This research uses Christian Hardcore punk to show how evangelical Christian men respond to changes in gender relations that threaten hegemonic masculinity through a music subculture. Drawing on interviews and participant observations of live music shows, I find that Christian Hardcore ministry involves a hybrid mix of aggressive and loving performances of manhood. Christian Hardcore punk men fortify the idea that men and women are essentially opposites through discourse and the segregation of music spaces, even as they deviate from (...) dominant ideas of what makes a man in their strategy of openly expressing the “loving” of secular men. The mechanism for this is the interactions in concert spaces. These findings offer a conceptual move away from studying “godly” masculinity as intrinsically distinct from secular masculinity and illustrate how religious masculinities can be both hegemonic and “soft.”. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of interstate confrontation known as “hybrid war.” It attempts to consider this phenomenon in relation to pankration, the ancient Greek martial art with minimum limitations. The paper defines the philosophical and historical preconditions for hybrid war, its epistemological and ideological aspects. The author assesses the statement declaring Russia guilty of waging this type of war. Analysis of relevant sources allows us to answer the question of the theoretical prerequisites for the formation (...) of the concept of hybrid wars and to name the authors who first expressed ideas of the transformation of war into a new type of military confrontation. An attempt is made to perform a comparative analysis of various interpretations of the concept of “hybrid war.” The place of this concept among others that are related to the so-called “new wars” is considered. The author questions a negative connotation to the concept of hybrid war and the legitimacy of attempts by Western countries to attribute the conduct of this type of military action exclusively to Russia. A number of countries attempt to use Russia as a “scapegoat,” and this complex has been described by the French philosopher R. Girard. A broader interpretation of this mechanism leads to sacralization of collective aggression, but not in relation to an individual but in relation to a participant in international relations. Comprehension of the essential features of hybrid war, of its tendencies towards eliminating restrictions and regulating forms and methods of achieving military and political goals makes it possible to identify the possibilities of resisting aggressive aspirations of some countries trying to impose their scenarios for resolving international contradictions on other states. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 335-342 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis as a Hybrid of Religion and Science Quinton Deeley Keywords Freud, psychoanalysis, religion, science, evolution Introduction De Block's paper, "Freud as an Evolutionary Psychiatrist," discusses Freud's writ-ings—including a recently discovered paper on the evolution of psychopathology—to establish the Freudian "philosophy of man" that human beings are "ill to the core" (i.e., that mental illness is an (...) inevitable byproduct of human psychological processes). This perspective is then used as a basis for proposing a way in which psychoanalysis can be integrated with contemporary evolutionary psychology. However, this undertaking raises fundamental questions about psychoanalysis itself, which are addressed in this commentary. First, to what extent is a systematic theoretical unity imposed on, rather than discovered in, Freud's writings? Also, has De Block succeeded in grounding the Freudian philosophy of man in evolutionary theory, and how is this ambition affected by general questions about the scientific status and evidence for psychoanalytic conceptions? Further, if there is only limited experimental evidence for psychoanalytic concepts, how are claims to knowledge justified in psychoanalytic discourse, and how does this relate to the forms of epistemic justification found in religion and science? Finally, is psychoanalysis closer to religious or scientific discourse, and if it combines features of both, what kind of activity is it? The Exposition of the Freudian Philosophical Project The key claim of De Block's paper is that any evolutionary psychology faithful to Freud's account of human nature must be constrained by a fundamental premise: the psychological organization of human beings is such that "there is a quantitative, but not a structural, difference between psychiatric patients and so-called healthy or normal individuals" (2005, 323). From De Block's perspective, this reflects the Freudian perspective that the normal operation of psychological processes inevitably results in some degree of mental distress: "every repression produces symptoms, every defense mechanism produces more suffering than is strictly necessary" (2005, 321). As a result, "when Freud writes that there is only a gradual difference between neurotics and normals, he does not mean the normals are non-neurotic, but only that they suffer less under their neurosis" (2005, 318). This Freudian perspective is variously summarized throughout the paper; for example, "we think there is only one underlying motive of Freud's research, which [End Page 335] could also function as a cornerstone of a 'Freudian' philosophy. This underlying motive is the intuition that there is no substantial difference between the so-called normal human being and the mentally insane" (2005, 315).De Block's exposition of the Freudian account of human nature also emphasizes the doctrine of psychosexuality: "the Freudian philosophy of man presumes primarily that every human being has to react in some way of another to sexual problems" (2005, 317). One of the problems confronting any expositor of Freud is the fact that his voluminous writings show considerable development in his thought. This heterogeneity raises the question of the extent to which the coherence of Freudian theory as a systematic whole is imposed by expositors, rather than lying in the corpus itself. De Block's approach to this heterogeneity is to extract different kinds of relations between sexuality and psychopathology from Freud's writings (e.g., neurosis and the Oedipal instincts, psychosis and narcissism), and then to argue that they explain Freud's interest in less obviously sexual aspects of mind, behavior, and society. As De Block comments after his exegesis of different connections between sexuality and psychopathology: but probably, he [Freud] only meant that in neurosis, people wrestle first and foremost with love, in perversion with sex and violence, and in psychosis with identity and issues related to identity, such as death and "the meaning of life." At least, such an interpretation can explain why Freud—in some of his works—recognized the importance of problems like aggression, love, and death for the human psyche and human psychopathology...; he nevertheless refused to modify the primacy of sexuality in psychopathology. (2005, X) Whether all of Freud's explanations of psychological phenomena involve... (shrink)

