Background Social media and Internet technologies present several emerging and ill-explored issues for a modern healthcare workforce. One issue is patient-targeted Googling, which involves a healthcare professional using a social networking site or publicly available search engine to find patient information online. The study’s aim was to address a deficit in data and knowledge regarding PTG, and to investigate medical student use of SNSs due to a close association with PTG. Method The authors surveyed final year medical students at the (...) Otago Medical School, University of Otago in January 2016. A subset completed focus groups that were analysed using thematic analysis to identify key themes relating to students’ attitudes towards PTG, and reasons why they might engage in PTG. Results Fifty-four students completed the survey, which showed that PTG was uncommon. Attitudes were varied and context dependent. Most participants saw problems with PTG and favoured more explicit guidance on the issue. SNS usage was high ; participants were concerned by the content of their SNS profiles and who they were connecting with online. Participants showing high SNS use were 1.83 times more likely to have conducted PTG than lower use groups. Conclusions The diverse attitudes uncovered in this study indicated that teaching or guidelines could be useful to healthcare professionals considering PTG. Though ethically problematic, PTG may be important to patient care and safety. The decision to conduct PTG should be made with consideration of ethical principles and the intended use of the information. (shrink)

McCullough et al. present a compelling case that anger-based revenge is designed to disincentivize the target from imposing costs on the vengeful individual. Here I present a contrast between revenge motivated by anger and revenge motivated by hatred, which remains largely unexplored in the literature.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists are effective for treating obesity, but the high cost of these medications endangers the financial viability of our health care system. To ensure that these drugs are available to Medicare beneficiaries, pharmaceutical manufacturers must lower their prices.

Long noncoding RNAs have been described in cell lines and various whole tissues, but lncRNA analysis of development in vivo is limited. Here, we comprehensively analyze lncRNA expression for the adult mouse subventricular zone neural stem cell lineage. We utilize complementary genome-wide techniques including RNA-seq, RNA CaptureSeq, and ChIP-seq to associate specific lncRNAs with neural cell types, developmental processes, and human disease states. By integrating data from chromatin state maps, custom microarrays, and FACS purification of the subventricular zone lineage, we (...) stringently identify lncRNAs with potential roles in adult neurogenesis. shRNA-mediated knockdown of two such lncRNAs, Six3os and Dlx1as, indicate roles for lncRNAs in the glial-neuronal lineage specification of multipotent adult stem cells. Our data and workflow thus provide a uniquely coherent in vivo lncRNA analysis and form the foundation of a user-friendly online resource for the study of lncRNAs in development and disease. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. (shrink)

This volume examines some of the most contentious social justice issues present in the corpus of Augustine's writings. Whether one is concerned with human trafficking and the contemporary slave trade, the global economy, or endless wars, these essays further the conversation on social justice as informed by the writings of Augustine of Hippo.

When listening to degraded speech, such as speech delivered by a cochlear implant, listeners make use of top-down linguistic knowledge to facilitate speech recognition. Lexical knowledge supports speech recognition and enhances the perceived clarity of speech. Yet, the extent to which lexical knowledge can be used to effectively compensate for degraded input may depend on the degree of degradation and the listener’s age. The current study investigated lexical effects in the compensation for speech that was degraded via noise-vocoding in younger (...) and older listeners. In an online experiment, younger and older normal-hearing listeners rated the clarity of noise-vocoded sentences on a scale from 1 to 7. Lexical information was provided by matching text primes and the lexical content of the target utterance. Half of the sentences were preceded by a matching text prime, while half were preceded by a non-matching prime. Each sentence also consisted of three key words of high or low lexical frequency and neighborhood density. Sentences were processed to simulate CI hearing, using an eight-channel noise vocoder with varying filter slopes. Results showed that lexical information impacted the perceived clarity of noise-vocoded speech. Noise-vocoded speech was perceived as clearer when preceded by a matching prime, and when sentences included key words with high lexical frequency and low neighborhood density. However, the strength of the lexical effects depended on the level of degradation. Matching text primes had a greater impact for speech with poorer spectral resolution, but lexical content had a smaller impact for speech with poorer spectral resolution. Finally, lexical information appeared to benefit both younger and older listeners. Findings demonstrate that lexical knowledge can be employed by younger and older listeners in cognitive compensation during the processing of noise-vocoded speech. However, lexical content may not be as reliable when the signal is highly degraded. Clinical implications are that for adult CI users, lexical knowledge might be used to compensate for the degraded speech signal, regardless of age, but some CI users may be hindered by a relatively poor signal. (shrink)

