This article outlines the rationale for a molecular genetic study of social behavior, and explains why social insects are good models. Summaries of research on brain and behavior in two species, honey bees and fire ants, are presented to illustrate the richness of the behavioral phenomena that can be addressed with social insects and to show how they are beginning to be used to study genes that influence social behavior. We conclude by considering the problems and potential of this emerging (...) field. (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils? educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their local authority because of poor pupil attendance, below?average examination results and low rates of continuing in full?time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and coeducational. Over 800 pupils aged 12?14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils? experience of home, school and their (...) peers. A sub?sample of 48 pupils, selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools, also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self?concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self?concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity. (shrink)

On the first page of 1984, Winston Smith is confronted with several posters featuring the face of Big Brother and the famous sentence, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” This may not seem like a promising way to seduce someone, but the seduction of Winston Smith by Big Brother in 1984 is a most unusual love story. I call it a seduction because Winston’s mind and heart are slowly won over in the aptly-named Ministry of Love. Moreover, in (...) the final scene of the novel, Winston gazes, with tears in his eyes, up at Big Brother on the telescreen. The last sentence of the book states, simply, “He loved Big Brother.” How does Big Brother seduce Winston Smith? He certainly does not employ stereotypical methods. Big Brother is not particularly sexy, and his incessant angry shouting does not seem calculated to foster adoration. On top of that, Winston never meets Big Brother in person. His only access is through media: posters, stories, and the telescreen. We all know that it’s hard to maintain a long-distance relationship. Long-distance seduction is even more challenging. So how does Big Brother manage it? To answer this question, I use the theory of seduction first articulated by the philosopher John Forrester (1990, p. 42), who argues that “the first step in a seductive maneuver could be summed up as, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’”. (shrink)

The contemporary historical situation suggests fascinating parallels with that period of the 13th/7th century when the massive destruction of the Mongol invasions opened the way for popular new forms of Islamic life and practice that eventually spread Islam throughout Asia. Today, as in earlier periods of dramatic upheaval, we can witness those processes of inspiration and awakening that give rise to the spiritual pathways of future centuries, through each soul’s gradual discovery of its unique challenges and demands of ihsan. One (...) way of describing this transformation, to use the Qur’anic language adapted by Ibn ‘Arabi, is in the terms of the process of spiritual realization by which people discover their guiding inner relationship to those divine qualities or “Names” that eventually come to define the meaning and purpose of their lives. Through our life long movement of service to the “Lord” constituted by each divine Name, the transformation of the soul follows a familiar, naturally ascending trajectory. It begins with a curiosity drawing us toward some particular dimension of the Real ; then a compelling striving leading to heightened discipline and awareness; and ultimately to the creative manifestation of that devotion through the appropriate means of teaching, communication, and new communities of fellow- seekers—the Qur’anic “servants of the All-Merciful”—that slowly emerge from this shared spiritual work of devotion, discovery and creative response. Here we point to some ways this process of civilizational renewal is unfolding around the world, focusing on three of the most far-reaching of those divine Names: the “servants of the All-Wise”, in their exploring and deciphering the infinite Signs of God’s Wisdom “on the horizons”, in all of the sciences of nature and society; to those muhsinūn and “servants of the Beautiful” whose creative acts of beauty help awaken that love and awe which mark the beginnings of each spiritual journey; or to those “servants of the Subtly-Gracious” whose lives are dedicated to deepening our understanding of the presence and meaning of each of the divine Signs “in our souls,” in the emerging science of spirituality. These “servants of the all- Merciful” and their communities are themselves the first seeds of an emerging global civilization. (shrink)

In response to recent calls to extend the underlying theories used in the literature :375–413, 2005; Craft in J Bus Ethics 117:221–259, 2013), we review the usefulness of social norm theory in empirical business ethics research. We begin by identifying the seeds of social norm theory in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Glasgow Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1759/1790) seminal work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Next, we introduce recent theory in social norm activation by Bicchieri and (...) compare the new theory to two theoretical frameworks found in the literature: Kohlberg’s Handbook of socialization theory and research, Rand McNally, Chicago, IL, 1969; in: Lickona Moral development and behavior, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1976) theory of moral development and Cialdini and Trost’s The handbook of social psychology, Oxford University Press, Boston, 1998) taxonomy of social norms. We argue that the new theory provides useful insights by emphasizing the ability of situational cues and information to generate common expectations for social/moral norms. The theory is particularly useful for empirical research in business ethics because it gives both organizational and individual factors a role in motivating norm-based behavior. To demonstrate this usefulness, we present examples where the theory has been effectively applied in experimental accounting research to generate new insights. We conclude by citing specific examples where the theory may prove useful in empirical business ethics research. (shrink)

According to a standard account of patient decision-making capacity, patients can provide ethically valid consent or refusal only if they are able to understand and appreciate their medical c...