In this article the author continues his philosophical research of aggressive manipulative influence on mass consciousness, which is a basic component of the "hybrid war" Russian Federation against the Ukraine. It identifies the system and components of political mythmaking during the military phase of the war. This system, according to the author, includes at least five basic mythologycal components: Russian and Russian-separatist troops, Ukrainian armed, forces of confrontation "secret patrons" and the social background in which the conflict of people (...) and "quasi-gods" occurs. This complex of interrelated myths gets the name "hybrid mythologycal war", and the parties of it are painted polar attributes - it is used as the sacralization and infernalization both individual persons and supraindividual entities. The author thinks that the introduction into the mass consciousness of citizens of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the world political community of this mythology and the substitution of its reality is a way of manipulating the mass consciousness. It also details the means of implementation of this method - the introduction of channels of mythology and numerous instrumental techniques, approved at the time by J. Goebbels propaganda machine. The targets of manipulation are allocated, which probably sets the aggressor within the same paradigm - strongly facilitate military phase undeclared war of aggression. In addition, on the basis of existing reality material scientists previously studied the manipulation of the mass consciousness, analyzed the characteristic changes transformed the picture of mental processes and states. (shrink)

The cry that advanced machines will come to dominate human beings resounds from the time of the Luddites up to the current consternation by the chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy. My theme is a twist on this fear: self-deselection, the possibility that humans will voluntarily combine their own bodies with technological additions to the point where it could reasonably be said that our species has been replaced by another kind of entity, a hybrid of human and radical (...) enhancement, whether that enhancement stems from genetic alteration or the affixing of robotic parts. The paper discusses why this danger exists, focusing mainly on perilous psychological and cultural tendencies (though the amazing rate of technological change and its likely course are discussed). It then proceeds with arguments as to why such deselection is a kind of suicide and why this suicide would be a bad thing in the context of early twenty-first- century society. In the last section, ecofeminist theory is employed to generate a therapeutic ethic of social and political relationship that contrasts with a patriarchal model of dominative control through aggressive science. (shrink)

A rather variegated palette of modern functionalities of denominations both in the world as a whole, and in Ukraine, in particular, is determined by the urgent needs of society. Along with purely traditional religious and religious organizations, such functions that are called in time in one or another community are appearing or reviving. In Ukraine, today the actualization of such functions of the Churches that are most invited in the difficult conditions of external aggression and internal internal problems are (...) being observed. Among them, almost the first place was the function of patriotic education, which prompted scholars to pay special attention to this. The urgency of studying the role of the religious-church factor in patriotic education does not require long proof in the face of the heavy resistance of Ukraine to the bulk of the "Russian world", now not only information, spiritual and cultural, but also in the form of military aggression that has gained insidious forms of undeclared "hybrid warfare" ». (shrink)

