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)

This paper examines the importance of aspirations as reference points in a multi-period decision-making context. After stating their personal aspiration level, 172 individuals made six sequential decisions among risky prospects as part of a choice experiment. The results show that individuals make different risky-choices in a multi-period compared to a single-period setting. In particular, individuals’ aspiration level is their main reference point during the early stages of decision-making, while their starting status (wealth level at the (...) start of the experiment) becomes the central reference point during the later stages of their multi-period decision-making. (shrink)

This study explores girls? aspirations for their future. The context was an ex-coalmining area where concerns had been raised by the local authority about the levels of girls? achievement. The focus of the research was the views of Year 6 girls as they prepared for their transition to secondary school and Year 11 girls as they prepared for their transition to post-compulsory school life. Perspectives of their staff were also sought, focusing on the impact of school and its community on (...) girls? aspirations. Findings indicated that while the aspirations of the primary school girls were similar, those of the secondary girls differed significantly. Staff viewed this as reflective of the local context and school ethos. These responses offer a basis on which schools could build strategies to increase aspirations and provide support towards their achievement. (shrink)

The past decade has seen an increasing number of critiques of business schools and the education they provide, particularly at the MBA level. In this paper, we summarize the limitations of a minimalist approach to business ethics education and then provide a new direction that enlarges its scope and reframes its educational goals, course content, and analytical methods to inculcate higher-order aspirations among students. We propose that the outcome of business ethics education should be a desire among students to (...) use business to enhance the well-being of all stakeholders, repair damage done to the economy, society, and the environment, and leave the world better than they found it. (shrink)

A wealth of experimental findings on how real actors do in fact bargain exists. However, as long as there is no systematic general account of the several experiments bargaining theory remains dominated by axiomatic approaches based on normative requirements or on assumptions of full rather than bounded rationality. Contrary to that, the new axiomatic account of aspiration level balancing in negotiations of boundedly rational actors presented in this paper incorporates experimental findings systematically into economic bargaining theory. It thereby (...) forms a descriptive theory of bargaining that has normative power as well. (shrink)

Given corporate lobbying’s double-edged nature, previous research has been interested in what motivates firms to engage in lobbying. In this study, we build on previous works to analyze how two types of aspiration, historical aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given past self-performance, and social aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given competitors’ achievements, shape corporate lobbying decisions. Our premise is that when a firm’s product (...) market performance is below historical aspirations, then the firm is motivated to engage in lobbying because the benefits of lobbying outweigh the potential costs. However, when a firm’s product market performance is below social aspirations, then decision-makers perceive that the potential challenges of lobbying outweigh the benefits and decide not to engage in lobbying. By examining automotive firms in the U.S. light vehicle market from 1998 to 2013, we find significant empirical support for our general premise. Using Tobit regression analysis, we find that automotive firms present diverging motivations for lobbying depending on whether they attend to historical or social aspirations for sales performance. (shrink)

