To consequentialise a moral theory means to account for moral phenomena usually described in nonconsequentialist terms, such as rights, duties, and virtues, in a consequentialist framework. This paper seeks to show that all moral theories can be consequentialised. The paper distinguishes between different interpretations of the consequentialiser’s thesis, and emphasises the need for a cardinal ranking of acts. The paper also offers a new answer as to why consequentialising moral theories is important: This yields crucial methodological insights about how to (...) pursue ethical inquires. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Concepts and language".

The obesity epidemic among children and adolescents in the United States continues to worsen. The most recent analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that the prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents – defined as a Body Mass Index at or above the 95th percentile on gender-specific BMI-for-age growth charts developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – increased significantly between 1999-2000 and 2003-2004. Over this period, the prevalence of overweight among children (...) and adolescents aged 2-19 increased 23% – from 13.9% to 17.1%. In 2003-2004, 18.8% of children aged 6-11 and 17.4% of adolescents aged 12-19 were overweight. Roughly comparable proportions of each age group were considered to be at risk of becoming overweight. (shrink)

A computational modeling approach was used to test one possible explanation for the limited capacity of the subitizing phenomenon. Most existing models of this phenomenon associate the subitizing span with an assumed structural limitation of the human information processing system. In contrast, we show how this limit might emerge as the combinatorics of the space of enumeration problems interacts with the human cognitive architecture in the context of an enumeration task. Subitizing‐like behavior was generated in two different models of enumeration, (...) one based on the ACT‐R cognitive architecture and the other based on the principles of parallel distributed processing (PDP). Our results provide good qualitative fits to results obtained in a variety of empirical studies. (shrink)

In psychology, measurement instruments are constructed from scales, which are obtained on the grounds of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Looking at the literature, one can find various recommendations regarding how these techniques should be used during the scale construction process. Some authors suggest to use exploratory factor analysis on the entire data set while others advice to perform an internal cross-validation by randomly splitting the data set in two and then either perform exploratory factor analysis on both parts or (...) exploratory factor analysis on the first part and confirmatory factor analysis on the other. In spite of all these divergent recommendations, there is no consensus on which method yields the best result. In this paper, we analyze this issue in light of the prediction versus accommodation debate and argue that the answer to this question depends on one’s conception of the criteria that should be used to achieve the goals of the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

In this paper I add a new twist to Colyvan's version of the Petrograd paradox.

This paper reports on a survey of college students which was designed to provide insights into associations of advertising with the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulemia. The study involved measuring self image and ideal self image and relating these measures to the incidence of the eating disorders and to advertising and merchandising measures. Based upon the findings, various tentative recommendations were made to advertisers who desire to assist in containing eating disorders through their efforts in the marketplace.

I would try to reduce the anxiety to realizing that seemingly the same proposition is really different when it is false by pointing out that the contents of two of our beliefs can be different when we think they are the same as well as being the same when we think they are different. That is, belief contents are not infallibly known or knowable in conscious reflective awareness of beliefs. Trying or wanting to accurately perceive what you are thinking does (...) not guarantee success. We can be wrong even about what we believe our beliefs are we don't and maybe can't realize that two beliefs are contradictory). (shrink)

Individuals operating within the scientific paradigm presume that the world is made of matter. Although the perspective engendered by this presupposition is very powerful, it excludes value and subjective experience from its fundamental ontology. In addition, it provides very little guidance with regards to the fundamentals of ethical action. Individuals within the religious paradigm, by contrast, presume that the world is made out of what matters. From such a perspective, the phenomenon of meaning is the primary reality. This meaning is (...) revealed both subjectively and objectively, and serves—under the appropriate conditions—as an unerring guide to ethical action.The ancient stories of Genesis cannot be properly understood without viewing them from within the religious paradigm. Genesis describes the primary categories of the world of meaning, as well as the eternal interactions of those categories. Order arises out of Chaos, through the creative intermediation of Logos, and man is manifested, in turn. Man, a constrained Logos, exists within a bounded state of being, Eden. Eden is a place where order and chaos, nature and culture, find their optimal state of balance. Because Eden is a walled garden, however—a bounded state of being—something is inevitably excluded. Unfortunately, what is excluded does not simply cease to exist. Every bounded paradise thus contains something forbidden and unknown. Man's curiosity inevitably drives him to investigate what has been excluded. The knowledge thus generated perpetually destroys the presuppositions and boundaries that allow his temporary Edens to exist. Thus, man is eternally fallen. The existential pain generated by this endlessly fallen state can undermine man's belief in the moral justifi0ability of being—and may turn him, like Cain, against brother and God. (shrink)

In 1984 we reported the results of surveying a nationwide sample of college students about selected business ethics issues. We concluded that (a) college students were in general concerned about the issues investigated and (b) female students were relatively more concerned than were male students. The present study replicated our earlier study and not only corroborated both of its conclusions, but also found a higher level of concern than had been observed previously.

