectives must assume the identity of the accused. In such a special case, then, the inevitable work of textual interpretation magically doubles as the story of a mysteriously elusive "crime" and its final, or anyway presumed detection. But, as in the very best of such stories, neither the skillfully executed crime nor its invisible author—if indeed these terms denote anything at all—need be what they seem. So perhaps the only thing we can say for sure here is that the spelling of the curse is the curse of spelling. And this puts us on the track of a mystery as ancient as the art of writing itself—a mystery whose story the scholars of hermeneutics have thus far preferred to ignore. The mystery I have in mind is the secret affinity between writing and death. A careful hermeneutic approach to Plato's critique of writing, however, may give us a crucial clue. For what binds written language to the power of death is its role in mourning, its incarnation in the form of shadows: black configurations of shadows placed for visibility against the white of the paper. In Plato's Myth of the Cave, the crime of writing is dimly adumbrated. Writing is idolatry, worship of false images, shadows. Rousseau's Confessions, written near the end of his life in the shadow of death, does not escape the shadows of doubt and suspicion which we, his readers, having discovered our own selves inscribed into the darkness of the text, cannot easily refrain from casting. But as soon as we recognize in the shapes of these shadows a suspicion for which 76 David Michael Levin77 we are responsible, we must confess our fatal complicity in the closing of the hermeneutical circle. Commentary on the Text If Rousseau's Confessions does not read like the typical memoir, neither does it read like the typical confession. A final twist awaits us. We read with a certain innocence, or faith, not prepared for the transitive conclusion: the text, as it happens, will bequeath a monstrous and impossible burden. What is the reader to do? How could it be that this man, who seemed to honor us, and won our trust with the candor of his revelations, should so boldly, by one cross conceit, vanish, only to leave us double-crossed and within a labyrinth which, as he would have us believe, we ourselves have wrought? What are we to make of his work? At first, the Confessions appears to be a work of light: with dazzling clarity of mind and courage no less prismatic, Rousseau proposes to take his readers into the gloomy chasms of his soul. "My purpose," he declares, "is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray is myself" (p. 17). That this, however, is not the whole of his intention, we learn through a neighboring sentence. For he says: "Let the last trumpet sound when it will, I shall come forward with this work in my hand, to present myself before my Sovereign Judge, and proclaim aloud: 'Here is what I have done'..." (p. 17). And yet, even this does not fully disclose his design, since he concedes, somewhat later, that "it is as if, feeling my life escaping from me, I were trying to recapture it at its beginnings" (p. 31). But in the end, as in the beginning, darkness and light are one. And indeed, deep into the Seventh Book, we see that the author's light does begin to dim, and that he no longer speaks with much assurance. Nor is... (shrink)