Aspiration-based evolutionary dynamics have recently been used to model the evolution of fair play in the ultimatum game showing that incredible threats to reject low offers persist in equilibrium. We focus on two extensions of this analysis: we experimentally test whether assumptions about agent motivations (aspiration levels) and the structure of the game (binary strategy space) reflect actual play, and we examine the problematic assumption embedded in the standard replicator dynamic that unhappy agents who switch strategies may return (...) to a rejected strategy without exploring other options. We find that the resulting “no switchback” dynamic predicts the evolution of play better than the standard dynamic and that aspirations are a significant motivator for our participants. In the process, we also construct and analyze a variant of the ultimatum game in which players can adopt conditional (on their induced aspirations) strategies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aspiration to the Condition of TouchChristopher Perricone"The Dance," written by William Carlos Williams in 1944 is one of my favorite poems: I return to it regularly. Williams gives us a feel for that life of the kermess (a carnival) in his poem through Breughel's picture, as it were three times removed from the event itself. Of course, unlike Plato, I would argue that the vitality of the (...) kermess is not lost in the poem; it is actually enhanced by a subtle sleight of hand. The poem isn't primarily about Breughel's picture. It is about dance, about the dancers who go round, their squeal, the crude music, its rollicking measures, the dancers kicking and rolling and swinging, their hips, bellies, and butts. Reading and re-reading this poem, I "see" those ordinary folk of Breughel's great picture. I "hear" their music. I "move" to their dance. The poem seems a condensation, a summary of the fine arts. Perhaps the poem is about poetry's power to reinvigorate imaginatively what we hear and see. Perhaps I think of festivities at which I have danced, how such festivities are essential to the human experience. Perhaps, William Carlos Williams in 1944, World War II coming to a close, was anticipating similar good times. As always, it's best to let the poem speak for itself:In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,the dancers go round, they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick-sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them. Kicking and rolling about the [End Page 229] Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those shanks must be sound to bear up under such rollicking measures, prance as they dance In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess.The visual, musical, and literary arts do much to educate our senses, especially our senses of sight and hearing. The well-formed visual and auditory sensations we gain from the arts are, as it were, the melody of those experiences. They are the images we store away, the tunes we whistle. However, here, I want to draw attention to an overlooked, although not entirely disregarded, sense, i.e., touch. I want to argue that touch is the bass line to the melody of sight and hearing in the arts, i.e., that touch keeps the work of art coherent and grounded.This is an old idea. Bernhard Berenson had the idea when he was examining the painters of the Italian renaissance. Berenson argued that great painting stimulates touch, which inspires, our "tactile imagination," which produces our "tactile values." Here lay, according to Berenson the genius of Giotto. Tactile imagination and values enchance the "material significance" of a work; they act as a "test of reality." Berenson was on to something not only about painting but about the arts in general. However, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries he lacked the scientific evidence about touch and its role in human relationships to develop his idea of tactile values to any great extent.1Although Berenson had keen intuitions, he didn't know about the biological/psychological nuts and bolts of touch. Thus, he never knew about the detailed nature and extent of our physical contact with other physical things in the world. He didn't know about Merkel's discs, Ruffini and Pacinian corpuscles. He didn't know about hierarchical and parallel levels of brain processing. Berenson didn't know that more brain space in the somatosensory cortex is given to the hand than to any other part of the body, that your fingers especially have a high density of touch receptors compared to other body areas. Today, all this information is standard textbook fare.2 Many neuroscientific details need to be worked. However, a general picture based on hard evidence has begun to emerge.This information adds significant substance to Berenson's ideas. Berenson's "third dimension" is essentially a sense of temperature, pressure, vibration, and texture. And chances are the tactile imagination is inspired most by what is touched by... (shrink)

This study aims to examine the effect of tuition fees, the effectiveness of the educational and administrative staff, and the aspiration for high-level universities in the future on the choice of private schools in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, examining the moderating effect of accreditation standards on the relationship between tuition fees, the effectiveness of the educational and administrative staff, the aspiration for high-level universities in the future, and the choice of private schools in Saudi Arabia. To achieve (...) the study objectives, the researcher used the descriptive design and quantitative approach, depending on the questionnaire as the main instrument for collecting study data. The study was applied to a sample consisting of (289) parents of pupils in private schools in the Asir region, who were selected randomly. The results of this study showed that the tuition fees, the effectiveness of the educational and administrative staff, and the aspiration for high-level universities in the future on the choice of private schools. Also, the results showed that accreditation standards have a moderating effect on the relationship between tuition fees, the effectiveness of the educational and administrative staff, the aspiration for high-level universities in the future, and the choice of private schools. (shrink)

Aspiration, according to Agnes Callard, is the long-term process of learning new values. Confucian self- cultivation as presented in the Analects is also aimed at the reorientation of one’s values, so that instead of being guided by pleasure, comfort, or profit, we become devoted to learning, ritual, and caring for others. According to the text, this process is a long and arduous one that involves a lifelong commitment as well as a total reorganization of one’s daily pursuits. Yet for (...) both Callard and the early Confucians a puzzle arises: how does one aspire toward values that one currently lacks at every level? In this paper, I look at some resources within the Analects for responding to this puzzle. (shrink)

