The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that (...) it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI. (shrink)

To evaluate non-acting involves more theoretical problems than to estimate actions. There is a full range of possible solutions of this question. The extreme ones are presented, on the one hand, by consequentialism that denies the difference between action and non-acting if their results are the same; and, on the other, by negative utilitarianism, that is based on the literal interpretation of the rule “Do not do the evil” that says nothing about non-acting. There is, of course, intermediary (...) proposition held by moderated versions of absolutistic ethics and utilitarianism which, both, assert the responsibility for non-acting but differentiate it from the responsibility for actions. (shrink)

Gregor Moder’s Hegel and Spinoza: Substance and Negativity is a lively entry into current debates concerning Hegel, Spinoza, and their relation. Hegel and Spinoza are two of the most influential philosophers of the modern era, and the traditions of thought they inaugurated have been in continuous dialogue and conflict ever since Hegel first criticized Spinoza. Notably, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German Idealists aimed to overcome the determinism of Spinoza’s system by securing a place for the freedom of the subject within it, (...) and twentieth-century French materialists such as Althusser and Deleuze rallied behind Spinoza as the ultimate champion of anti-Hegelian materialism. This conflict, or mutual rejection, lives on today in recent discussions about materialism. Contemporary thinkers either make a Hegelian case for the productiveness of concepts of the negative, nothingness, and death, or in a way that is inspired by Spinoza they abolish the concepts of the subject and negation and argue for pure affirmation and the vitalistic production of differences. Hegel and Spinoza traces the historical roots of these alternatives and shows how contemporary discussions between Heideggerians and Althusserians, Lacanians and Deleuzians are a variation of the disagreement between Hegel and Spinoza. Throughout, Moder persuasively demonstrates that the best way to read Hegel and Spinoza is not in opposition or contrast but together: as Hegel and Spinoza. (shrink)

A layered approach to the evaluation of action alternatives with continuous time for decision making under the moral doctrine of Negative Utilitarianism is presented and briefly discussed from a philosophical perspective.

Through an original and extraordinarily fruitful reading of the Hegelian conception of negativity, Catherine Malabou developed the concept of plasticity which she keeps working on as one of her cardinal concepts even to this day. Engaging in the problematic of unity in Hegel, the paper takes on the task of trying to answer the question whether plasticity is one or are there several plasticities. The author argues that one must be careful not to reduce the inherent multiple of plasticity to (...) a single plasticity which becomes plasticity par excellence: the plasticity of plastic explosion, of an abrupt and absolute break, to be distinguished from a creative or productive plasticity of habit. Malabou claimed that Hegel was - contrary to what Deleuz read in him - a philosopher of conceptual multitude as a multitude which cannot be reduced to only one image, the image of unity. If this is true, then the concept of plasticity itself with which she grasped the essence of Hegel?s dialectics, should be understood at least as a?unity in conflict?, if not as an inorganic, inhomogeneous, composed unity - and perhaps even as a unity of the pack. nema. (shrink)

The executive hypothesis of self-regulation places cognitive information processing at the center of self-regulatory success/failure. While the hypothesis is well supported by cross-sectional studies, no study has tested its primary prediction, that temporary lapses in executive control underlie moments of self-regulatory failure. Here, we conducted a naturalistic experiment investigating whether short-term variation in executive control is associated with momentary self-regulatory outcomes, indicated by negative affect reactivity to everyday stressors. We assessed working memory capacity (WMC) through ultra-brief, ambulatory assessments on (...) smart phones five times per day in a 7-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study involving college-aged adults. We found that participants exhibited more negative affect reactivity to stressor exposures during moments when they exhibited lower than usual WMC. Contrary to previous findings, we found no between-person association between WMC and average stress reactivity. We interpret these findings as reflecting the role of executive control in determining one’s effective capacity to self-regulate. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe negativity bias is the tendency for individuals to give greater weight, and often exhibit more rapid and extreme responses, to negative than positive information. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott illusory memory paradigm, the current study sought to examine how the negativity bias might affect both correct recognition for negative and positive words and false recognition for associated critical lures, as well as how trait neuroticism might moderate these effects. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words composed of (...) semantic associates of an unpresented word. Half of the lists were comprised of positive words and half were comprised of negative words. As expected, individuals remembered negative list words better than positive list words, consistent with a negativity bias in correct recognition. When tested immediately, individuals also exhibited greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures. When tested after a 24-hr delay... (shrink)

