Edward O. Wilson's forays into human sociobiology have been the target of persistent, vehement attack by his Harvard colleague in evolutionary biology, Richard C. Lewontin. Through examination of existing documents in the case, together with in-depth personal interviews of Wilson, Lewontin, and other biologists, the reasons for Wilson's stance and Lewontin's criticisms are uncovered. It is argued that the dispute is not primarily personally or politically motivated, but involves a conflict between long-term scientific-cum-moral agendas, with the reductionist program as a (...) key issue. It is concluded that it is in the interest of both disputants to keep the controversy alive. (shrink)

Colleagues are not only an integral part of many people’s lives; empirical research suggests that having a good relationship with one’s colleagues is the single most important factor for being happy at work. However, so far, no one has provided a comprehensive account of what it means to be a colleague. To address this lacuna, we have conducted both an empirical as well as theoretical investigation into the content and structure of the concept ‘colleague.’ Based on the empirical (...) evidence that we present in this paper, we argue that ‘colleague’ is a dual character concept that has both a descriptive and a normative basis for categorization. Its descriptive dimension is characterized by three features, according to which two people are colleagues if they work for the same institution and know each other, or if they work for the same institution and work in the same field. An independent normative dimension is revealed, which shows that, as colleagues, we are expected to fulfill substantial normative expectations. Understanding the expectations that are encoded in the very structure of this concept is crucial to lay the groundwork for an ethics of collegiality. (shrink)

The goal of collegial ethics is to actively support our colleagues and to develop the skills needed to do so. While collegial interactions are key for our careers, there is little or no training in this. Many of our actions and reactions with our colleagues are instinctive. Human nature has evolved to be self-protective, but many evolved and automatic responses to others are not always in the best interests of our society or of us. Developing courage and a (...) style of supportive language, avoiding destructive acts, and adhering to the golden rule will improve our relationships and provide a more positive environment for all. (shrink)

Cohesion may be based primarily on interpersonal ties or rely instead on the connection between member and group, while groups may cohere temporarily based on the immediate alignment of interests among members or may be tied together more permanently by socio-emotional bonds. Together, these characteristics define four prototypical group types. Cliques and coalitions are based primarily on dyadic ties. Groups of comrades or colleagues rely instead on the connection of members to the group for cohesion, which reduces the marginal (...) cost of increasing group size. The strong glue of socio-emotional cohesion binds cliques and comrades, while coalitions and groups of colleagues are often based on weaker forms of cohesion. The mix of strong and weak adhesives and the greater scalability offered by the member-group bond provide the building blocks for assembling very large societies without overtaxing the social brain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rita Gross as Colleague and CollaboratorNancy Auer FalkWhen this panel in honor of Rita was first listed in the AAR Annual Meeting program, I found myself listed as Rita's "colleague." This was accurate only in the broadest sense of the term "colleague." I have never worked on the same faculty as Rita or watched her teaching her students. A more appropriate description of my relationship to her would be (...) "collaborator," and perhaps, for a time, mentor—although Rita never needed mentoring for very long. I coedited with Rita three editions of the volume Unspoken Worlds and was in frequent communication with her during the several years in which she chaired the AAR's Women's Studies Section.I knew Rita best during a very early stage of both our lives' work when I was the one doing Buddhist studies and she was still a convert to Judaism, busily castigating every male scholar who had written about Australian Aborigines for their failure to recognize the secret and sacred religious practices of women. Many years later, by the way, I had the privilege of visiting the Pitjantjatjara cultural center at the Australian site called Uluru/Ayers Rock and discovered that Rita had been right on target with that criticism. The center's exhibits are full of references to women's important roles and practice, while the path to the women's sacred cave at the rock's base is clearly marked and barred to casual visitors.Although I am well aware of Rita's contributions to women's studies in general, to Buddhist studies, and to the American Buddhist community, I shall leave those for others to discuss. I want to point to three aspects of her contributions that might otherwise be missed, because hardly anyone other than myself is aware of them. These are her initial critique, while still a graduate student, of our mutual field of study, History of Religions; her work with me in conceiving and editing Unspoken Worlds; and her work as AAR Women's Studies chair.To me, it has been especially fitting that I was asked to discuss my collaboration with Rita at a panel convening in Atlanta. This is because it was at an AAR annual meeting in Atlanta that my link to Rita began—as did the constellation of circumstances that would make her a major force in women's studies. It was in 1971 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. That year the annual meeting program held an announcement of a meeting for women scholars, scheduled within a room so tiny that many who [End Page 63] came could not get all the way in. I was one of those left standing in the doorway, craning my neck and trying hard to hear what was going on. That meeting planned a coup that challenged the AAR's previously all-male leadership. One of its decisions was to pack the annual business meeting with women. At that time AAR officers were elected at that meeting. A slate of nominees was presented, with the provision that additional nominations could be made from the floor. Normally very few members attended that business meeting. But this time the AAR women showed up in force, and then nominated and elected Christine Downing, the first AAR woman to become a line officer and therefore, in succession, an annual meeting program chair and AAR president. Rosemary Reuther of this panel was one of that coup's ringleaders. A second component of the original meeting, more relevant for Rita and myself, was establishment of a working group on women and religion, to begin its deliberations at the following year's annual meeting.As I left that original meeting in its tiny room and walked into the Hyatt's immense central atrium, I heard a voice behind me: "Hello, Nancy." I turned and found myself looking at a young woman whom I could have sworn I had never seen before. She introduced herself—Rita Gross, a first-year student at Chicago when I had been a last-year student, preoccupied with exams, job interviews, and dissertation and oblivious to everything else—including the group of entering students. We sat down... (shrink)