The thirty-three essays in <I>Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology</I> grapple with one of the most intriguing, enduring, and far-reaching philosophical problems of our age. Relativism comes in many varieties. It is often defined as the belief that truth, goodness, or beauty is relative to some context or reference frame, and that no absolute standards can adjudicate between competing reference frames. Michael Krausz's anthology captures the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, rehearsing their virtues and vices and reflecting on a spectrum (...) of attitudes. Invoking diverse philosophical orientations, these doctrines concern conceptions of relativism in relation to facts and conceptual schemes, realism and objectivity, universalism and foundationalism, solidarity and rationality, pluralism and moral relativism, and feminism and poststructuralism. Featuring nine original essays, the volume also includes many classic articles, making it a standard resource for students, scholars, and researchers. <B>Table of Contents:</B> Foreword by Alan Ryan Preface Introduction Michael Krausz <B>Part I. Orienting Relativism</B> 1. Mapping Relativisms Michael Krausz 2. A Brief History of Relativism Maria Baghramian <B>Part II. Relativism, Truth, and Knowledge</B> 3. Subjective, Objective, and Conceptual Relativisms Maurice Mandelbaum 4. “Just the Facts, Ma’am!” Nelson Goodman 5. Relativism in Philosophy of Science Nancy Cartwright 6. The Truth About Relativism Joseph Margolis 7. Making Sense of Relative Truth John MacFarlane 8. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme Donald Davidson 9. Truth and Convention: On Davidson’s Refutation of Conceptual Relativism Hilary Putnam 10. Conceptual Schemes Simon Blackburn 11. Relativizing the Facts Paul A. Boghossian 12. Targets of Anti-Relativist Arguments Harvey Siegel 13. Realism and Relativism Akeel Bilgrami <B>Part III. Moral Relativism, Objectivity, and Reasons</B> 14. Moral Relativism Defended Gilbert Harman 15. The Truth in Relativism Bernard Williams 16. Pluralism and Ambivalence David B. Wong 17. The Relativity of Fact and the Objectivity of Value Catherine Z. Elgin 18. Senses of Moral Relativity David Wiggins 19. Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence David Lyons 20. Understanding Alien Morals Gopal Sreenivasan 21. Value: Realism and Objectivity Thomas Nagel 22. Intuitionism, Realism, Relativism, and Rhubarb Crispin Wright 23. Moral Relativism and Moral Realism Russ Schafer-Landau <B>Part IV. Relativism, Culture, and Understanding</B> 24. Anti Anti-Relativism Clifford Geertz 25. Solidarity or Objectivity? Richard Rorty 26. Relativism, Power, and Philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre 27. Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen 28. Phenomenological Rationality and the Overcoming of Relativism Jitendra N. Mohanty 29. Understanding and Ethnocentricity Charles Taylor 30. Relativism and Cross-Cultural Understanding Kwame Anthony Appiah 31. Relativism, Persons, and Practices Amélie Oksenberg Rorty 32. One What? Relativism and Poststructuralism David Couzens Hoy 33. Must a Feminist Be a Relativist After All? Lorraine Code List of Contributors Index. (shrink)

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

Developing Pasolini’s thoughts in the poem Crucifixion, Michael Hardt sees Christ’s passion as the very model of the offering of the flesh, of the pagan affirmation of the continuity between immanence and transcendence. Through the eroticism of his exposure on the cross, Christ invites us to unite in the flesh, like him. He makes the people watching him share the experience of the flesh, its suffering and its joy, and thereby takes away his jailers’ power to corrupt it. (...) Thus he empowers himself and everybody with love. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to (...) eight ethical vignettes.The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles.This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

The Deck Romania case is intended for MBA and Executive Education programs and focuses on the ‘gritty’ aspects of business in emerging market countries. It is particularly powerful in combining traditional managerial concerns like emerging market strategy and global supplier relationships with the larger challenges of cross-cultural and country differences in the conduct of business. Deck is a U.S.-based automotive supplier and part of a joint venture in Romania. In October 2006 the JV needed to expand to meet the (...) needs of one of its major global customers, Renault. The investment would be to support Renault-Dacia’s highly successful new world car, the Logan. But the question of expansion reveals that the JV does not meet many of Deck’s global manufacturing and business practice criteria. Deck’s dilemma is how to respond to the pressure from its global customer to make a substantial investment in a small market that may not meet financial or business practice expectations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Context of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of ActionMichael Scottmore than any other topic examined by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations,1 his writings on action and the will are perhaps in greatest need of being put into a historical and theoretical context. Not only do his remarks seem unhelpfully concise, as if intermediary reasoning had been excised by ruthless editing, but also the rationale for several of his arguments is mysterious. Even (...) in the light of the additional comments on action in Zettel, the position or positions with which Wittgenstein is disagreeing are difficult to identify. For example, Wittgenstein introduces his remarks by indicating his opposition to the reduction of willing to an experience:‘Willing too is merely an experience,’ one would like to say (the ‘will’ too only ‘idea’). It comes when it comes, and I cannot bring it about.(PI §611) [End Page 595]But who claims that willing is merely an experience, and is this experience constituted exclusively by ideas or may it also involve feelings? Do the proponents of the theory include those who would respond positively to Wittgenstein’s question: “Are my kinaesthetic sensations my willing?” (PI §621), and who would make use of the finger crossing experiment described in PI §617?Wittgenstein scholars have hoped to answer questions about the nature and provenance of the theories he addresses by examining the manuscript sources of Philosophical Investigations, his later work on the philosophy of psychology, and some of his earlier writings on voluntary action. Wittgenstein himself suggested that his later thought should be read against the background of his earlier work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (PI, viii), and the problem of the will offers a rare opportunity for a direct comparison, it being one of the few issues that seriously occupied him in both his later and earlier investigations. But a comparison with Wittgenstein’s early philosophy of the will—and also with Schopenhauer, a primary influence—offers only partial insights.2 While we may confidently take Wittgenstein’s comments on willing and wishing in PI §614–6 to be a critique of his own earlier views, most of his remarks on the will, which are closely enmeshed with his writings on other psychological issues such as kinaesthetic sensations and feelings of tendency, appear largely to be directed elsewhere. The consensus has been that William James’ The Principles of Psychology (PP) is the source in question, and that James’ ideo-motor theory of action is the main target of Wittgenstein’s remarks.3In this paper I will take issue with this contention, and propose that Wittgenstein’s writings are more suitably read as a response not only to James but to the theories and arguments adduced by late nineteenth century and early twentieth century psychologists on the nature of the will. Specifically, I will argue that the available evidence indicates Wittgenstein’s familiarity with the on-going debate between ideo-motor theorists (of whom James was one significant representative) and innervation theorists concerning the psychic antecedents of voluntary action. I will begin with an outline of the history of this [End Page 596] debate before turning to an evaluation of the evidence for Wittgenstein’s philosophical interest in it.the psychic antecedents of voluntary actionWhen James first proposed his ideo-motor theory,4 the dominant psychological account of the will was the theory of innervation. This latter theory, which was supported by the majority of psychologists including pioneers such as Wundt, Helmholtz and Bain, states that willing consists in a feeling of innervation, that is, a sensation accompanying discharge from the central nervous system into the motor apparatus.5 The intensity of the feeling was thought to vary in accordance with the intensity of the outgoing, or efferent, current.William James, while largely in agreement with innervation theorists on the physiological processes that lead to action, disagreed with their psychological account of willing. James denied that we are conscious of motor discharge, and proposed instead that the psychic antecedent necessary for a voluntary action is a memory image of the experience that is distinctive of the consequent movement. This experience consists in kinaesthetic impressions (the bodily sensations which inform one of the attitude... (shrink)

