Engaging Paul Moser’s Christ-Shaped Philosophy (CSP), this paper argues that listening is a philosophical virtue that is an essential characteristic of the Christ-shaped philosopher by meeting the Divine Love Commands (DLC). The paper first highlights the pertinent parts of Moser’s project that relate to the thesis of the paper – specifically that a defining feature of CSP is characterized by one’s Gethsemane union with Christ. The paper then follows with a discussion on the central role that listening plays in Scripture (...) regarding the life of a child of God, providing a basis upon which to understand listening as meeting the first DLC. Drawing upon the works of thinkers such as Paul Moser, Dru Johnson, and Carol Harrison, among other, the paper engages the role of listening in one’s engagement with others, thus meeting the second DLC. The paper concludes by engaging the art of listening as a philosophical virtue, employing Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung’s definition of ‘virtue’ and Suzanne Rice’s exploration of listening as a Christ-shaped philosophical virtue. (shrink)

Community volunteering is an under-utilized, at least under-researched, strategy to supplement existing treatment for affective disorders. We present findings from a feasibility study incorporating community volunteering into clinical treatment for depression and anxiety among adolescents and young adults. This exploratory pilot study had four aims: to investigate recruitment feasibility; to describe participants’ experiences with volunteering; to explore psychosocial assets by which volunteering might decrease depressive and anxiety symptoms; and to document preliminary changes in mental health outcomes before and after the (...) volunteering intervention. Interviews and surveys were employed with participants newly diagnosed with: mild to moderate depression, mild to moderate anxiety, or adjustment disorder. Recruitment was feasible overall, successes and challenges are discussed. Experiences with volunteering were very positive. Qualitative findings revealed perceived positive effects of volunteering on mood and well-being such as helping with social anxiety and being a positive distraction. Qualitative findings revealed several psychosocial assets that improved related to volunteering. On average, participants reported a 19% decrease in depressive symptoms from the pre-survey to the post-survey. Although more research is warranted, the implication of this study for practicing psychologists treating adolescents and young adults for mild to moderate depression and/or anxiety is that they may wish to consider incorporating community volunteer activities into treatment. Volunteering was a desirable activity for interested participants in treatment for affective disorders. (shrink)

Volunteering, or taking part in unpaid work for the benefit of others, can be a powerful positive experience with returns to both individual well-being and community projects. Volunteering is positively associated with mental health in observational studies with community samples but has not been systematically examined as a potential part of treatment interventions with clinical adolescent samples. In this manuscript, we review the empirical evidence base connecting volunteerism to mental health and well-being, outline potential mechanisms based in the theoretical literature (...) from developmental science, and discuss the existing clinical approaches that support community volunteering as a part of treatment. Drawing on this review, we propose that including volunteering as a component of clinical treatment approaches for adolescent depression can be a powerful intervention for adolescents. (shrink)

One of the major criticisms of optimal foraging theory (OFT) is that it is not testable. In discussions of this criticism opposing parties have confused methodological concepts and used meaningless biological concepts. In this paper we discuss such misunderstandings and show that OFr has an empirically testable, and even well-confirmed, general core theory. One of our main conclusions is that specific model testing should not be aimed at proving optimality, but rather at identifying the context in which certain types of (...) behaviour are optimal. To do this, it is necessary to be aware of the assumptions made in testing a model. The assumptions that are explicitly stated in the literature up to now do not completely cover the actual assumptions made in testing OFT models in practice. We present a more comprehensive set of assumptions. Although all the assumptions play a role in testing models, they are not of equal status. Crucial assumptions concern constraints and the relation between fitness and currency. Therefore, it is essential to make such assumptions testable in practice. We show that a more explicit relationship between OFT modelling and evolutionary theory can help with this. Specifically, phylogeny reconstruction and population dynamic modelling can and should be used to formulate assumptions concerning constraints and currencies. (shrink)

One of the major criticisms of optimal foraging theory is that it is not testable. In discussions of this criticism opposing parties have confused methodological concepts and used meaningless biological concepts. In this paper we discuss such misunderstandings and show that OFr has an empirically testable, and even well-confirmed, general core theory. One of our main conclusions is that specific model testing should not be aimed at ‘proving’ optimality, but rather at identifying the context in which certain types of behaviour (...) are optimal. To do this, it is necessary to be aware of the assumptions made in testing a model. The assumptions that are explicitly stated in the literature up to now do not completely cover the actual assumptions made in testing OFT models in practice. We present a more comprehensive set of assumptions. Although all the assumptions play a role in testing models, they are not of equal status. Crucial assumptions concern constraints and the relation between fitness and currency. Therefore, it is essential to make such assumptions testable in practice. We show that a more explicit relationship between OFT modelling and evolutionary theory can help with this. Specifically, phylogeny reconstruction and population dynamic modelling can and should be used to formulate assumptions concerning constraints and currencies. (shrink)