There exists no completely satisfactory theory of risk attitude in current normative decision theories. Existing notions confound attitudes to pure risk with unrelated psychological factors such as strength of preference for certain outcomes, and probability weighting. In addition traditional measures of risk attitude frequently cannot be applied to non-numerical consequences, and are not psychologically intuitive. I develop Pure Risk theory which resolves these problems – it is consistent with existing normative theories, and both internalises and generalises the intuitive notion of (...) risk being related to the probability of not achieving one’s aspirations. Existing models which ignore pure risk attitudes may be misspecified, and effects hitherto modelled as loss aversion or utility curvature may be due instead to Pure Risk attitudes. (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils? educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their local authority because of poor pupil attendance, below?average examination results and low rates of continuing in full?time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and coeducational. Over 800 pupils aged 12?14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils? experience of home, school and (...) their peers. A sub?sample of 48 pupils, selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools, also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self?concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self?concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity. (shrink)

This paper looks at how local livelihoods and to a certain extent their transitions are embedded in, and in thrall to, power relations at higher levels. Placing the (re)shaping of livelihood pathways within the context of top-down hydropower planning, it shows how the latter predetermines farm households’ current farming strategies and future livelihood pathways. Taking two villages along the Mekong River, both of which are to be impacted by the planned Pak Beng hydropower dam in Pak Beng district, Oudomxay province, (...) the paper illustrates how the pathways that rural livelihoods are taking in northern Laos are being shaped by decisions and processes embedded in national and regional exigencies. We argue that top-down approaches in hydropower planning, as manifested in the current institutional vacuum to formally deal with resettlement and compensation issues at the village level result in village authorities’ and potentially affected villagers’ inability to strategically convey and negotiate their views and concerns. Moreover, we reveal how it is the specter of change which drives livelihood adaptation, not change itself, thus illustrating how the defined compensation rules and procedures (re)shape farm households’ farming strategies and future livelihood pathways even prior to the construction of the hydropower dam. (shrink)

I argue that high level causal relationships are often more fundamental than low level causal relationships. My argument is based on some general principles governing when one causal relationship will metaphysically ground another—a phenomenon I term derivative causation. These principles are in turn based partly on our intuitive judgments concerning derivative causation in a series of representative examples, and partly on some powerful theoretical considerations in their favour. I show how these principles entail that low level causation (...) can derive from high level causation, and in particular that neural causation can derive from mental causation. I then draw out several important consequences of this result. Most immediate among these are the implications the result has for aspirations to reduce high level causation to its low level counterpart. But the result also bears on the possibility of downward causation, the relationship between counterfactuals and causation, and the idea—familiar from both the literature on the exclusion problem and the literature on proportionality constraints on causation—that causal relationships at different levels compete for their existence. (shrink)

Educational aspirations under an ideal state and educational expectations based on reality have an important impact on children’s academic development, but distinct differences between them exist. On the basis of distinguishing the differences between the two, using the national data of Tsinghua University’s China Urbanization and Child Development Survey, this article endeavors to explore the inequality of educational aspirations and expectations from the perspective of class and urban-rural areas, and lay out the influencing factors of educational aspirations, expectations, and the (...) difference between them. It is found that Chinese parents generally have high aspirations for their children’s education. There is no distinct class difference in “high hopes for children’s bright future.” However, in the sense of educational expectations, there are distinct class differences, which are deeply rooted in socioeconomic status and closely related to education level, family type, family structure, and family economic status, as well as children’s academic performance. (shrink)

Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results is a strengths-based framework for strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading that focuses on strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. The SOAR framework leverages and integrates Appreciative Inquiry to create a transformation process through generative questions and positive framing. While SOAR has been used by practitioners since 2000 as a framework for generating positive organizational change, its use in empirical research has been limited by the absence of reliable and valid measures. We report on the reliability, (...) construct validity, and measurement invariance of the SOAR Scale, a 12-item self-report survey organized into four first-order factors. Data from a sample of 285 U.S. professionals were analyzed in Mplus using confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling. The Four-Factor first-order exploratory structure equation modeling had the best model fit. Measurement invariance tests found the scalar invariance of the SOAR Scale across gender and education groups. Implications are discussed for using the SOAR Scale to build resilience at the individual, the team, and the organizational levels. (shrink)