Conspecific violence has been pervasive throughout evolutionary history. The current research tested the hypotheses that individuals implicitly categorize combative contexts (i.e., play fighting, status contests, warfare, and anti-exploitative violence) and use the associated contextual information to guide expectations of combative tactics. Using U.S. and non-U.S. samples, Study 1 demonstrated consistent classification of combative contexts from scenarios for which little information was given and predictable shifts in the acceptability of combative tactics across contexts. Whereas severe tactics (e.g., eye-gouging) were acceptable in (...) warfare and anti-exploitative violence, they were unacceptable in status contests and play fights. These results suggest the existence of implicit rules governing the contexts of combat. In Study 2, we explored the reputational consequences of violating these implicit rules. Results suggest that rule violators (e.g., those who use severe tactics in a status contest) are given less respect. These are the first studies to implicate specialized mechanisms for aggression that use contextual cues of violence to guide expectations and behavior. (shrink)

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, the Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Rector of American Jewish University in Los Angeles, is one of today's leading Jewish ethicists. Writing extensively on the intersection of law, morality, science, religion, and medicine, Dorff offers an authoritative and non-Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law. As a leader in the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, he has shaped the religious practices of Conservative Jews. In serving on national advisory committees and task (...) forces, he has helped to articulate a distinctive Jewish voice on contested bioethical and biomedical issues. An analytic philosopher by training, Dorff has endorsed pluralism, arguing that Jewishness best flourishes in the context of American pluralism, and he has worked closely with non-Jews to advance religious pluralism in America. (shrink)

A study was done with incoming freshmen, sophomore, senior, and graduate business students (n = 185) to assess the effects of moral development, gender, education level, and context on the moral choices in a simulated business situation, a potential hostile takeover of a fictional company. The results indicated that level of moral development did affect the decisions of students; however, main effects for gender, the level of education, and context were not significant. Theresults did find significant interaction effects between context (...) and moral development and gender and moral development. Students with lower levels of moral development were less likely to consider the contextual situation when making their decisions. The effect of moral development was more pronounced for female business students than for male business students. The implications of these results for ethics education in business schools are discussed. (shrink)

The European Commission’s proposal to address antimicrobial resistance using transferable exclusivity vouchers (TEVs) is fundamentally flawed. European policymakers and regulators should consider alternatives, such as better funding for basic and clinical research, use of advance market commitments funded by a pay-or-play tax, or enacting an EU Fund for Antibiotic Development.

We prove that in the Polish group of isometries of the Baire space the collection of n-th powers is non-Borel. We also prove that in the Polish space of trees on $\mathbb{N}$ the collection of trees that have an automorphism under which every node has order exactly n is non-Borel.

In my first year at the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley); I was required to read Oscar Cullmann's <b> Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Dead? </b> (1956). I was shocked and dumbfounded by what I discovered. Giving my religious instruction under the guidance of the Ursuline nuns at Holy Cross Grade School, it never entered my mind that Jesus did not believe that every person had an immortal soul that survived the death of the body. After a (...) single reading, however, I suddenly realized that Jesus never endorsed the immortality of the soul. I suffered a crisis of faith--I realized that my Catholic upbringing had been contaminated by dubious ideas that originated with Socrates.<br> More recently, the international NT scholar and Bishop N.T. Wright has challenged the Christian churches to drop Socratic ideas and to return to the faith of Jesus:<br> <quote>Mention salvation, and almost all Western Christians assume that you mean going to heaven when you die. But a moment’s thought, in the light of all we have said so far, reveals that this simply cannot be right. . . . If God’s good creation—of the world, of life as we know it, or our glorious and remarkable bodies, brains, and bloodstreams—really is good . . . , then to see the death of the body and the escape of the soul as salvation is not simply slightly off course, in need of a few subtle alterations and modifications. It is totally and utterly wrong! </quote> In my article, I use my personal story to illustrate how Socratic doctrines had distorted my faith in Jesus. I use my training in historical theology to illustrate (a) how Socrates became the patron saint of the Church Fathers; (b) how Jesus' mission in Hades expanded during the first three centuries; and (c) how Hades began as a cool place where the souls of saints and sinners resided together and ended up as a hot place where grave sinners were eternally tormented. Along the way, I show how Socrates failed to resolve key issues such as (a) whether the soul survives death; (b) whether communication between souls is even possible after death; and (c) whether souls in the heavenly realm are locked in a permanent coma. In brief, I supply N.T. Wright with massive evidence of just how "utterly wrong" the "going to Heaven" movement has been.<br><br> Note: I just finished this paper and hope to publish it. Any help you can give me to improve its readability or content, would be appreciated. (shrink)