BackgroundNational guidelines require programmes use subjective assessments of social support when determining transplant suitability, despite limited evidence linking it to outcomes. We examined how transplant providers weigh the importance of social support for kidney transplantation compared with other factors, and variation by clinical role and personal beliefs.MethodsThe National survey of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the Society of Transplant Social Work in 2016. Using a discrete choice approach, respondents compared two hypothetical patient profiles and selected one for transplantation. (...) Conditional logistic regression estimated the relative importance of each factor; results were stratified by clinical role and beliefs.ResultsFive hundred and eighy-four transplant providers completed the survey. Social support was the second most influential factor among transplant providers. Providers were most likely to choose a candidate who had social support, always adhered to a medical regimen, and had a 15 years life expectancy with transplant. Psychosocial providers were more influenced by adherence and quality of life compared with medical/surgical providers, who were more influenced by candidates' life expectancy with transplant. For providers concerned with avoiding organ waste, social support was the most influential factor, while it was the least influential for clinicians concerned with fairness.ConclusionsSocial support is highly influential in listing decisions and may exacerbate transplant disparities. Providers’ beliefs and reliance on social support in determining suitability vary considerably, raising concerns about transparency and justice. (shrink)

Joshua Daniel offers a reconstruction of the influence of Josiah Royce and George Herbert Mead on H. Richard Niebuhr to counter predominate strains in Christian ethics that overemphasize the role of socialization in moral formation at the expense of acknowledging the agency of individuals and their importance in preventing communities from turning in on themselves or becoming static. Daniel characterizes the driving worry of postliberal Christian ethics as “the accommodation of Christian communities to prevailing social forces and norms, which is (...) understood to radically undermine the churches’ existence and mission”. The primary accusation against these prevailing social norms is individualism. The modern... (shrink)

The moral/conventional task has been widely used to study the emergence of moral understanding in children and to explore the deficits in moral understanding in clinical populations. Previous studies have indicated that moral transgressions, particularly those in which a victim is harmed, evoke a signature pattern of responses in the moral/conventional task: they are judged to be serious, generalizable and not authority dependent. Moreover, this signature pattern is held to be pan‐cultural and to emerge early in development. However, almost all (...) the evidence for these claims comes from studies using harmful transgressions of the sort that primary school children might commit in the schoolyard. In a study conducted on the Internet, we used a much wider range of harm transgressions, and found that they do not evoke the signature pattern of responses found in studies using only schoolyard transgressions. Paralleling other recent work, our study provides preliminary grounds for skepticism regarding many conclusions drawn from earlier research using the moral/conventional task. (shrink)

Standard approaches to defining and evaluating environmental risk tend to reflect technocratic rather than democratic values. One consequence is that institutional mechanisms for achieving citizen participation in risk decisions rarely are studied or evaluated. This article presents a survey of five institutional mechanisms for allowing the lay public to influence environmental risk decisions: public hearings, initiatives, public surveys, negotiated rule making, and citizens review panels. It also defines democratic process criteria for assessing these and other participatory mechanisms.

We introduce new leader humility scales capturing a theoretically rich conceptualization of leader-expressed humility aligned with traditional and ethically-grounded philosophies. These scales draw from recent inductive research (Oc et al., 2015) identifying nine dimensions of leader-expressed humility: (1) having an accurate view of self, (2) recognizing follower strengths and achievements, (3) modeling teachability and being correctable, (4) leading by example, (5) showing modesty, (6) working together for the collective good, (7) empathy and approachability, (8) showing mutual respect and fairness, and (...) (9) mentoring and coaching. The first three dimensions overlap with the most prominent conceptualization of leader-expressed humility in the literature (i.e., Owens et al., 2013). However, the latter six dimensions are unique and represent an expanded understanding of the humble behaviors of leaders, which have implications for leaders and their ethical behavior in organizations. We conducted three studies resulting in two versions of the leader-expressed humility measure: 1) a 27-item scale with the nine dimensions (i.e., the “Leader-Expressed Humility” [LEH] scale) and 2) a 9-item brief scale (i.e., the “Brief LEH” scale) comprised of one item from each of the nine dimensions. As an initial step, we generated a pool of items that reflected each dimension. Next, we validated the LEH and Brief LEH scales in Study 1 and cross-validated the Brief LEH scale in Study 2 with two samples of subordinates in Singapore. As a final step, in Study 3, we cross-validated the Brief LEH scale with a sample of subordinates in the United States. (shrink)

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 2-9.