This paper argues that the Repugnant Conclusion which the Mere Addition Paradox generates is not the same as the one which a sum-aggregative view like impersonal total utilitarianism leads to, but a slightly more moderate version of it. Given a spectrum of outcomes {A, B, C, …, X, Y, Z} such that in each of them there is a population that is twice as large as the previous one and has a level of wellbeing that is just barely (...) lower than the previous one, the Mere Addition Paradox implies that while almost all the outcomes of the spectrum are better than A, the last ones, such as Y and Z, will not, lest we accept that adding lives at a negative level is positive or neutral. This affects the way the Mere Addition Paradox should be presented. (shrink)

There has been growing scholarly interest in understanding individual-level antecedents of counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB). While researchers have found a positive relationship between individuals’ negative affect and engagement in CWB, to date, our understanding of the factors which may affect this relationship is limited. In this study, we investigate the moderating roles of moral disengagement and gender in this relationship. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that individuals with a greater tendency to experience negative emotions were more likely (...) to engage in CWB when they had a higher propensity to morally disengage. Moreover, we found that this interacting relationship varied across men and women. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and offer avenues for future research. (shrink)

ObjectivesPrevious studies on negative workplace gossip have neglected the role of gossip targets of supervisors. The purpose of this paper is to deepen our understanding of how subordinates’ negative workplace gossip affects supervisors’ work-related behaviors. Drawing upon conservation of resource theory, the authors propose that subordinates’ negative gossip leads to supervisor emotional exhaustion. In turn, such emotional exhaustion provokes supervisors to exhibit undermining toward their subordinates. Additionally, the authors propose that a trait factor, namely, supervisor mindfulness, mitigates (...) the relationship between such negative workplace gossip and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion.MethodData were collected from employees and their immediate supervisors in 35 organizations located in Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces in China. The data were obtained at three time points, each time interval was 2 weeks, and finally, 362 valid data points were obtained.ResultsThe following findings were obtained: perceived subordinates’ negative gossip has a significant positive effect on supervisor undermining; supervisor emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining; and supervisor mindfulness moderates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor emotional exhaustion and moderates the mediating effect of supervisor emotional exhaustion on the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining.ConclusionUsing multisource data and a moderated mediation model, we found that subordinates’ negative workplace gossip predicts supervisor undermining through supervisor emotional exhaustion. We also discovered that supervisor mindfulness can buffer the positive relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative workplace gossip and supervisor undermining. These findings have important implications for the literature on negative gossip in the workforce, especially the impact of subordinates’ negative workplace gossip on supervisors’ responses. (shrink)

For many philosophers working in the area of Population Ethics, it seems that either they have to confront the Repugnant Conclusion , or they have to confront the Non-Identity Problem . To them it seems there is no escape, they either have to face one problem or the other. However, there is a way around this, allowing us to escape the Repugnant Conclusion, by using what I will call Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism – which though similar to anti-frustrationism, (...) has some important differences in practice. Current “positive” forms of utilitarianism have struggled to deal with the Repugnant Conclusion, as their theory actually entails this conclusion; however, it seems that a form of Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism easily escapes this dilemma. (shrink)

Healthcare workers’ voice is of importance in decreasing medical accidents and improving the efficacy of hospital units. To investigate the impact and the underlying mechanisms of supervisors’ negative mood on healthcare workers’ voice behavior, based on the mood contagion perspective, we designed a cross-sectional study, with 299 healthcare workers from mainland China completed the questionnaires. The results indicated supervisors’ negative mood was positively related to healthcare workers’ negative mood, which further led to less constructive voice and more (...) defensive voice. Moreover, the healthcare worker’s emotional intelligence aspect of self-emotion appraisal moderated this relationship, but not others-emotion appraisal. We believe healthcare workers’ supervisors should pay attention to their negative mood expression and regulation. In the hope of reducing being influenced by supervisors’ negative mood, training about noticing and recognizing their own emotions are needed for healthcare workers. (shrink)

