This study examined the relationships among moral foundations, political ideology, and controversial social issues in an Asian culture. The study sample included 835 participants who completed a moral foundations questionnaire and three questions regarding attitudes toward social issues, and a political ideology questionnaire. Results indicated that binding foundations were associated conservative tendencies, and individualizing foundations were associated liberal tendencies. Also, participants who scored higher on Authority showed higher approval of the death penalty, and those scored higher on Purity showed lower (...) approval of the euthanasia. These results may provide a better understanding of the underlying differences for variations in opinions on social issues. Results also have implications for cultural differences in the associations among political ideology, social issues, and moral foundations. (shrink)

Recent studies on the effects of mandatory online teaching, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, have widely reported low levels of satisfaction, unwillingness to continue online teaching, and negative impacts on the psychological well-being of teachers. Emerging research has highlighted the potential role of psychological need thwarting, in terms of autonomy, competence, and relatedness thwarting, resulting from online teaching. The aim of this study was to evaluate the immediate and delayed effects of PNT of online teaching on teachers’ well-being, intention to (...) continue online teaching, and job satisfaction. Moreover, data collected from both cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys allowed for a systematic validation of an important instrument in the field of teacher psychology, the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale of Online Teaching, in terms of longitudinal reliability and validity. The data reveal the usefulness of the construct of PNT in terms predicting and explaining teachers’ willingness to continue using online teaching as well as the degree of burnout after a period of 2 months, such that PNT is positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with willingness to continue online teaching. As such, the PNTSOT is recommended for future research evaluating the long-term psychological, affective, and intentional outcomes stemming from teachers’ PNT. Moreover, based on our findings that the impact from PNT of online teaching is persistent and long-term, we suggest that school leaders provide flexible and sustained professional development, model respectful and adaptive leadership, and create opportunities for mastery for the development of community of practice that can mitigate the thwarting of teachers’ autonomy, competence, and relatedness during times of uncertainty. Additionally, in terms of the psychometric properties of the PNTSOT instrument, our empirical findings demonstrate internal reliability, test–retest reliability, measurement invariance, and criterion validity based on cross-sectional and longitudinal data. (shrink)

Banks play a unique role in society. They not only maximize profits but also consider the interests of stakeholders. We investigate whether banks consider firms’ pollution records in their lending decisions. The evidence shows that banks offer significantly higher loan spreads, higher total borrowing costs, shorter loan maturities, and greater collateral to firms with higher levels of chemical pollution. The costly effects are stronger for borrowers with greater risk and weaker corporate governance. Further, the results show that banks with higher (...) social responsibility account for their borrowers’ environmental performance and charge higher loan spreads to those with poor performance. These results support the idea that banks with higher social responsibility can promote the practice of business ethics in firms. (shrink)

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTThis article presents a phenomenological analysis of several Chinese notions of shame—embarrassment, chagrin, shame, and disgrace. It elaborates on their structural connections and related experiences, more particularly concerning interpersonal conditions and emotional or physical reactions. Chen focuses on the notion of moral shame, its connection to the Confucian tradition, and its weakening in the current society, due to ideational and technical circumstances, such as the increased sense of individual self and the booming of internet culture.

By “strong representationalism” (“SR” hereafter), I mean a version of naturalistic philosophy of mind which first naturalizes intentionality by identifying it with causation to physical properties and then naturalizes phenomenology by identifying it with intentionality or making them co-supervene on each other (Montague [2010]). Most specifically, SR will be taken as the conjunction of causal-function semantics and the intentionality-phenomenology identity thesis, the latter of which entails what I call “converse intentionalism”, the principle that experiential content supervenes on phenomenology. Because of (...) this identity thesis, SR enjoys some phenomenological plausibility which is absent from traditional physicalism of mind. However, in this paper, I shall raise an integration challenge to SR by arguing that its foundational principles do not integrate easily. I will also explore some strategies open to SR for addressing my challenge, and argue that by invoking those strategies, SR either loses its phenomenological plausibility or undermines causal-function semantics. I conclude that if my argument is correct, it provides us reason to search for new principles to replace SR’s foundations. (shrink)

Pylyshyn's effort in establishing the cognitive impenetrability of early vision is welcome. However, his view about the role of attention in early vision seems to be oversimplified. The allocation of focal attention manifests its effect among multiple stages in the early vision system, it is not just confined to the input and the output levels.