Although I took one class with John McDermott at SUNY Stony Brook, I write as a colleague who came through the ranks under his mentorship at Texas A&M from 1980 to 1997, when I left College Station to assume the Joyce and Edward E. Brewer Chair in Applied Ethics at Purdue University. I came to Texas A&M during the transition from McDermott's term as the Head of the Department of Philosophy and Humanities to the leadership of Professor Hugh McCann. It (...) was a heady time in Central Texas, and especially in philosophy. Texas A&M was itself undergoing rapid growth in both the size of its student population and in the research output of its faculty. The 1980s, in particular, were a time when a faculty member in any... (shrink)

This paper addresses the nurse manager's role regarding chemically-dependent nurses in the workplace. The manager may intervene by: terminating the contract of the impaired colleague; notifying a disciplinary committee; consulting with a counselling committee; or referring the impaired nurse to an employee assistance programme. A dilemma may arise about which of these interventions is ethically the best. The ethical theories relevant to nursing involve ethical relativism, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, Kohlberg's justice, and Gilligan's ethic of care. Nurse managers first need to (...) understand these theories in order to clarify their own perceptions and attitudes towards chemical dependency, and then satisfactorily resolve this ethical dilemma. Education and social learning are routes to a better understanding of chemical dependency and to broadening the ethical dimensions of nurse managers. (shrink)

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese died in January 2007. She was a renowned scholar and important public intellectual, but in this reminiscence Mark Bauerlein recalls her as something else: a model colleague. Despite the many attacks on her work and the difficulties she encountered in her professional life, she always conducted herself with respect and high-mindedness. Never did Bauerlein witness her give in to gossip and vitriol. She was an example of the best of higher education, and academia is a diminished place without (...) her. (shrink)

ArgumentThe Germans occupying Paris arrested Emile Borel and three other members of the Académie des Sciences in October 1941 and released them about five weeks later. Drawing on German and French archives and other sources, we argue that these events illustrate the complexity of the motivations and tactics of the occupiers and the occupied. While Borel and his colleagues were genuine members of the Resistance, and those who arrested them were full participants in a brutal occupation, both sides respected (...) a bargain, of no small importance to the Vichy regime, that allowed the university to pursue its work if its members avoided overt acts of opposition. (shrink)

This paper discusses the robotization of the workplace, and particularly the question of whether robots can be good colleagues. This might appear to be a strange question at first glance, but it is worth asking for two reasons. Firstly, some people already treat robots they work alongside as if the robots are valuable colleagues. It is worth reflecting on whether such people are making a mistake. Secondly, having good colleagues is widely regarded as a key aspect of (...) what can make work meaningful. In discussing whether robots can be good colleagues, the paper compares that question to the more widely discussed questions of whether robots can be our friends or romantic partners. The paper argues that the ideal of being a good colleague has many different parts, and that on a behavioral level, robots can live up to many of the criteria typically associated with being a good colleague. Moreover, the paper also argues that in comparison with the more demanding ideals of being a good friend or a good romantic partner, it is comparatively easier for a robot to live up to the ideal of being a good colleague. The reason for this is that the “inner lives” of our friends and lovers are more important to us than the inner lives of our colleagues. (shrink)

Gathering evidence across disciplines is a strength of interdisciplinary fields like neuroethics. However, conclusions can only be made if the evidence applies to the issue at hand. Libet and colleagues' Citation1983 experiment is an interesting case study in this problem. Despite ongoing critiques about the methods used and the replicability of its findings, many people consider Libet and colleagues' methodology a valid strategy to investigate free will and related topics. We reviewed studies using methods similar to those of (...) Libet and colleagues (N = 48) to identify its use and the evidence produced. Overall, we found substantial variation between studies. While the Libet paradigm may be useful for examining how stimuli affect temporal judgments, the link between this and free will or moral responsibility is not clear. Being aware and critical of the methods used to gather results is important when applying scientific experiments to complex, abstract phenomena. (shrink)

