In recent years, the trend in environmental ethics has been to criticize the traditional Western anthropocentric attitude toward nature. Many environmentalists have looked toward some of the views held by indigenous peoples in various parts of the world and argue that important ecological lessons can be learned by studying their beliefs and attitudes toward nature. The traditional Western viewpoint has been labeled as a form of shallow environmentalism, allowing few rights for anything other than human life. In contrast, indigenous peoples (...) are seen as respecting all things. Thus, the claim is made that the latter’secological views are deeper than those of Western views. John Locke is often placed at the center of this tradition that is associated with indifference to the environment. Yet, a comparison of the fundamental beliefs that drive the environmental ethics of the Maori people with those of John Locke reveals surprising similaries. It may well be the case that any adoption by the West of another culture’s view would be too difficult given that there are so many foundational beliefs that are alien to the West, but which are nevertheless required to drive such an ethic. Nevertheless, if we can find similarities between various views, such as those of the Maori and Locke, we may have a greater appreciation of one another’s beliefs and hence less reluctance to adopt them if they will benefit the environment. Our efforts could then perhaps be directed toward putting environmental ethics into practice rather than fighting over which doctrine is the correct one. (shrink)

Medicalized Death and the Right to Die Movement Prior to the 20th Century, most Americans died at home, surrounded by family, friends, and neighbors. Religion, not medicine, governed the death bed for there was little physicians could do for the dying. Eventually, however, advances in medicine and technology would lead to dramatic changes in the timing and location of death: patients not only began living longer, they were also dying longer, and unlike their predecessors, were more likely to die alone, (...) in institutions, and among strangers. Modern medicine, in its zeal to conquer death, had become obsessed with its curative function and ability to extend the lives of the dying. To many in the medical community, death represented failure and was something to be avoided at all costs, and like many other social problems in the United States, had become medicalized. (shrink)

This book develops an alternative approach to sentence- and word-meaning, which I dub the speech-act theoretic approach, or STA. Instead of employing the syntactic and semantic forms of modern logic–principally, quantification theory–to construct semantic theories, STA employs speech-act structures. The structures it employs are those postulated by a novel theory of speech-acts. STA develops a compositional semantics in which surface grammar is integrated with semantic interpretation in a way not allowed by standard quantification-based theories. It provides a pragmatic theory of (...) truth, a treatment of logically complex discourse as expressive cognitive states, and a background metaphysics in which the world is a totality of logically simple states of affairs. The book also puts forward an account of how intentional states provide the simple, representational foundation for a superstructure of speech-act structures–a system of thoughts–that far outruns the expressive power of the intentional foundation. In short, it provides an account of cognitive foundations of a language and a naturalistic reduction of semantics through an expressive theory of semantic norms. (shrink)

Foucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy.

This book reports recent landmark developments and the state of the art in NDS science in psychological theory and research.

Although its roots can be traced to the 19th century, progress in the study of nonlinear dynamical systems has taken off in the last 30 years. While pertinent source material exists, it is strewn about the literature in mathematics, physics, biology, economics, and psychology at varying levels of accessibility. A compendium research methods reflecting the expertise of major contributors to NDS psychology, Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences Using Real Data examines the techniques proven to be the most (...) useful in the behavioral sciences. The editors have brought together constructive work on new practical examples of methods and application built on nonlinear dynamics. They cover dynamics such as attractors, bifurcations, chaos, fractals, catastrophes, self-organization, and related issues in time series analysis, stationarity, modeling and hypothesis testing, probability, and experimental design. The analytic techniques discussed include several variants of the fractal dimension, several types of entropy, phase-space and state-space diagrams, recurrence analysis, spatial fractal analysis, oscillation functions, polynomial and Marquardt nonlinear regression, Markov chains, and symbolic dynamics. The book outlines the analytic requirements faced by social scientists and how they differ from those of mathematicians and natural scientists. It includes chapters centered on theory and procedural explanations for running the analyses with pertinent examples and others that illustrate applications where a particular form of analysis is seen in the context of a research problem. This combination of approaches conveys theoretical and practical knowledge that helps you develop skill and expertise in framing hypotheses dynamically and building viable analytic models to test them. (shrink)