Although mind‐wandering research is rapidly progressing, stark disagreements are emerging about what the term “mind‐wandering” means. Four prominent views define mind‐wandering as (a) task‐unrelated thought, (b) stimulus‐independent thought, (c) unintentional thought, or (d) dynamically unguided thought. Although theorists claim to capture the ordinary understanding of mind‐wandering, no systematic studies have assessed these claims. Two large factorial studies present participants (N = 545) with vignettes that describe someone's thoughts and ask whether her mind was wandering, while systematically manipulating features relevant to (...) the four major accounts of mind‐wandering. Dynamics explains between four and 40 times more variance in participants' mind‐wandering judgments than other features. Our third study (N = 153) tests and supports a unique prediction of the dynamic framework—obsessive rumination contrasts with mind‐wandering. Our final study (N = 277) used vignettes that resemble mind‐wandering experiments. Dynamics had significant and large effects, while task‐unrelatedness was nonsignificant. These results strongly suggest that the central feature of mind‐wandering is its dynamics. (shrink)

Recently, several states in the US have made it more difficult to receive nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates in the hope of better orienting parents towards vaccination. However, little is known about how public-facing school staff implement and enforce mandate policies, including why or how often they steer parents towards nonmedical exemptions. This study focused on Michigan, which has recently added an additional burden for families seeking nonmedical exemptions. We used an anonymous online survey to assess Michigan public-school employees (...) (n = 157) about their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding Michigan's school enrollment vaccine mandate policy. Our main conclusions are that frontline school staff are generally knowledgeable about vaccines and immunization policy, but are at best ambivalent about their role in immunization governance, believing that other agents should be responsible for ensuring that children are vaccinated. Furthermore, some respondents indicated low vaccine confidence, which was associated with increased ambivalence about, or opposition to, their role in immunization governance. As more jurisdictions within and beyond the US consider introducing or tightening childhood vaccine mandates, it is increasingly important to understand how these policies can be improved by attending to the attitudes and roles of relevant frontline actors. (shrink)

A cardinal κ is nearly θ-supercompact if for every A⊆θ, there exists a transitive M⊨ZFC− closed under θ and j″θ∈N.2 This concept strictly refines the θ-supercompactness hierarchy as every θ-supercompact cardinal is nearly θ-supercompact, and every nearly 2θ<κ-supercompact cardinal κ is θ-supercompact. Moreover, if κ is a θ-supercompact cardinal for some θ such that θ<κ=θ, we can move to a forcing extension preserving all cardinals below θ++ where κ remains θ-supercompact but is not nearly θ+-supercompact. We will also show that (...) if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾2κ such that θ<θ=θ, then there exists a forcing extension preserving all cardinals at or above κ where κ is nearly θ-supercompact but not measurable. These types of large cardinals also come equipped with a nontrivial indestructibility result. A forcing poset is <κ-directed closed if it is γ-directed closed for all γ<κ in the sense of Jech [13, Def. 21.6]. We will prove that if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾κ such that θ<θ=θ, then there is a forcing extension where its near θ-supercompactness is preserved and indestructible by any further <κ-directed closed θ-c.c. forcing of size at most θ. Finally, these cardinals have high consistency strength. Specifically, we will show that if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾κ+ for which θ<θ=θ, then AD holds in L. In particular, if κ is nearly κ+-supercompact and 2κ=κ+, then AD holds in L. (shrink)