Abstract:According to Shelly Kagan, “ordinary” or “moderate” moralists must establish the existence of “options.” Kagan considers a “negative” and a “positive” argument, which he regards as the most promising means by which moral moderates might establish their position. He offers objections to both, and he concludes that the moderate position is indefensible. I argue that Kagan fails in his attempt to discredit the negative argument. I also argue that the positive argument is so implausible that Kagan's (...) elaborate criticism of it is unnecessary. The positive argument is interesting nevertheless, because of why it cannot serve the moderate's purposes. (shrink)

In February 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 appeared and spread rapidly in Italy. With the health emergency and social isolation, parents started spending more time with their children, and they might have experienced greater distress. Attachment style is considered as an effective emotion regulation strategy in the parent–child relationship. However, few empirical studies have addressed this issue. Based on attachment theory, this study aimed to find parental attachment style as a candidate to moderate the relation between parents’ negative (...) emotions and their perceptions of their children’s negative emotions related to COVID-19. Parents of 838 Italian children and adolescents aged 3 to 18 years participated in an online survey. Results showed that parents with a fearful attachment style had significantly higher negative emotions when facing COVID-19 than those with other attachment styles. Moreover, parents with a dismissing attachment style perceived fewer negative emotions in their children than parents with fearful and preoccupied styles. At last, higher parents’ negative emotions were associated with greater perception of children’s negative emotions only in parents classified as secure and fearful. These findings suggest that parents with dismissing and fearful attachment styles and their children may be at higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic and they should be given long-term attention. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global crisis that particularly hit employment globally. Due to the economic crisis, many small businesses attempted to minimise their expenses by either closing or downsizing. During such organisational situations, the employees face negative workplace attitudes that lead to knowledge hiding and affect team performance. This study examines negative attitudes and their effect on team performance. Further, this study examines the mediating effect of knowledge hiding and moderating the role of servant leadership. Through (...) a multi-time data collection approach, the authors obtained 363 responses from the education sector in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. PROCESS Hayes model 1 and 4 were used for mediation and moderation analysis. Results show that job insecurity, cynicism, and role stress are significant forces behind knowledge-hiding behaviour. Furthermore, the knowledge hiding behaviour adversely affects task performance. Servant leadership shows a buffering effect on knowledge hiding behaviour caused by negative workplace attitudes. This is one of the first studies in the South Asian environment to examine the association between employees’ negative attitudes and task performance using knowledge hiding as a mediator and servant leadership as a moderator in the COVID-19 scenario. Lastly, the paper concludes with a consideration of its theoretical, practical implication and future direction. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study used a moderated mediation model to test the mediating effect of anxiety on the relationship between negative perfectionism and sleep quality and the moderating effect of COVID-19 epidemic risk perception during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chinese international students.Materials and methodsA sample of 239 Chinese international students from the south of China, was surveyed with the Negative and Positive Perfectionism Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the General Anxiety Disorder Scale, and the COVID-19 Epidemic Risk Perception Inventory. (...) Version 23.0 of SPSS and version 3.4 of PROCESS were used to perform the correlation analyses, mediation analysis, and moderated mediation analysis.Results Negative perfectionism was significantly correlated with anxiety and poor sleep quality. Anxiety was significantly correlated with poor sleep quality. The mediating effect test showed that anxiety had a mediating effect between negative perfectionism and poor sleep quality. Epidemic risk perception moderated the mediating effect of anxiety between negative perfectionism and poor sleep quality.ConclusionNegative perfectionism affected sleep quality indirectly through anxiety. In particular, COVID-19 epidemic risk perception moderated the relationship between anxiety and sleep quality, such that the association was stronger when the COVID-19 epidemic risk perception was high. These results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the negative link between negative perfectionism and poor sleep quality. (shrink)

