This book draws together the latest work from scholars around the world using subjective well-being data to understand and compare well-being across countries and cultures. Starting from many different vantage points, the authors reached a consensus that many measures of subjective well-being, ranging from life evaluations through emotional states, based on memories and current evaluations, merit broader collection and analysis. Using data from the Gallup World Poll, the World Values Survey, and other internationally comparable surveys, the authors document wide divergences (...) among countries in all measures of subjective well-being, The international differences are greater for life evaluations than for emotions. Despite the well-documented differences in the ways in which subjective evaluations change through time and across cultures, the bulk of the very large international differences in life evaluations are due to differences in life circumstances rather than differences in the way these differences are evaluated. (shrink)

This article addresses a number of phenomena in the field of digital communication - disinformation, infodemics and conspiracy mania - that promote indifference regarding the distinction between truth and lies, fact and fiction, opinion and knowledge. They have thus decisively altered users' patterns of rationality and common sense and contributed to the rise of anti-democratic and anti-scientific positions. To address this complex problem, a systemic approach is provided that considers these phenomena to be factors that disturb the ethical-epistemic equilibrium between (...) uncertainty, trust and responsibility. After identifying a set of dynamics generated by these disruptive factors, three aspects are explored in depth: the polarisation and lack of a deliberative culture, the necessary correction of the social image of scientific practice, and the impact of the post-truth discourse. The article concludes with reflections on redefining the three key concepts of uncertainty, trust and responsibility in light of the demands of the digital sphere. (shrink)

Subliminal perception occurs when prime stimuli that participants claim not to be aware of nevertheless influence subsequent processing of a target. This claim, however, critically depends on correct methods to assess prime awareness. Typically, d9 (‘‘d prime’’) tasks administered after a priming task are used to establish that people are unable to discriminate between different primes. Here, we show that such d9 tasks are influenced by the nature of the target, by attentional factors, and by the delay between stimulus presentation (...) and response. Our results suggest that the standard d9 task is not a straightforward measure of prime visibility. We discuss the implications of our findings for subliminal perception research. (shrink)

Business ethics literature regularly examines obligations of firms. This article examines the contrary and relatively under‐explored notion of obligations of stakeholders. It does so by discussing incidents of sexual misconduct arising under the umbrella of the #MeToo movement. This article explores how the theory of stakeholder responsibility can aid firms in understanding and addressing complex issues associated with stakeholder irresponsibility. It examines the moral responsibilities of regime members in the context of #MeToo incidents to provide a conceptual framework for firms (...) addressing issues associated with irresponsible stakeholder actions. (shrink)

The nature of well-being is one of the most enduring and elusive subjects of human inquiry. Well-Being draws upon the latest scientific research to transform our understanding of this ancient question. With contributions from leading authorities in psychology, social psychology, and neuroscience, this volume presents the definitive account of current scientific efforts to understand human pleasure and pain, contentment and despair. The distinguished contributors to this volume combine a rigorous analysis of human sensations, emotions, and moods with a broad assessment (...) of the many factors, from heredity to nationality, that bear on our well-being. Using the tools of experimental science, the contributors confront the puzzles of human likes and dislikes. Why do we grow accustomed and desensitized to changes in our lives, both good and bad? Does our happiness reflect the circumstances of our lives or is it determined by our temperament and personality? Why do humans acquire tastes for sensations that are initially painful or unpleasant? By examining the roots of our everyday likes and dislikes, the book also sheds light on some of the more extreme examples of attraction and aversion, such as addiction and depression. Among its wide ranging inquiries, Well-Being examines systematic differences in moods and behaviors between genders, explaining why women suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, but are also more inclined to express positive emotions. The book also makes international comparisons, finding that some countries' populations report higher levels of happiness than others. The contributors deploy an array of methods, from the surveys and questionnaires of social science to psychological and physiological experiments, to develop a comprehensive new approach to the study of well-being. They show how the sensory pleasures of the body can tells us something about the higher pleasures of the mind and even how the effectiveness of our immune system can depend upon the health of our social relationships. (shrink)