We draw insights from Activity Theory within the field of human-computer interaction to quantitatively measure a mobile in-store experience (MIX), which includes the suite of shopping activities and retail services that a consumer can engage in when using their mobile device in brick-and-mortar stores. We developed and validated a nine-item, formative MIX index using survey data collected from fashion consumers in the United States (n= 1,267), United Kingdom (n= 370), Germany (n= 362), and France (n= 219). As survey measures of (...) consumer engagement in omnichannel retailing using a mobile device, the index items with stronger factor loadings described in-store shopping activities whereas those with weaker factor loadings described activities related to behavioral targeting and social networking. These results suggest that retailers should give consumers the autonomy to independently find, evaluate and purchase merchandise in brick-and-mortar stores, thereby enabling them to co-create personalized shopping experiences as active participants within an omnichannel retail servicescape. Our findings also suggest that retailers should provide consumers with more authentic ways to build community and brand affiliations than mobile marketing and social media promotions. In-store activities should not simply be a migration of pre-existing e-commerce capabilities onto mobile devices. An engaging mobile in-store experience should be an amalgam of physical and digital activities that produce a seamless shopping journey and leverage the unique properties of mobile devices – ultra-portability, location sensitivity, untetheredness, and personalization. Retail executives can use the validated MIX index to prepare strategic investments in mobile technology applications and capabilities for retail stores within their omnichannel operations. The nine-item MIX index is also well-suited for consumer surveys, which also makes it an attractive measure of consumer engagement in omnichannel retailing for future academic research. (shrink)

Task-unrelated thought (TUT) occurs frequently in our daily lives and across a range of tasks, but we know little about how this phenomenon arises during and influences the way we communicate. Conversations also provide a novel opportunity to assess the alignment (or divergence) in TUT during dyadic interactions. We conducted a study to determine: (a) the frequency of TUT during conversation as well as how partners align/diverge in their rates of TUT, (b) the subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and (...) TUT divergence during conversation, and (c) if perceived social group identity impacts TUT and TUT divergence during conversation. We used a minimal groups induction procedure to assign participants (N = 126) to either an ingroup, outgroup, or control condition. We then asked them to converse with one another via a computer-mediated text chat application for 10 min while self-reporting TUTs. On average, participants reported TUT about once every 2 min; however, this rate was lower for participants in the ingroup condition, compared to the control condition. Conversational pairs in the ingroup condition were also aligned more in their rates of TUT compared to the outgroup condition. Finally, we discuss subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence in conversations, such as valence, turn-taking ratios, and topic shifts. (shrink)

Cuckoldry is an adaptive problem faced by parentally investing males of socially monogamous species (e.g., humans and many avian species). Mate guarding and frequent in-pair copulation (IPC) may have evolved as anti-cuckoldry tactics in avian species and in humans. In some avian species, the tactics are used concurrently, with the result that mate guarding behaviors and IPC frequency are correlated positively. In other avian species, the tactics are compensatory, with the result that mate guarding behaviors and IPC frequency are correlated (...) negatively. The relationship between mate guarding and IPC frequency in humans is unknown. Avian males that use these tactics concurrently share with human males an inability to guard a female partner continuously during her peak fertile period. We hypothesized, therefore, that men’s mate guarding and IPC frequency function as concurrent anti-cuckoldry tactics, resulting in a positive correlation between them. Study 1 (n=305) secured men’s self-reports of mate guarding and IPC frequency. Study 2 (n+367) secured women’s reports of their partners’ mate guarding and IPC frequency. The concurrent tactics hypothesis was supported in both studies: Men’s mate guarding and IPC frequency are correlated positively, and this association is not attributable to male age, female age, relationship satisfaction, relationship length, or time that the couple spends together. The Discussion section addresses potential limitations of this research and future research directions. (shrink)

Attribution theorists assume that character information informs judgments of blame. But there is disagreement over why. One camp holds that character information is a fundamental determinant of blame. Another camp holds that character information merely provides evidence about the mental states and processes that determine responsibility. We argue for a two-channel view, where character simultaneously has fundamental and evidential effects on blame. In two large factorial studies (n = 495), participants rate whether someone is blameworthy when he makes a mistake (...) (burns a cake or misses a bus stop). Although mental state inferences predict blame judgments, character information does not. Using mediation analyses, we find that character information influences responsibility via two channels (Studies 3–4; n = 447), which are sensitive to different kinds of information (Study 5; n = 149). On the one hand, forgetfulness increases judgments of responsibility, because mental lapses manifest an objectionable character flaw. On the other hand, forgetfulness decreases judgments of state control, which in turn decreases responsibility judgments. These two channels cancel out, which is why we find no aggregate effect of forgetfulness on responsibility. Our results challenge several fundamental assumptions about the role of character information in moral judgment, including that good character typically mitigates blame. (shrink)