Life increasingly is understood in terms of information. I consider two attempts to formulate life in terms of mathematical information theory. G. J. Chaitin proposes to define life in terms of the relation between order and algorithmic compressibility in biological information. More recently, William Dembski, Winston Ewart, and Robert J. Mark’s suggest that Dembski’s notion of specified complexity can be mathematically expressed in information-theoretic terms through the concept of algorithmic specified complexity. The mathematical approaches are similar and in (...) both cases essentially dependent on the concept of randomness deficiency in algorithmic information theory: to subtract out the degree of randomness from an informational measure, yielding a remainder of organization (Chatin) or specified complexity (Dembski, Ewart, and Marks). I argue that these attempts must fail due the information-theoretic indistinguishability of organization and randomness. The failure is instructive, however, because it illustrates the inability of mathematical information theory to register biological organization. (shrink)

This second edition of the book contains a new chapter on the notions of natural-kind words and natural kinds.

Artificial intelligence ethics requires a united approach from policymakers, AI companies, and individuals, in the development, deployment, and use of these technologies. However, sometimes discussions can become fragmented because of the different levels of governance or because of different values, stakeholders, and actors involved. Recently, these conflicts became very visible, with such examples as the dismissal of AI ethics researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru from Google and the resignation of whistle-blower Frances Haugen from Facebook. Underpinning each debacle was a conflict between (...) the organisation’s economic and business interests and the morals of their employees. This paper will examine tensions between the ethics of AI organisations and the values of their employees, by providing an exploration of the AI ethics literature in this area, and a qualitative analysis of three workshops with AI developers and practitioners. Common ethical and social tensions will be discussed, along with proposals on how to avoid or reduce these conflicts in practice. Altogether, we suggest the following steps to help reduce ethical issues within AI organisations: improved and diverse ethics education and training within businesses; internal and external ethics auditing; the establishment of AI ethics ombudsmen, AI ethics review committees and an AI ethics watchdog; as well as access to trustworthy AI ethics whistle-blower organisations. (shrink)

A reassessment of the influence of John Dewey's mature work, especially "Experience and Nature" on recent trends in cognitive science.

A specific issue for argumentation theory is whether information and communication technologies play any role in governing argument — that is, as parties engage in practical activities across space and time via ICTs, does technology matter for the interplay of argumentative content and process in managing disagreement? The case made here is that technologies do matter because they are not merely conduits of communication but have a role in the pragmatics of communication and argumentation. In particular, ICTs should be recognized (...) as communication-information services that are delegated degrees of responsibility for managing disagreements arising from practical activities. These services are organized around practical theories for designing disagreement space. However, recognizing this relationship between argument and technology requires accounting for procedures, techniques, or rules and speech acts that are not argumentative propositions in any strict sense but that are consequential for what becomes argumentation in any setting. An account about designing disagreement space, grounded in Jackson and Jacobs’s theory of Disagreement Management, is put forward to address these issues while more generally contributing to understanding argument in context. (shrink)

Epistemology -- Power I -- Power II -- Subjectivity -- Resistance -- Critique -- Ethics.

This study investigates how dispute-mediators handle impasse in the re-negotiation of divorce decrees by divorced couples. Three sources of impasse and three strategies for handling impasse are identified based on analysis of mediation transcripts. The concern here lies not so much in the disputant's arguments but in the discussion procedures dispute-mediators use to craft the disputant's argumentation into a tool to solve conflict. Their moves are understood here as a practice of reconstructing argumentative discourse that is neither naïve nor critical (...) but reconstruction as design. Mediator's reconstruction reveals a type of communication work in contemporary societies involved in the crafting of forums and formats that mediate argumentative communication. This work is often invisible and strategic which makes its interpretation, judgment, and development a challenge for pragma-dialectical theory. How reconstruction as design can be understood is discussed by building on prior pragma-dialectical theory and research. (shrink)

It seems true to say that Sherlock Holmes is a detective, despite there being no Sherlock Holmes. When asked to explain this fact, philosophers of language often opt for some version of Lewis’s view that sentences like ‘Sherlock Holmes is a detective’ may be taken as abbreviations for sentences prefixed with ‘In the Sherlock Holmes stories …’. I present two problems for this view. First, I provide reason to deny that these sentences are abbreviations. In short, these sentences have aesthetic (...) properties that we should not expect of abbreviations. Second, I argue that the apparent truth of these sentences would not be explained even if they were abbreviations. An alternative is presented that avoids these problems. Following Walton, talk about fiction is viewed as a game of make-believe; following Lewis, interpretations of fiction are modelled using possible worlds. (shrink)

This paper argues that the type of conscience claims made in last decade’s spate of cases involving pharmacists’ objections to filling birth control prescriptions and cases such as Ms. Means and Mercy Health Partners of Michigan, and even the Affordable Care Act and the Little Sisters of the Poor, as different as they appear to be from each other, share a common element that ties them together and makes them fundamentally different in kind from traditional claims of conscience about which (...) a practical consensus emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. This difference in kind is profoundly significant; so much so, we contend, that it puts them at odds with the normative basis for protecting conscience claims in United States health care settings in the first place, making them illegitimate. Finally, we argue that, given the illegitimacy of these contemporary claims of conscience, physicians and other health professionals must honor their well-established standing obligations to provide informed consent and refer or transfer care even if the service requested or needed is at odds with their own core moral beliefs—a requirement that is in line with the aforementioned practical consensus on traditional claims of conscience. (shrink)