The paper''s broad aim is to provide a wider understanding of a complex virtue, "meekness". This interest is pragmatic. Contemporary research by Collins (2001) has identified "meekness" as a personal quality for highest-level leadership at great businesses, a theme identifiable also in religious and ancient philosophical narratives. Two strands of enquiry are pursued. Firstly, features of "meekness" are inferred by reference to Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon, as also to the gospel writer, Matthew, source of the title''s quotation. It concludes (...) that "meekness" is not about powers foregone but "powers controlled and exercised with discernment". The second strand addresses whether there are intrinsic differences between the ethics of business and religious activities. Narrative of a New Testament incident, apparently condemning traders, is briefly explored as a case study. Closer examination points how an inappropriate fusing of regulatory and commercial roles had created market abuses. The timeless account warns against inadequately controlled powers and provides an enduring example of how "the meek" should respond assertively against unethical conduct and avoid it themselves. While the paper acknowledges that there may be distinctive "guardian" and "commercial" syndromes for ethical prioritisation, a spiritual virtue, such as "meekness", transcends individual and organisational purposes, being aspirational for any activities that involve providing services and being accountable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.1 (2004) 78-88 [Access article in PDF] Remembering Beauty:Reflections on Kant and Cartier-Bresson for Aspiring Photographers Stuart Richmond In the past few decades beauty has become something of an endangered species in the Western art world. Indeed, beauty has never been a central aim of contemporary art, which has tended to focus on meaning and politics rather than formal values, conceptual art being a (...) case in point. Feminist artists and critics, reacting to the objectification of women in society have rendered attention to women's beauty, especially the nude, impolitic. This is perhaps understandable given the persuasive emphasis on beauty in marketing, that many argue socializes an unhealthy self-image in young people and distracts attention from important social issues. As well, techno-global-business practices increasingly invade our lives and private spaces with a virtual culture of information and efficiency. We do not know how this retreat from the sensual, concrete present will affect human sensibilities and values in the long run, although there are some disturbing signs. Seen as un-cerebral and allied with pleasure, beauty and its alter ego, appreciation, have acquired a decided regressive air. Having said that, for many people at the level of ordinary life — in human relationships, arts activities, and love of nature, for example — beauty never really went away because beauty is a source of pleasure and well-being that we cannot help wanting. As Plato pointed out, beauty is the only visible quality that inspires love. 1 A life of beauty in a free and ethical environment is an invitation to a life worth living. Though I cannot pursue the matter here, it is noteworthy that we often call a person of courage, goodness, and humility, a beautiful human being. Around the world people find many paths to beauty and of late in the Western artistic and academic worlds, beauty seems to be making a comeback. But beauty is a difficult thing to talk about, partly due to its being an experiential concept, partly because it has a long and complex philosophical history, and also because there is the risk in analysis of reducing it to something small and formulaic. Words in the end cannot replace the experience [End Page 78] of beauty. Despite these concerns, however, I believe that now, more thanever in the arts and education, we need to develop capacities for creating and appreciating beauty, if only to bring us back into contact with what is sensual and intrinsically worthwhile after so much arid theorizing, conflict in the world, and technocratic obsession. Through beauty we might be able to regain a stronger sense of human values and pleasure in living. Therefore, my aim here is to re-examine beauty in order to strengthen its role in aesthetic education. I do not expect to develop any precise definitions but I shall aim for a few signposts. Background to the Concept of Beauty "Beauty," "beautiful," or "the beautiful" refer primarily to a quality found pleasing to the senses. Here I shall restrict discussion to the visual domain, and later principally to art. As noted, beauty has a long philosophical history but the concept remains vague. From classical times on, beauty has been defined or associated with such properties as symmetry, balance, variety, harmony, proportion, order, unity, and perfection. And indeed, these features have long provided normative guidelines for the creation and appreciation of beauty. Over time we have learned the shape and proportions of a beautiful pot or supporting column. The golden section, a ratio of 1:1.6, has been used to good effect in design for millennia, the Parthenon being a prime example, the 35 mm negative another. However, as is well known, differences in beauty in individual cases tend to elude definition on account of this or that property or collection of properties. Exceptions can always be found. A painting may be well balanced but lacking in a certain élan vital, or unbalanced but beautiful. The variability of beautiful things seems to rule out a... (shrink)