Current research has documented how cases of irresponsible corporate behavior generate negative reactions from consumers and other stakeholders. Existing research, however, has not examined empirically whether the characteristics of the victims of corporate malfeasance contribute to shaping individual reactions. This study examines, through four experimental surveys, the role played by the national identity of the people affected on consumers’ intentions to spread negative word of mouth. It is shown that national identity influences individual reactions indirectly; mediated by perceived (...) similarity and sympathy. Consumers perceive foreign victims as different from the self and this reduces the sympathy experienced towards them. Sympathy is an emotion that shapes consumer reactions and regulates WOM. The study identifies two moderating processes of this effect. Individuals who score high on collective narcissism are most likely to be strongly biased against foreign victims. In-group bias is also moderated by the perceived severity of the crisis. When a case is perceived as very serious, perceived similarity plays a less important role in generating sympathy because consumers focus on the perceived suffering of the victims. Hence, in-group bias is stronger in cases perceived as having minor consequences. The paper contributes to the literature on corporate social irresponsibility and offers implications for both scholars and managers. (shrink)

The growing interest in Africa as well as concerns about negative deviant behaviors and ethnic structures necessitates examination of the effect of ethnic expectations on behavior of employees. In this study we leverage insight from ethnos oblige theory to propose that centralization of ethnic norms moderates the relationship between benevolence expectations and negative deviant behavior. Using a cross-sectional design and data from two countries as well as moderation and cross-cultural analytic techniques, we find support for three-way interactions where (...) the relationship between benevolence and negative deviant behavior is moderated by centralization and culture. We discuss the implications of the findings which support the dynamic perspective of management in Africa. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the relationship between workplace negative gossip, as perceived by the targets, and proactive behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the target’s emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of the target’s traditionality. Our results from dyadic data on 234 supervisor–subordinate relationships in China revealed that workplace negative gossip was negatively related to proactive behavior; emotional exhaustion mediated this relationship; and traditionality strengthened both the relationship between workplace negative gossip and emotional exhaustion (...) and the indirect effect of workplace negative gossip on proactive behavior via emotional exhaustion. Our findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for the research on mistreatment and proactive behavior. (shrink)

This research explores the harmful effects of negative workplace gossip (NWG) on targets and organizations, including its impacts on helping behavior and knowledge hiding. The mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of need for affiliation are also examined. The study, based on conservation of resources theory, collected data from 526 employees in the hospitality industry in China, using a three-wave survey design. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The empirical results showed that (...) NWG was a strong predictor of reduced helping behavior and increased knowledge hiding; and that guanxi closeness mediated both the negative relationship between NWG and helping behavior, and the positive relationship between NWG and knowledge hiding. Additionally, need for affiliation was shown to act as a moderator between NWG and guanxi closeness: high need for affiliation amplified the negative impact of NWG on guanxi closeness, and then further affected employees’ helping behavior and knowledge hiding. This study therefore offers an important new perspective for interpreting the detrimental effects of negative gossip in organizations, providing not just theoretical advances but practical ways in which managers can proactively reduce these impacts. (shrink)

Traditionally, most of the research on occupational burnout has focused on organizational stressors, such as workload and time pressure, and has overlooked the emotional nature of customer service work and its effect on burnout. This study was designed to examine the effects of individuals’ affective traits and affective states on burnout. The main hypothesis of this study was that emotional intelligence acts as a moderator in the relationship between negative emotions felt by employees during their interactions with clients and (...) emotional exhaustion. A total of 137 service sector employees rated the extent to which they felt four positive emotions and four negative emotions while interacting with clients. The results indicated that negative affectivity was significantly associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion, whereas high positive affectivity showed the reverse pattern. It was also observed that employees who declared greater intensity of negative emotions reported more symptoms of emotional exhaustion. However, as predicted, this effect was observed only among employees who were low in the trait of emotional intelligence. Negative emotions and emotional exhaustion were unrelated among employees who were high in trait emotional intelligence. (shrink)