We will prove in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without axiom of choice that the transitive hull R* of a relation R is not much “bigger” than R itself. As a measure for the size of a relation we introduce the notion of κ+-narrowness using surjective Hartogs numbers rather than the usul injective Hartogs values. The main theorem of this paper states that the transitive hull of a κ+-narrow relation is κ+-narrow. As an immediate corollary we obtain that, for every infinite cardinal (...) κ, the class HCκ of all κ-hereditary sets is a set with von Neumann rank ϱ(HCκ) ≤ κ+. Moreover, ϱ(HCκ) = κ+ if and only if κ is singular, otherwise ϱ(HCκ) = κ. The statements of the corollary are well known in the presence of the axiom of choice (AC). To prove them without AC - as carried through here - is, however, much harder. A special case of the corollary (κ = ω1, i.e., the class HCω1 of all hereditarily countable sets) has been treated independently by T. JECH. (shrink)

This review essay explores the potential of a European perspective on the history of epidemics and pandemics over the last three centuries. To this end, it follows Benoît Majerus’ proposal to distinguish four different “European” perspectives on the history of medicine. Europe is simultaneously an imaginary, geographical, imperial, and integrative space. As an imaginary space (1), “European” ideas about pandemics reveal a specific conception of public health and the state; as a geographical space (2), many historical case studies examined the (...) development of comparable “European” practices at the national level; as an imperial space (3), it is necessary to provincialize Europe and ask about knowledge production and practices in non-European countries; and as an integrative space (4), European responses to pandemics and epidemics represent a neglected but important aspect of European integration. This essay can only suggest that the European perspective is an interesting analytical category for both the history of pandemics and the history of “Europe.”. (shrink)

How can a confederation of business and industry influence companies and make them more aware of ethical issues? This article examines the work of Norwegian Business and Industry , and the results it has achieved. The author is Assistant Director of NHO, P.b. 5250, Majorstua, 0303 Oslo, and she has been responsible for its business ethics programme for the past three years. This article comes to us through the agency of our Associate Editor for Norway, Dr Heidi von Weltzien Høivik, (...) of the Norwegian School of Management, who has recently been instrumental in founding a Norwegian Centre for Business Ethics. (shrink)

Putting laypeople in an active role as direct expert contributors in the design of service robots becomes more and more prominent in the research fields of human–robot interaction and social robotics. Currently, though, HRI is caught in a dilemma of how to create meaningful service robots for human social environments, combining expectations shaped by popular media with technology readiness. We recapitulate traditional stakeholder involvement, including two cases in which new intelligent robots were conceptualized and realized for close interaction with humans. (...) Thereby, we show how the robot narrative together with aspects of power balancing stakeholders, such as hardware constraints and missing perspectives beyond primary users, and the adaptivity of robots through machine learning that creates unpredictability, pose specific challenges for participatory design processes in HRI. We conclude with thoughts on a way forward for the HRI community in developing a culture of participation that considers humans when conceptualizing, building, and using robots. (shrink)

Consolation is needed when a human being suffers (i.e. feels alienated from him-or herself, from other people, from the world or from his or her ultimate source of meaning). The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of consolation. Tape-recorded narrative interviews were carried out with 18 professionals from various spheres. The transcribed interviews were interpreted hermeneutically. A model of consolation is outlined in a drawing. It states that the mediator and the receiver of consolation must become ready (...) for consolation before it can take place. To be ready means to be present and available. Availability means expressing suffering and listening respectively, and thereby opening up for communion and consoling dialogue. Communion brings about contact with the sacred dimension that human beings share and thus with goodness, light, joy, beauty and life. Consolation involves a shift of perspective and an experience of meaning in spite of suffering. (shrink)

In 1992, Ricœur delivered his lecture, "Suffering is Not Pain," at a psychiatry colloquium, addressing clinicians eager to explore this profound human experience, which is notably absent from the traditional psychiatric corpus. Ricœur examined the semiology of suffering through three moments: the specific relationship between oneself and the other, the characterization of a diminution in the power to act, and, finally, a hermeneutic reflection on suffering as an enigma that has something to teach—both at the level of self-reflection on one’s (...) own existence and in the context of relationships with others. It thus appears that suffering can open the way to a hermeneutic of the symbols of human existence, whose meaningful manifestations can also be clinical. However, this text does not belong to Ricœur’s systematic work. To understand its significance this annotated translation accompanied by its explanatory introduction, allows for a detailed reading that considers the intertextual references and the meanings implied by Ricœur’s expressions. By integrating clinical and philosophical language, this translation acknowledges the importance of multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of suffering. (shrink)

Question the scientific method -- Different modes of experimentation -- Tirelessly tinkering with unruly conditions -- Practising experiments in a world of environmental concerns.