Slight absolute changes in the Shanghai Stock Exchange Index (SHSE) corresponded to the city’s immediate increases in coronary heart disease deaths and stroke deaths. Significant fluctuations in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Index (SZSE) corresponded to the country’s minor, delayed death rates. Investors deal with money, greed, stock volatility, and risky decision-making. Happy people live longer and better. We ask the following question: Who are the investors with the highest and most sustainable stock happiness, and why? Monetary wisdom asserts: Investors apply (...) their deep-rooted values (avaricious love-of-money aspiration and locus of control, Level 2) as a lens to frame critical concerns in the proximal-immediate (Shanghai Stock Exchange Index changes, Level 1) and the omnibus-distal contexts (domicile: city vs. country, Level 2) to maximize expected utility (portfolio changes, Level 1) and ultimate serenity (stock happiness, Level 1). We collected multilevel data—the longitudinal SHSE and 227 private investors’ daily stock happiness and portfolio changes for 36 consecutive trading days in four regions of China. Investors had an average liquid asset of $76,747.41 and $54,660.85 in stocks. This study is not a “one-shot” game with “nothing at stake.” We classified Shanghai and Beijing as the city and Shenzhen and Chongqing as the country. Our cross-level 3-D visualization reveals that regardless of SHSE volatility, investors with low aspiration, external control, and country domicile enjoy the highest and most sustainable stock happiness with minimum fluctuations. Independently, investors with low aspiration, external control, and country domicile tend to make fewer portfolio changes than their counterparts. Behaviorally, less is more, debunking the myth—risky decisions excite stock happiness. Our longitudinal study expands prospect theory, incorporates attitude toward money, and makes robust contributions to behavioral economics and business ethics. We help investors and ordinary citizens make happy, healthy, and wealthy decisions. Most importantly, the life you save may be your own. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The recent report of the Milburn Review into Social Mobility highlights the under-representation of young people from lower socio-economic groups in higher education and encourages universities and others to act to remedy this situation as a contribution to greater social mobility. The paper uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England to examine the relationship between social background, attainment and university participation. The results show that differences in school-level attainment associated with social background are by (...) far the most important explanation for social background differences in university attendance. However, there remains a small proportion of the participation gap that is not accounted for by attainment. It is also the case that early intentions for higher education participation are highly predictive of actual participation. The results suggest that although there may be some scope for universities to act to improve participation by people from less advantaged backgrounds, a much more important focus of action is on improving the school-level achievement of these students. (shrink)

Innovation is often seen as essential for ventures to succeed. High business failure rates in entrepreneurship, however, suggest that innovations are frequently driven by entrepreneurs blinded by overconfidence. Thus, anticipating when and why entrepreneurs will be motivated to innovate is fundamental for entrepreneurial success. Using a large sample obtained from population surveys conducted in 77 countries, this study analyzes the variables that are significantly associated with innovative behaviors. The research tests a model proposing that the joint effects of hubris, growth (...) aspirations, and an entrepreneur’s level of entrepreneurial experience have a crucial impact on innovative endeavors. It finds that hubris is significantly related to entrepreneurs’ growth aspirations and that ambition, in turn, is positively related to innovative behaviors. In addition, the study finds that both relationships are moderated by the level of entrepreneurial experience. These findings highlight the need to wise up amateur entrepreneurs before they embark on innovative endeavors. (shrink)