This book is a rich blend of analyses by leading experts from various cultures and disciplines. A compact introduction to a complex field, it illustrates biotechnology's profound impact upon the environment and society. Moreover, it underscores the vital relevance of cultural values. This book empowers readers to more critically assess biotechnology's value and effectiveness within both specific cultural and global contexts.

In their delightfully provocative paper, “Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style,” Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich (2004),[1] make several striking claims about theories of reference. First, they claim: (I) Philosophical views about reference “are assessed by consulting one’s intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations” (p. B1). This claim is prompted by their observations of the role of intuitions in Saul Kripke’s refutation of the descriptivist view of proper names in favor of a causal-historical view (1980). (...) The particular intuitions they attend to are those aired in discussing Kripke’s cases of Gödel and Jonah. This prompts the next claim: (II) Those particular cases are “central” to Kripke’s refutation (p. B1). Indeed, Machery et al describe these cases as “some of the most influential thought experiments in the philosophy of reference” (p. B8). Inspired by recent work in psychology (e.g., Nisbett et al 2001) that shows “systematic cognitive differences between East Asians and Westerners” (p. B1), Machery et al predicted that there would be cultural differences in referential intuitions. They conducted some ingenious experiments on Gödel and Jonah cases to test this predication. The results in the Gödel cases, although not in the Jonah cases, confirmed their prediction, leading them to conclude: “Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view” (p. B1). And, implicitly, they claim: (III) These results raise serious doubts about Kripke’s refutation, which relies solely on the intuitions of Westerners. They are explicit about the following bolder claim: (IV) The fact of these cultural differences “raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference” (p. B1); it points to “significant philosophical conclusions” (p.. (shrink)

ABSTRACTGiven Machiavelli’s fascination with ancient Rome’s plebeian tribunate, it is not surprising that he would take an interest in Cola di Rienzo, the Roman who declared himself Tribune of the Plebs in 1347. However, Cola appears just once in Machiavelli’s corpus, in a single short and enigmatic chapter in the Florentine Histories. This paper argues that Machiavelli nevertheless quietly elaborates on Cola’s legacy later in his Histories, when he introduces Stefano Porcari, another ‘Roman citizen’ whose reform efforts fail catastrophically. Though (...) Machiavelli never explicitly criticizes Cola, he does blame Porcari for exercising poor judgement. This blame, importantly, is entwined with Machiavelli’s allusions to the humanist writings of Francesco Petrarch. By placing these accounts of Cola and Porcari side by side, this paper aims to reveal the Florentine Histories’ complicated relationship with Petrarch, Italy’s most famous humanist. The web of cross-references among Cola, Porcari and Machiavelli himself indicates the latter’s vexation with the sort of rhetorical idealism that Petrarch’s famous endorsement of Cola’s revolution came to represent. (shrink)

