Policies promoted and adopted for allocating ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic have often prioritised healthcare workers or other essential workers. While the need for such policies has so far been largely averted, renewed stress on health systems from continuing surges, as well as the experience of allocating another scarce resource—vaccination—counsel revisiting the justifications for such prioritisation. Prioritising healthcare workers may have intuitive appeal, but the ethical justifications for doing so and the potential harms that could follow require careful analysis. Ethical (...) justifications commonly offered for healthcare worker prioritisation for ventilators rest on two social value criteria: instrumental value, also known as the ‘multiplier effect’, which may preserve the ability of healthcare workers to help others, and reciprocity, which rewards past usefulness or sacrifice. We argue that these justifications are insufficient to over-ride the common moral commitment to value each person’s life equally. Institutional policies prioritising healthcare workers over other patients also violate other ethical norms of the healthcare professions, including the commitment to put patients first. Furthermore, policy decisions to prioritise healthcare workers for ventilators could engender or deepen existing distrust of the clinicians, hospitals and health systems where those policies exist, even if they are never invoked. (shrink)

Dehumanization is routinely invoked in social science and law as the primary factor in explaining how propaganda encourages support for, or participation in, violence against targeted outgroups. Yet the primacy of dehumanization is increasingly challenged by the apparent influence of revenge on collective violence. This study examines critically how various propaganda influence audiences. Although previous research stresses the dangers of dehumanizing propaganda, a recently published study found that only revenge propaganda significantly lowered outgroup empathy. Given the importance of these findings (...) for law and the behavioral sciences, this research augments that recent study with two additional samples that were culturally distinct from the prior findings, showing again that only revenge propaganda was significant. To explore this effect further, we also conducted a facial electromyography (fEMG) among a small set of participants, finding that revenge triggered significantly stronger negative emotions against outgroups than dehumanization. (shrink)

Rules are meant to apply equally to all within their jurisdiction. However, some rules are frequently broken without consequence for most. These rules are only occasionally enforced, often at the discretion of a third-party observer. We propose that these rules—whose violations are frequent, and enforcement is rare—constitute a unique subclass of explicitly codified rules, which we call ‘phantom rules’ (e.g., proscribing jaywalking). Their apparent punishability is ambiguous and particularly susceptible to third-party motives. Across six experiments, (N = 1440) we validated (...) the existence of phantom rules and found evidence for their motivated enforcement. First, people played a modified Dictator Game with a novel frequently broken and rarely enforced rule (i.e., a phantom rule). People enforced this rule more often when the “dictator” was selfish (vs. fair) even though the rule only proscribed fractional offers (not selfishness). Then we turned to third person judgments of the U.S. legal system. We found these violations are recognizable to participants as both illegal and commonplace (Experiment 2), differentiable from violations of prototypical laws (Experiments 3) and enforced in a motivated way (Experiments 4a and 4b). Phantom rule violations (but not prototypical legal violations) are seen as more justifiably punished when the rule violator has also violated a social norm (vs. rule violation alone)—unless the motivation to punish has been satiated (Experiment 5). Phantom rules are frequently broken, codified rules. Consequently, their apparent punishability is ambiguous, and their enforcement is particularly susceptible to third party motives. (shrink)

There is a growing resurgence in the study of psychedelic medicines for the treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. However, certain early investigations are marred by questionable research methods, abuses against research participants, and covert Central Intelligence Agency financial involvement. The purpose of this study was to understand how and to what extent people of colour and other vulnerable populations, specifically, individuals who were incarcerated or incapacitated due to mental health issues, were exploited during the first wave of (...) psychedelic research in the USA. To do so, we reviewed available empirical publications according to current ethical standards. Variables of interest included race and ethnicity of participants, population vulnerability, drug administration conditions, informed consent and undue influence. Our findings draw attention to the history of research abuses against people of colour in Western psychedelic research. In light of these findings, we urge a call-to-action to current psychedelic researchers to prioritise culturally inclusive and socially responsible research methods in current and future studies. All data relevant to the study are included in the article. (shrink)

While the practice of organ donation after cardiac death has long been trending upwards in acceptance and use, it is still a highly controversial and practically inefficient method of organ procurement. One policy that has recently been proposed to try and alleviate some of the ethical and practical concerns with organ donation after cardiac death is the practice of imminent death organ donation. This type of live organ donation comes in patients at the end of their life who have decided (...) to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, but still want to ensure that their organs are donated and not wasted, which isn't always the case with organ donation after cardiac death. This paper then gives some ethical and practical reflections and recommendations regarding the potential implementation of this controversial practice into regular transplant practice and policy. (shrink)

We suggest that the accounts offered by the target articles could be strengthened by acknowledging the role of group selection and cultural niche construction in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of human music. We argue that group level traits and highly variable cultural niches can explain the diversity of human song, but the target articles' accounts are insufficient to explain such diversity.