Gila Sher interviewed by Chen Bo: -/- I. Academic Background and Earlier Research: 1. Sher’s early years. 2. Intellectual influence: Kant, Quine, and Tarski. 3. Origin and main Ideas of The Bounds of Logic. 4. Branching quantifiers and IF logic. 5. Preparation for the next step. -/- II. Foundational Holism and a Post-Quinean Model of Knowledge: 1. General characterization of foundational holism. 2. Circularity, infinite regress, and philosophical arguments. 3. Comparing foundational holism and foundherentism. 4. A post-Quinean model of (...) knowledge. 5. Intellect and figuring out. 6. Comparing foundational holism with Quine’s holism. 7. Evaluation of Quine’s Philosophy -/- III. Substantive Theory of Truth and Relevant Issues: 1. Outline of Sher’s substantive theory of truth. 2. Criticism of deflationism and treatment of the Liar. 3. Comparing Sher’s substantive theory of truth with Tarski’s theory of truth. -/- IV. A New Philosophy of Logic and Comparison with Other Theories: 1. Foundational account of logic. 2. Standard of logicality, set theory and logic. 3. Psychologism, Hanna’s and Maddy’s conceptions of logic. 4. Quine’s theses about the revisability of logic. -/- V. Epilogue. (shrink)

Nucleation and motion of kink pairs on partial dislocations are examined by elasticity theory for materials with a high Peierls stress. Two approaches are used: one considers the change in average stacking-fault energy due to alloying elements and the other considers the change in local SFE due to a nearby solute atom. Both approaches highlight the role of SFE on kink nucleation, propagation and annihilation and both furnish strain rate as a function of stress, temperature and SFE. Model predictions are (...) compared with yield stress data for two systems: firstly, an intermetallic, MoSi 2 , which softens for alloying elements that decrease the SFE and hardens for Re additions that increase the SFE; secondly, a ceramic oxide, MgO-Al 2 O 3 spinel, which softens with increasing addition of excess alumina and at the same time exhibits a decrease in SFE. The average SFE approach agrees qualitatively with the data while quantitative agreement is obtained with the local SFE approach. The possibility is considered that the model applies to other materials, such as TiAl, HfV 2 and Fe 3 Al, which show softening with certain alloying additions. One requirement is that the dislocations are dissociated more than a few atomic distances; otherwise kink nucleation occurs on the perfect dislocation . Hence the model does not apply to materials such as bcc metals which only have a core dissociation. Normal hardening effects of solutes from size and modulus misfits are additive with any softening effects from a decrease in SFE and so may mask the latter, as occurs for W additions to MoSi 2. (shrink)

Before I went to the university, whether at home, in primary or secondary school, all I studied was Confucian literature. In the first year of the university, the classes on Chinese culture amounted to rote learning of the Analects and Mencius. Traditional culture had been compressed into Confucian culture alone. Hence, as a young man, I often found it difficult to breathe in the narrow confines imposed by Confucian ritual norms. The monotonous, stifling, and insipid atmosphere of Confucian thought was (...) a major reason driving me in a way similar to Nietzsche's bacchanal philosophy of life. It was also a prime cause of my liking for the Zhuangzi. When I entered graduate school I occasionally had the chance to encounter the Zhuangzi. It was this that led me to realize that Chinese culture originally had another outlook on the world. (shrink)

Sellected collection of tantric canonical texts of the Nyingma order on Rdzogs-chen philosophy.