Dissociative symptoms are notorious for their enigmatic, disparate nature encompassing excessive daydreaming, memory problems, absentmindedness, and impairments and discontinuities in perceptions of the self, identity, and the environment. Recent studies (e.g., Koffel & Watson, 2009) have linked dissociative symptoms to vivid dreaming, nightmares, and objective sleep parameters (e.g., lengthening of REM sleep) for discussion, see (Van der Kloet et al., 2013). Germane to this link between dissociative symptomology and sleep, is the idea that in dissociative individuals, the waking state as (...) compared to REM sleep may be marked by an increase in “fluid” and hyperassociative thinking. Against this background, we invited contributions in the following areas: 1) a progressive and enduring de-differentation of wake and dream states of consciousness eventually results in schizophrenia (Llewellyn, 2011); a lesser degree of de-differentiation may have implications for dissociative symptoms; 2) sleep disturbances are not only linked to dissociation but to memory fragmentation also, further fuelling both dissociation and other manifestations of psychopathology; 3) sleep, memory and psychopathologies have complex interlinkages. Our summary below, relates the contributions to our topic to these areas. The contributing articles also give a comprehensive overview on current directions and challenges in these research fields.First, Soffer-Dudek elucidates why heightened sleep experiences (vivid dreams, nightmares, hypnagogic hallucinations) might be particularly associated with psychopathology. She explains how various psychopathologies may represent de-differentiation of the waking and dreaming states through intrusions of wake-like consciousness into sleep and dream-like cognition into wake. With regard to de-differentiation, she discusses theories of transliminality (‘thin boundaries between consciousness states’) and dissociation as potential mechanisms. Lucid dreaming is a hybrid state where wake-like cognition suffuses REM sleep/dreaming (Voss et al. 2009). Mota and colleagues compared the spontaneous occurrence of lucid dreaming in patients with psychotic symptoms (25 with schizophrenia and 20 with bipolar disorder) and 28 non-psychotic subjects. They found lucid dreaming was associated with psychosis- giving some support to the hypothesis of a link between state de-differentiation and psychopathology. In a methodological note, Ribeiro et al, having studied the prevalence of lucid dreaming using two questionnaires, show that the type of methodology used in lucid dreaming studies may have an effect upon their findings. Poerio et al state that both research and theory points to dissociation being engendered by the intrusion of dream-like mentation into waking consciousness. To extend this idea they examine the role of sleep and daydreaming as potentiating states for subsequent dissociation in depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD). They show the occurrence and content of daydreams may act as potentiating states for heightened, in the moment, dissociation. Sleep paralysis is a dissociated state where a heightened level of wake-like alertness coexists with muscle atonia. Rodrigez de Sa and Mota-Rolim take a broad interdisciplinary perspective on sleep paralysis through reviewing its occurrence in Brazilian folklore by exploring the “Pisadeira” with a sleep science approach and link this with the field of history and art.There is now substantial evidence that active memory processing continues during sleep (see, for example, Rasch and Born (2013)) and dreaming may be involved (Llewellyn, 2013). De-differentiation of the wake, sleep and dream states would disrupt this memory processing fuelling dissociation and other psychopathologies. Horton presents an overview of discontinuity of consciousness in both wake and sleep, focusing on the processes of sleep-dependent memory consolidation and fragmentation. Nakagawa et al focus specifically on working memory and the relation with sleep. With their article, they are the first to investigate differences between verbal working memory (VWM) and visuospatial working memory (VSWM) related to daytime nap duration, nap frequency, and dream content recall frequency (DCRF). They discuss sex-related differences in the effects of sleep habits on VMW and VSWM and ascribe this to differences in underlying neural correlates, and effectiveness of sleep habits in males and females. Rosales-Lagarde and colleagues related to emotional memory by designing an extended International Affective Picture System (IAPS) instrument to measure bizarreness and show some interesting age and gender disparities. Finally, several authors took a developmental approach through focusing on sleep, memory and psychopathology in adolescents. Wang and colleagues show the relation between children and adolescents’ mental health and sleep problems in a 10-year longitudinal trial, and find anxiety, depression, attention problems and aggressive behaviour during childhood to be important predictors for later sleep problems. Importantly, sleep problems are also predictive of behavioural difficulties later in life. Nader, Murkar, and Smith investigated changes in sleep in adolescents between 12 and 19 years old following procedural task training and found that contrary to earlier work, there were no changes in sleep spindle density. Interestingly, participants who successfully learned the task showed no changes in their sleep stage proportions, but participants who were not successful showed a decrease in the proportion of Stage 2 and increases in both SWS and REM sleep, which is in line with the two stage model of sleep and memory by Smith et al. (2004).The self and the world during dreaming differ. The perceived world during waking depends on making sense of external sensory input, which engenders a strong sense of external reality in which the ‘self and its inner-world’ exists. Self-organizing during waking and dreaming enables integration of the self and the world in both states. It is noteworthy, that within this research topic so many novel themes have emerged and new questions and speculations have been posed with regards to relations among unusual sleep experiences – specifically lucid dreaming -, dissociation, psychosis, and memory. It brings together a richness of research by combining fields that originally have worked in isolation from each other. (shrink)

In today's conditions, the heavy resistance of Ukrainians to Russian aggression, which is carried out, with the exception of the military, by way of information and economic methods, and now also through a non-gossip "hybrid" confrontation, it is very important to properly evaluate and play an appropriate role in this religious and religious factor. "Russian World" is no less effective weapon of the Moscow Church in the war with Ukraine than the military aid of the Russian state to (...) the separatists.. Religious communities have their potential in educating citizens - patriots of their homeland, or else. Different aspects of the problem of the role of religious-church factors in patriotic education of Ukrainians have long been in the zone of justified attention of domestic secular scholars and representatives of the Churches, among them: A. Kolodny, L. Filippovich, V. Shevchenko, P. Pavlenko, O. Sagan, C. Zdioruk, M. Cherenkov, O. Tuyeshin and others. Particular attention of the RCC and Protestant Churches in this regard was given by P. L. Yarotsky. (shrink)

The first part of this evolutionary study of the persistence of the autocratic/oligarchic variety of personal rule in Russia provides a historical overview, followed by two theories explaining why it persisted, interrupted by brief “times of troubles,” for over 500 years. Edward Keenan, on the one hand, hypothesizes successful long-term adaptation to a demanding environment. Richard Hellie, on the other hand, develops a theory of service-class revolutions and a cyclical pattern based on the methods of Russian elites for overcoming relative (...) backwardness. Neither theory takes a neo-Darwinian approach.The second part examines neo-Darwinian evolutionary approaches. In the cosmic perspective of Big History, the human species in its relatively brief existence has had an accelerating impact on other species and the earth’s environment. Biologists modeling complex systems come to a similar conclusion. Agent-driven history, as modeled by demographer Noël Bonneuil, raises questions about the adequacy of the historian’s traditional single-trajectory narrative approach to “the time of human history” and also critiques the biases built into the mathematical models of many evolutionary thinkers. An evolutionary approach to human history does not restrict itself to organic replication, but takes into account populations of evolving human skills and also group projects that act as evolutionary forces as well as units of selection, and outlive generations of organic populations.The third part applies this approach to the Russian tradition of state power by showing how group projects operate as evolutionary forces in a variety of modern power systems. The “parable of the tribes” avers that the aggressive agent in any given power system—ideological, economic, social, military, or political—dictates the dynamics of the system. The “braided stream” approach shows, however sketchily here, how agent-driven modern power systems interact, coevolve, and produce hybrid forms. The Russian tradition is highlighted in this evolutionary context. (shrink)

