Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol (...) on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli. (shrink)

As the federal government continues to expand upon and improve its data sharing policies over the past 20 years, complex challenges remain. Our interviews with U.S. academic genetic researchers (n=23) found that the burden, translation, industry limitations, and consent structure of data sharing remain major governance challenges.

Did the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. cause the values of teenagers in the U.S. to change? Did their previously important self-esteem and self-actualization values become less important and their survival and safety values become more important? Changes in the values of teenagers are important for practitioners, managers, marketers, and researchers to understand because high school students are our current and future employees, managers, and customers, and research has shown that values impact work and consumer-related attitudes and (...) behaviors. Further, studies that compared higher to lower performing for-profit and not-for-profit companies have found that higher performing organizations had strong values that permeated their organizations [Collins J. C., and J. I. Porras: 1994, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York, Harper Business); O’Reilly, C. A. and J. A. Chatman: 1996, in B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 18 (JAI Press, Greenwhich, CT), pp. 157–200; O’Reilly, C. A.: 1989, California Management Review 31(4), 9–25; Posner, B. Z., and W. H. Schmidt: 1996, Public Personnel Management, 25(3), 277–298; Rousseau, D.: 1990, Group and Organization Studies 15(4), 448–460; Schein, E. H.: 2004, Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Jossey Bass)]. While one study of adults found value changes, no known studies have explored if the values of teenagers also changed post-9/11. This study filled that research gap by exploring the values of a random sample of 1000 U.S. teenagers in grades 9 to 12 pre- and post-9/11, using a demographic questionnaire and the Rokeach Value Survey. The research results indicated that teenage survival, safety, and security values (a world at peace, freedom, national security, and salvation) increased in importance while their self-esteem and self-actualization values (a sense of accomplishment, inner harmony, pleasure, self-respect, and wisdom) decreased in importance, mirroring the changes for adults. The meaning of these findings for practitioners, managers, marketers and researchers was discussed. (shrink)

If you think that semantic minimalism is the only alternative to contextualism but you’d rather do without Cappelen and Lepore’s mysteriously minimal “propositions,” you can. You just have to recognize that being semantically incomplete does not make a sentence context-sensitive. You don’t have to go through the ritual of repeatedly incanting things like this: “John is ready” expresses the proposition that John is ready. Instead, you can opt for Radical Minimalism and suppose that “John is ready” and its ilk fall (...) short of semantically expressing propositions – their semantic contents are propositional “radicals.” Now C&L think they’ve addressed Radical Minimalism and offered objections to it. So they find it strange and bizarre that I think they haven’t. In fact, they persist in confusing semantic incompleteness with context sensitivity. If they appreciated the difference, they might even welcome the opportunity to adopt a form of semantic minimalism that does without the minimal propositions that everyone but them find incredible (pun intended). (shrink)

RésuméCet article défend une approche à la philosophic et à l'éthique environnementale qui a originalement été avancée par Aldo Leopold. Selon cet auteur, l'éthique peut être comprise, d'un point de vue biologique, comme la forme spécifiquement humaine de la symbiose. La question cruciate de notre époque est de savoir si les humains peuvent coexister avec l'environnement global en un état de symbiose. La philosophie et les sciences humaines en général peuvent contribuer grandement à l'atteinte de ce but, à cause de (...) la façon très spéciale dont le caractère même des actions et des æuvres humaines peut être amplifié par l'écosystème. Je critique un argument thermodynamique qui a été formulé contre la possibilité de la symbiose humaine; et je mets en garde contre les tendances à l'autoritarisme et è l'évasion par l'introspection qui sont typiques des cultures en état de crise écologique. (shrink)

Предпринимается попытка связать результаты самопознания со взглядами человека на историю всего человеческого и мир в целом. Для тех, кто интересуется антропологическими проблемами философии.

The role of scientific theories in classifying plants and animals is traced from Hennig's phylogenetics and the evolutionary taxonomy of Simpson and Mayr, through numerical phenetics, to present-day cladistics. Hennig limited biological classification to sister groups so that this one relation can be expressed unambiguously in classifications. Simpson and Mayr were willing to sacrifice precision in representation in order to include additional features of evolution in the construction of classifications. In order to make classifications more objective, precise and quantitative, numerical (...) pheneticists limited themselves to representing degrees of phenetic similarity. Finally, present-day cladists can be separated into phylogenetic cladists, who retain much of Hennig's theory of classification, and pattern cladists, who have stripped Hennig's system down to its bare essentials. (shrink)

Objective: The objectives of this study are to understand the current functions, structure and operation of hospital ethics committees (HECs) in Shanghai and to facilitate their improvement. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey, (2) interviews with secretaries and (3) on-site document reviews of HECs in Shanghai were used in the study, which surveyed 33 hospitals. Results: In Shanghai, 57.56% of the surveyed hospitals established HECs from 1998 to 2005. Most HECs used bioethical review of research involving human subjects as well as (...) bioethical review or consultation regarding medical care services and administrative decision- making. Of the surveyed HECs, 14.3% did not provide any formal bioethical training to the HECs’ members and many HECs had no standard operating procedures. Some HECs had no clear definition of what was “conflict of interest” that should be considered by the HECs, while 44.4% of the HECs did not perform continuing review. Discussion: After the issues of related national regulations, more and more hospitals established HECs in Shanghai, but the functions of HECs need to be further developed and formal training on bioethics should be provided to HEC members. To assure the independence and good performance of HECs, the conflict of interest procedure, the standard operating procedures and bioethical review should be improved. Conclusion: HECs in Shanghai had developed in the preceding 10 years and they played great roles in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects and patients; some areas need improvement. (shrink)

In this thesis I shall summarize and critically examine the central features of the theories of values of four contemporary moral philosophers: A.J. Ayer, C.L. Stevenson, R.M. Hare, and P.H. Nowell - Smith. I shall first look back, however, to the theory of moral philosophy of the most influential 'forefather' of this group, David Hume. Hume's theory stands as a challenge to moral philosophers who would assume that moral judgments are primarily, in some sense, acts of 'reason'. Although our four (...) contemporaries follow Hume in this, his challenge, in the form I shall indicate shortly, will provide the main theme for this thesis. (shrink)

Drawing from a four-year study of US science institutions that support biological control of arthropods, this article examines the decline in biological control institutional capacity in California within the context of both declining public interest science and declining agricultural research activism. After explaining how debates over the public interest character of biological control science have shaped institutions in California, we use scientometric methods to assess the present status and trends in biological control programs within both the University of California Land (...) Grant System and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We present available data on the number of scientific positions and the types of positions to discuss the impact on the amount of public interest research on biological control in California. We use sociograms to depict how biological control science networks have been reconfigured over time. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that the following factors contributed to the decline of biological control science in California over the 45-year period analyzed: (1) the institutional reconfiguration of university research priorities; (2) the fraying networks within and increasing specialization of biological control science; (3) the transformation of the social organization of the life science work, including privatization; and (4) the abandonment of this thematic area by civil society activist groups. This broad array of forces suggests that biological control, as a public interest science, will require a deliberate intervention, based on advocacy of clear public interest criteria. (shrink)