The present study explored the role of emotion regulation and emotion lability/negativity as a moderator in the relation between child social avoidance and social adjustment in Chinese culture. Participants were N = 194 children recruited from nine classrooms in two public kindergartens in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. Multi-source assessments were employed with mothers rating children’s social avoidance and teachers rating children’s emotion regulation, emotion lability/negativity and social adjustment outcomes. The results indicated that the relations between social avoidance and social (...) adjustment difficulties were more negative among children lower in emotion regulation, but not significant for children with higher emotion regulation. In contrast, the relations between social avoidance and social adjustment difficulties were more positive among children higher in emotion lability/negativity, but not significant for children with lower emotion lability/negativity. This study informs us about how emotion regulation and emotion lability/negativity are jointly associated with socially avoidant children’s development. As well, the findings highlight the importance of considering the meaning and implication of social avoidance in Chinese culture. (shrink)

BackgroundMany discretionary foods contribute both to individual health risks and to global issues, in particular through high carbon footprints and water scarcity. Snacking is influenced by the presence of snacking cues such as food availability, observing others eating, and negative affect. However, less is known about the mechanisms underlying the effects of negative affect. This study examines whether the individual odds of consuming high-calorie snacks as a consequence to being exposed to known snacking cues were moderated by experiencing (...) higher or lower total negative affect per day or higher or lower negative affect variability per day.MethodsSecondary analysis of an ecological momentary assessment study of 60 participants over 14 days with food logs and randomly timed assessments of known snacking cues. High total daily negative affect levels and negative affect variability were examined as moderators to predict high-calorie snacking in three-level hierarchical random effects logistic regressions.ResultsConsistent with previous studies, the odds of snacking increased when food was available, when others were eating, and when participants experienced more negative affect. Associations for food availability and others eating were significantly moderated by negative affect variability such that associations between cues and high-calorie snacking were weaker on days with higher negative affect variability, but not negative affect levels.ConclusionThe relationship between cues to high-calorie snacking and snacking behavior varies with variability in negative affect, suggesting a complex relationship between affect and high-calorie snacking. Clearer conceptualizations on the relation between affect and eating are needed. (shrink)

Workplace stressors were identified to have critical impacts on employee creativity. However, little is known about how and when involuntary citizenship behavior (i.e., compulsory citizenship behavior, CCB)-induced stress might exert influence on employee creativity. To fill this void, the present study firstly develops a moderated mediation model to investigate the CCB—employee creativity association as well as the underling mechanism and contextual condition of this relationship. By integrating social cognitive theory such as self-efficacy theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, we (...) propose that CCB predicts employee creativity through the mediating role of creative self-efficacy (CSE), with the individual characteristics (i.e., personality traits) of negative affect acting as a boundary condition. Using two-wave time-lagged survey data collected from a sample of 251 front-line employees in 10 manufacturing firms in Southern China, the results show that: (a) CSE mediates the negative relationship between CCB and employee creativity; (b) negative affect moderates the relationship between CCB and CSE; (c) negative affect moderates the indirect influence of CCB on employee creativity through CSE. As the level of negative affect rises, this indirect relationship is stronger. Finally, important theoretical and managerial implications and promising avenues for future research are addressed. (shrink)

Drawing extensively on Bentham's unpublished civil and distributive law writings, classical and recent Bentham scholarship, and contemporary work in moral and political philosophy, Kelly here presents the first full-length exposition and sympathetic defense of Bentham's unique utilitarian theory of justice. Kelly shows how Bentham developed a moderate welfare-state liberal theory of justice with egalitarian leanings, the aim of which was to secure the material and political conditions of each citizen's pursuit of the good life in cooperation with each other. (...) A striking and original addition to the growing literature on Bentham's legal and political thought, this incisive study also makes a valuable contribution to contemporary political philosophy. (shrink)

We build on the emerging research that shows aversive subordinate workplace behaviors are likely related to abusive supervision in the workplace. Specifically, we develop and test a moderated-mediation model outlining the process of abusive supervision based on the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behavior. We argue that subordinate interpersonal deviance prompts supervisor negative emotions, which then leads supervisors to engage in abusive supervision. We also argue that subordinate organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is likely to play a crucial role in (...) predicting abusive supervision. We argue that interpersonal deviance is more likely to prompt abusive supervision through supervisor negative emotions when the magnitude of an employee’s engagement in OCB is weaker. Study 1, a time-lagged field study, tests and provides support for the relationships among our key variables (Hypotheses 1–3). Study 2, utilizing multisource field data (i.e., subordinate–supervisor dyads), replicates the results from Study 1 and provides support for the entire moderated-mediation model while controlling for tenure with supervisor, subordinate task performance, and subordinate conscientiousness. We find general support for our predictions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions. (shrink)

