The growing interest in lifestyle campaigns as a means to promote public health has increased steadily during the past several decades. Governments, national health organizations, NGOs, and wealthy donors are collaborating with media professionals and academic scholars to address the pressing health issues of the 21st century. To counter the potential negative influences of hundreds of lifestyle advertising messages that media consumers are exposed to on a daily basis, health communication professionals are designing more sophisticated campaigns that blend beneficial health (...) information with various forms of entertainment media. This article discusses important ethical considerations raised by health professionals and media scholars and considers lifestyle campaigns within the context of competing ethical approaches to social change. A heuristic model is presented that facilitates a communitarian ethical approach to lifestyle campaigns, examining four important groups of stakeholders. Specific recommendations for future lifestyle campaigns based on this model are proposed. (shrink)

Emotion influences parameters of goal-directed whole-body movements in several ways. For instance, previous research has shown that approaching (moving toward) pleasant stimuli is easier compared to approaching unpleasant stimuli. However, some studies found that when emotional pictures are viewed for a longer time, approaching unpleasant stimuli may in fact be facilitated. The effect of viewing duration may have modulated whole-body approach movement in previous research but this has not been investigated to date. In the current study, participants initiated a step (...) forward after viewing neutral, high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. The viewing duration of the stimuli was set to seven different durations, varying from 100 to 4000 ms. Valence and arousal scores were collected for all stimuli. The results indicate that both viewing duration and the arousal of the stimuli influence kinematic parameters in forward gait initiation. Specifically, longer viewing duration, compared to shorter viewing duration, (a) diminished the step length and peak velocity in both neutral and emotional stimuli, (b) increased reaction time in neutral stimuli and, (c) decreased reaction time in pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. Strikingly, no differences were found between high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. In other words, the valence of the stimuli did not influence kinematic parameters of forward step initiation. Instead the arousal level (neutral: low; pleasant and unpleasant: high) explained the variance found in the results. The kinematics of forward gait initiation seemed to be reflected in the subjective arousal scores, but not the valence scores. So it seems arousal affects forward gait initiation parameters more strongly than valence. In addition, longer viewing duration seemed to cause diminished alertness, affecting GI parameters. These results shed new light on the prevailing theoretical interpretations regarding approach motivation in the literature, which warrants further examination in future research. (shrink)

Theism, according to David O'Connor, has in recent centuries been on trial for its life, the charge being that the existence of so much evil in the world is incompatible with belief in a benevolent creator. But this trial, he claims is incapable of producing a reasoned verdict.

Religion and the external world -- Projection, religion, and the external world -- The senses, reason and the imagination -- Realism, meaning and justification : the external world and religious belief -- Modality, projection and realism -- 'Our profound ignorance' : causal realism, and the failure to detect necessity -- Spreading the mind : projection, necessity and realism -- Into the labyrinth : persons, modality, and Hume's undoing -- Value, projection, and realism -- Gilding : projection, value and secondary qualities (...) -- The gold : good, evil, belief and desire -- The golden : relational values, realism and a moral sense. (shrink)

P J Crittenden; Thoughts about Locke's Thoughts about Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 149–160, https://doi.

This new edition offers expanded selections from the works of Kongzi, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi ; two new works, the dialogues _Robber Zhi_ and _White Horse_; a concise general introduction; brief introductions to, and selective bibliographies for, each work; and four appendices that shed light on important figures, periods, texts, and terms in Chinese thought.

In his paper ‘Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?’, 97–110) William F. Vallicella argues that my attempt to show that the Ontological Argument begs the question is unsuccessful. 1 I believe he is wrong about this, but before endeavouring to vindicate my position I must first make clear what precisely is the point at issue between us. The Ontological Argument is not a single argument, but a family of arguments. Newly devised formulations of the argument are frequently put forward by (...) philosophers in an effort to avoid difficulties that have been pointed out in previous versions. As a consequence there is no possibility of a conclusive proof that every form of the argument embodies the same fallacy. Nevertheless, one can, I believe, prove that all the standard versions of the argument embody a certain fallacy and that, given the nature of the argument, it is therefore unlikely that the argument can be formulated in such a way as to avoid this difficulty. What I tried to show in my paper is that the six best-known versions of the argument all beg the question and that they do so at the same point in the argument, namely when it is asserted that it is possible that an absolutely perfect being exists. It is difficult to see how an ontological argument could be formulated without including this claim as one of its premises, since the distinguishing badge of the argument is the inference from the possibility of an absolutely perfect being to its actuality. It must be unlikely then, if my criticism of these six versions is correct, that there is any way of formulating the argument that avoids this fallacy. (shrink)

