Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public’s welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using moral intuitions. (...) Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public’s moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies—a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample, and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of US adults —to explore community members’ judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelmingly judge both behaviors to be immoral and deserving of punishment. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud. (shrink)

"An impressively thorough treatment of the themes of sincerity and authenticity in Kant, Kierkegaard, and Levinas. Pickett's unpretentious and elegant style enable him to lay out complex ideas in an accessible way." -Carl S. Hughes, Texas Lutheran University, author of Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire: Rhetoric and Performance in a Theology of Eros.

In growing recognition that the business community must play a key role in the global issues encapsulated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Babson College, which has a business-focused curriculum, has striven first to reinvent its teaching of ethics and then, particularly over the past decade, to enhance its focus on sustainability, social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship. As previous initiatives did not build sufficient linkages between the liberal arts, natural sciences, and business curriculum, the College is now engaged in (...) a far more comprehensive effort to educate our undergraduate business students in “integrated sustainability,” which it defines as “systems thinking that integrates ecological integrity, social responsibility, and value creation simultaneously.” By examining the meaning, skills, and pedagogical opportunities in systems thinking within the context of larger discussions on humanistic management, this article shows how systems thinking is a particularly fruitful way to ground business students in the natural sciences and the liberal arts, develop their complex problem-solving skills, and thereby reinvigorate management education in ways that prepares students to “render service to humanity.” Our hope is that sharing Babson College’s experience in this regard – both our successes and challenges - may provide useful insights to other faculty and academic leaders seeking to enhance humanistic management within their own higher education institutions. (shrink)

On the Use and Abuse of Foucault for Politics provides an accessible interpretation of Foucault's political philosophy, demonstrating how Foucault is relevant for contemporary democratic theory. Brent Pickett lays out an overview of Foucault's politics, including a comprehensive overview of the reasons for various conflicting interpretations, and then explores how well the different "Foucaults" can be used in progressive politics and democratic theory.

The following article reconstructs the philosophy of education implicit in Paul Ricœur’s late writings —above all, his “Autonomy and Vulnerability”— to address the current crisis in the humanities. In keeping with Kant and the Bildung tradition, Ricœur reminds us that education aims, above all, at self-formation. In particular, a “pedagogy of responsibility” serves as a bridge between vulnerability and “autonomy”: shorthand in Ricœur’s thought for character, intellectual independence, and moral maturity. Unlike orthodox Kantians, however, Ricœur highlights the indispensable role symbolic (...) representation plays in the cultivation of autonomy, mutual recognition, and three related modes of identity: narrative identity, personal identity, and moral identity. Moreover, we learn this art of identity-formation from sustained study in the humanities (literature, philosophy, history, etc.). (shrink)

Ethicists and activists have joined forces in recent years to address the problem of “epistemic injustice,” the unjust treatment of people as knowers and, by extension, as communicators. After highlighting the difficulties that come with applying their work to the hard case of the incarcerated individual, I turn from the ambiguities of justice to Christian views of mercy. In doing so, I aim to show the contributions religious ethics makes to discussions of epistemic responsibility and vice versa. More concretely, I (...) also aim to show that if and when disbelief is justified—even deserved—incarcerated individuals can and often should receive what I’m calling “epistemic mercy,” a view that revives longstanding debates about mercy and moral obligation. (shrink)

Despite the strength of arguments for veganism in the animal rights literature, alongside environmental and other anthropocentric concerns posed by industrialised animal agriculture, veganism remains only a minority standpoint. In this paper, I explore the moral motivational problem of veganism from the perspectives of moral psychology and political false consciousness. I argue that a novel interpretation of the post-Marxist notion of political false consciousness may help to make sense of the widespread refusal to shift towards veganism. Specifically, the notion of (...) false consciousness fills some explanatory gaps left by the moral psychological notion of akrasia, often understood to refer to a weakness of will. Central to my approach is the idea that animal exploitation is largely systemic and the assumption that moral motivation is inseparable from moral thinking. In this light, the primary obstacle to the adoption of veganism arises not so much from a failure to put genuine beliefs into action, but rather in a shared, distorted way of thinking about animals. Thus, common unreflective objections to veganism may be said to be manifestations of false consciousness. (shrink)

