Owners of businesses represent an interesting case in the study of the intersection of personal and corporate philanthropic values. Because individuals who own businesses have the means and the ability to act on philanthropic motivations through the medium of their businesses, it is interesting to explore the extent to which their corporate contributions to nonprofits are philanthropic in nature or instrumentally motivated, as in the instance of cause related marketing. The trade-offs between cause related marketing and corporate support of nonprofits (...) are complex. Although larger firms are increasing their investments in cause related marketing, the extent of and motivations for adoption of cause related marketing among privately held businesses is less well understood. This study of 478 businesses which are supporters of arts organizations shows that privately held businesses of medium size (300 to 500 employees) are participating in cause related marketing to a significant degree. The adoption rate of cause related marketing is about 40%, and the primary benefits sought are company image enhancement and product marketing support. Adoption of cause related marketing among privately held and smaller enterprises will grow as CEOs exhibit satisfaction with the results of their program, intend to engage in positive word of mouth about it, and plan to allocate more resources to it. (shrink)

Object files (OFs) are hypothesized mid-level representations which mediate our conscious perception of persisting objects—e.g. telling us ‘which went where’. Despite the appeal of the OF framework, not previous research has directly explored whether OFs do indeed correspond to conscious percepts. Here we present at least one case wherein conscious percepts of ‘which went where’ in dynamic ambiguous displays diverge from the analogous correspondence computed by the OF system. Observers viewed a ‘bouncing/streaming’ display in which two identical objects moved such (...) that they could have either bounced off or streamed past each other. We measured two dependent variables: (1) an explicit report of perceived bouncing or streaming; and (2) an implicit ‘object-specific preview benefit’ (OSPB), wherein a ‘preview’ of information on a specific object speeds the recognition of that information at a later point when it appears again on the same object (compared to when it reappears on a different object), beyond display-wide priming. When the displays were manipulated such that observers had a strong bias to perceive streaming (on over 95% of the trials), there was nevertheless a strong OSPB in the opposite direction—such that the object files appeared to have ‘bounced’ even though the percept ‘streamed’. Given that OSPBs have been taken as a hallmark of the operation of object files, the five experiments reported here suggest that in at least some specialized (and perhaps ecologically invalid) cases, conscious percepts of ‘which went where’ in dynamic ambiguous displays can diverge from the mapping computed by the object-file system. (shrink)

Although databases have been well-defined and thoroughly discussed in the computer science literature, the actual users of databases often have varying definitions and expectations of this essential computational infrastructure. Systems administrators and computer science textbooks may expect databases to be instantiated in a small number of technologies, but there are numerous examples of databases in non-conventional or unexpected technologies, such as spreadsheets or other assemblages of files linked through code. Consequently, we ask: How do the materialities of non-conventional databases differ (...) from or align with the materialities of conventional relational systems? What properties of the database do the creators of these artifacts invoke in their rhetoric describing these systems—or in the data models underlying these digital objects? To answer these questions, we conducted a close analysis of four non-conventional scientific databases. By examining the materialities of information representation in each case, we show how scholarly communication regimes shape database materialities—and how information organization paradigms shape scholarly communication. These cases show abandonment of certain constraints of relational database construction alongside maintenance of some key relational data organization strategies. We discuss the implications that these relational data paradigms have for data use, preservation, and sharing, and discuss the need to support a plurality of data practices and paradigms. (shrink)