The Bible: Sole basis for Reformed church polity?Most scholars in the Reformed tradition claim that the Bible is the sole basis of their views on church polity. The author looks at the different ways the Bible is used by Reformed scholars in establishing church principles. He shows that other factors also play a part. Some of these factors are not recognized by those who use them; they are not necessarily wrong and need to be acknowledged and examined. These factors include (...) confessions of faith, a viewpoint on what the church is, attitudes to society as a whole, and the scholar’s cosmological insights. (shrink)

We prove almost sure exponential stability for the disease-free equilibrium of a stochastic differential equations model of an SIR epidemic with vaccination. The model allows for vertical transmission. The stochastic perturbation is associated with the force of infection and is such that the total population size remains constant in time. We prove almost sure positivity of solutions. The main result concerns especially the smaller values of the diffusion parameter, and describes the stability in terms of an analogue $$\mathcal{R}_\sigma$$ of the (...) basic reproduction number $$\mathcal{R}_0$$ of the underlying deterministic model, with $$\mathcal{R}_\sigma \le \mathcal{R}_0$$. We prove that the disease-free equilibrium is almost sure exponentially stable if $$\mathcal{R}_\sigma <1$$. (shrink)

Inleidend overzicht van de wijsgerige ethiek.

In the year of Eubulus' archonship at Athens , Timoleon the Corinthian, who had been chosen by his fellow citizens to command at Syracuse, prepared for his expedition to Sicily. He hired seven hundred mercenaries and having put his soldiers aboard four triremes and three fast sailing ships departed from Corinth. Following the coastal route he picked up three further ships from the Leucadians and Corcyreans and then with ten ships in all crossed the Ionian gulf to Italy. Thus far (...) Diodorus Siculus 16. 66. 1–2. In the course of the crossing, Diodorus continues , a peculiar and miraculous event befell Timoleon, with the supernatural order coming to the support of his enterprise and foreshadowing his eventual fame and the glory of his achievements. I now quote Diodorus' own words: δι' λης γρ τς νυκτς προηγετο λαμπάς καιομένη κατ τν ορανόν μέχρι ο συνέβη τν στόλον ες τν ταλίαν καταπλεσαι In translation: ‘throughout the whole night he was preceded by a torch that blazed in the sky until the flotilla reached land in Italy’. No more than a single night would, of course, have been required in order to accomplish the crossing of the gulf, with Timoleon presumably heading from Corcyra for the Iapygian promontory as was normal procedure in such transits. Diodorus goes on to recount that Timoleon, who had been informed in Corinth that Demeter and Persephone would accompany him on his voyage, recognized the actual assistance of the two goddesses, dedicated his best ship to them and named it Sacred vessel of Demeter and Kore. After diplomatic activity at Metapontum and Rhegium Timoleon proceeded from Italy to Sicily, where he landed at Tauromenium still in the year of Eubulus. (shrink)

This essay engages Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus as a salient intervention into modern political theory. I analyze the work as a cipher for the tensions inhabiting Euro-modernity’s stitched together fictions of racial determinism and racial dynamism legible in slavery, assimilationist projects and White fears reverberating throughout. Adapting the mythical ancient Prometheus as one who steals fire from the gods to create humans and civilization, Frankenstein dramatizes the risks and monstrous results of White imperial masculinity as a Euro-colonial (...) Promethean project of subject formation and race-making. Viewed through the prism of the Modern Prometheus, modernity in general and liberal humanism in particular are recast as monster-making projects. The European “discovery” of Indigenous peoples amplified Promethean aspirations to create subjects through civilizational processes of religious conversion, the infusion of Enlightenment rationality, and assimilation into whiteness. Politically, the Promethean capacity to engineer humans and proto-humans using Native peoples as raw material allowed progressives to argue against outright extermination in favor of cultural genocide. Seeking to create a subserviant species, Victor Frankenstein confronts a revolting insurrection of his own making—a Creature who refuses slavery, claims mastery over his creator and demands a female companion. Yet Frankenstein’s fear of creating “a race of devils” betrays a terror of what Whites know, but refuse to acknowledge, about themselves and racial others. (shrink)