It is often claimed that only experiments can support strong causal inferences and therefore they should be privileged in the behavioral sciences. We disagree. Overvaluing experiments results in their overuse both by researchers and decision-makers, and in an underappreciation of their shortcomings. Neglecting other methods often follows. Experiments can suggest whether X causes Y in a specific experimental setting; however, they often fail to elucidate either the mechanisms responsible for an effect, or the strength of an effect in everyday natural (...) settings. In this paper, we consider two overarching issues. First, experiments have important limitations. We highlight problems with: external, construct, statistical conclusion, and internal validity; replicability; and with conceptual issues associated with simple X-causes-Y thinking. Second, quasi-experimental and non-experimental methods are absolutely essential. As well as themselves estimating causal effects, these other methods can provide information and understanding that goes beyond that provided by experiments. A research program progresses best when experiments are not treated as privileged but instead are combined with these other methods. (shrink)

Augustine’s De Magistro is a short and relatively minor dialogue that often is overlooked. Nevertheless, it is an important text, both for its role in the development of key themes in Augustine’s thought and because of its epistemological and pedagogical contributions to the philosophy of education. This paper explores the significance of De Magistro in three steps. First, it introduces the dialogue and offers a summary of Augustine’s argument therein. It then examines important contributions that this dialogue makes in the (...) development of Augustine’s thought regarding signs and the inner teacher. Finally, it explores some educational implications of De Magistro regarding the nature of teaching and the use of Socratic dialogue that Augustine plunders from the previous work of the pagan Plato. (shrink)

Demoting Vishnu: Ritual, Politics, and the Unraveling of Nepal’s Hindu Monarchy. By Anne T. Mocko. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 246.

This paper studies the effects of social comparison on risk taking behavior. In our theoretical framework, decision makers evaluate the consequences of their choices relative to both their own and their peers’ conditions. We test experimentally whether the position in the social ranking affects risk attitudes. Subjects interact in a simulated workplace environment where they perform a work task, receive possibly different wages, and then undertake a risky decision that may produce an extra gain. We find that social comparison matters (...) for risk attitudes. Subjects are more risk averse in the presence of small social gain than social loss. In addition, risk aversion is decreasing in the size of the social gain. (shrink)

In Paul Ricœur's thought, suffering is primarily addressed from an existential and phenomenological perspective, as illustrated in the text of the lecture "Suffering is not Pain," delivered to an audience of psychiatrists. In this thematic issue, we present the very first English translation of this text. The contributions of the various authors explore Ricœur's definition of suffering as well as the dialogue he establishes between the philosophical and clinical approaches. By tracing the genealogy of suffering in Ricœur's systematic work, this (...) introduction highlights the conceptual shifts resulting from methodological changes, notably the transition from eidetic phenomenology to a hermeneutic phenomenology with ontological implications, along with the plurality of his motivations and interests (psychoanalytic, theological). Suffering, as the negativity of existence, while exposed to the risk of a solipsistic affect, nonetheless unfolds a unique semiology, in an openness to the other, which Ricœur inquires in "Suffering is not Pain.". (shrink)

Contextualizing Ricœur’s lecture “Suffering is Not Pain” alongside his other peripheral works on the matter uncovers a “practical philosophy,” that could provide new perspectives for clinicians faced with suffering. The analysis unfolds in four stages. First, it examines Ricœur’s interest in dialoguing with psychiatry to nourish his philosophical work. Second, it highlights Ricœur’s contributions as a third party to help psychiatrists overcome some major issues at that time. Third, it contextualizes the topic of suffering within the prevailing medical views at (...) that time, and their corresponding issues in clinical practice. Finally, it delineates three principles for an applied ethics of suffering; namely, the need to dissociate suffering from any moral justification, approaching the therapeutic relationship as an alliance, and a minimal recognition that patients endure despite the damages suffering inflict on the self-other axis, to preserve their dignity. (shrink)