In recent years, public health law has seen some important court decisions. Those are presented below.In Pelman v. McDonaldS Corporation, the court dismissed a complaint filed by three children who claimed that McDonald’s practices in making and selling its products were deceptive. This deception, the children alleged, caused them to consume McDonald’s products with great frequency and become obese, thereby injuring their health. The plaintiffs pled five causes of action against McDonald’s, alleging that McDonald’s: 1) failed to adequately disclose the (...) ingredients and health effects of its products and described their food as nutritious without disclosing detrimental health effects; 2) engaged in marketing techniques geared toward inducing children to consume their products; 3) acted negligently in selling foods high in fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar when studies show that foods containing these ingredients cause obesity and detrimental health effects; 4) failed to warn consumers of the quantity and qualities of levels of fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar in its products or of the detrimental health effects of such foods; and 5) acted negligently in marketing foods that were physically and psychologically addictive. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 76-77. Please click to listen to the mp3 files of deep brain recordings of individual brain cells, the smallest unit of the brain, in a whole, intact living brain. Each brain region’s cells possess an electrical signature. During recordings electrical signals are transformed into sound to facilitate auditory identification of cells during a process called “mapping.” Subthalamic nucleus by continent Cortex by continent Mapping is an important step in successfully identifying and localizing the appropriate target site in (...) the brain for an experimental therapeutic procedure called deep brain stimulation which has been used for patients with movement disorders and, more recently, for patients with psychiatric disorders. Thalamus by continent I have pursued a career as a neuroscientist for the past decade because I wanted to learn about the mind. In my most recent research, I record electrical activity from individual cells in the brain, and look at individual brain cells with a high resolution, electron microscope. Globus Pallidus (internal segment) by continent Globus Pallidus (external segment) by continent The closer I examine the brain, the less I learn about the mind. Rather, what has been most informative about the mind is how people—neuroscientists and non-neuroscientists alike—interpret neuroscience data. Some cognitive neuroscientists have proposed the qualities we hold most precious as humans, like morality and free will, exist only in the context of human interaction. Likewise, I propose that the mind does not exist in a vacuum and one’s mind only necessitates distinction in a social context, and the mind’s existence may only be relevant due to its relative relationships. In sum, bodies have brains. People have minds. Striatum by continent I invite readers to reflect on and/or refute these statements after listening to these recordings of the brain in action. These regions are part of the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuit, which is thought to possess parallel, functionally segregated loops including a motor-movement circuit and limbic-emotional circuit which work together to generate behavior (e.g. motivated movements) and have been researched for their role in Parkinson’s disease as well as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. EDITOR'S SUGGESTED RESOURCES Michael Gazzaniga's lecture, “Free Yet Determined and Constrained” at Edinburgh University Gifford Lectures in 19 October, 2009 is an excellent discussion of the field. It can be viewed on Edinburgh University's Youtube channel . The Cognitive Neuroscience of the Mind . Eds. Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz, Kathleen Baynes, George R. Mangun, and Elizabeth A. Phelps. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2010. Print. (shrink)

Karen von Kunes traces Milan Kundera’s creative ideas to a 1950 police report filed in Stalinist era Czechoslovakia. Demonstrating how this incident influenced Kundera’s literary trajectory and ultimately contributed to his acclaim as a writer, von Kunes interprets his work in a new way.

In this paper I defend an etiological theory of biological functions (according to which the proper function of a trait is the effect for which it was selected by natural selection) against three objections which have been influential. I argue, contrary to Millikan, that it is wrong to base our defense of the theory on a rejection of conceptual analysis, for conceptual analysis does have an important role in philosophy of science. I also argue that biology requires a normative notion (...) of a "proper function", and that a normative notion is not ahistorical. (shrink)

The paper is an extended discussion of what I call the ‘dismissive attitude’ towards metaphysical questions. It has three parts. In the first part, I distinguish three quite different versions of dismissivism. I also argue that there is little reason to think that any of these positions is correct about the discipline of metaphysics as a whole; it is entirely possible that some metaphysical disputes should be dismissed and others should not be. Doing metametaphysics properly requires doing metaphysics first. I (...) then put two particular disputes on the table to be examined in the rest of the paper: the dispute over whether composite objects exist, and the dispute about whether distinct objects can be colocated. In the second part of the paper, I argue against the claim that these disputes are purely verbal disputes. In the third part of the paper, I present a new version of dismissivism, and argue that it is probably the correct view about the two disputes in question. They are not verbal disputes, and the discussion about them to date has not remotely been a waste of time. At this stage, however, our evidence has run out. I argue that neither side of either dispute is simpler than the other, and that the same objections in fact arise against both sides. (For example, the compositional nihilist does not in fact escape the problem of the many, and the one-thinger does not in fact escape the grounding problem.). (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Sober's claim that natural selection does not explain the traits of individuals. Sober argues that natural selection only explains the distribution of traits in a population. My point is that the explanation of an individual's traits involves us in a description of the individual's ancestry, and in an explanation of the distribution of traits in that ancestral population. Thus Sober is wrong, natural selection is part of the explanation of the traits of individuals.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, pregnant people lost their Constitutional protection of abortion. The new, visible politics of susceptibility have invited a revisitation to the psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud. This article examines the trauma narrative of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle and the theory of the death drive in elaborating the enduring cultural investment in protecting fetal life while examining its implications for pregnant subjects.