This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a ‘frame analytic’ approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history, the findings show that respondents jointly referred to _competition_ and _delivery_ in order to make sense of their current situation. Forming what I call _the project frame_, these interpretive orientations were legitimized by various (...) organizational routines within the studied departments, feeding into a dominant regime of valuation and accumulation. However, while the content of the project frame is well-defined, attempts to align with it vary, indicating the importance of disciplines and academic age when navigating project-based careers. Furthermore, this way of framing academic work and careers provokes tensions and conflicts that junior scholars try to manage. To curb their competitive relationship and enable cooperation, respondents emphasized the outcome of project funding as ‘being lucky.’ They also drew on imagined futures to envision alternative scripts of success and worth. Both empirically and conceptually, the article contributes to an understanding of academic career-making as a kind of pragmatic problem-solving, centered on navigating multiple career pressures and individual aspirations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Perelmanian Universal Audience and the Epistemic Aspirations of ArgumentScott F. AikinIThe notion of universality in argumentation is as fecund as is it is controversial. Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s notion of universal audience (UA), given their requirement that all arguments be evaluated in terms of their audiences, clearly promises a rich account of argumentative norms. It equally yields a variety of questions. For the most part, the questions come (...) in three forms: what, precisely, is the universal audience; whether it is, in the end, a coherent notion; and how its norms actually constrain argument. Many objections to the notion claim that it is either incoherent or too empty to constrain. My objective here is to provide an account of Perelman’s notion of UA that avoids these objections. I will argue that the UA can be clarified with a distinction between two functions it plays in argumentation— one pragmatic and another epistemic. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca do not explicitly disambiguate these roles themselves, though they do use the notion in two distinct ways in The New Rhetoric (TNR [1969]), and so it seems clear that although the view in the end may be Perelmanian, it is arguably not Perelman’s. No matter. The purpose of this essay is not to exhume Perelman but to resurrect and exercise his views. That is, historical work in philosophy must straddle the demands of two distinct goals— fidelity to the author in question and defensibility of the views developed. My case [End Page 238] will jointly depend on the comparative plausibility of my account as an interpretation of Perelman’s universal audience and of the view as correct regarding argumentative norms in relation to the other competing interpretations of Perelman’s UA. So if my argument for a divided universal audience is at least Perelmanian in spirit, and if it survives the objections to UA that other interpretations do not survive, it should be the philosophically preferable interpretation.IIThe first principle of Perelmanian rhetoric is that arguments are addressed to audiences for the purpose of inducing or increasing adherence to a view (TNR, 14). Consequently, the less reliant arguments are on a specific audience’s idiosyncratic commitments, the more effective the arguments will be in generating assent and resolving disagreements in wider and wider groups of people. Perelman describes the universal audience in The Realm of Rhetoric (RR [1982]) as “itself... made up of an infinite variety of particular audiences” (14). The UA is the regulative ideal of maximal intersubjective agreement. That is, we see both the relative weakness of arguments that depend on the commitments of particular audiences and “the value attached to opinions that enjoy unanimous approval” (TNR, 31). This unanimity is reached at its highest point in the universal audience. As such, UA is an agglomerative notion that functions as a criterion for how widely an argument may be given credence. Call this trajectory toward unanimity the pragmatic element of UA.However, the universal audience’s assent is used to define facts for arguments, and as such, it is a marker of the objectivity of a conclusion, not just the breadth of the effectiveness of an argument. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca stipulate that “from the standpoint of argumentation, we are confronted with a fact only if we can postulate uncontroverted, universal agreement with respect to it” (TNR, 67). Facts and truths are defined in terms of the “agreement of the universal audience” (TNR, 67). This, of course, is not to say that arguments make facts but, instead, that their universal acceptability is a criterion for whether some purported fact is or is not the case. Agreement on this level does not play a metaphysical role of explanation but, rather, a cognitive role of justification for taking a commitment as a premise for further argument. The agreement in a universal audience, further, must be uncontroverted, which means that this UA must have some shared commitment that survives scrutiny (or at least is [End Page 239] not defeated): “The agreement of a universal audience is... a matter, not of fact, but of right” (TNR, 31). And further, this right has a very powerful normative element: “Argumentation... (shrink)

Parental expectations have long been studied as a factor in increasing adolescent educational aspirations, often linking these expectations to parental level of education and involvement in academic endeavours. This study further explores this relationship in a statewide Midwestern sample of parents and their adolescent children. Regression analysis and independent samples t?tests were used to predict adolescent aspirations and compare groups. Results suggest that adolescent educational aspirations can to some degree be predicted by parental expectations. Parents reported high expectations for (...) their children despite low levels of personal educational attainment. However, these high expectations were buffered by a reported unfamiliarity with college requirements and an expressed concern about college affordability and limited awareness of financial aid opportunities. Limitations and suggestions for future research and intervention are discussed. (shrink)