Lemogne and colleagues offer an interesting extension to their previous work on visual perspective and depression: Individuals at-risk for depression , without a history of mood disorders, report retrieval of positive memories from the 3rd person perspective. Their findings suggest that the retrieval of positive experiences from the 3rd person perspective may be a risk-factor for depression, not just a lingering consequence of it. Their study, however, also reports a genetic association in a severely underpowered sample. Rather than focusing (...) on gene x environment interactions, which large, well-powered studies on related phenotypes have failed to detect, a greater understanding of the phenomenology of visual perspective may be a more fruitful avenue for future research. (shrink)

Bunnik and colleagues argued that financial barriers do not promote informed decision-making prior to prenatal screening and raise justice concerns. If public funding is provided, however, it would seem to be important to clarify its intentions and avoid any unwarranted appearance of a medical utility of the testing.

Responding to the failings of peers can be difficult, but as professionals physicians should not leave the moral management of errant colleagues to chance. Distinguishing levels of adverse outcomes helps physicians more clearly assess each others' conduct and respond appropriately to those who threaten the integrity of the profession.

The purpose of this study was to investigate external whistleblowers’ experiences of workplace bullying by superiors and colleagues, and to analyze how the bullying was influenced by factors such as the support they received from government or NGOs, and whether colleagues understood the reasons for the whistleblower’s actions. For bullying by colleagues, we also examined to what extent this was influenced by superiors’ behavior towards the whistleblower. We reviewed the relevant literature on workplace bullying and whistleblowers’ experiences (...) of negative or retaliatory actions and developed three hypotheses, which we tested using data gathered from Korean external whistleblowers. Results revealed that external whistleblowers experienced work-related bullying by superiors and social relation-related and person-related bullying by colleagues more frequently, and found it more distressing, than other types of workplace bullying. Superiors’ bullying was a dominant factor affecting bullying by colleagues. Colleagues’ understanding of the reason for the whistleblower’s actions was significant in reducing bullying frequency while support from government and NGOs was not significant in reducing it. Based on these findings, practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

In the October edition of theJournal of Medical Ethics, Akabayashi and colleagues state that ’to establish a heterogeneous [induced pluripotent stem cell] iPSC bank covering roughly 80% of Japan’s population…the Japanese government decided to invest JPY110 billion (US$ 1.1 billion) over 10 years in regenerative medicine research; a quarter of this was to be allocated to the iPSC stock project'. While they claim this amount of money to be an unfair distribution of state resources, we believe their assessment is (...) based on a misunderstanding of the facts. Similarly, other criticisms by them are based on mistaken interpretations. This article is a rebuttal to the arguments that form the basis of Akabayashi and colleagues’ five criticisms by explaining their misinterpretations. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Vasilyevich Mironov, belonged to a Pleiad of scholars for whom philosophy was not merely a profession b...

The aim of this paper is to show that the nascent field of ethics of collegiality may considerably benefit from a symbiosis with virtue and vice epistemology. We start by bringing the epistemic virtue and vice perspective to the table by showing that competence, deemed as an essential characteristic of a good colleague (Betzler & Löschke 2021), should be construed broadly to encompass epistemic competence. By endorsing the anti-individualistic stance in epistemology as well as context-specificity of epistemic traits, we show (...) how the individual vice of a colleague can have a positive epistemic outcome for the team while individual virtue can be damaging if all team members share it, thereby contributing to the negative epistemic outcome. We argue that the evaluation and analysis of collegial relationships should be done through one’s contribution to the team dynamics: without this collectivist perspective, the ethics of collegiality cannot aspire to become encompassing normative theory. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider several objections raised by John Pollock against my account of modality. I define possibilism – i.e., the view that there is a property that does not entail existence, but is entailed by every property – and then give a more adequate definition of actualism based on its disagreement with possibilism. Pollock argues that the property of nonexistence is such that objects exemplify it in worlds in which they do not exist and based on this fact (...) concludes that serious actualism is false. I give an argument that nonexistence is necessarily unexemplified and a separate argument for the conclusion that serious actualism is true. I conclude the essay by arguing that it does make a difference whether we accept existentialism or essentialism. (shrink)

In the paper, the originator of the hiddenness argument, J. L. Schellenberg, responds to papers that challenge his reasoning. In his remarks he puts an emphasis on the concept of divine love and he explains why it is not only connected to the idea of the Christian God. He also clarifies his position on ultimism.