The preceding article by Marc Bekoff reveals much about our current understanding of animal self-consciousness and its implications. It also reveals how much more there is to be said and considered. This response briefly examines animal self-consciousness from scientific, moral, and theological perspectives. As Bekoff emphasizes, self-consciousness is not one thing but many. Consequently, our moral relationship to animals is not simply one based on a graded hierarchy of abilities. Furthermore, the complexity of animal self-awareness can serve as stimulus for (...) thinking about issues of theodicy and soteriology in a broader sense. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that Forrester’s paradox, as he presents it, is not a paradox of standard deontic logic. We show that the paradox fails since it is the result of a misuse of , a derived rule in the standard systems. Before presenting Forrester’s argument against standard deontic logic, we will briefly expose the principal characteristics of a standard system Δ. The modal system KD will be taken as a representative. We will then make some remarks regarding , (...) pointing out that its use is restricted to the standard system’s theorems, and cannot be applied to contingent conditionals. Finally, we will show that Forrester’s paradox is not a paradox of standard deontic logic, at least not in the sense he intended it to be. We show that the paradox cannot arise in KD since its semantical model is not rich enough to represent the intuitive validity of the conditional within Forrester’s paradox. We show that the paradox arises within a system that has a finer semantics. (shrink)

Public sector national agricultural research organizations (NARO)s are confronting the need to demonstrate performance, accountability, and results to maintain support and funding from investors. Current evaluation practices in NAROs are not performance oriented, nor are they applied at the organization level. A performance assessment system for NAROs is presented that integrates productivity and outcome evaluation with the assessment of key management activities influencing research outputs and impact. The system allows managers to record output levels over time and identify management weaknesses.

This review essay examines several recentbooks about agriculture, including two books on thelinks between cultural and biological diversity intraditional agriculture, two books on the US farmcrisis, and a collected volume examining globalaspects of agricultural restructuring andsustainability. Finally, a history of ``alternative''agriculture provides a framework for thinking aboutthe ways the different cases shed light on the complexrelations between tradition and innovation inagriculture. A historical perspective highlights theextent to which ``alternative'' is a relative term. Themonocrop, ``factory'' mode that dominate US agriculturetoday certainly (...) differs from what has characterizedfarming for most of history and in most of the world.Small-scale, more or less organic, diversified farms,which appear so ``alternative'' in the present context,have until lately counted as the norm, here andelsewhere. These books also highlight both the dangersof the currently dominant industrial agriculture andthe potential for genuine alternatives. (shrink)

Construing all efficient causes as beginning and ceasing with their effects invites the dilemma that a given effect or event either always occurs or neveroccurs. One escapes the dilemma by distinguishing basic and subsidiary efficient causes, according temporal priority of causes to their effects in the case of theformer. In the case of human making and doing, where the two efficient causes belong to the same subject, the two are supplemented by a final cause whichserves to link or to mediate (...) them. This it does by drawing out or actuating the subsidiary cause which exists potentially in the basic cause. Arguing from analogy,can it be argued that, just when basic and subsidiary efficient causes belong to the same non-human subject in nature, they must likewise be supplemented byfinal causes if the potentiality of subsidiary causes in basic causes is to be drawn out and made actual? Surprising though it might seem to some, the answer tothis question is yes. To show this, I first place efficient causes in a dilemma. Next I show how one escapes the dilemma by distinguishing basic and subsidiary efficient causes, making the former temporally precede the latter. These two causes in some cases need to be linked, and this, I argue, requires a cause of another type, a final cause. (shrink)

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2014 under title: "Being salvation": a reinterpretation of Rahner's Christ as savior.

Defenders of the evolutionary origin of human beings hold that humankind has in its entirety evolved out of lower life forms. This opposes the idea of creation under which at least one aspect of human beings has not evolved out of pre-existing material things or states of thing but has been produced out of nothing by God. It is here argued that creation is correct. For whatever might be said of other aspects or elements in our natures, our consciousness, taken (...) per se or just as consciousness, is something which could not possibly have evolved out of pre-existing things or states of thing. That is because consciousness is ultimately simple and only what is composite can come to be by evolution out of pre-existing things or states of thing. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 7-26.

Before embarking upon the project of reformulating psychoanalysis in the 'scientific' terminology of cognitive science, we should first clearly define what psychoanalysis is about and what it is not about. Cognitive science is based upon a functionalistic philosophy of the mind. As a consequence such a project would require a functionalistic core theory of psychoanalysis. But Freud's claim of the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis, attained through the rendering conscious of what is unconscious or the making personal of what is experienced (...) by the neurotic patient as impersonal, cannot be explained by a functionalistic theory of the mind We examine Freud's claim and conclude that there ought to be a philosophy of qualia at the core of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

The present article explores problems of descriptive reporting, relativism, and the lack of systematic follow-up of qualitative research. Such issues are discussed in relation to components of phenomenologically based research reports, with emphasis on the articulation of the research approach, and steps to facilitate validation. The value of a descriptive science derived from phenomenological principles is discussed as forming a common ground for initial qualitative inquiry, while providing a critically reflective base upon which rational consensus can be developed. I suggest (...) that the values of follow-up, tentativeness, and humility in research reporting, and a rational framework of critical validation, constitute a common core of science. In addition, phenomenological tenets are discussed as providing a corrective to the uncritical search for absolutes, or the "anything counts" conception of relativistic movements. (shrink)