Based on the affective events theory, this paper discusses the influence of job insecurity on employees’ extra-role behavior. The mediating effect of negative emotion and the moderating effect of workplace friendship are also tested. The results of an empirical analysis, based on the data of 327 employees, show that job insecurity has a significant negative impact on employees’ extra-role behavior. Negative emotion plays a mediating role in the relationship between job insecurity and extra-role behavior. Workplace friendship moderated (...) the relationship between job insecurity and negative emotions, as well as between job insecurity and extra-role behavior. Workplace friendship also moderates the mediating effect of negative emotion on the relationship between job insecurity and extra-role behavior, that is, the higher the level of the workplace friendship is, the weaker the mediation role mentioned above will be. The research results have implications for the sustainable development of the organization. (shrink)

Cultural evolutionary theory has identified a range of cognitive biases that guide human social learning. Naturalistic and experimental studies indicate transmission biases favoring negative and positive information. To address these conflicting findings, the present study takes a socially situated view of information transmission, which predicts that bias expression will depend on the social context. We report a large‐scale experiment (N = 425) that manipulated the social context and examined its effect on the transmission of the positive and negative (...) information contained in a narrative text. In each social context, information was progressively lost as it was transmitted from person to person, but negative information survived better than positive information, supporting a negative transmission bias. Importantly, the negative transmission bias was moderated by the social context: Higher social connectivity weakened the bias to transmit negative information, supporting a socially situated account of information transmission. Our findings indicate that our evolved cognitive preferences can be moderated by our social goals. (shrink)

To investigate the underlying mechanism of the relationship between visual working memory (VWM) and Chinese character recognition, and the moderation effect of processing efficiency on this relationship, 154 first-grade students were administered a battery of tasks for VWM, rapid temporal processing, and Chinese character reading. In the VWM task, the children were asked to remember the jumping routes of a frog and report these routes in reverse sequence. The longest span for which each participant could respond correctly at least four (...) times out of six was the VWM index. In the task of temporal order judgement, the participants were asked to select which of two balls was presented first, with stimulus onset asynchronies varying from 8 to 492 ms according to an adaptive psychophysical procedure. Visual temporal order threshold (VTOT) was utilized as an indicator of processing efficiency. The participants were asked to read 100 characters aloud to measure their word-level reading abilities in Chinese character recognition. After controlling age, non-verbal intelligence, visual short-term memory, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness, the results of a moderation effect analysis showed that (1) both VWM and visual VTOT predicted Chinese character reading, and (2) the moderation effect of VTOT on the VWM-reading link was significant ( p = 0.001). The correlation between VWM and Chinese character reading was positive and significant when VTOTs were above average (i.e., smaller than 87.14 ms); however, the correlation was negative at relatively poor levels of VTOTs (i.e., larger than 231.44 ms). (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between abusive supervision and employee creativity by shedding light on the mediating role of negative affect and the moderating role of interpersonal harmony. Based on affective events theory, it was hypothesized that abusive supervision impacts employees’ negative affect and their creativity. Data from a questionnaire survey of 398 Chinese employee–supervisor dyads were collected and analyzed. The results support our hypotheses, address unexplored theoretical predictions, and suggest that organizations should deal with the factors undermining (...) employees’ emotions to improve their creativity. (shrink)