The article defines the nature of the Russian war against Ukraine in the context of social and state transformations of the 20th — 21st centuries. It is emphasized that this is a war of different worlds, mentalities, worldviews, ways of life, values, etc., which has been going on for many centuries in various forms (direct and mediated, open and veiled, hot and cold). The role of the religious-legal factor in the Russian war against Ukraine at various stages of Ukrainian state (...) formation (periods of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Soviet, modern) is revealed. It is emphasized that it was during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic that the legal basis for the organization of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church, confessional differentiation and the establishment of freedom of conscience and interconfessional tolerance in Ukrainian society was created. Emphasized attention is paid to the fact that in the Soviet period, the Russian war against Ukraine continued in a new, veiled, hidden, invisible (at first glance) form with the active use of the religious factor. The results of this period have been determined, namely: rampant militant/ scientific atheism, radical extermination, Russification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, etc. Special attention is paid to the Soviet secular/political religion (Marxism-Leninism) as a key basis for the implementation of an aggressive policy regarding the historical memory and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people and a manipulative tool for the destruction of Ukrainian history, culture, worldview, nation, state and law in the information, hybrid, total, full-scale and other Russia’s wars against Ukraine. The article substantiates that improved legislation with an effective legal mechanism for its implementation, a strong civil society with developed institutions, including the institution of religion (church), adequate guarantees of religious rights and freedoms are important factors in ensuring state, national, religious security and victory of Ukraine (at the current stage) in the war waged against it by the Russian Federation. (shrink)

The author continues the philosophical study of manipulative influence on the mass consciousness, which is the basic component of the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The article is devoted to the identification of miscalculations that have been admitted by technologists of this manipulative effect. It was revealed that the mistakes amount to unqualified approach in forming the image of the key person of mythology. It was established that classics of cultural studies, religious studies and philosophy studied in (...) detail the stages of formation of the person of a cultural hero in the epic of different peoples. These stages, in general similar, are traced to all ethnic groups and provide a compulsory and invariable algorithm for transforming an ordinary person and turning it into a Hero. Also, the classics of science insist that mythology is the basis of any cultural activity of a modern human being - it is its background. In addition, they point to the danger of unskilled myth-making. The author of the article has established that Russian technologies of manipulation by consciousness have neglected all the advice of scientists and ignored the basic stages of the formation of the Hero in political myth-making. Therefore, the author of the article makes a number of conclusions about the possible imminent collapse of the negativism of the people of Russia in relation to its unsuccessfully mythologized President - with all the resulting political consequences. Also, the article reveals other miscalculations of manipulators, which concern mistaken assessments of the Ukrainian mentality and technical miscalculations. (shrink)

Aggressive behavior is instinctively driven behavior that helps animals to survive and reproduce and is closely related to multiple behavioral and physiological processes. The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is an evolutionarily conserved midbrain structure that regulates aggressive behavior by integrating diverse brain inputs. The DRN consists predominantly of serotonergic (5‐HT:5‐hydroxytryptamine) neurons and decreased 5‐HT activity was classically thought to increase aggression. However, recent studies challenge this 5‐HT deficiency model, revealing a more complex role for the DRN 5‐HT system in (...) aggression. Furthermore, emerging evidence has shown that non‐5‐HT populations in the DRN and specific neural circuits contribute to the escalation of aggressive behavior. This review argues that the DRN serves as a multifaceted modulator of aggression, acting not only via 5‐HT but also via other neurotransmitters and neural pathways, as well as different subsets of 5‐HT neurons. In addition, we discuss the contribution of DRN neurons in the behavioral and physiological aspects implicated in aggressive behavior, such as arousal, reward, and impulsivity, to further our understanding of DRN‐mediated aggression modulation. (shrink)

This book explores the role of aggression in primate social systems and its implications for human behavior.

Male aggression against females in primates, including humans, often functions to control female sexuality to the male’s reproductive advantage. A comparative, evolutionary perspective is used to generate several hypotheses to help to explain cross-cultural variation in the frequency of male aggression against women. Variables considered include protection of women by kin, male-male alliances and male strategies for guarding mates and obtaining adulterous matings, and male resource control. The relationships between male aggression against women and gender ideologies, male (...) domination of women, and female sexuality are also considered. (shrink)

Sex differences in physical and indirect aggression have been found in many societies but, to our knowledge, have not been studied in a population of hunter-gatherers. Among Aka foragers of the Central African Republic we tested whether males physically aggressed more than females, and whether females indirectly aggressed more than males, as has been seen in other societies. We also tested predictions of an evolutionary theory of physical strength, anger, and physical aggression. We found a large male bias (...) in physical aggression. Controlling for anger, we found an adult female bias in indirect aggression. Physical strength predicted anger, which predicted hitting, although results were sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of traditional healers, who were physically and emotionally distinct from other Aka. With some important caveats, our results generally support the predicted sex differences in physical aggression and indirect aggression, and the predicted relationships among anger, strength, and aggression. (shrink)

Managing aggression in mental health hospitals is an important and challenging task for clinical nursing staff. A majority of studies focus on the perspective of clinicians, and research mainly depicts aggression by referring to patient-related factors. This qualitative study investigates how aggression is communicated in forensic mental health nursing records. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the discursive practices used by forensic mental health nursing staff when they record observed aggressive incidents. Textual accounts (...) were extracted from the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R), and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis was used to identify short narrative entries depicting patients and staffs in typical ways. The narratives contained descriptions of complex interactions between patient and staff that were linked to specific circumstances surrounding the patient. These antecedents, combined with the aggression incident itself, created stereotyping representations of forensic psychiatric patients as deviant, unpredictable and dangerous. Patient and staff identities were continually (re)produced by an automatic response from the staff that was solely focused on the patient’s behavior. Such response might impede implementation of new strategies for managing aggression. (shrink)