Das vorliegende Buch versucht in einer systematischen Ge­ samtübersicht den Gedankeninhalt der modernen Physik zu er­ läutern. Mit Einzelheiten der experimentellen Technik sollte der Leser dabei ebensowenig belastet werden, wie mit den mathe­ matischen Formulierungen der Theorie; ohne uns zu sehr in der Fülle betrachtenswerter Einzelheiten zu verlieren, wollen wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf die entscheidenden Tatsachen und Einsichten, auf die leitenden Gesichtspunkte der Forschung richten - und auf die geistige Einstellung, welche der modernen Physik ihr charakteristisches philosophisches Gepräge gibt, und (...) welche die Erringung ihrer umstürzenden Erkenntnisse ermög­ licht hat. Wir beginnen mit einer nachdenklichen Betrachtung der klassischen G a I i I e i - N e w t o n sehen Mechanik, deren Sinn und Bedeutung eindringlich verstanden zu haben Vorbedin­ gung ist für jedes Verständnis der revolutionären Entwicklungen der modernen Physik. Uber die Gedankengänge der M a x w e l- sehen Elektrodynamik kommen wir sodann zu den modernen Er­ kenntnissen, sowohl in der "Makrophysik", als auch in der "Mikro­ physik" der Atome, Elektronen und Quanten. Daß die moderne physikalische Forschung zu revolutionären Umgestaltungen der traditionellen naturwissenschaftlichen Vor­ stellungen geführt hat, wird der Leser hier keineswegs zum ersten­ mal erfahren. Aber nicht nur der lockende Reiz dieser wunder­ baren Entwicklungen schien mir eine auch dem Nichtspezialisten zugängliche Darstellung wünschenswert zu machen, sondern ich wünschte auch einen Beitrag zu leisten zur allmählichen Besei­ tigung von Mißverständnissen, denen die neueste Entwicklung der Physik bei manchem Fernerstehenden ausgesetzt gewesen ist. (shrink)

I here respond to my interlocutors in the symposium on my book, Love Divine: A Systematic Account of God’s Love for Humanity. Addressing each of them in the order in which their essays appear within this symposium, I reply to the comments by R. T. Mullins, Keith Hess, and Ty Kieser.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume, Tillotson, and Dialogue XIIJeff JordanJeff JordanUniversity of DelawareFootnotes1. 'Natural religion' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries denoted knowledge of the divine which could be had via reason or instinct, independent of any purported special revelation.2. Of the two best works on Hume's philosophy of religion, J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume's Philosophy of Religion (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1988); and K. Yandell, Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion (...) (Philadelphia, 1990), only the first examines Hume's critique of the argument from prudence at all (see Hume's Philosophy of Religion, 194-203); but Gaskin's treatment of Hume's critique leaves untouched several important elements of the critique.3. B. Pascal, Pensées, ed. L. Lafuma, trans. J. Warrington (1670; reprint, London, 1960), 92-96.4. On Locke, see Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), bk. 2, chap. 21. On Leibniz, see Die Philosophischen Schriften, 3:621. On Craig, see Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica (1699), chap. 6. On Paley, see A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1795), pt. 3, chap. 8.5. Tillotson, "The Wisdom of Being Religious," Sermon 1 in Works of Tillotson (London, 1820), 1:317-89 (hereafter cited as W).6. I do not mean to suggest that Hume was aware only of the sermon "The Wisdom of Being Religious," but that Hume was aware of Tillotson's claims and arguments as found in several of his sermons. "The Wisdom of Being Religious" is important because (i) it is explicitly mentioned by Hume in his A Letter From A Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (1745; reprint, Edinburgh, 1967), 23, so we know that Hume had read this sermon; (ii) it was one of the best known of Tillotson's sermons; and (iii) it contains all of the elements of Tillotson's argument from prudence.7. T. Birch, "Life of the Author," in Works of Tillotson, 1:xix-xx. See also L. G. Locke, Tillotson (Copenhagen, 1954).8. Tillotson may have been aware of the Port Royal Logic version of the wager through Locke with whom Tillotson was in correspondence. See Tillotson, 83.9. Tillotson's case for (1) is treated extensively in his sermon, "The Advantage of Religion to Societies," Sermon 3 in Works of Tillotson, 1:409-23.10. In the passage quoted (W 361-62), Tillotson claims that the atheist will naturally dread a superior being who can defeat one's plans and judge one's actions.11. See also "The Efficacy, Usefulness, and Reasonableness Of Divine Faith," Sermon 223 in Works of Tillotson, 9:258-79. The idea of a grand lie is first found in Plato; see Republic 3:389, 414, 5:459.12. "Pascalian Wagering," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16, no. 3 (1986): 437-54.13. Though Tillotson mentions "odds" and "hazards," he does not incorporate probability values in his version of the wager. His wager is a decision under uncertainty and not a decision under risk: he does not, that is, calculate the expected utility of theistic belief. Pascal was the first to formulate the wager as a decision under risk where the probability-weighted averages of the utility values (the expected utility) determine the right choice.14. Of course, these principles were not stated explicitly until much later. See Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (London, 1975).15. For an example of the many-gods objection, see M. Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia, 1990), 232-34. For a response to the many-gods objection see my "Pascal's Wager and the Many-Gods Objection," International Philosophical Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1991): 309-17.16. See David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. N. Kemp Smith (1778; reprint, Indianapolis, 1947), 214, 218 (hereafter cited as "D").17. It should be noted that Philo's first point is interrupted by the second and is not completed until after the second is completed.18. I will assume that Philo speaks for Hume in this exchange with Cleanthes (D 219-27). Of the three points asserted by Philo in this exchange all three are asserted elsewhere by Hume. On the first point, see The Natural History of Religion (1757), secs. 9 and... (shrink)

