Based on Embodied Cognition Theory, Inhibitory Decline Theory, and Risk Protective Factors Model, this study verified that body mass index affects secondary school students’ academic performance through the mechanism of inhibitory control. In addition, it was verified that the strength of this mechanism depends on the teacher, parent, and peer support received by secondary school students. By using height and weight measurements, the classic stroop task, and the social support scale, 264 secondary school students in Shanxi Province, China, were surveyed (...) and their academic performance was collected. The results showed that students with high BMI had poorer academic performance, and inhibitory control partially mediated the effect between BMI and academic performance, with the inhibitory control mediated effect accounting for 36.68% of the total effect. Support from teachers, parents, and peers can ameliorate the negative effects of BMI on academic performance, with teacher support and parental support also ameliorating the negative effects of BMI on inhibitory control. Thus, high BMI impairs inhibitory control and thus has a negative impact on academic performance, which can be buffered by social support. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson has recently proposed a new argument for the thesis that killing the one in the Trolley Problem is not permissible. Her argument relies on the introduction of a new scenario, in which the bystander may also sacrifice herself to save the five. Thomson argues that those not willing to sacrifice themselves if they could may not kill the one to save the five. Bryce Huebner and Marc Hauser have recently put Thomson's argument to empirical test by asking (...) people what they should do in the new trilemma case, in which they may also sacrifice themselves. They found that the majority judge that they should either kill the one or sacrifice themselves; Huebner and Hauser argue that those numbers speak against Thomson's argument. But Thomson's argument was about the dialectical effect of the new trilemma on the traditional dilemma, rather than about the trilemma itself. Here I present the results of a study in which I asked subjects first what they should do in the trilemma and then what they should do in the traditional Trolley Problem. I found that, if asked first about the trilemma, subjects then have the intuition that killing the one in the traditional Bystander at the Switch is not permissible?exactly what Thomson's argument had predicted. (shrink)

I argue that it is possible for prospective mothers to wrong prospective fathers by bearing their child; and that lifting paternal liability for child support does not correct the wrong inflicted to fathers. It is therefore sometimes wrong for prospective mothers to bear a child, or so I argue here. I show that my argument for considering the legitimate interests of prospective fathers is not a unique exception to an obvious right to procreate. It is, rather, part of a growing (...) consensus that procreation can be morally problematic and that generally talking of rights in this context might not be warranted. Finally, I argue that giving up a right to procreate does not imply nor suggest giving up on women’s absolute right to abort, which I defend. (shrink)

I argue that the empirical literature on priming effects does not warrant nor suggest the conclusion, drawn by prominent psychologists such as J. A. Bargh, that we have no free will or less free will than we might think. I focus on a particular experiment by Bargh – the ‘elderly’ stereotype case in which subjects that have been primed with words that remind them of the stereotype of the elderly walk on average slower out of the experiment’s room than control (...) subjects – and I show that we cannot say that subjects cannot help walking slower or that they are not free in doing do. I then illustrate how these cases can be reconciled and normalized within a Davidsonian theory of action to show that, in walking slower, subjects are acting intentionally. My argument applies across various experiments, including those of goal priming. In the final section I argue that the only cases in which priming effects are efficacious are so-called Buridan cases. (shrink)

I argue that so-called automatic actions – routine performances that we successfully and effortlessly complete without thinking such as turning a door handle, downshifting to 4th gear, or lighting up a cigarette – pose a challenge to causalism, because they do not appear to be preceded by the psychological states which, according to the causal theory of action, are necessary for intentional action. I argue that causalism cannot prove that agents are simply unaware of the relevant psychological states when they (...) act automatically, because these content-specific psychological states aren’t always necessary to make coherent rational sense of the agent’s behaviour. I then dispute other possible grounds for the attribution of these psychological states, such as agents’ own self-attributions. In the final section I introduce an alternative to causalism, building on Frankfurt’s concept of guidance. (shrink)

Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of habitat important for marine mammal survival. However, in view of (...) their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives. (shrink)

This meta-analysis synthesizes quantitative findings of the gender differences in moral sensitivity retrieved from 19 primary studies. We found the average effect size of 0.25, favoring women, with a standard deviation of 0.14. The variation in the observed effect sizes could not be attributed to differences in participants' educational level, the utilized measure of moral sensitivity, or the publication format in which the study was reported. This suggests that gender differences in moral sensitivity are consistent across different levels of participants' (...) education regardless of the instrument used to assess moral sensitivity or the format in which the research was reported. (shrink)

This paper is a complete student-led, student-edited collective writing project (CWP) conducted virtually in Spring 2022 throughout the course Knowledge Socialism taught by professor Michael Peters for the Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal university. The CWP involves 4 international, 5 domestic Ph.D. students, and 2 senior Western scholars as reviewers, revealing their thoughts, arguments, understanding, and criticisms towards the creative economy status in East Asian countries (Japan and China mostly) higher education as reflected in the knowledge socialism narratives. Xiyuan as (...) the lead author, co-editing with Woraport and Stefan, assigned each section to other authors and successfully devoted themself to organizing, proofreading, and revising the paper. Through a month of collective work, the final version of the paper elaborates on the contribution of East Asian creative universities and the economy as a whole to the knowledge socialism through co(labor)ation, with implications to the creative labors cultivation and shifted roles of students. (shrink)