The Reception of Derrida explores the cross-cultural reception of Derrida's work, specifically how that work in all its diversity, has come to be identified with the word deconstruction. In response to this cultural and academic phenomenon, the book examines how Derrida's own understanding of translation and inheritance illuminate the 'translation and transformation' of his own works. Positioned against the misreadings of deconstruction, the book traces the relationship between Derrida's concern with the ethico-political dimension of deconstruction and an authorial legacy. (...) This timely new study is the first book to consider the cultural reception of Derrida's works, and its accessible language and structure help to make this a benchmark amongst introductory Derrida studies. (shrink)

John Rawls defines “primary social goods” to be the benefits of social co-operation that are valuable no matter what one’s life-plan. The benefit for international trade of talking in terms of primary goods is that such goods represent a fixed or standard rate, and thus facilitate efficient negotiation. The difficulty, however, is that such discussions appear to ignore, and thereby do violence to, significant cross-cultural value differences. I argue that an appropriate view of Rawlsian primary goods helps to facilitate (...) inter-subjective agreement about what constitutes an advantage to the least advantaged. I illustrate this in a case study of the PT Freeport mining operations in Papua New Guinea. (shrink)

This book declares that lifelong learning teaches values and wholeness and rejects inert ideas or fragmentation. Education plays a vital role in reorganizing and revitalizing the abundant facts from the information explosion. Specialization works at cross-purposes with liberal arts education, which discloses a holistic vision of each person's being.

The main goal of the paper is to propose a methodology for the theory of reference in which experiments feature prominently. These experiments should primarily test linguistic usage rather than the folk’s referential intuitions. The proposed methodology urges the use of: (A) philosophers’ referential intuitions, both informally and, occasionally, scientifically gathered; (B) the corpus, both informally and scientifically gathered; (C) elicited production; and, occasionally,_ _(D) folk’s referential intuitions. The most novel part of this is (C) and that is where most (...) of the experimental work should be. The secondary goal of the paper is to defend my earlier paper “Experimental Semantics” from the criticisms of Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich in “If Folk Intuitions Vary, Then What?” They charge that I have seriously misunderstood their goal in “Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style” and that many of my arguments are “largely irrelevant”. I argue that these charges are baseless. (shrink)

If racism is America’s original sin, it is also one of America’s most pressing contemporary problems. Indeed, Edwards’ recent research suggests that even intentionally multi-racial congregations often reproduce and reinforce white hegemony rather than undermine it. In this article, I first bring Edwards’ sociological research into dialogue with the theological critiques of racism within the ecclesia raised by Jennings and Sanders. I then offer a theological interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:17–12:26 from the social location of American multi-racial churches subject to (...) and complicit with racism for the purpose of those churches’ missional embodiment of an alternative politics. I argue that Paul critiques the church for gathering in ways more Corinthian than Christian. The solution is for the church to rearrange its communal life together in line with the eschatological ‘logic of the cross’. Such a cruciform community affords greater honor within the ecclesia precisely to those who lack it in the broader culture. In the concluding section, I consider how contemporary multi-racial churches might live out this ‘militant, reconciling ecclesiology’ today. (shrink)

It is still underestimated to what extent in his main works Hugo Grotius not only sketched and developed a system of private, state and international law; but also outlined a general philosophy or theory of law. By asking questions concerning the law of property, the law of prize and booty, the law of peace and war or the legal status of sovereignty he did not only refer to the 'right side', i.e. to actions that can be labelled as rightful and (...) legal. He also dealt with many aspects of what is not right and unlawful, not limiting himself to just give mere examples of crossing the border to the 'non right side'. It was a part of Grotius's methodological approach to systematically reflect on the law from the perspective of its violations. One example of such a violation is the act of piracy and the figure of the pirate. To outline this is the aim of the following article. By showing that the pirate and his 'legal twin', the privateer, were belong together as two sides of the same coin, they come to symbolise in an exemplary way the differentiation between 'right' and 'non right' as the unity of law in the legal philosophy of Grotius. (shrink)