The machine conception of the organism (MCO) is one of the most pervasive notions in modern biology. However, it has not yet received much attention by philosophers of biology. The MCO has its origins in Cartesian natural philosophy, and it is based on the metaphorical redescription of the organism as a machine. In this paper I argue that although organisms and machines resemble each other in some basic respects, they are actually very different kinds of systems. I submit that the (...) most significant difference between organisms and machines is that the former are intrinsically purposive whereas the latter are extrinsically purposive. Using this distinction as a starting point, I discuss a wide range of dissimilarities between organisms and machines that collectively lay bare the inadequacy of the MCO as a general theory of living systems. To account for the MCO’s prevalence in biology, I distinguish between its theoretical, heuristic, and rhetorical functions. I explain why the MCO is valuable when it is employed heuristically but not theoretically, and finally I illustrate the serious problems that arise from the rhetorical appeal to the MCO. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 731-745, December 2021.

Previous research has shown that na_ve participants display a high level of agreement when asked to choose or drawschematic representations, or image schemas, of concrete and abstract verbs [Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2001, Erlbaum, Mawhah, NJ, p. 873]. For example, participants tended to ascribe a horizontal image schema to push, and a vertical image schema to respect. This consistency in offline data is preliminary evidence that language invokes spatial forms of representation. It also (...) provided norms that were used in the present research to investigate the activation of spatial image schemas during online language comprehension. We predicted that if comprehending a verb activates a spatial representation that is extended along a particular horizontal or vertical axis, it will affect other forms of spatial processing along that axis. Participants listened to short sentences while engaged in a visual discrimination task (Experiment 1) and a picture memory task (Experiment 2). In both cases, reaction times showed an interaction between the horizontal/vertical nature of the verb's image schema, and the horizontal/vertical position of the visual stimuli. We argue that such spatial effects of verb comprehension provide evidence for the perceptual–motor character of linguistic representations. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue in favor of a novel interpretation of the semantic theory that can be found in the Later Mohist writings. Recent interpretations by Chad Hansen and Chris Fraser cast the Later Mohist theory as a realist theory; this includes attributing to the Later Mohists what we can call “kind-realism,” the idea that there is some correct scheme of kind-terms that carves the world at its joints. While I agree with Hansen and Fraser that the Later Mohist (...) theory is realist in various ways, I offer challenges to their kind-realist interpretations, and argue instead for a kind-conventionalist interpretation on which there is no fixed, correct set of kinds, leaving schemes of kind terms to be determined by conventional decisions that occur during disputation. (shrink)

Philosophers are approaching a consensus that biological individuality, including evolutionary individuality, comes in degrees. Graded evolutionary individuality presents a puzzle when juxtaposed with another widely embraced view: that evolutionary individuality follows from being a selectable member of a Darwinian population. Population membership is, on the orthodox view, a bivalent condition, so how can members of Darwinian populations vary in their degree of individuality? This article offers a solution to the puzzle, by locating difference in degree of evolutionary individuality at the (...) level of population lineages, some of which are more Darwinian than others. In doing so, it sheds light on graded individuality in overlapping and nested population lineages, such as those that arise in multilevel selection and symbiotic collectives. (shrink)

There is a class of fictionalist strategies (the reflexive fictionalisms) which appear to suffer from a common problem: the problem that the entities which are supposedly fictional turn out, by the lights of the fictionalist theory itself, to exist. The appropriate solution is to reject so-called strong fictionalism in each case: that is, to reject the variety of fictionalism which takes appeal to the domain of fictional entities to provide an explanation or analysis of the operators or predicates with which (...) the objects are systematically correlated. (shrink)

In A Climate of History Dipesh Chakrabarty locates Kant’s speculative reading of Genesis as “the Enduring Fable” furnishing the background for human domination and earthly destruction. Writing from the fable’s “ruins,” Chakrabarty urges the elaboration of new fables that provide the background ethics and meanings required to recast relations between humans and the natural world. Responding to Chakrabarty’s challenge, we outline two “fables” based first in the oft ignored Genesis 2, and second, in Matauranga Māori. Although marginalised, these extant fables (...) provide the imaginary for radically other ways of being human in a more-than-human world in turmoil. (shrink)