Conspiracy theories abound in social and political discourse, believed by millions of people around the world. In this article, we highlight when it is important to engage with people who believe in conspiracy theories and review recent literature highlighting how best to do so. We first summarise research on the potentially damaging consequences of conspiracy beliefs for individuals, including consequences related to psychopathology. We also focus on the consequences for groups, and societies, and the importance of understanding and addressing conspiracy (...) beliefs. We then review recent literature on how to engage with people who believe in conspiracy theories, specifically with the goal to reduce susceptibility to conspiracy theories and other types of misinformation. We focus on interpersonal strategies to communicate with individuals who believe in conspiracy theories, and large-scale strategies designed to reduce conspiracy beliefs within broader communities. (shrink)

Self-tracking practices include the use of personal data-gathering apps, wearable devices, and data analysis tools to record patterns from daily activities, as well as the organization, visualization, and analysis of this data. This paper draws on theories of digital labour and feminist political economy to build a framework of digital productive labour that highlights the exploitation of activities external to the formal labour relationship. Self-tracking practices are analysed through the lens of digital productive insofar as they fulfill three roles: they (...) generate the content necessary for sustaining digital networks and producing data that can be captured in commodity form; they aid in the reproduction of the social factory’s labour force; and they cultivate subjectivities amenable to consumption and production in contemporary capitalism. The paper examines the production and commodification of data, highlighting the algorithmic means by which self-trackers are separated from the financial value of their data. This is connected to feminist analyses of unpaid labour, with particular attention to self-tracking’s role as a contemporary form of reproductive labour that replenishes the labour force. Finally, the paper provides an analysis of the themes of self-knowledge, self-discovery, and gamification to understand how these frame self-trackers’ understanding of themselves as labourers, thus reproducing and deepening capitalist subjectivities. The paper concludes by considering self-tracking through the lens of the exploitation of life ‘outside’ the official labour relationship. (shrink)

Dummett's output has been prolific and highly influential, but not always as accessible as it deserves to be. This book sets out to rectify this situation.

In this paper I examine Aristotle's account of sexual difference in Generation of Animals, arguing that Aristotle conceives of the production of males as the result of a successful teleological process, while he sees the production of females as due to material forces that defeat the norms of nature. My suggestion is that Aristotle endorses what I call the "degrees of perfection" model. I challenge Devin Henry's attempt to argue that Aristotle explains sex determination exclusively with reference to material necessity (...) (in particular, levels of "vital heat" in the male semen), for Aristotle's notion of "sufficient" or "deficient" vital heat is itself teleological. If, as Aristotle is aware, male and female embryos appear with approximately equal frequency in most species, how, in light of Physics II, can he conceive of the former as in accordance with nature, and the latter as somehow contrary to nature? My proposal is that Aristotle's notion of what happens usually (ως επì τò πoλυ) is bifurcated: the usual need not be more frequent. (shrink)

The Court of Justice of the European Union and the way in which it works can be seen as a microcosm of how a multilingual, multicultural supranationalisation process and legal order can be constructed—the Court is a microcosm of the EU as a whole and in particular of EU law. The multilingual jurisprudence produced by the CJEU is necessarily shaped by the dynamics within that institution and by the ‘cultural compromises’ at play in the production process. The resultant texts, which (...) make up that jurisprudence, are hybrid in nature and inherently approximate. On the one hand, that approximation can lead to discrepancies between language versions of the Court’s case law and thus jeopardise the uniform application of EU law. On the other hand, that approximation and hybridity define EU law as a distinct, supranational legal order. This paper analyses the operation of the CJEU and considers whether a linguistic cultural compromise exists within that institution which exercises a formative influence on the character of its ‘output’—i.e. its jurisprudence—and what that may mean for our understanding of the development of EU law. (shrink)

The welfare mother is a powerful symbol of the supposed irresponsible, sexually promiscuous, and immoral behavior of the poor. Resting on dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender, the welfare mother suggests not a poor mother but a bad mother. Based on interviews with 34 mothers receiving public assistance, this article explores how women receiving assistance claim for themselves an identity as good mothers by defining the appropriate responsibilities of mothers to prioritize, protect, discipline, provide for, and spend time with (...) their children. The material realities of poverty combined with work requirements now attached to public assistance exacerbate contradictions between these roles and create difficulties for these mothers. This article explores these contradictions and examines the possibilities for and limits of their use as resistance strategies. (shrink)

I whole-heartedly endorse Ismaili M'hmandi’s efforts to move away from the narrowest of liberal justificatory grounds for public health policy. I worry, however, that the liberal perfectioni...

Collecting and using tissue, blood, urine, and other human biospecimens for various types of research is not new. But for personalized medicine to realize its potential, researchers will need thousands more of these samples for genetic studies. And the particular nature of genetic research—the sensitivity of the information it reveals—has raised a host of ethical questions, some which are new to human subjects research. What counts as informed consent when a biospecimen may be stored for years and used for unforeseen (...) research? How freely can the biospecimens and the genetic information they contain be shared with other researchers? If research uncovers a genetic risk factor or some other important medical .. (shrink)

Research on leadership has either ignored women or focused on sex differences. This paper illustrates how both of these strategies have been detrimental to women. An alternative conception based on sex-role orientation is presented and the research relating androgyny to leadership style and managerial effectiveness is reviewed. It is proposed that adopting an androgynous management style may help women to overcome the negative effects of sex-stereotyping in the workplace.