The present study investigated how knowledge-gaps, measured by feeling-of-knowing, and individual differences in epistemic curiosity contribute to the arousal of state curiosity and exploratory behaviour for 265 (210 women, 55 men) university students. Participants read 12 general knowledge questions, reported the answer was either known (“I Know”), on the tip-of-the-tongue (“TOT”), or unknown (“Don't Know”), and indicated how curious they were to see each answer, after which they could view any answers they wanted. Participants also responded to the Epistemic Curiosity (...) (EC) and Curiosity as a Feeling-of-Deprivation (CFD) scales. “TOT” was associated with the smallest knowledge-gap, most curiosity and exploration, and feelings of uncertainty and tension as measured by the CFD scale. “Don't Know” corresponded with the largest knowledge-gap, less curiosity and exploration, and positive feelings of interest as measured by the EC scale. “I Know” states, which reflected the absence of a knowledge-gap, involved the least curiosity and exploration. (shrink)

The purity test scandal highlights a pervasive double standard: reputations shape the lives of just about everyone, but to be declared a slut is to be publicly denied the right to even basic kinds of respect. This chapter talks about purity test results where Meg Manning finds out that her score of 48 is plastered across her locker, along with the word “slut.” The locker next to hers, however, is marked with a 32 and the words “You're the best!” Either (...) this locker belongs to a girl being mocked for her low score or it belongs to a guy being praised. Veronica Mars doesn't take the test, but a fake score is posted for her anyway—a shamefully low 14. The purity test reminds us that sluts and studs aren't terribly different. The only difference is that studs are applauded for their reputation, while sluts are shamed for theirs. (shrink)

The place of play in the education of young children has been the focus of much interest in the past. But the findings from this research project demonstrate that there remains a significant amount of confusion about the role that play has in young children's education. In particular we found that there is a clear distinction between the rhetoric and reality of play in the reception class. Further, there was evidence of real anguish for some early years workers who were (...) failing to offer the play activities that they knew should be provided. These findings are particularly interesting at present, since the debate on the role of play has once again emerged as fundamental in the attempt to define a curriculum appropriate to the needs of the 3-6 year olds who, from the year 2000, will be required to work within the highly contentious Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum. (shrink)

Polytheism is a strange view to hold in modernity. Connected as it is in the popular imagination with archaic, animistic, magical, prescientific systems of thought, we don’t hesitate much before casting it into the dustbin of history. Even if we are not monotheists, we are likely to think of monotheism as the obviously more plausible position. The traditional arguments for the existence of God, which have been enormously influential in Western philosophy of religion, do not necessarily rule out polytheism but (...) they are clearly formulated with monotheism in mind. While there could be multiple first causes, intelligent designers, or beings than which nothing greater can be conceived, the simplest and most natural... (shrink)