Theological anthropology can be enriched by paying attention to insights into human behavior taken from sociobiology. The capacity for reflective self‐consciousness enables the human animal to respond to basic instincts and drives in unprecedented ways. Humans follow gender‐specific sexual strategies, display aggressive behavior, and respond to physical pain as do other animals. Yet human beings have the intellectual ability to express these tendencies uniquely in either destructive or constructive ways. The human being, unlike any other animal, must reckon with sexual (...) ethics, the problem of violence, and the meaning of suffering. In developing the basic concepts of theological anthropology—good creation, natural evil, fall, sin, and image of God—sociobiological research can lead to more adequate understanding of the human. (shrink)

Aggressive techniques within casual sex encounters, such as taking sexual liberties without permission or ignoring rejection, can, perhaps unintentionally, complicate consent. Passive recipients may acquiesce out of fear, which aggressors may not realize. Some philosophers argue that social norms are sufficiently well known to make this misunderstanding unlikely. However, the chance of aggression leading to non-consensual sex, even if not great, is high enough that aggressors should work diligently to avoid this potentially grave result. I consider how this problem (...) plays out in the common mating ritual of hooking up. I argue that aggressive hook ups can only be permissible if they are modeled on BDSM encounters: the participants must obtain prior consent and prepare safe words for voiding that consent during the hook up. While this solution removes the spontaneity of aggressive sex, I argue that spontaneously aggressive hook ups with strangers cannot be permissible. (shrink)

Phenotypic plasticity is a crucial feature of aggressive cancer, providing the means for cancer progression. Stochastic changes in tumor cell transcriptional programs increase the chances of survival under any condition. I hypothesize that unstable chromatin permits stochastic transitions between transcriptional programs in aggressive cancers and supports non‐genetic heterogeneity of tumor cells as a basis for their adaptability. I present a mechanistic model for unstable chromatin which includes destabilized nucleosomes, mobile chromatin fibers and random enhancer‐promoter contacts, resulting in stochastic transcription. I (...) suggest potential markers for “unsettled” chromatin in tumors associated with poor prognosis. Although many of the characteristics of unstable chromatin have been described, they were mostly used to explain changes in the transcription of individual genes. I discuss approaches to evaluate the role of unstable chromatin in non‐genetic tumor cell heterogeneity and suggest using the degree of chromatin instability and transcriptional noise in tumor cells to predict cancer aggressiveness. (shrink)

Worldwide there are substantial differences within and between countries in aggression and violence. Although there are various exceptions, a general rule is that aggression and violence increase as one moves closer to the equator, which suggests the important role of climate differences. While this pattern is robust, theoretical explanations for these large differences in aggression and violence within countries and around the world are lacking. Most extant explanations focus on the influence of average temperature as a factor (...) that triggers aggression, or the notion that warm temperature allows for more social interaction situations in which aggression is likely to unfold. We propose a new model, CLimate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans, that helps us to understand differences within and between countries in aggression and violence in terms of differences in climate. Lower temperatures, and especially larger degrees of seasonal variation in climate, call for individuals and groups to adopt a slower life history strategy, a greater focus on the future, and a stronger focus on self-control. The CLASH model further outlines that slow life strategy, future orientation, and strong self-control are important determinants of inhibiting aggression and violence. We also discuss how CLASH differs from other recently developed models that emphasize climate differences for understanding conflict. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and societal importance of climate in shaping individual and societal differences in aggression and violence. (shrink)

In his paper, “Is There an ‘Anomalous’ Section of the Laffer Curve?”, Walter Block describes some situations in which it appears that a libertarian should violate the non-aggression principle. To rectify this, Block proposes a different perspective on libertarianism which he calls punishment theory. This paper argues that no new theory is needed, as the non-aggression principle can be used to resolve the apparent conundrums.

We agree that sexual selection is a more comprehensive explanation for sex differences in direct aggression than social role theory, which is an unparsimonious and vestigial remnant of human exceptionalism. Nevertheless, Archer misses several opportunities to put the theoretical predictions made by himself and by others into direct competition in a way that would further the interests of strong inference.

Recent discussions about the affective dimension of democracy have said too little about the way in which disempowered citizens can sustain their struggles in the face of adversity. This article develops a theory about democratic resilience of disempowered citizens by turning to the theory of aggression and play of Donald Winnicott. Drawing on Winnicott, I argue that resilience depends on a capacity to mourn, a capacity for dissent, and a capacity to invent new techniques for interaction. Yet, we need (...) also think beyond Winnicott and investigate how these capacities are radically transformed by democratic struggles. This allows us to see that democratic struggles can open up new possibilities for facing adversity but that they can also undermine resilience by developing rigid attachments to strategies of resilience. I conclude with a preliminary discussion of how democratic struggles might undo a tendency to rigidity. (shrink)