Gaining a high level of proficiency is the ultimate aspiration of all language learners, and the use of apology and politeness strategies is consistently associated with the levels of language proficiency. Owing to the significance of speech acts, politeness strategies, and level of proficiency, this study aimed to investigate the realization of apology speech acts and politeness strategies among Iranian EFL learners to examine and compare the lower-intermediate and advanced learners’ use of apology and politeness strategies. To (...) achieve this goal, 320 learners were selected out of 390 EFL learners who took a test of English language proficiency and were then divided into lower-intermediate and advanced levels. The findings of the study revealed significant differences between lower-intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners in the realization of the speech act of apology and politeness strategies. Advanced learners preferred to use more indirect and complicated forms of apology speech acts and tended to apply negative politeness and off-record strategies more than the lower-intermediate learners did. However, lower-intermediate learners preferred to use simple and more direct forms of apology and politeness strategies. It can be concluded that as learners increase their knowledge in the target language, and as their interlanguages get closer to the target language, they tend to apply more complicated and native-like speech acts and strategies . (shrink)

In the field of responsibility and climate change, much attention has been paid to actions and what we need to do in order to take responsibility. This paper shifts the perspective from what we should do to how we should be in order to be responsible. Looking at the case of local adaptation to sea level rise, the question of what characterizes a responsible planner is addressed. Departing from the idea of professional virtues, aspirational characteristics are extrapolated from three (...) codes of ethics for planners. The identified virtues are discussed in relation to the central challenges of adaptation to sea level rise, giving an indication of which virtues are most important in this given context. When placing the responsible planner in an institutional context, it is evident that while a virtue perspective should not replace a system analysis, it provides a valuable complement to the traditional action-focused discourse on responsible adaptation. (shrink)

Is the Smartphone (SP) an extension of consciousness or just an (other) externalization of the mind and an extension of the social? The concept of externalizing the mind more appropriately describes a series of processes that tend to be considered extensions of the mind. The human mind has evolved concurrently with various externalizations, such as utensils and language, as contributions to the development of the common environment of humanity: culture and civilization. Externalizations indicate the appearance of the human mind while (...) the extensions take into account the possibility of passing to another level (the singularity of consciousness). SP is a handy tool that mediates the personal relationship with the world, benefiting from a level of integration into the global workspace of the mind. Externalization called the SP could be a bridge from the externalization of the mind to its extensions, making the ontological leap from the utensil status to that of "part of the mind". SP is a mediator of an environment: it mediates between the mind and a special social environment called the Internet (mediates access to cognitive support provided by society through the virtual world), which is gradually becoming another reality. SP is part of the extension of human society by introducing tools into the network of personal relationships. Not the mind is expanded, but the social network, increasing the number of entities with which the human can create and maintain relationships. SP may be an extension of the social rather than an extension of the mind because it mediates an increase in the complexity of social relations that can lead to the emergence of "collective minds" (causing a change in the ontological status of society). Changing cognitive demands is a feature of the world's progress. Progress brings along with it cognitive costs of integration, technical solutions like SP, aimed at reducing these costs, generating an evolutionary advantage in the new social context. From an evolutionist perspective, the world means precisely this kind of modification of cognitive demands necessary for survival, SP joining the set of tools that mediate the cognitive progress of the world in which the human is inserted. We propose the use of an evolutionary cognitive economy principle, based on avoiding unnecessary costs, reducing losses and optimizing cognitive gains. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent events following the bhikkhuni revival in Sri Lanka, and looks at the position of the Burmese Sangha, which has traditionally seen itself as the custodian of an ‘authentic’ Buddhist legacy, thrown into a debate by the action of a Burmese bhikkhuni who was recently ordained in Sri Lanka. It introduces the early initiatives of revivalist monks in Burma as well as the viewpoints of Burmese Sangha and the nuns in regard to the bhikkhuni issue. Since (...) most debate on the position of nuns take place without much reference to the local political contexts in which they stand, the state monastic organization in Burma is introduced to aid understanding of the framework in which the nuns operate today. At another level, the paper draws attention to the tension created between the international bhikkhunis who promote liberal ideologies of gender equality, individual rights and universalism into a faith based community, and local nuns who adhere to the traditional norms of religious duty, moral discipline and service to the community, and questions the ultimate aim in endorsing such secular ideals. (shrink)