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This Advanced Introduction to Substantive Criminal Law explores the doctrines, issues and controversies in the substantive field of criminal law. Chapters cover important theoretical and doctrinal topics, including the justifications for state blame (...) and punishment, the foundations for criminalization, the prima facie case, affirmative defences of justification and excuse, and sentencing. Stephen J. Morse uses copious concrete examples drawn from cases, statutes and extended case studies, including the intricate grading of homicide, to enliven the discussion. Key Features: - Concise and accessible format - Theoretical explication of doctrinal intricacies - Informative coverage and real world examples of criminal law - Discussion of the challenges and responsibilities surrounding legal concepts of the person. Providing a compact and succinct introduction to the rich scholarship of the field, this Advanced Introduction will be an ideal read for lawyers and law students interested in criminal law and justice. It will also be a valuable resource for law enforcement personnel and anyone looking to understand the role of criminal law as a means to achieve justice and social safety. (shrink)

This essay responds to Hirstein, Sifferd and Fagan’s book, Responsible Brains, which claims that executive function is the guiding mechanism that supports both responsible agency and the necessity for some excuses. In contrast, I suggest that executive function is not the universal acid and the neuroscience at present contributes almost nothing to the necessary psychological level of explanation and analysis. To the extent neuroscience can be useful, it is virtually entirely dependent on well-validated psychology to correlate with the neuroscientific variables (...) under investigation. The essay considers what executive function is and what the neuroscience adds to our understanding of it. Then it addresses moral and legal responsibility generally, and specific doctrines. Executive function is seldom found to be the most perspicuous approach to any of the general or specific moral and legal questions. (shrink)

It is usually maintained by biologists and philosophers alike that essentialism is incompatible with evolutionary biology, and that abandoning essentialism was a precondition of progress being made in the biological sciences. These claims pose a problem for anyone familiar with both evolutionary biology and current metaphysics. Very few current scientific theories enjoy the prestige of evolutionary biology. But essentialism – long in the bad books amongst both biologists and philosophers – has been enjoying a strong resurgence of late amongst analytical (...) philosophers with a taste for metaphysics. Indeed, to impartial observers it is likely to appear that both evolutionary biology and essentialism are as well supported in their respective domains as could reasonably be expected. There is thus at least a prima facie tension here between evolutionary biology, metaphysics and, as we shall see, pre-theoretical common sense. (shrink)

According to a natural view of instrumental normativity, if you ought to do φ, and doing ψ is a necessary means for you to do φ, then you ought to do ψ. In “Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle,” Benjamin Kiesewetter defends this principle against certain actualist-inspired counterexamples. In this article I argue that Kiesewetter’s defense of the transmission principle fails. His arguments rely on certain principles—Joint Satisfiability and Reason Transmission—which we should not accept in the unqualified forms (...) needed to establish his conclusion. (shrink)

We report an empirical study of elementary algebra errors, conducted in three separate schools. The errors are diagnosed using mal‐rules, as proposed by Sleeman (1984, 1,985). Our analysis uncovers the following properties of algebra mal‐rules: The frequency of mal‐rules is severely skewed, there are many infrequent mal‐rules and few frequent ones; mal‐rules are very unstable, students typically use mal‐rules very irregularly; different mal‐rules have explanatory power in different schools (many of our most powerful mal‐rules are previously unreported); mal‐rule diagnosis Is (...) more successful with more skilled students; students' confidence ratings do not partition the total set of mal‐rules, every mal‐rule we find is associated with high confidence ratings by at least one student. The Implications of our data for cognitive theories of error generation are discussed. Contrary to commonplace assumptions, we argue that It is impossible to make a clear distinction between slips and mistakes; most errors depend on properties of the knowledge base and the cognitive architecture. Errors In a procedural skill cannot be assumed to be purely syntactic In orgin. (shrink)