The aim of this study was to analyze nurses' experiences of role strain when taking care of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). We adopted an interpretive/constructivist paradigm. Twenty-one nurses who had taken care of SARS patients were interviewed in focus groups. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The self-state of nurses during the SARS outbreak evolved into that of professional self as: (1) self-preservation; (2) self-mirroring; and (3) self-transcendence. The relationship between self-state and reflective practice is discussed.

The common law's approach in the law of unjust enrichment is to enumerate specific «unjust factors» as permissible causes of action in claims for restitution. This approach has come under attack, inter alia, for being unnecessarily complicated. The claim is that the civilian approach, with its single ground of absence of legal cause for the transfer, is preferable since the operative unjust factor in any particular case is irrelevant to the restitutionary response. In defence of the common law's approach, this (...) article tenders four aspects of the restitutionary response which, it is claimed, are illuminated by reference to the nature, context, and effect of the operative unjust factor in any particular case. They are: (i) the availability of the defence of change of position; (ii) the justifiability of certain «bars» on rescission and the permissible mode of mutual restitution on rescission; (iii) the appropriate measure of enrichment where restitution is, or must be, effected in money; and (iv) two possible justifications for the controversial remedy of partial rescission. (shrink)

Objectives: To quantify the use of do-not-resuscitate orders in a tertiary-care children’s hospital and to characterise the circumstances in which such orders are written.Design: Retrospective study conducted in a 500-bed children’s hospital in Taiwan.Patients: The course of 101 patients who died between January 2002 and December 2005 was reviewed. The following data were collected: age at death, gender, disease and its status, place of death and survival. There were 59 males and 42 females with a median age of 103 months (...) . 50 children had leukaemias, and 51 had malignancies other than leukaemia. The t test and the χ2 test were applied as appropriate.Results: The study found that 44% of patient deaths occurred in the paediatric oncology ward; 29% of patient deaths occurred in the intensive care unit; and 28% of patients died in their home or at another hospital. Other findings included the following: 46 of 101 patients died after attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation and 55 died with a DNR order in effect. The mean age at death was 9.8 years in both groups with or without DNR orders.Conclusions: From the study of patient deaths in this tertiary-care children’s hospital, it was concluded that an explicit DNR order is now the rule rather than the exception, with more DNR orders being written for patients who have been ill longer, who have solid tumours, who are not in remission and who are in the ward. (shrink)

After a brief review of the notions of necessity and a priority, this paper scrutinizes Kripke's arguments for supposedly contingent a priori propositions and necessary a posteriori propositions involving proper names, and reaches a negative conclusion, i.e. there are no such propositions, or at least the propositions Kripke gives as examples are not such propositions. All of us, including Kripke himself, still have to face the old question raised by Hume, i.e. how can we justify the necessity and universality of (...) general statements on the basis of sensory or empirical evidence? (shrink)

In his Knowledge and Belief (1962), Hintikka establishes his system of epistemic logic with the KK (Knowing that One Knows, in symbols, Kp→KKp) principle (KK for short). However, his system of epistemic logic and the KK principle are grounded upon his strong notion of knowledge, which requires that knowledge is infallible, that is, it makes further inquiry pointless, and becomes ‘discussion-stopper’; knowledge implies truth, to wit, cognitive agents will not be mistaken in their knowledge; cognitive agents will be ‘perfect logicians’, (...) i.e. they have infinitive capability of logical inference. Hintikka calls the argument for KK from the strong notion of knowledge as the ‘transcendental argument’ for KK. Obviously, the strong notion of knowledge is far away from our ordinary conception of knowledge; based on such a strong sense of knowledge, epistemic logic has met the problem of logical omnipotence, and is difficult to apply in our ordinary cognitive practice. Moreover, there is no close connection of the KK principle with internalism or externalism. (shrink)

My friends, what I intend to do here is not simply to present a thesis. Rather, I will follow the main subject of this seminar, namely "The Possibilities and Questions in the Teaching and Transmitting Chinese Philosophy," concentrating in this lecture on the core concepts of neo-Confucianism.