In study 1, the time when aggressive fighting involving 8 and 11 year‐old children took place was examined by means of direct playground observations during lunch‐time recess. There was a tendency, significant in the younger group, for there to have been more fights in the last quarter of recess. In study 2, the causes of fights, the sex of the participants, the proportion of fights that were escalated by other children joining in in a non‐conciliatory way, and the proportion in (...) which children intervened to stop the fights were investigated, again by means of direct playground observations. The most common causes of fights were disputes over some aspect of a rule‐governed game, teasing, retaliations to accidental hurt/injury, and to a lesser extent disputes over space. Most of the fights that were observed involved boys only , and only a minority involved boys and girls or just girls . Most fights were not escalated by other children and most fights did not involve attempts to stop them by other children. In study 3, interview data concerning children's views on fighting are reported. Many children expressed generally negative attitudes towards fighting, and there appeared to be several common ‘barriers’ that deterred children from participating. On the other hand, some children also articulated reasons why they sometimes felt it was necessary to fight. The significance of the results from the three studies for managing children's aggressive behaviour in schools is discussed. (shrink)

The evolutionary origins of deception and its functional role in our species is a major focus of research in the science of human origins. Several hypotheses have been proposed for its evolution, often packaged under either the Social Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes the role that the evolution of our social systems may have played in scaffolding our cognitive traits, and the Foraging Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes how changes in the human dietary niche were met with subsequent changes in cognition to (...) facilitate foraging of difficult-to-acquire foods. Despite substantive overlap, these hypotheses are often presented as competing schools of thought, and there have been few explicitly proposed theoretical links unifying the two. Utilizing cross-cultural data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), we identify numerous (n = 357) examples of the application of deception toward prey across 145 cultures. By comparing similar behaviors in nonhuman animals that utilize a hunting strategy known as aggressive mimicry, we suggest a potential pathway through which the evolution of deception may have taken place. Rather than deception evolving as a tactic for deceiving conspecifics, we suggest social applications of deception in humans could have evolved from an original context of directing these behaviors toward prey. We discuss this framework with regard to the evolution of other mental traits, including language, Theory of Mind, and empathy. (shrink)

This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all (...) obvious whether and to what extent we should expect particular "symmetries" across the orders, and so whether (as Williamson (2013) argues) “the default preference is for a uniform metaphysics, on which being is contingent at all orders or none.”. (shrink)

Hospitals are places where patients are unwell, where patients and their families may be upset, confused, frustrated, in pain, and vulnerable. The likelihood of these experiences and emotions manifesting in anger and aggressive behaviour is high. In this paper, we describe the involvement of a clinical ethics service responding to a request to discuss family aggression within a rehabilitation department in a large paediatric hospital in Australia. We suggest two key advantages of involving a clinical ethics service in discussions (...) about how to respond to family aggression. First, the process of ethics deliberation provides an opportunity for clinicians to be involved in the solution by articulating their perspectives, tolerance levels, and general concerns about the effects of family aggression towards staff. Second, supporting clinicians to articulate and identify the impact of parental aggression directly counters the disadvantages of the more blunt zero-tolerance policy response, which is necessarily imposed from the top down. (shrink)

No Aggression, Only Teasing: The Pragmatics of Teasing and Banter A bone of contention among researchers is whether the primary function of humour is the expression of aggression against the hearer or the promotion of solidarity between the interlocutors. It is commonly averred that teasing boasts a dichotomous nature, i.e. malignant and benevolent. The former coincides with the potential for criticising, mocking and ostracising the interlocutor, whereas the latter accounts for playfulness and bonding capacity.The overriding goal of the (...) paper is to expound the rapport-building function, which is here postulated to be inherent to teasing. First and foremost, I will determine the scope of interest differentiating between putdown humour and teases, which may assume the form of retorts and develop into multi-turn teases, i.e. banter. Subtypes of teasing will be discussed with a view to proving that it is inherently devoid of genuine aggressiveness. The underlying premise is that teases, even if ostensibly aggressive, i.e. face-threatening, are geared towards solidarity, in conformity with the framework of politeness, including mock impoliteness, holding between intimates. Also, teases fulfil a few subordinate functions such as defunctionalisation or mitigation of face-threatening messages they may carry. (shrink)

In this volume, the third in his trilogy on the philosophical and legal aspects of war and conflict, Larry May locates a normative grounding for the crime of aggression - the only one of the three crimes charged at Nuremberg that is not currently being prosecuted - that is similar to that for crimes against humanity and war crimes. He considers cases from the Nuremberg trials, philosophical debates in the Just War tradition, and more recent debates about the International (...) Criminal Court, as well as the hard cases of humanitarian intervention and terrorist aggression. His thesis refutes the traditional understanding of aggression. At Nuremberg, crimes against humanity charges were only pursued if the defendant also engaged in the crime of aggression. May argues for a reversal of this position, contending that aggression charges should be pursued only if the defendant's acts involve serious human rights violations. (shrink)

This is the conundrum that gives rise to the issue of tax avoidance: Although governments always seem to lack sufficient funds to support the needs of society, tax codes are often written that offer “a way out” of paying taxes for some but not all constituents. The ways out are referred to as loopholes that allow taxpayers to avoid taxes. This paper first defines the basic terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion and then offers an ethical review of the (...) morality of aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance is then addressed in relationship a corporate entity’s tone at the top. The conclusion is drawn that use of the letter of the law to avoid payment of taxes sorely needed by governments for the good faith provision of public goods and services is ethically unacceptable. Several suggestions for change are provided, including a new financial statement disclosure and the possibility of a published corporate ethics report. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The word, aggression, refers in general usage to unjustified attack, and any serious writer who uses it extensively in some figurative or newly‐coined technical sense should leave his meaning in no doubt. Unfortunately some ethological writers fail to do this and deceive themselves into the bargain. They somewhat naively claim to find aggression built into the fundamental nature of animals, a kind of instinct which cannot be resisted, indeed which must figure in their social cohesion. If the (...) word really retains the moral connotation which I have indicated, then much animal biology is vitiated. Not only are animals misjudged, but, since conclusions are then applied to our human selves, we too are misjudged and recommended to adopt false moral principles. It is possible that ensuing armchair pseudo‐cures may be responsible for a real increase in human violence. (shrink)