The publication of Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s has provided new insight into crucial developments in his late work, including the return to an analysis of the state and the introduction of biopolitics as a central theme. According to one dominant interpretation, these shifts did not entail a fundamental methodological break; the approach Foucault developed in his work on knowledge/power was simply applied to new objects. The present article argues that this reading — (...) which is colored by the overwhelming privilege afforded to Discipline and Punish in secondary literature — obscures an important modification in Foucault’s method and diagnostic style that occurred between the introduction of biopolitics in 1976 (in Society Must Be Defended) and the lectures of 1978 ( Security, Territory, Population) and 1979 ( Birth of Biopolitics). Foucault’s initial analysis of biopolitics was couched in surprisingly epochal and totalizing claims about the characteristic forms of power in modernity. The later lectures, by contrast, suggest what I propose to call a ‘topological’ analysis that examines the ‘patterns of correlation’ in which heterogeneous elements — techniques, material forms, institutional structures and technologies of power — are configured, as well as the redeployments through which these patterns are transformed. I also indicate how attention to the topological dimension of Foucault’s analysis might change our understanding of key themes in his late work: biopolitics, the analysis of thinking, and the concept of governmentality. (shrink)

Recognizing that students are fundamentally engaged in a process of learning and self-development, ethical review of sub-doctoral student research should be proportionate to that objective. A student's tutor has the pedagogical role and an ethics committee should not interfere with that relationship other than to seek to avoid harms unforeseen by either the student or tutor. Underpowered or other statistically or methodologically flawed sub-doctoral research should not however, in general, be regarded as ethically concerning. With the proviso that no subject (...) is harmed the student can be allowed to learn such lessons as their mistakes may afford them. (shrink)

Provides guiding principles and values for practising responsible global media ethics.

Debate about deregulation has focused considerable attention on the pricing policies of public utilities. Much work has been done by economists on this subject, and in this book the results of that research are presented and made accessible to students of economics. The main subject is the policy to be followed by a regulated monopoly, but the analysis is broadened to take account of a fringe of competitive suppliers, making it relevant to electric utilities and local telephone companies in the (...) US, to PTT's in Europe, to the possible privatisatibn of telecommunications in Australia, and to the telecommunications structure in the UK where the dominant supplier has recently been privatised. The book gives a unified and simplified exposition of the modern theory of efficient pricing which is not available elsewhere. The theoretical discussion is supplemented by numerical simulation comparing Fully Distributed Cost Pricing, Ramsey Pricing, and Optimal Non-uniform Pricing. (shrink)

The author upends traditional understandings of this controversial narrative through a phenomenological midrash or interpretation of Genesis 22 from the Dialogic and Jewish philosophies of Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and, most notably, Emmanuel Levinas. He intersects Jewish studies, Biblical studies, and philosophy in a literary/midrashic style that challenges traditional Western philosophical epistemology. Through the biblical narrative of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebecca, he explains that Rosenzweig, Buber, and Levinas Judaically exercise and offer an alternative epistemic orientation to the study of (...) ethics than that of traditional Western or Hellenic-Christian philosophy. (shrink)

Few areas of scientific investigation have spawned more alternative approaches than animal behavior: comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, behavioral endocrinology, behavioral neuroscience, neuroethology, behavioral genetics, cognitive ethology, developmental psychobiology---the list goes on. Add in the behavioral sciences focused on the human animal, and you can continue the list with ethnography, biological anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology (cognitive, social, developmental, evolutionary, etc.), and even that dismal science, economics. Clearly, no reasonable-length chapter can do justice to such a varied collection. We (...) have opted therefore to focus on three of these subdisciplines and to provide a somewhat historical tour of them, mentioning along the way the philosophical points that are of particular interest to us, but allowing the development of these points to be limited only by the imaginations of our readers. For readers seeking a more-traditional historical survey, see Dewsbury (1984a, b) and Burghardt (1985a). Our chosen brief is to write about comparative psychology, ethology, and cognitive ethology, although other approaches, especially neuroscience, will be mentioned where appropriate. These sciences are philosophically significant because they are enmeshed in ancient philosophical questions about the nature of mind and purposeful action and about the differences between humans and other animals. These sciences are also clustered because of their attention to mechanistic explanations of individual animal behavior as opposed to attempting to capture regularities at a population level, such as the game-theoretic strategic models popular among behavioral ecologists. (shrink)