In De anima, III, Aristotele studia tre operazioni sensibili : percezione dei sensibili comuni, appercezione, discriminazione, cui la critica si riferisce come alla teoria del ‘senso comune’, identificando la αἴσθησις κοινή del De anima con la κοινὴ δύναμις dei Parva naturalia. Ma le due espressioni denotano aspetti ben diversi : la prima indica una capacità posteriore alla divisione della percezione nei cinque sensi, mentre la seconda è una capacità anteriore e radicale della percezione.

I argue that the arguments brought by Counsel for M to the English Court of Protection are morally problematic in prioritising subjective interests that are the result of ‘consistent autonomous thought’ over subjective interests that are the result of a more limited cognitive perspective.

Commentary on the Guṇa section of Udayanācārya's Kiraṇāvali, treatise on Vaíśeṣika philosophy.

This paper argues against the claim that “expertise requires trust.” It does so by distinguishing between two versions of this claim, one according to which expertise requires trustworthiness and one according to which expertise requires actual trust. The paper then argues that the former version of the claim is obvious and therefore philosophically uninteresting, while the latter version of the claim is, actually, false. Five cases are deployed to defend these arguments, so that along the way we find out more (...) about the nature of expertise, trust and also, incidentally, corruption and even ChatGPT. (shrink)

Il saggio difende l'idea che i contesti più congeniali allo sviluppo ed e- sercizio di un carattere virtuoso dal punto di vista ambientale siano i giar- dini – e il modo migliore per sviluppare ed esercitare tale carattere sia con- servare specie botaniche, coltivandone esemplari con le proprie mani. La coltivazione di un giardino permette, e richiede, una certa comprensione e accettazione di importanti dimensioni del rapporto uomo-natura, le quali innescano comportamenti positivi che, consolidandosi nel tempo attraverso abitudine e riflessione, (...) diventano veri e propri tratti caratteriali virtuosi. Le virtù sviluppate ed esercitate in giardino contribuiranno in modo decisivo alla buona riuscita dei nostri futuri sforzi verso la sostenibilità, perché avranno un prezioso aspetto operativo, assente dalle virtù ambientali tipi- camente contemplative che l'individuo può invece sviluppare ed esercitare in aree naturali non umanizzate.The paper argues that gardens are contexts obviously congenial to the de- velopment and exercise of a virtuous environmental character, and the practice most conducive to such objective is that of conserving botanical species in them, cultivating specimens with one's own two hands. Garden practices enable and require a certain understanding and acceptance of a number of crucial dimension of the man-nature relationship, triggering re- current positive environmental behavior that, through reflective habituation, eventually solidifies into environmentally virtuous character traits. The virtues developed and exercised in gardens will greatly contribute to our future efforts towards sustainability, for they will possess a precious operative dimension, absent from the typically contemplative virtues that an individual can instead develop and exercise in non- humanized natural areas. (shrink)

For Aquinas, the preambles of faith, including the existence of God, play a crucial role in his view of faith because they are presupposed by the articles. However, the existing literature does not make it clear how exactly the preambles can be held. In particular, the existence of God seems to cause problems. Should it be held by demonstration or by faith? I think there are problems with both. A possible solution was suggested three decades ago. In this article I (...) argue that this solution follows from a view of faith, fully attributable to Aquinas, which includes three dimensions, the intellectual, the moral and the religious. Instead, to say that in order to believe in God one must first prove or believe by faith that God exists is based on a limited perspective that reduces faith to the purely intellectual dimension. (shrink)

Recent development of cognitive neuroscience shows the increasing capacity to propose neurobiological accounts of social cognition. Much research in fields such as neuroeconomics, neuroethics and neuroesthetics offers “brain-based” explanations of behaviour. But what is a “brain-based” explanation? And what is its relation with higher-level explanations? We may call “neurobiological fundamentalism” the thesis that the neural level is epistemologically fundamental – and that the higher-level explanations supplied by the special sciences such as psychology, are derivative. In this context, the main aim (...) of the present paper is to criticize neurobiological fundamentalism and to offer an alternative account based on explicative pluralism, a perspective that emphasizes the plurality of concepts, methods and evidential resources that characterise contemporary science of the mind. (shrink)

The original thematic features displayed by 93 A.-B. find an explanation in the comparison with Odyssey 24.290-96, its hypotext. Posidippus, however, is not only trying to fulfil the typical Hellenistic demand for originality. The imperative περίστειλον represents a Homeric gloss through which the learned epigrammatist explains the hapax περιστέλλω that puzzled Homer's commentators. Such intertextuality provides new evidence of the reception of Homer in the Hellenistic Age, revealing that Posidippus, too, was ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ κριτικός.