Some people report that they argue for play. We question whether and how often such arguments are mutually entertaining for both participants. Play is a frame for arguing, and the framing may not always be successful in laminating the eristic nature of interpersonal argumentation. Previous research and theory suggest that playfulness may be associated with aggression. Respondents supplied self - report data on their arguing behaviors and orientations. We found support for the hypothesis that self - reported playfulness and (...) aggression are directly associated. We found less evidence for our hypothesized inverse association between self - reported playfulness and indices of cooperation and avoidance. Self - reports of playfulness are not significantly associated with expert coders ’ ratings of either playfulness or aggressiveness. The claim that an argument is playful should be met with skepticism, although playful arguments are possible. (shrink)

In twelve new essays, contributors explore hybrid theories in metaethics and other normative domains.

What makes it the case that a given experience is pleasurable? According to the felt-quality theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because of the way that it feels—its “qualitative character” or “felt-quality”. According to the attitudinal theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because the experiencer takes certain attitudes towards it. These two theories of pleasure are typically framed as rivals, but it could be that they are both partly right. It could be that pleasure is partly a matter of felt-quality, (...) and partly a matter of attitudes. It could be that a hybrid theory is true. In this paper, I aim to advance the cause of hybrid theories of pleasure. I do this in two ways. I begin by examining the challenges which motivate the search for a hybrid theory. I call these the HONEST challenges: Heterogeneity, Oppositeness, Normativity, Euthyphro, Separateness, and Togetherness. The first three challenges—HON—are challenges for the felt-quality theory. The second three challenges—EST—are challenges for the attitudinal theory. Having established the HONEST challenges, I then describe and motivate a particular cluster of hybrid theories which I will call dispositional hybrid theories. According to these theories, pleasurable experiences are all and only those experiences which dispose us to desire them in virtue of feeling the way that they do. The dispositional theories deliver on the promise of hybrid theories: because they appeal to both felt-qualities and attitudes, they have the resources to avoid most, if not all, of the HONEST challenges. (shrink)

Background: Fear and aggression are often reported among professionals working in locked psychiatric wards and also among the patients in the same wards. Such situations often lead to coercive intervention. In order to prevent coercion, we need to understand what happens in dangerous situations and how patients and professionals interpret them. Research questions: What happens when dangerous situations occur in a ward? How do professionals and patients interpret these situations and what is ethically at stake? Research design: Participant observation (...) and interviews. Participants: A total of 12 patients and 22 professionals participated. Ethical considerations: This study has been accepted by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Norway. Findings: (a) Both atmosphere and material surroundings were interweaved within dangerous situations, (b) the professionals applied stereotypes when interpreting dangerous situations and (c) the professionals and the patients had different interpretations of what triggered dangerous situations. Discussion: The discussion centres on how care ethics and a dialogical practice might contribute towards combating difficult situations and the ways in which change is an ongoing ethical process of becoming. Conclusion: The ethics of care and a dialogical approach are suggested as ethical frameworks for preventing fear, danger and aggression in psychiatric wards. Both frameworks can be understood as patient-driven, including the relational and contextual perspectives. It means a shift from professionally driven processes to patient-driven dialogue. (shrink)

Managers of multinational companies often favour an aggressive tax avoidance strategy that pushes the legal limits onto the advantage of shareholders and the disadvantage of the spirit of democratically legitimized tax laws. The public and media debate whether such aggressive behaviour is immoral. Aggressive tax avoidance is a subset of the aggressive legal interpretations potentially observable in all fields which places little weight on the will of a democratically legitimized legislation. A thorough ethical analysis based on the deontological approach of (...) Kant demonstrates that aggressive tax avoidance as a special case of operating on the edge of legal boundaries is potentially immoral. Applying the Kantian “contradiction of conception or will” test shows that this maxim might not be conceived or willed as a general law of nature. If all natural or legal persons aggressively interpret laws on all subjects and in every imaginable situation, then central principles of the system of law we all rely upon would be severely compromised. Therefore, aggressive tax avoidance by managers of multinational companies may violate the managers’ moral duty to obey not only the letter but also the intention or spirit of the law. The validity of the argumentation depends critically on the formulation and interpretation of the respective maxims and on assumptions about the legal system. Preserving central elements of Kantian philosophy, the article demonstrates the complexity of a philosophical argumentation which tries to justify the moral intuitions that underpin the common negative evaluation of aggressive legal strategies in business. (shrink)

This paper intends to examine the development of conflictual interactions, how they might be resolved, and the socio-cultural norms involved, by adopting an analytical framework in an online gaming context. The current paper was inspired by Kádár and Haugh’s framework as it enables me to investigate both the macro and micro aspects of (im)politeness. The study’s aim is to further examine how impoliteness, language aggression and conflict are realised in two online gaming platforms, namely Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Thus, (...) I will explore discursively how these phenomena are subjective in a Tunisian Arabic setting and discuss how participants reach their subjective perception of conflict in ways that do not always correspond to the supposed intentions of the ostensible offender. The results indicate that conflict is subjective as it is evaluated in different ways by different gamers and could be a result of a conflictual intention. The findings also reveal that conflict may also be created/ escalated as a result of a non-conflictual intention. Thus, this paper contributes to understanding of conflict, how impoliteness can lead to conflict and the various aspects of impoliteness/the perception of impoliteness. (shrink)