The purpose of this paper is to compare disagreement in two different WhatsApp groups: one for members of the same family, and another for work colleagues. After the analysis, 427 instances of disagreement were identified in the family group, and 161 in the interactions between work colleagues. The most common strategy in both corpora is ‘Giving opposite opinions’. Nevertheless, the rest of the results present very significant dissimilarities, most notably the higher presence of disagreement in the family WhatsApp (...) group. This higher tolerance for disagreement is corroborated by the choice of linguistic strategies made. Whereas the family members tended to give emotional or personal reasons for disagreement, as well as negative comments on the topic, the colleagues preferred to express their disagreement with mitigating expressions and token agreement. Thus, in the corpora studied, the expression of disagreement seems to be less face threatening for family members than for work colleagues. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 148 - 175 In his _Historia Gotthorum_, Hugo Grotius set up a Swedish ‘Gothic myth’, a powerful historiographical construct aimed at increasing Swedish prestige by identifying the ancient Swedish as the forebears of the late antique Goths, Vandals and Lombards. Entering into dialogue with fellow historiographers was vital to this venture. The ‘Prolegomena’ to _Historia Gotthorum_ are accordingly marked by an extensive polemical dimension. A critical discourse analysis of both explicit and hidden polemics (...) in this text reveals a clever combination of scholarly argumentation on the basis of historical evidence and strategic image-building to convince the reader. Furthermore, Grotius regularly drew on the works of contemporary colleagues for his historical evidence. The present article sheds light on the various argumentation strategies deployed in the ‘Prolegomena’ to _Historia Gotthorum_ and the role of early modern historiographical texts as treasure troves of historical knowledge. This not only offers further insight into Grotius’s historiographical practice, but also provides an excellent example of how early modern historical writers interacted with the texts of their immediate colleagues. (shrink)

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote surprisingly often to British colleagues. Usually it was a matter of a letter or two. The prolonged exchange with Gilbert Murray is the exception. More typical is the brief but important one with Sir James George Frazer. Extant evidence attests that he corresponded with some forty Englishmen and Scots. I omit Anglo-Irish: J.B. Bury, J.P. Mahaffy, L.C. Purser and the papyrologist, J.G. Smyly. The evidence is incomplete because most letters after the letter N were stolen (...) and burned in the Berlin winter 1945–6. A first catalogue of his British correspondents is assembled. Because of the remoteness of much published biographical material, I include references to the important published sources and occasionally publish a document which otherwise would be forgotten. For the first time Wilamowitz's influence on the English scholars of his time is precisely documented. (shrink)

My best friend Bernard died a few weeks ago after a long illness. We worked in adjacent offices teaching philosophy at our public state college for eighteen years. Bernard could simultaneously discuss Descartes's Third Meditation and cook you the perfect souffle while tossing scraps to his miniature poodle. He was a man of deep understanding, empathy, and humor. All who knew him were blessed.But the fact that I was Bernard's colleague, and nominally his chair, means my private grief is public.One (...) of the qualities that made grieving a loved one during COVID-19 uniquely terrible was its total privacy. For many months, what should have been final hospice visits, or hours of sitting Shiva, or boisterous wakes and the... (shrink)

This paper clarifies the chronology surrounding the population geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky's 1937 book, "Genetics and the Origin of Species." Most historians assume (a) Dobzhansky's book began as a series of 'Jesup lectures,' sponsored by the Department of Zoology at Columbia University in 1936, and (b) before these lectures were given, Dobzhansky knew he would produce a volume for the Columbia Biological Series (CBS). Archival evidence forces a rejection of both assumptions. Dobzhansky's 1936 Columbia lectures were not Jesup lectures. The book (...) he intended to write from his lectures began as a stand-alone text in evolutionary genetics; the CBS had been defunct since 1910. In May 1937 -- seven months after Dobzhansky's Columbia lectures -- Leslie Dunn lobbied Columbia University to revive the CBS and the Jesup lecture series. He then quietly back dated, naming Dobzhansky a Jesup lecturer and co-opting his book manuscript as the first volume in the revived CBS. A detailed chronology of this 1936-1937 period is provided. This relocates the CBS and Jesup revivals within the narrow context of zoology at Columbia University. These helped Dunn and colleagues define cutting edges and define themselves as managers and promoters of those edges. (shrink)

Wegner and colleagues have offered an explanation of the sense of agency over one’s bodily actions. If the orthodox view is correct and there is a sense of agency deficit associated with delusions of alien control, then Wegner and colleagues’ model ought to extend to an explanation of this deficit. Data from intentional binding studies opens up the possibility that an abnormality in representing the timing of mental events leads to a violation of the principle of priority in (...) those suffering from delusions of alien control. However, the model ultimately fails as it is unable to accommodate action monitoring deficits associated with delusions of alien control, in particular the theory of mind deficiencies predicted by such accounts have not materialised. There are theory of mind problems associated with schizophrenia but they are not associated with delusions of alien control. Such accounts thereby fail to adequately explain delusions of alien control. (shrink)