Hirschman's (1970) exit, voice, and loyalty framework draws attention to both economic and political behavior as instruments for organizational change. The framework is simple but powerful; it has stimulated much cross-disciplinary analysis and debate. This paper extends this analysis by examining normative implications of Hirschman's basic premise: that exit and voice are primarily mechanisms for enhancing organizational (vs. individual) well-being.

In this paper I dispute Eliot Deutsch's claim [See Deutsch, Eliot (1996) Self-deception: a comparative study, in: Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Eds) Self and Deception: a cross-cultural enquiry (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 315-326] that examining self-deception from the perspective of non-Western traditions (i.e. how it is understood in those cultures) can help us to better understand the nature of the phenomenon in one's own culture. Although the claim appears to be uncontrover-sial and perhaps (...) even self-evident, I shall argue that it is fundamentally mistaken. What is important about both the claim and my critical assessment of it is not what it tells us about self-deception. I shall show that it tells us little about self-deception; that Deutsch confuses ignorance with self-deception; and that he straightforwardly equivocates on the concept. Instead, what is interesting is what Deutsch's treatment of self-deception in comparative perspective can tell us about comparative philosophy. The significance of what follows in this paper is less about self-deception than it is about comparative philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kafka’s China and the Parable of ParablesMichael WoodI should like to begin and end this essay with a parable; one that is both dizzying and familiar; all the more dizzying perhaps for being so familiar. What happens in between my beginning and my end will be not so much an interpretation of the parable or a commentary on it as an unravelling of it, an exploration of one of (...) the spaces the parable opens up. We could see the parable, even with all the vertigo it offers, as a seamark, or known face, a remembered gesture: we look at it, we go away, we travel (to China), we come back. It has not changed, but perhaps we have. The parable is about parables, but then, as has been shrewdly said, all parables are. 1 It is by Franz Kakfa, probably written in 1922–1929, first published in 1931.Many complain [the parable says] that the words of the wise are again and again only parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says, “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could just about do if the result was worth the journey; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something he too cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say only that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.Thereupon a man said: Why are you so reluctant? If you followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that free of all your daily cares.Another said: I bet that is also a parable.The first said: You have won.The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost. 2 [End Page 325]We might call the space this parable opens up—one of the spaces, the space I want to explore—the space of reading. Reading as a habit, an addiction to understanding and bewilderment; and if we did our topic would then be, in Geoffrey Hartman’s phrase, the fate of reading. There is of course an interesting double meaning in this haunting phrase. It is not only that reading has a fate, that things happen to it, that it occurs in history; it is also that reading is a fate, one lives it as an adventure, a form of happiness or a form of risk, even a form of damage. It is not something other than life, it is life, or a piece of it. No one has understood this better than Hartman: “It is almost a mode of life, something you cannot shake off, something that follows and pursues you. Reading is fate: we are like characters in a certain kind of mystery story, who are drawn unwillingly into a plot that we alone, rather than the official investigator, can unriddle.” 3 My essay attempts to build on this understanding, particularly on Hartman’s paradoxical sense that the habit of reading leads to an interest in unreadability—where the unreadable is quite different from the unread, or the brutally misread, or the incomprehensible.First, a few remarks on the narrative form and tilt of the parable—in the spirit of Hartman’s principle that an attention to form is not the worst way of getting beyond formalism. 4 The parable is a fully dramatized piece of work: there are speakers but no detachable authorial voice beyond those of the speakers: there are the many, then a one [einer], then another [ein anderer]. There are three positions here—at least three—but no position outside them, no position that is not caught up in the play of meanings in front of us. Or rather, there is a position outside them, but it seems to me blinder than any position needs to be or ought to be. Attending to the play of meanings, as we are about to do, is of course... (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