Apparently inconsistent with the CLASH model, animal research relates predictable environments to rigid routine behaviors and aggression. However, our work on evolutionary and neural adaptations to (un)predictable environments may be able to reconcile the CLASH model with the animal research, but also suggests complexities beyond the dichotomous approach of CLASH.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is small deviations from perfect symmetry in normally bilaterally symmetrical traits. We examined the relationship between FA of five body traits (ear height, length of three digits, and ankle circumference) and self-reported scores of physical and verbal aggression in a sample of 90 boys aged 10 to 15 years. The relationships between FA and scores of aggression (particularly physical aggression) were found to be negative; in other words, the most symmetrical boys showed highest (...) class='Hi'>aggression. One trait (ankle circumference) showed the characteristics of “ideal” FA—parametric mean of zero and a normal distribution. Mean asymmetries calculated from six repeated measures of ankle FA in 30 subjects taken over a period of five months showed strong negative associations with scores of physical aggression which were independent of age, height, and weight.It is argued that soft tissue “cyclical” FA (as opposed to “fixed” bony FA) is dependent on the secretion of hormones: for example, cortisol. Causal associations between behavioral traits such as aggresion and hormones will lead to similar correlations between FA and behavior. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

In this paper we present a theoretical hybrid framework for ethical decision making, drawing upon Emmanuel Levinas’ view on ethics as “first philosophy”, as an inherent infinite responsibility for the other. The pivotal concept in this framework is an appeal to a heightened sense of personal responsibility of the moral actor to provide the ethical context within which conventional approaches to applied business ethics could be engaged. Max Weber’s method of reconciling absolutism and relativism in ethical decision making is (...) adopted to provide the synergy between personal responsibility and contextual realities, forging a coherent framework. The paper concludes by discussing ways that business could make way for the flourishing of ethics of responsibility in individuals. (shrink)

To remain financially viable and continue to accomplish their social missions, nonprofits are increasingly adopting a hybrid organizational form that combines commercial and social welfare logics. While studies recognize that individual organizations vary in how they incorporate and manage hybridity, variation at the level of the organizational form remains poorly understood. Existing studies tend to treat forms as either hybrid or not, limiting our understanding of the different ways a hybrid form may combine multiple logics and how (...) such combinations evolve over time. Analyzing 14 years of data from Canadian nonprofits seeking funding for social enterprise activities, we identify two novel dimensions along which a hybrid form may vary—the locus of integration and the scope of logics. We further find that as the commercial logic became more widespread within the nonprofit sector, variants of the hybrid form shifted from primarily emphasizing the commercial logic to more equally emphasizing both the commercial and social welfare logics and integrating the two logics in multiple ways. Drawing on these findings, we contribute a multi-dimensional conception of hybrid forms and theorize how form-level variation in hybridity can arise from organization-level cognitive challenges that actors face when combining seemingly incompatible logics. We then build on this theorizing to offer an alternative perspective on commercialization of the nonprofit sector as a contextually dependent rather than universal trend. (shrink)

It has sometimes been said that it is useless to try to prevent wars since man has an ineradicable combative instinct. The term instinct is very ambiguous in its application to humans, and it may be interesting to see what occurs amongst the insects, many of whose species show the highest development of instinctive behaviour.Many insect species are predatory, but if they depend on other distinct species, the relation is analogous to hunting or to a crude form of agriculture. Aggressive (...) behaviour to be comparable with war must concern the different members of one species. There are many laboratory experiments which illustrate the effects of competition when a population begins to exceed the capacity of its food supply. In Flour beetles, for instance, the adult beetles and the larvae eat any egg or pupae which they happen to meet in their ceaseless burrowing through the flour. There is thus a fixed population density at which eggs are eaten as fast as they are laid. In Grain weevils, the effect of crowding is to reduce the rate at which eggs are laid by the females who appear to suffer from overstimulation when crowded. Other effects, usually harmful, may be produced by the accumulation of the products of respiration or of digestion. Finally, if the food supply is too small, there will be death from starvation. If, for instance, too many blowfly eggs are added to a piece of meat, the flies produced will either be small, weak, and infertile or, if the excess has been too great, the larvae may all starve when half grown. Thus, a piece of meat which could have produced 100 normal flies may produce none at all if a tenfold excess of eggs is laid on it. (shrink)

What can the art of living after Foucault contribute to ethics in relation to the mediation of human existence by technology? To develop the relation between technical mediation and ethics, firstly the theme of technical mediation is elaborated in line with Foucault’s notion of ethical problematization. Every view of what technology does to us at the same time expresses an ethical concern about technology. The contemporary conception of technical mediation tends towards the acknowledgement of ongoing hybridization, not ultimately good or (...) bad but ambivalent, which means for us the challenge of taking care of ourselves as hybrid beings. Secondly, the work of Foucault provides elements for imagining this care for our hybrid selves, notably his notions of freedom as a practice and of the care of the self. A conclusions about technical mediation and ethics is that whereas the approaches of the delegation of morality to technology by Latour and mediated morality by Verbeek see technical mediation of behavior and moral outlook as an answer in ethics, this should rather be considered the problem that ethics is about. (shrink)