The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union is shaped by the language in which it is drafted—i.e. French. However, because French is rarely the mother tongue of those drafting that case law, the texts produced are often stilted and awkward. In addition, those drafting such case law are constrained in their use of language and style of writing. These factors have led to the development of a ‘Court French’ which necessarily shapes the case law produced (...) and has implications for its development, particularly insofar as it inevitably leads to a type of precedent in that case law. That case law also undergoes many permutations of translation into and out of up to 23 different languages. The resultant texts that make up the case law are hybrid in nature—consisting of a blend of cultural and linguistic patterns, constrained by a rigid formulistic drafting style and put through many permutations of translation. The present paper investigates the production of the Court’s multilingual case law and considers whether the hybrid nature of that case law can actually aid the presentation of a ‘uniform’ EU case law. (shrink)

This article discusses the development and application of various types of corporate social monitoring systems. Boycotts are a relatively simple form of social monitoring system which aim to produce changes in corporate social behavior. Boycotts may be organized by a single group, or by a number of groups simultaneously. Rating systems may be organized around a single issue, such as the Sullivan Principles rating scheme, or may include multiple companies and multiple issues, such as shopping guides or ethical investment systems.Monitoring (...) systems may be unidimensional or multidimensional, qualitative or quantitative, and absolute or relative. Consumers and investors appear to be the groups most likely to be targeted in these schemes. The importance of these monitoring systems appears to be increasing as both consumers and investors become more interested in using social criteria in decision-making. (shrink)

In her article 'What is Information Ethics?', Mathieson seeks to establish a new framework for Information Ethics, contesting the 'rival theories' of Van Den Hoven and of Floridi. However, when the arguments are examined in terms of Object Oriented Modelling conventions, the concepts in question appear in a different light.

INTRODUCTION Gilbert Ryle notes that '"mental" is occasionally used as a synonym of "imaginary" . . . [and] there exists a quite general tendency among ...

Justified trust is rationally permitted trust; wise trust is excellent trust. Excellent (dis)trust is always justified (dis)trust, but the reverse is not true. You can be justified in distrusting someone and yet it be wise for you to trust. Contrary to folk saying, wisdom does not favour distrust ahead of trust. This paper explores what it takes to be wise in entering, maintaining, modifying and exiting trust relations. Wisdom is socially scaffolded, including by distributed networks of distrust that make local (...) trust wise. (shrink)

The assessment of pragmatic skills in a foreign or second language (L2) is usually investigated with regard to language learners, but rarely with regard to non-native language instructors, who are simultaneously teachers and (advanced) learners of the L2. With regard to English as the target language, this is a true research gap, as nonnative English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs) constitute the majority of English teachers world-wide (Kamhi-Stein 2016). Addressing this research gap, this paper presents a modified replication of Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei’s (1998) (...) renowned study on grammatical vs. pragmatic awareness, carried out with non-NEST candidates. While the original study asked the participants for a global indication of (in)appropriateness/ (in)correctness and to rate its severity, the participants in the present study were asked to identify the nature of the violation and to suggest a repair. Inspired by Pfingsthorn and Flöck (2017), the data was analyzed by means of Signal Detection Theory with regard to Hits, Misses, False Alarms and Correct Rejections to gain more detailed insights into the participants’ metalinguistic perceptions. In addition, the study investigated the rate of successful repairs, showing that correct problem identification cannot necessarily be equated with adequate repair abilities. Implications for research, language teaching and language teacher education are derived. (shrink)

Bauer, Taub, and Parsi's review of an international sample of standards on informed consent, confidentiality, commercialization, and quality of research in tissue banking reveals that no clear national or international consensus exists for these issues. The authors' response to the lack of uniformity in the meaning, scope, and ethical significance of the policies they examined is to call for the creation of uniform ethical guidelines. This raises questions about whether harmonization should consist of voluntary international standards or international regulations that (...) include an official oversight mechanism and sanctions for noncompliance, and about who should participate in the harmonization process. Moreover, the normative assumptions and political dynamics that shape global policymaking need to be addressed. This commentary explores the policy implications and normative questions raised by the idea of international ethical guidelines for the use of biotechnologies and biotechnological resources such as stored samples of human tissue. (shrink)