In “Backward Causation and the Stalnaker–Lewis Approach to Counterfactuals,” Analysis 62:191–7, (2002), Michael Tooley argues that if a certain kind of backward causation is possible, then a Stalnaker–Lewis comparative world similarity account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals cannot be sound. In “Tooley on Backward Causation,” Analysis 63:157–62, (2003), Paul Noordhof argues that Tooley’s example can be reconciled with a Stalnaker–Lewis account of counterfactuals if the comparative world similarity relation on which the Stalnaker–Lewis account relies is allowed to be (...) antecedent-relative. In this paper I show that taking comparative world similarity to be antecedent-relative results in a formal semantics which is a comparative world similarity semantics in name only. (shrink)

David Lewis sells modal realism as a package that includes an eternalist view of time. There is, of course, nothing that ties together the thesis that modality should be analyzed in terms of "concrete" possibilia with the view that non-present things exist. In this paper I develop a theory I call \emph{modal realist presentism} that is a combination of modal realism and presentism, and argue that is has compelling answers to some of the main objections to presentism, including the arguments (...) from (i) singular propositions, (ii) cross-temporal relations, and (iii) truthmaking. Toward the end, I compare modal realist presentism favorably to some similar theories, including Bigelow's modal theory of time, Williamson's theory of the ex-concrete, and Dainton's theory of many-worlds presentism. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic cropping up at the end of 2019 started to pose a threat to millions of people’s health and life after a few weeks. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to social and economic problems that have changed the progress steps of individuals and the whole nation. In this study, the work conditions for employees from Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Chinese mainland are explored and compared, and the relationship between support mechanisms and innovation behaviors is evaluated with a (...) view of the social cognitive career theory. This study adopts the cross-sectional survey and purposive sampling to collect questionnaires. A total of 623 copies of a questionnaire from Taiwanese, 440 copies from Malaysians, and 513 copies from mainlanders were collected in this study to compare the three groups in developing employees’ IBs. Smart-partial least squares for partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied in the structural model to conduct a verification of the hypotheses and comparative analysis in this study. According to the findings, compared with employees from the Chinese mainland, the Taiwanese and Malaysian samples show more significant paths regarding employee employability, IB, prior knowledge, perceived organizational support, self-efficacy, and job performance. Our results will offer more insights and advice concerning theories of human resource. (shrink)

In 2002 a significant number of American theologians declared that the ‘war on terror’ was a just war. But the indiscriminate strategies and munitions technologies deployed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq fall short of the just war principles of non-combatant immunity, and proportionate response. The just war tradition is one of Christendom's most enduring legacies to the law of nations. Its practice implies a standard of virtue in war that is undermined by the indiscriminate effects of many modern (...) weapons and by the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. The violent power represented by the technology of what the Vatican calls ‘total war’has occasioned a significant shift in Catholic social teaching on just war since the Second World War. Total war generates an asymmetry of weakness in those subjected to these techniques of terror, and this has only strengthened the violence of the Islamist struggle against the West. But those who draw inspiration and legitimacy from this weakness in their struggle with the West also reject virtue in war. In a time of terror the theological vocation is to speak peace and to recall the terms in which the peace of God was achieved by way of the cross. (shrink)

Western scholarly literature suggests that (1) weaning is initiated by mothers; (2) weaning takes place within a few days once mothers decide to stop nursing; (3) mothers employ specific techniques to terminate nursing; (4) semi-solid foods (gruels and mashed foods) are essential when weaning; (5) weaning is traumatic for children (it leads to temper tantrums, aggression, etc.); (6) developmental stages in relationships with mothers and others can be demarcated by weaning; and (7) weaning is a process that involves mothers and (...) children exclusively, with weaned children moving from close relationships with their mothers to strengthened relationships with other children. In many respects, these presumptions are consistent with contemporary Euroamerican practices: nursing stops early (usually before six months) relative to other cultures and takes place over a few days or weeks with the help of bottles and baby foods. Because bottles are available, weaning seldom appears traumatic, but it is seen as an important step in the establishment of independence between mothers and infants. By contrast, weaning from the bottle is often perceived as traumatic. Despite considerable academic and popular interest, weaning has seldom been studied systematically, especially in small-scale cultures. Qualitative and quantitative data from a study of Bofi foragers in Central Africa are used here to evaluate the cross-cultural applicability of the assumptions summarized above. (shrink)

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley's recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley's counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with (...) both CXM and Tooley's counterexample. (shrink)