This report, the first of the project, presents original research evidence based on 1,516 face-to-face interviews with young Syrian international protection beneficiaries and applicants, 18-32 years old, which were conducted in the UK, Lebanon and Greece, between April and October 2017. Key findings from this comparative analysis inform our policy recommendations concerning the settlement, training and skills provision for young forced migrants in the UK. Key Findings: - Young Syrian refugees in the UK have the highest levels of skills and (...) training, and are most eager to remain and contribute to the host country, compared with those in Greece and Lebanon. - Young Syrian refugees are faced with higher levels of unemployment in the UK than citizens, while many of them who are in employment are doing jobs for which they are over-qualified. - Refugees in the UK receive better support and have an overall more positive experience and evaluation of actors compared to those in Greece and Lebanon, but access to key provisions designed to enhance labour market participation remains patchy. - Syrian refugees who have been resettled to the UK report overall more positive experiences than those coming through the asylum route, despite higher levels of employment among the latter and the government supposedly taking the more vulnerable among the former. - Young Syrians in Scotland are better supported, and more positive about their engagement with people and institutions, although they are currently more distanced from re-integration into the labour market compared to those settled in England. (shrink)

Background: Hospices are based on a holistic approach which places the physical, psychological, social and spiritual welfare of their patients at the forefront of their work. Furthermore, they draw up their own mission statements which they are at pains to follow and seek to conduct their work in accordance with codes of ethics and standards of care. Research question and design: Our study researched what form the processes and degrees of latitude in decision-making take in practice when questions of an (...) ethical and ethically relevant nature arise. We used a qualitative approach. Data collection and evaluation was based on the methods of grounded theory. Ethical considerations: The study was reported to the relevant Ethics Commission who had raised no objections following the submission of the study protocol. The study at the hospices was approved by the directors of the hospices and the nursing teams. The rights of the participants were protected by obtaining informed consent. Results: Medication in the prefinal phase and questions affecting the provision of solids and liquids in the end-of-life phase have an ethical dimension. In the context of these two fields, decisions are taken collectively. A nurse’s individual (and ethically relevant) leeway in decision-making processes is restricted to the nurse’s own style of administering care. The nurse’s decision-making often depends to a far greater degree on her ability to adapt her concept of ideal care to fit the practical realities of her work than to any conceptual framework. Discussion: An adaptive process is necessary for the nurse because she is required to incorporate the four pillars of hospice care – namely, physical, psychological, social and spiritual care – into the practice of her daily work. Conclusion: Ethically relevant decisions are often characterised by nurses adjusting their aspiration levels to the practical conditions with which they are confronted. (shrink)

This paper extends the analysis of the data from the experiment of Hey et al. : 337–353, 2017), which was designed to test Proposition 2 of the theory of Manski : 155–173, 2017). I focus on how the subjects select the aspiration levels when they choose to satisfice, and try to find a better explanation for that story than that of Manski. I assume that the subjects are expected utility agents and that they think of the payoffs as having (...) a uniform risky distribution. I consider two special cases of the EU preferences: CRRA and CARA; and I combine these with two different stories for the stochastic specification of errors: beta and normal. To give a fair comparison in finding a better explanation of the individual behaviour, I also fit the data using Manski’s optimal strategy under both stochastic specifications. I estimate using maximum log likelihood. The estimation is done subject by subject. The results tell us that assuming that the subjects are EU agents and that they see the payoffs as uniformly distributed produces a better statistical explanation than that of Manski. That is the actual aspiration levels are statistically closer to the optimal aspiration levels assuming CRRA and CARA than those of Manski’s prediction. Interestingly, the subjects in the Hey et al. experiment appear to be risk loving when selecting their aspiration levels. (shrink)