Self-representational theories of consciousness hold that a mental phenomenon is conscious if, and only if, it presents, among other things, itself. But in conscious perception one may lose oneself in the object perceived and not be aware of one’s perceiving. The paper develops a Brentano-inspired response to this objection. He follows Aristotle in holding that one is aware of one’s perceiving only ‘on the side’: when one perceives something one’s perception neither is nor can become observation of itself. I argue (...) that the arguments Brentano gave for this claim in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint are wanting. However, a promising argument emerges if one takes Brentano’s conception of noticing into account. (shrink)

Recently there has been more attention to the cultural aspects of social robots. This paper contributes to this effort by offering a philosophical, in particular Wittgensteinian framework for conceptualizing in what sense and how robots are related to culture and by exploring what it would mean to create an “Ubuntu Robot”. In addition, the paper gestures towards a more culturally diverse and more relational approach to social robotics and emphasizes the role technology can play in addressing the challenges of modernity (...) and in assisting cultural change: it argues that robots can help us to engage in cultural dialogue, reflect on our own culture, and change how we do things. In this way, the paper contributes to the growing literature on cross-cultural approaches to social robotics. (shrink)

A higher order potential analysis of moral status clarifies the issues that divide Human Being Theorists who oppose embryo research from Person Theorists who favor embryo research. Higher order potential personhood is transitive if it is active, identity preserving and morally relevant. If the transition from the Second Order Potential of the embryo to the First Order Potential of an infant is transitive, opponents of embryo research make a powerful case for the moral status of the embryo. If it is (...) intransitive, then the Person Theorist can draw lines between levels of moral status that permit embryo research to proceed. (shrink)

Adam Pautz (Pautz, Nanay (ed), Current Controversies in philosophy of perception, Routledge, New York and London, 2017, Pautz, Philosophical Issues 30:257–272, 2020 ) coined the phrase “the Laws of Appearance” for some underappreciated features of perceptual experience. Pautz suggests that the modal status of the Laws presents a puzzle: it is problematic to regard them as necessary, and also problematic to regard them as contingent. This paper presents possible counterexamples to the laws, suggesting that they are contingent as originally stated (...) (Sect. 1 ). But the laws are readily modified so as to express constitutive features of normal human visual experience, and thus understood they are metaphysically necessary (Sect. 2 ). Analogous pictorial laws govern representational painting, and these can be explained by appealing to the representational format of the medium (Sect. 3 ). This invites the question whether there might be format-based explanations of the Laws of Appearance. If so, can the contingency of the format facts be squared with the necessity of the Laws? The paper answers “Yes” to both questions (Sect. 4 ). (shrink)

Wie geartet ist das Verhältnis zwischen den zentralen Begriffen „Bewußtsein“ und „Reflexion“ in Lockes Essay? Sind diese Begriffe für Locke identisch oder voneinander verschieden? Falls sie verschieden sind, wie ist der Unterschied genau zu bestimmen? Diese Arbeit untersucht die Fragen, unter Berücksichtigung der unterschiedlichen Deutungen in der Sekundärliteratur; sie sichtet und prüft den Text des Essays sorgfältig und breitet ein breites Spektrum philosophischer Implikationen von Lockes Ausführungen über das „Bewußtsein“ und „Reflexion“ aus. Der abschließende Teil legt dar, daß Locke niemals (...) eine feste Position gegenüber dem Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Begriffen eingenommen hat, sondern daß er zwischen verschiedenen Positionen schwankte -als Resultat der starken philosophischen Kräfte, die ihn bald in die eine, bald in die andere Richtung zogen. (shrink)

We have used fMRI to measure responses to chromatic and achromatic contrast in retinotopically defined regions of macaque and human visual cortex. We make four observations. Firstly, the relative amplitudes of responses to color and luminance stimuli in macaque area V1 are similar to those previously observed in human fMRI experiments. Secondly, the dorsal and ventral subdivisions of macaque area V4 respond in a similar way to opponent (L j M)-cone chromatic contrast suggesting that they are part of a single (...) functional area. Thirdly, we find that macaque area V4, like area V1, responds preferentially to chromatic contrast compared to luminance contrast and the degree of preference is strongly influenced by the temporal frequency of the stimulus. Finally, we observe that while macaque V4d is a region on the dorsal surface of the macaque visual cortex that responds robustly to chromatic stimuli, human chromatic responses to identical stimuli are largely confined to the ventral surface suggesting a fundamental difference in the topographical organization of higher visual areas between humans and macaques. (shrink)

The concept of the "unlevel playing field" is critiqued for its tendency to take the prevailing masculinist managerial paradigm for granted. Rather than assume that both men and women should assimilate to corporate masculinity, feminist alternatives are suggested. The pervasiveness of the masculine ethic and the "myth of meritocracy" in organizations are reviewed, with the space shuttle Challenger disaster serving as a focal point to demonstrate the dysfunctionality of masculine management and the rationale for feminist-based organizational transformation to promote not (...) only gender equity, but more effective and ethical organizational behavior. (shrink)