As an important tool for supervisors to intervene subordinates’ work and influence their performance, supervisor feedback has gradually become a new academic research hotspot. In this study, we build and verify a theoretical model to explore the different effects of supervisor positive and negative feedback on subordinate in-role and extra-role performance, and the moderating role of regulatory focus in these relationships. With data from pairing samples of 403 Chinese employees and their direct supervisors, the results indicate that supervisor positive (...) feedback is positively related to subordinate in-role and extra-role performance. Supervisor negative feedback is positively related to subordinate in-role performance and negatively related to subordinate extra-role performance. Regulatory focus of subordinate can moderate the influence of supervisor positive feedback on subordinate in-role and extra-role performance, but it cannot moderate the influence of supervisor negative feedback on subordinate in-role and extra-role performance. That means when subordinates have promotion focus, the influence of supervisor positive feedback on their in-role performance and extra-role performance was stronger than those with prevention focus. These results further enrich the research on the relationship between supervisor feedback and subordinate performance, especially the different effects of positive and negative feedback from supervisor on subordinate with different regulatory focus. All conclusions from the analyses above not only further verify and develop some previous points on supervisor feedback and subordinate performance, but also derive certain management implications for promoting subordinate in-role and extra-role performance from the perspective of supervisor positive and negative feedback. (shrink)

Customer bullying is a common phenomenon, causing short-term emotional distress or having long-term psychological impact on frontline employees of service enterprises, yielding either direct or indirect losses to service enterprises. While existing research has focused on the emotional and psychological impact of customer bullying on employees, little attention has been directed at the impact of customer bullying on negative employee behavior and internal mechanisms. In view of this, this paper draws on conservation of resources theory and discusses how and (...) when customer bullying can lead to unethical behaviors. Furthermore, the mediating role of job insecurity and the moderating effect of organizational identification are analyzed. In study 1, 181 valid questionnaire data were collected at two time points, and regression data analysis was used to explore the effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors through job insecurity. In study 2, 212 employees were recruited to investigate the moderating effect of organizational identification between customer bullying and unethical behaviors through a scenario experimental study. The results reveal that customer bullying is positively related to employees’ job insecurity and unethical behaviors. Job insecurity partially mediates the positive relationship between customer bullying and unethical behaviors. Further, the regression analysis results indicate that the direct effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors is moderated by organizational identification. This study provides theoretical guidance for entrepreneurs to reduce both employee job insecurity and unethical behavior. (shrink)

Background: Interpersonal sensitivity is a prominent mental health problem facing college students today. Trait mindfulness is a potential positive factor that may influence interpersonal relationships. However, the precise relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity remains elusive, which limits the optimization and further application of mindfulness-based intervention schemes targeting interpersonal sensitivity. This study aimed to explore whether negative emotions mediate the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity and whether the relationship among trait mindfulness, negative emotions, and interpersonal (...) sensitivity is moderated by effectiveness/authenticity. We hypothesize that negative emotions mediate the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity, and effectiveness/authenticity moderates the indirect association between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity through negative emotions.Methods: One thousand four hundred nineteen Chinese college students, aged from 17 to 23, participated in this study. Their trait mindfulness, negative emotions, the effectiveness/authenticity, and interpersonal sensitivity were measured using well-validated self-report questionnaires.Results: Correlational analyses indicated that both trait mindfulness and effectiveness/authenticity were significantly and negatively associated with interpersonal sensitivity. Mediation analyses uncovered a partial mediating role of negative emotions in the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity. Moderated mediation analyses showed that in college students with high effectiveness/authenticity, the relationship between trait mindfulness and negative emotions was stronger, whereas the relationship between negative emotions and interpersonal sensitivity was weaker.Conclusion: Negative emotion is a mediator of the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity, which in turn is moderated by effectiveness/authenticity. These findings suggest a potential mechanism through which trait mindfulness influences interpersonal sensitivity. Mindfulness-based interventions have the potential to decrease interpersonal sensitivity and offer a basis for predicting individual differences in response to mindfulness-based interventions among individuals. (shrink)

This study explores the impact mechanism of perceived risk and negative emotions on the service recovery effect of an online travel agency through a scenario experiment. The results show that: perceived risk has positive and negative impacts on negative emotions and service recovery satisfaction, negative emotions have a negative impact on service recovery satisfaction, and corporate reputation plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between perceived risk and service recovery satisfaction. This study is helpful (...) to better explain the impact mechanism of the service recovery effect of OTAs, and to provide a theoretical reference for improving the service recovery effect of OTAs. (shrink)