A surprisingly large number of lottery prizes go unclaimed every year. This leads us to suspect that what people bet on is not only money, but also good mood. We conducted three studies to explain, from an emotional perspective, why people play lottery games. We first conducted two survey studies to assess mood state reported by online (Study 1a) and offline lottery buyers (Study 1b) at different stages of lottery play. The results revealed that participants’ highest mood appeared before knowing (...) whether they had won. In Study 2, we manipulated the means of reward (lottery tickets vs. cash) and compared participants’ mood changes at different stages of a rewards game in the laboratory. We found the following: first, lottery group participants were generally in a better mood; second, 42% of lottery group participants did not come to the laboratory to collect scratch cards; and third, lottery group participants took more time to return to the laboratory to check their tickets than participants in the cash group. In Study 3, we examined whether priming good or bad mood could influence participants’ preferences for cash versus lottery tickets. The results revealed that participants who were primed for poor mood had a higher preference for lottery tickets compared with their good mood counterparts. These findings suggest that what our participants sought in lottery play was not only money, but improved mood. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

It has been suggested that there is a close relationship between visual attention span (VAS) and fluent reading. This relation may be modulated by participants’ age, and exhibits various patterns in different reading modes (i.e. oral v.s. silent reading) and different reading levels (e.g. sentence v.s. character/word levels). Moreover, the modulation effects from the above factors might be more remarkable in the framework of languages with a deep orthography. Therefore, the present study investigated the developmental pattern of the relationship between (...) VAS skills and reading fluency in Chinese, a language with particularly deep orthography, by recruiting 292 participants from primary schools, middle schools and universities. Two tests were utilized to assess fluent reading skills at the single-character and sentence levels with oral and silent reading modes. A visual 1-back task was adopted to reflect VAS capacity with non-verbal stimuli and no verbal response. Results showed that the VAS capacity of low-grade primary school students could significantly account for the variance in single-character reading fluency in the oral mode and that it was a significant predictor of sentence reading fluency in the oral mode among high-grade primary school students. VAS abilities of middle school students allowed a unique and stable prediction of their silent sentence reading. With increasing reading ability, VAS skills of adults showed significant and similar predictive power for estimating the variations in fluent sentence reading in both silent and oral modes. These results revealed developmental changes in the contribution of VAS to fluent reading in Chinese, and provided evidence unveiling whether the underlying mechanisms of oral and silent reading were shared or different. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

Drawing on the transactional model of stress and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we examine the role of performance pressure in relation to unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). We propose that (1) employee perceived performance pressure and LMX interact to increase employees’ willingness to engage in UPB, and (2) employees’ threat appraisal mediates this interaction effect. The results from two studies based on samples of employees in the United States and China supported our theoretical model. We found that LMX moderated the relation (...) between performance pressure and the willingness to engage in UPB, such that the relation was stronger when LMX was high (Study 1). Moreover, the conditional indirect effect (i.e., performance pressure on UPB through threat appraisal with LMX as a moderator at the first stage) was also supported (Study 2). These findings highlight the role of performance pressure and LMX in inducing unethical work behaviors that are aimed at benefiting the organization (i.e., UPB). Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Moral thinking and communication are critical competencies for confronting social dilemmas in a challenging world. We examined these moral competencies in 70 college students and graduates from Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants were assessed through semi-structured written interviews, Facebook group discussions, and a questionnaire. In this paper, we describe the similarities and differences across cultural groupings in (1) the social issues of greatest importance to the participants; (2) the factors influencing their approaches to thinking about social (...) issues and communicating with others; and (3) the characteristics of their moral functioning in terms of moral awareness, moral judgment, moral discourse, and moral decision-making. (shrink)