The traditional ludomotor activities (LA) are recognized by UNESCO as an intangible piece of cultural heritage. The ethnomotricity analyzes LA in its sociocultural context, taking into account the proprieties of rules or motor conditions (internal logic) and the link with local culture (external logic). The aim of this research was to identify and reveal the distinctive ethnomotor features of LA in order to understand the adaptations that occurred in the social scenario of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) in Lleida. The (...) corpus of the research was constituted by 101 LA which were collected from the analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews. An “ad hoc” tool was designed and agreed upon by expert observers. It was comprised of a total of 27 ethnomotor variables related to LA. The experts achieved high reliability [Cohen’s kappa coefficient (κ) and Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 1] when the classification of LA was carried out on two different occasions. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations (Pearson’s chi-squared) effect sizes, and two-step clusters were performed by external and internal logic variables. The presence or absence of motor interaction (X2= 9.029;df= 1;p< 0.003;ES= 0.298) was enlightening when comparing LA with and without a war connotation. On the other hand, the hierarchy of variables rested primarily on IL-Domain (Psycho-Coop-Oppo-Coop/Oppo) (PI = 1). Among other singularities, while two-step cluster analysis revealed a corresponding ethnomotor silhouette with cluster 1, with the warlike connotation (n= 48; 96.0%), its homologous structure was expressed (Cluster 2) in the absence of the warlike character (n= 26; 50%). (shrink)

Social and personality psychology have been criticized for overreliance on potentially biased self-report variables. In well-being science, researchers have called for more “objective” physiological and cognitive measures to evaluate the efficacy of well-being-increasing interventions. This may now be possible with the recent rise of cost-effective, commercially-available wireless physiological recording devices and smartphone-based cognitive testing. We sought to determine whether cognitive and physiological measures, coupled with machine learning methods, could quantify the effects of positive interventions. The current 2-part study used a (...) college sample (N = 245) to contrast the cognitive (memory, attention, construal) and physiological (autonomic, electroencephalogram) effects of engaging in one of two randomly assigned writing activities (i.e., prosocial or “antisocial”). In the prosocial condition, participants described an interaction when they acted in a kind way, then described an interaction when they received kindness. In the “antisocial” condition, participants wrote instead about an interaction when they acted in an unkind way and received unkindness, respectively. Our study replicated previous research on the beneficial effects of recalling prosocial experiences as assessed by self-report. However, we did not detect an effect of the positive or negative activity intervention on either cognitive or physiological measures. More research is needed to investigate under what conditions cognitive and physiological measures may be applicable, but our findings lead us to conclude that they should not be unilaterally favored over the traditional self-report approach. (shrink)

Some transgender and nonbinary people undergo phalloplasty and/or metoidioplasty as part of their medical transition process. Across surgical disciplines, a variety of resources are used to assist patients who are preparing for surgeries, including educational materials, workshops, peer support, and lifestyle changes. For gender-affirming surgeries, patients undergoing assessments to discern whether they are ready to undergo the surgery, and to assist them in achieving preparedness when needed. Little research investigates what resources are useful in helping patients to feel prepared to (...) undergo phalloplasty or metoidioplasty, and how assessments and resources can promote patient autonomy in the process. Respect for patient autonomy is one of the central tenets of ethical healthcare, yet historically, scholarship related to pre-surgical assessments for gender-affirming surgery has focused determining the ideal surgical candidate rather than respecting patient autonomy and ascertaining individual patient needs. This study sought to fill this gap by utilizing data from PROGRESS (Patient-Reported Outcomes of Genital Reconstruction and Experiences of Surgical Satisfaction), a cross-sectional, community-based survey of trans and nonbinary adults from the United States of America and Canada who had undergone one or more of these surgeries. Results revealed most participants (86%, n = 186) felt prepared to undergo surgery, though the majority of our sample (53%, n = 105) did not find referral letter assessments to be helpful. Peer support such as online resources/blogs were rated as highly useful, along with surgical consults. In a multivariable logistic regression, higher perceived preparedness was associated with identifying as queer (inclusive of gay, bi and pansexual compared to being straight), and feeling that one’s assessment process was useful (as opposed to not useful). Type of assessment was not significantly associated with preparedness; therefore, what is most useful when preparing for surgery may vary across individuals. Healthcare professionals who interact with preparing patients should develop new or utilize existing resources to assist patients in identifying their preparation needs and achieving preparedness. Our data supports assessments that center surgical care planning rather than assessing level of gender dysphoria. Future longitudinal research could further refine which assessment processes are most effective in helping patients who are preparing for these surgeries. Assessments should ensure that patients are appropriately prepared to undergo and recover from surgery through a robust process of informed consent. (shrink)