What do we do when a loved one is seriously messing up her life? While Kantianism describes the predicament nicely as a tension between love and respect, it is not well-suited to resolving it. Kantian respect prevents minding another’s business in cases where love demands it. Virtue ethics can readily explain the predicament as a tension between the virtues of sympathy and humility. Moreover, by changing the focus away from the other as a setter of ends and toward the would-be-benefactor’s (...) own degree of practical wisdom, virtue ethics permits a more nuanced set of loving responses to self-destructive people. (shrink)

Filmmaking is one of the most complexly layered forms of artistic production. It is a deeply interactive process, socially, culturally, and technologically. Yet the bulk of popular and academic discussion of filmmaking continues to attribute creative authorship of films to directors. Texts refer to “a Scorsese film,” not a film by “Scorsese et al.” We argue that this kind of attribution of sole creative responsibility to film directors is a misapprehension of filmmaking processes, based in part on dubious individualist assumptions (...) about creative minds. Such a misapprehension is effacing the public value that a more inclusive and accurate understanding of filmmaking offers. By “public value” we mean the potential to enhance social and cultural well-being, particularly in working lives and collaborative undertakings in the screen industries. Better understanding of the systemic and social nature of creativity in filmmaking can potentially help in democratising aesthetics, which we consider a clear public good. (shrink)

It is argued that we should distinguish ontic truth––the True––that Frege claimed is sui generis and indefinable, from the semantic concept, for which Tarski provided a definition. Frege’s argument that truth is not definable is clarified and Wittgenstein’s introduction of the distinction between saying and showing is interpreted as an attempted response to Frege’s rejection of the correspondence theory. It is argued that conflicts between realism and Dummettian anti-realism result from their proponents not thoroughly distinguishing between the two closely connected (...) ways of thinking about truth. Last, the distinction is used to clarify and endorse the Fregean claim that all true sentences indicate the True, identified as ontic truth. (shrink)

1. Biomedical sciences are fast-growing fields with unprecedented speed of research outputs, especially in the quantities of papers. Philosophers aiming to study ongoing biomedical changes face cha...

This paper has two parts: In the first part, I give a general survey of the various reasons 17th and 18th century life scientists and metaphysicians endorsed the theory of pre-existence according to which God created all living beings at the creation of the universe, and no living beings are ever naturally generated anew. These reasons generally fall into three categories. The first category is theological. For example, many had the desire to account for how all humans are stained by (...) original sin (we were all there). As another example of a theological motivation, some take the organism as an obvious starting point for a teleological argument for God’s existence, and this staring point is sometimes developed into a full-blown theory of pre-existence. The second category could be thought of as non-theological metaphysical, and paramount here is the desire to deal with the metaphysical problem of individuation. So, for example, Leibniz embraces a version of hylomorphism in order to overcome difficulties with Descartes’ theory of material substance, including the difficulty of how to account for enduring material individuals, and Leibniz’s hylomorphism is closely linked with his embrace of pre-existence. The third category might be termed “biological”, and one example of such a concern is how to explain the organic unity of living beings where the whole seems to ontologically precede the parts. This is frequently translated into a temporal priority of whole to parts, and thus pre-existence is posited. Of course, many natural philosophers of the early modern period embrace pre-existence for more than one reason, but in general, these are the three classes of motivations one might have for embracing the theory. In the second part of the paper I examine in detail one argument that appears in the work of Malebranche. On the face of it, this argument seems to be a biological one, specifically the biological or organic holism argument mentioned above. But upon closer examination, I shall argue, Malebranche’s reasons for endorsing pre-existence bring together several of the arguments discussed in the first part of the paper. I conclude with some considerations about what we can learn about Malebranche as a natural philosopher from his motivations for holding the pre-existence doctrine of generation. (shrink)

Social learning and imitation is central to culture in cetaceans. The training technology used with cetaceans facilitates reinforcing imitation of one dolphin's behavior by another; the same technology, now widely used by pet owners, can lead to imitative learning in such unlikely species as dogs and horses. A capacity for imitation, and thus for cultural learning, may exist in many species.

In Handle with Care, novelist Jodi Picoult presents a heartbreaking case involving the question of wrongful birth. This essay examines Ronald M. Green's writings in the field of bioethics to see what wisdom they might bring to this case. I argue that Green's contributions to bioethics exemplify some of the best of ethical argumentation: attention to facts, discernment of morally relevant differences, enunciation and justification of principles, originality, and compassion. I then draw from his work three foci that illuminate aspects (...) of the dilemma presented by Picoult: the importance of parental love, the possibility that the dilemma might be reframed away from wrongful birth, and the need to shift our focus to questions of justice. While appreciating Green's contributions to bioethics, I also indicate several places of nuanced disagreement. (shrink)