In this article, I survey past discussions of the Homogeneous Unit Principle, hear from its proponents and detractors, and consider the Hindu caste system, both in its traditional form and as it is experienced in contemporary South Asia. Simplistic interpretations of the caste system are rejected in favour of an understanding of caste that is more in keeping with the ethnographic realities. Caste identity is distinguished from caste prejudice which leads me to suggest that blanket condemnation of caste consciousness among (...) Christ-followers is both unjustified and unhelpful. (shrink)

Both early social psychologists and the modern, interdisciplinary scientific community have advocated for diverse team science. We echo this call and describe three common pitfalls of solo science illustrated by the target article. We discuss how a collaborative and inclusive approach to science can both help researchers avoid these pitfalls and pave the way for more rigorous and relevant research.

The contrast between the Marxian emancipatory project and what the progressive left has made of it has never been more glaring than now, a time in which capital no longer seems to confront a political barrier. It is this predicament that The Conformist Rebellion evaluates, for a renewed approach to emancipation from capital.

Studies in the neurobiological underpinnings of social information processing bypsychologists, neurobiologists, psychiatrists, radiologists, and neurologists, using methods thatrange from brain imaging techniques to comparative analyses.

Ecological sciences have informed environmental ethics from its inception as a scholarly pursuit in the 1970s-so much so that we now have ecological ethics, Deep Ecology, and ecofeminism. Throughout the 20th century, however, most ecologists remained enthralled by the myth that science is value-free. Closer study of science by philosophers reveals that metaphors are inescapable and cognitively indispensable to science, but that metaphors are value-laden. As we confront the enormous challenges of the 21st century-the prospect of a 6th mass extinction, (...) acidifying oceans, rising sea level, and global warming-ecologists can no longer remain aloof from public discourse about what actions to take to address these problems. And that means that 21st century ecologists understand that right action is guided by ethics. However, integration of ethical ideas into academic curricula and ecologists' research agendas is still meager. Aldo Leopold, 1947 President of the Ecological Society of America, keenly understood that latent in ecological sciences is an organizing worldview, with implications for reordering societal values and expanding ethics to embrace "soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." Going beyond Leopold's land ethic, contemporary environmental ethics includes eco-social justice and the realization that as important as biodiversity is cultural diversity, inter-cultural, inter-institutional, and international collaboration requiring a novel approach known as biocultural conservation. Right action in confronting the challenges of the 21st century requires science and ethics to be seamlessly integrated. Contemporary science proposes the concept of the inclusive ecosystem that recognizes humans as components. In this book, this "inclusive conviction is endorsed, fortunately, by over forty contributors sharing their accounts, of living well in place, combining nature and culture, residing on landscapes: biocultural ethics" (Holmes Rolston, III). (shrink)

Most land plants associate with mycorrhizal fungi that can connect roots of neighboring plants in common mycelial networks (CMNs). Recent evidence shows that CMNs transfer warning signals of pathogen and aphid attack between plants. However, we do not know how defence‐related signaling via CMNs operates or how ubiquitous it is. Nor do we know what the ecological relevance and fitness consequences are, particularly from the perspective of the mycorrhizal fungus. Here, we focus on the potential fitness benefits for mycorrhizal fungi (...) and outline hypothetical scenarios in which signal transfer via CMNs is modulated in order to acquire the most benefit for the fungus (i.e. acquisition of carbon) for minimal cost. We speculate that the signal may be quantitative and may elicit plant defence responses on different levels depending on the distance the signal is transferred. Finally, we discuss the possibility of practical applications of this phenomenon for crop protection. (shrink)

James Pickett’s much-anticipated book derives from his 2015 Princeton Ph.D. dissertation, and the comparatively slim end product only hints at the wealth of res.