Atypical brain function in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been identified using both task-activation and functional connectivity fMRI approaches. Recent work highlights the potential for another measure derived from functional neuroimaging data, brain signal variability, to reveal insights into clinical conditions. Higher brain signal variability has previously been linked with optimal behavioral performance. At present, little is known regarding the relationship between resting-state brain signal variability and ADHD symptom severity. The current study examined the relationship between a measure of moment-to-moment brain (...) signal variability called mean-square successive difference (MSSD) and ADHD symptomatology in a group of children (7–12 years old) with ( n = 40) and without ( n = 30) a formal diagnosis of ADHD. A categorical analysis comparing subjects with and without a clinical diagnosis of ADHD showed no differences in MSSD between groups. A dimensional analysis revealed a positive relationship between MSSD and overall ADHD symptom severity and inattention across children with and without an ADHD diagnosis. Specifically, this positive relationship was found in medial prefrontal areas comprising the default mode network. These results demonstrate a link between intrinsic brain signal variability and ADHD symptom severity that cuts across diagnostic categories, and point to a locus of dysfunction consistent with previous neuroimaging literature. (shrink)

The two sermons edited and translated here for the first time are primary material from the years before the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in 297/909. The authors have been identified as Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'i and Abu'l-'Abbas Muhammad, two brothers who were central to the success of the Ismaili da'wa in North Africa. Da'wa, a term used to describe how Muslims teach others about the beliefs and practices of their Islamic faith, therefore provide a unique view of the nature (...) and development of Islam throughout history. In this case, the primary texts shed light on the development of Islam among the Berbers of the Maghreb. The first text by Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'i shows how the arguments for belief in the 'imamate' of the family of the Prophet, that is, the Shi'a belief that all imams should be spiritual descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his household, were developed and presented to bring new adherents to the cause. The Book of the Keys to Grace by his elder brother Abu'l-'Abbas, too, concerns not only the centrality of the imam in the faith but also sheds light on the hierarchy of the da'wa in this early period and its organisational sophistication. Both texts also reveal the contemporary theology propagated by the Ismaili da'wa, including for instance, the powerful analogy of Moses/Aaron and Muhammad/'Ali, the awareness of a variety of religious traditions and the use of detailed Qur'anic quotations and a wide range of hadith. As such they constitute primary source material of interest not only for Ismaili history but for this early period of Islam in general.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Jonathan K. CraneLouis E. NewmanThe Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality EDITED BY ELLIOT N. DORFF AND JONATHAN K. CRANE New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 499 pp. $150The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality addresses what has long been a major lacuna in the field of Jewish studies. No one who (...) studies the history of Judaism would deny that ethics has always occupied a central place in Jewish thought and practice. Yet the scope and range of Jewish ethical reflection, the variety of ethical theories that have animated this tradition, and the diversity of ethical viewpoints represented by major thinkers across the centuries remain far less widely understood than they should be. With the publication of this outstanding and highly readable collection of essays, however, Elliot Dorff and Jonathan Crane have given us the most definitive and encyclopedic presentation of Jewish ethics ever assembled.This latest addition to the Oxford Handbook series encompasses twenty-nine essays that span the history of Jewish ethics from biblical times to the present, but that also introduce readers to its applied and theoretical dimensions as well as the practitioners and scholars who collectively define the field of Jewish ethics. Part 1, “Jewish Ethical Theories,” which is more accurately a comprehensive history of Jewish ethics, includes insightful pieces on biblical, rabbinic, and medieval ethics, but also pieces on key figures in the modern period from Baruch Spinoza to Martin Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among others. This section also includes important explications of the ethics of the various modern movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist) as well as essays on specific events and theoretical perspectives that have shaped Jewish ethical discourse in the postwar period—the Holocaust, feminism, and postmodernism. What emerges from these short but remarkably focused and accessible essays is a rich tapestry in which the wide array of genres and methods that characterize the ethics of Judaism are on full display.The second half of the volume is devoted to applied ethics, and here again the diversity of Jewish ethics is showcased. The topics covered include bioethics, the ethics of speech, sexuality, business, the treatment of animals and the environment, politics (both in America and in Israel), criminal justice, and war. The topic of bioethics is wisely subdivided so that we find separate treatments of beginning and end of life, of access to health care, and of genetic technologies. [End Page 219] While some of these essays rehearse positions that will be familiar to those within the tradition, each is an original contribution designed to present the spectrum of positions on that issue that have been articulated by contemporary Jewish ethicists. Accordingly, this volume will now become the first place to look for broad, representative presentations on the most commonly discussed ethical issues of our time.The value of the whole collection is further enhanced by the editors’ introductions, which place the individual essays in context and explain their editorial decisions in selecting and arranging the contributions as they have. Each essay is accompanied by a substantial list of suggestions for further reading that will be valuable to readers in their own right. The entire volume is rounded out with a subject index and a list of references to classical Jewish literature. One could simply not ask for a more carefully constructed or broadly useful handbook on this subject.In any edited collection of this nature, the quality of the individual contributions will vary to some extent. In this instance, the overall quality is extremely high, which is a tribute both to the individual contributors and to the editorial guidance provided by Dorff and Crane. Still, one cannot help but notice that some essays in the second section of the book are more descriptive (e.g., Daniel Sinclair’s essay on end-of-life issues) while others are more ideologically driven (e.g., Arthur Waskow’s essay on environmental ethics). Similarly, while the essays average approximately fifteen to twenty pages each, a few are shorter and more cursory (e.g., Aaron Mackler’s essay on... (shrink)

Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for each. In the second part of the article, we apply this analysis to evaluate (...) the types of polarization generated by the three major families of computational models proposing specific mechanisms of opinion polarization. (shrink)

Proponents of political liberalism standardly assume that the citizens of an ideal liberal society would be overwhelmingly reasonable. I argue that this assumption violates political liberalism's own constraints of realism—constraints that are necessary to frame the central problem that political liberalism aims to solve, that is, the problem of reasonable pluralism. To be consistent with these constraints, political liberalism must recognize that, as with reasonable pluralism, widespread support for unreasonable moral and political views is an inevitable feature of any liberal (...) society. I call this the fact of unreasonable pluralism. This fact threatens Rawlsian political liberalism's account of stability because an overlapping consensus cannot stably order a society pervaded by unreasonable views. My argument also raises questions about the coherence of Rawls's conception of ideal theory. (shrink)

Replication or even modelling of consciousness in machines requires some clarifications and refinements of our concept of consciousness. Design of, construction of, and interaction with artificial systems can itself assist in this conceptual development. We start with the tentative hypothesis that although the word “consciousness” has no well-defined meaning, it is used to refer to aspects of human and animal informationprocessing. We then argue that we can enhance our understanding of what these aspects might be by designing and building virtual-machine (...) architectures capturing various features of consciousness. This activity may in turn nurture the development of our concepts of consciousness, showing how an analysis based on information-processing virtual machines answers old philosophical puzzles as well enriching empirical theories. This process of developing and testing ideas by developing and testing designs leads to gradual refinement of many of our pre-theoretical concepts of mind, showing how they can be construed as implicitly “architecture-based” concepts. Understanding how humanlike robots with appropriate architectures are likely to feel puzzled about qualia may help us resolve those puzzles. The concept of “qualia” turns out to be an “architecture-based” concept, while individual qualia concepts are “architecture-driven”. (shrink)

Research on brain or cognitive/affective processes, culture, social interaction, and structural analysis are overlapping but often independent ways humans have attempted to understand the origins of their evolution, historical, and contemporary development. Each level seeks to employ its own theoretical concepts and methods for depicting human nature and categorizing objects and events in the world, and often relies on different sources of evidence to support theoretical claims. Each level makes reference to different temporal bandwidths (milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, (...) years, decades, and centuries) and focuses on different spatio-temporal activities and controlled and non-controlled stimulus conditions. Biological mechanisms and environmental pressures for survival simultaneously created a gradual intersection and enhancement of cognitive/affective skills, cultural practices, and changes in collaborative social interaction and communicative skills. The evolution of a given level of analysis is assumed to have been incremental and overlapping. These innovative and independent ways humans have learned to characterize their brain or cognitive/affective and social/economic/political life often depend on unexamined, representational re-descriptions or cognitive/affective and socio-cultural devices and forms of communication that facilitate the depiction of practices and beliefs we attribute to respondents or subjects and research colleagues. (shrink)