People regularly encounter metaphors in a variety of different communicative settings, but most studies of metaphor framing have relied exclusively on written materials. Across three experiments (N...

It is shown how to restrict recursion on notation in all finite types so as to characterize the polynomial-time computable functions. The restrictions are obtained by using a ramified type structure, and by adding linear concepts to the lambda calculus.

This chapter explores the future of global media ethics by focusing on a question that is a cause of misunderstanding and, perhaps, its greatest conceptual challenge: What is the goal of global media ethics? The chapter argues that the image of global media ethics has been distorted by the view that a global ethic must consist of one, uniquely correct set of principles affirmed by a large majority of journalists around the world. Instead, the chapter proposes the idea of global (...) media ethics as plural in structure and method, as different discourses across different cultures. The future of global media ethics is participation in webs of de-centered discourse about the changing world of global media. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the many topics concerning the mind that Michael Moore has written about for many decades, including the metaphysics of mind and action, the act requirement in criminal law, the basis for the excuse of legal insanity, a volitional or control excuse, and the relation of the new neuroscience to law. Rather than primarily responding to Moore’s influential work, the chapter largely considers issues that are complementary to Moore’s work. The chapter does question whether metaphysical issues must be (...) resolved to engage in constructive legal analysis, but concludes generally that Moore is right about most topics he covers. There is room for constructive disagreement, however, and the chapter notes the areas in which this is fruitful. (shrink)

Disrupting Journalism Ethics sets out to disrupt and change how we think about journalism and its ethics. The book contends that long-established ways of thinking, which have come down to us from the history of journalism, need radical conceptual reform, with alternate conceptions of the role of journalism and fresh principles to evaluate practice. Through a series of disruptions, the book undermines the traditional principles of journalistic neutrality and "just the facts" reporting. It proposes an alternate philosophy of journalism as (...) engagement for democracy. The aim is a journalism ethic better suited to an age of digital and global media. As a philosophical pragmatist, Stephen J. A. Ward critiques traditional conceptions of accuracy, neutrality, detachment and patriotism, evaluating their capacity to respond to ethical dilemmas for journalists in the 21st century. The book proposes a holistic mindset for doing journalism ethics, a theory of journalism as advocacy for egalitarian democracy, and a global redefinition of basic journalistic norms. The book concludes by outlining the shape of a future journalism ethics, employing these alternative notions. Disrupting Journalism Ethics is an important intervention into the role of journalism today. It asks: what new role journalists should play in today's digital media world? And what new mind-set, new aims, and new standards ought jounalists to embrace? The book aims to persuade--and provoke--ethicists, journalists, students, and members of the public to disrupt and invent. (shrink)

Synchronization of autonomic arousal levels within dyads and larger teams has been associated with several types of social-behavioral outcome. One previous study reported greater physiological influence of leaders on followers than of followers on leaders; influence was measured pairwise within triadic problem solving groups. The present study explored synchronized autonomic arousal with leadership outcomes in two experiments with group sizes of three to eight members. Drivers, who had the greatest physiological impact on other team members were consistently less like the (...) leader of the group. Empaths, who were the most receptive to autonomic signals from others, were not consistently associated with leadership roles, although they did show sensitivity to team dynamics in their ratings of cognitive and social sources of workload. The tentative conclusion, subject to future research, is that successful leadership requires a balance between the driver and empath orientations. (shrink)