Dans la pensée de Paul Ricœur, la souffrance est principalement abordée sous son aspect existentiel et phénoménologique, comme l’illustre le texte de la conférence « La souffrance n’est pas la douleur », présentée devant un public de psychiatres. Dans ce numéro thématique, nous proposons la toute première traduction anglaise de ce texte. Les contributions des différents auteurs examinent la définition de la souffrance chez Ricœur ainsi que le dialogue qu’il établit entre l’approche philosophique et l’approche clinique. En retraçant la généalogie (...) de la souffrance dans l’œuvre systématique de Ricœur, cette introduction met en lumière les inflexions conceptuelles issues des changements méthodologiques, marqués notamment par une transition de la phénoménologie eidétique à une phénoménologie herméneutique aux implications ontologiques, ainsi que la pluralité de ses motivations et intérêts (psychanalytiques, théologiques). La souffrance, négativité de l’existence, bien qu’exposée au risque d’un affect solipsiste, déploie une sémiologie propre, dans une ouverture à l’autre, que Ricœur explore dans « La souffrance n’est pas la douleur ». (shrink)

The so-called paradoxes of material implication have motivated the development of many non-classical logics over the years, such as relevance logics, paraconsistent logics, fuzzy logics and so on. In this note, we investigate some of these paradoxes and classify them, over minimal logic. We provide proofs of equivalence and semantic models separating the paradoxes where appropriate. A number of equivalent groups arise, all of which collapse with unrestricted use of double negation elimination. Interestingly, the principle ex falso quodlibet, and several (...) weaker principles, turn out to be distinguishable, giving perhaps supporting motivation for adopting minimal logic as the ambient logic for reasoning in the possible presence of inconsistency. (shrink)

Obtaining a valid informed consent from an elderly person, especially when frail or with possible dementia, will initially involve the practical problem of assessing the ability to communicate. Only then can the assessment of decisionmaking capacities and the obtaining of informed consent for participation in research be progressed. Normal ageing does not impair communication or decision-making, but pathological status does, this may, or may not, be associated with the ageing process. Perceptual impairment may, in particular, interfere with the communication. Once (...) the subject appreciates and understands that he/she has the right to make a choice then it is important to ensure that he/she fully understands the decision he/she is being asked to make and can communicate and explain in his/her own words why a particular decision was made. In this paper suggestions, based upon existing guidelines or texts, will be made as to how to improve communication with the elderly and the capabilities that the subject must demonstrate to show his capacity to make a decision will be discussed. (shrink)

Working within the framework of Bishop's constructive mathematics, we will show that it is possible to define compactness in a more general setting than that of uniform spaces. It is also shown that it is not possible to do this in a topological space.

In the asymptotic safety paradigm, a quantum field theory reaches a regime with quantum scale invariance in the ultraviolet, which is described by an interacting fixed point of the Renormalization Group. Compelling hints for the viability of asymptotic safety in quantum gravity exist, mainly obtained from applications of the functional Renormalization Group. The impact of asymptotically safe quantum fluctuations of gravity at and beyond the Planck scale could at the same time induce an ultraviolet completion for the Standard Model of (...) particle physics with high predictive power. (shrink)

A new analytical framework for understanding literary videogames, the literary-ludic spectrum, illustrated by close readings of selected works. In this book, Astrid Ensslin examines literary videogames—hybrid digital artifacts that have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These works can be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part in their aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on a digital medium (unlike, for (...) example, conventional books read on e-readers). They employ narrative, dramatic, and poetic techniques in order to explore the affordances and limitations of ludic structures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional game characteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary art that requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzing literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylistics and ludology. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal, Ensslin introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on the phenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readings of selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from online hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designed literary “auteur” game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology in the context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis. (shrink)

It is easy to prove in ZF− that a relation R satisfies the maximal condition if and only if its transitive hull R* does; equivalently: R is well-founded if and only if R* is. We will show in the following that, if the maximal condition is replaced by the chain condition, as is often the case in Algebra, the resulting statement is not provable in ZF− anymore . More precisely, we will prove that this statement is equivalent in ZF− to (...) the countable axiom of choice ACω. Moreover, applying this result we will prove that the axiom of dependent choices, restricted to partial orders as used in Algebra, already implies the general form for arbitrary relations as formulated first by Teichmüller and, independently, some time later by Bernays and Tarski. (shrink)