Innere Bilder sind fur das Auge nicht sichtbar, sie sind kein Objekt visueller Wahrnehmung. SIe treten vor das 'geistige Auge'. ZIel des vorliegenden Buches ist die Konzeptualisierung einer Disposition fur innere Bildlichkeit als Erkenntnisorgan neben der Sprache und im Zusammenwirken mit ihr. HErausgestellt wird ein bislang weniger beachtetes menschliches Vermogen, das zunachst als allgemein anthropologische Fahigkeit untersucht wird und in einem zweiten Schritt als spezifisch dichterisches Vermogen. ES stellen sich einige grundsatzliche Fragen: Was sind innere Bilder? Inwiefern sind sie relevant (...) fur unsere Orientierung und fur unseren Zugang zur Welt? Welche Rolle spielen innere Bilder im Hinblick auf Wahrnehmung, Vorstellung und Erkenntnis? Innere Bilder sind erkenntnistheoretisch gesehen eine Herausforderung - sprachliche oder kunstlerische Darstellungsweisen ermoglichen einen Zugang zu ihnen. DIe theoriebildende Arbeit dient im abschlieSSenden Teil des Buches als Instrumentarium fur Studien uber erzahlende Literatur folgender Autoren: E.T.A. HOffmann, Joseph von Eichendorff, Theodor Fontane, Hugo von Hofmannsthal und Thomas Bernhard. (shrink)

Seit langem war es mein Wunsch, den beiden anderen in dieser 1 Sammlung erschienenen, für weitere Leserkreise bestimmten Büchern ) ein drittes - in sich selbständiges, aber ergänzendes und ab­ schließendes nachfolgen zu lassen, welches verschiedene Themen wieder aufnimmt, die dort noch nicht zu ihrem vollen Rechte kommen konnten. Das Manuskript war gegen Ende des Krieges fertig, und das Buch ist damals als demnächst erscheinend angekündigt worden - aber die seitherigen Zeitumstände haben sein wirkliches Er­ scheinen bis jetzt hinausgezögert. In (...) seiner nunmehrigen Form unterscheidet es sich von dem ursprünglichen Manuskript dadurch, daß einige Teilstücke durch inzwischen entstandene neue Aufsätze ersetzt worden sind. Die einzelnen Aufsätze dieses Buches, die teilweise schon in Zeit­ schriften erschienen, sind für etwas verschiedene Leserkreise verfaßt und jeweils auf etwas verschiedenen Ton gestimmt. Ich habe keinen Versuch gemacht, diese Verschiedenheit bei der Zusammenfassung zu einem Buche auszugleichen; ich denke, daß sie gerade dazu bei­ tragen mögen, das Buch verschiedenartigen Wünschen und Bedürf­ nissen in seinem Leserkreis nutzbar zu machen. Es war nicht zu vermeiden, daß dem Leser meiner sonstigen Schriften hier und da Gedankengänge - wenn auch in anderer Beleuchtung - begegnen, welche ihnen teilweise schon bekannt sein mögen. (shrink)

We focus on two problems with the evolutionary scenario proposed: (1) It bypasses the question of the origins of the communicative and semiotic features that make language distinct from, say, pleasant but meaningless sounds. (2) It does little to explain the absence of language in, for example, chimpanzees: Most of the selection pressures invoked apply just as strongly to chimps. We suggest how these problems could possibly be amended.

Review of Scott Jordan , ‘Modeling Consciousness Across The Disciplines'.

This qualitative study explores the experiences and challenges SPED teachers face amidst the new normal of education. Employing Heidegerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenology analysis, findings suggest that the SPED teachers can’t enjoy their life outside work because of a lack of support from the government, physically and financially; thus, they experience burnout. Also, the salary they earn is not even enough to raise a family, and the fact that they almost shoulder the learning resources in the class makes it worse. (...) Moreover, the participants need practical training to adapt to the needs of their students amidst the challenges of the new learning modality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creativity in Teaching and Building a Meaningful Life as a TeacherDavid T. HansenMy point of departure in this essay is the idea that creativity in teaching often has less to do with inventiveness per se than it does with responsiveness. To draw on terms from John Dewey, creative teachers "rise to the needs of the situation" presented in the educational setting.1 They respond well to circumstances not because they (...) necessarily have the pedagogical equivalent of Twyla Tharp's talent for choreography or B.B. King's brilliance on the blues guitar; rather, I want to suggest that creative teachers, at least in many cases, "rise" and do what is needed because they have learned to pay attention both to students and to the subject(s) at hand. In other words, I propose that we consider the idea that creativity in teaching often manifests itself most vividly, if also subtly, in a kind of ongoing attentiveness, by which I mean a dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative.I will begin the discussion by first sketching a conception of creativity in teaching centered around the idea of attentiveness. Then I address two [End Page 57] consequences of this conception. The first is that the most suitable models of good practice for new teachers to start with are not the profession's versions, presuming such exist, of Pablo Picasso, Marie Curie, or Michael Jordan. I do not mean that it is uniformly inappropriate to place such models in front of teacher candidates, any more than it would be wrong to put before art students the work of a Cassatt or Rembrandt. However, I will argue that among the best and most consequential initial models are those experiences in which teacher candidates themselves truly listened to the doings of the world around them and heeded what was said, whether the latter "spoke" in the form of a work of art, a human voice or gesture, or the play of wind in the trees. If new teachers take seriously this kind of experience, they can gain a valuable perspective for approaching the long and often difficult process of appreciating teaching's details and engaging them in educational settings. I illustrate these claims by examining a field-based activity that was part of a teacher education program I used to direct.The second consequence of the conception of creativity in teaching I will put forward points to the title of this essay. If new teachers deepen their ability to pay attention and to engage in creative work, they position themselves to receive one of teaching's primary offerings to its practitioners, namely, a life of meaning."Ordinary" Pedagogical CreativityCreativity in teaching can take many forms. We witness it in the structuring of an artful lesson plan; in the logic, flow, and pacing of a dynamic lecture; or in a timely and evocative example or illustration the teacher employs to clinch a point in the midst of a class. All of this is familiar and an important, indeed indispensable, way to think about good teaching. Creativity in practice is associated here, among other things, with notions of expertise and of knowledge gained through experience.However, I want to add to this portrait the notion that creativity in practice can also spring from responsiveness. Rather than issuing solely from what the teacher brings to the educational setting — consider again terms such as expertise and knowledge — creativity can point to what the teacher is capable of deriving or drawing from it. Creativity as responsiveness denotes a form of openness to the setting, which may or may not complement or fit harmoniously with what is preset, prefigured, or anticipated. Experienced teachers would be the first to say that there are times when it becomes educationally vital to shelve a preset plan. There are times when one form of creativity in teaching, embodied in a well-wrought lesson plan, must give way to another form, embodied in what I am calling responsiveness. The art of teaching consists, in part, of balancing these expressions of pedagogical creativity.Let me share the following vignette as a basis for elucidating this point. One morning in March 2002, during which... (shrink)

Filipino's love for the elderly is undeniable. However, despite the respect they have for the elderly, an increasing amount of elderly abandonment is rising in the Philippines. The drastic increase in statistics of abandonment will still grow over the years because aging is inevitable. The primary goal of this study is to dig deeper into the experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms of abandoned senior citizens inside of a home for the aged to spread awareness about this certain topic. By the (...) use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the study come up with the following findings: (1) The abandoned senior citizens chose to be inside the facility because they don't want to be a burden in their original homes. (2) Faith and religious works affect their psychological well-being. (3) Physical appearance does not affect their self-esteem. (4) Social support boosts their psychological well-being as well. (5) One of the biggest reasons why abandoned senior citizens left their homes is being neglected to cause them to leave and stay in home for the aged (6) Lastly, people inside the facilities accepted the fact that death is drawing closer to them but they don't want to die yet. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer some brief reflections on Jordan Wessling’s book, Love Divine: A Systematic Account of God’s Love for Humanity. I explain what I take to be its strengths in articulating an account of divine love that solves a variety of problems that classical theism cannot solve. Then I articulate a potential problem for Wessling’s account of divine love and hell.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 90-92 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice The Ongoing Creation of Loving Community: Christian Ritual and Ethics Jay T. RockNational Council of Churches of ChristAt the center of Christian practice is an ethical imperative: "This is my commandment," Jesus says; "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). This principle of active love lies at the heart of Christian living.The (...) argument about who is to be included in the circle of those to be loved, much alive in Jesus' own day, continues unabated. Christians do not agree whether the "sisters and brothers" whom one is instructed to love in various passages of the Christian canon refers only to the family of those in the Church, or to the family of all humankind. But there is certainly agreement that simply professing love is not enough: the love God has given is fully embraced only in being done.Given such a central emphasis on reconciling, active love, it is not surprising to find Christian ritual almost always directly connected to, and fully completed in, ethical behavior in the world. Even in the important ways in which Christian rites serve to open the individual and community to receive God, to become aware of the presence of the Ultimate Reality in their lives, one finds implicit links to acting in love. Christian ritual is itself incarnational: it continuously creates and recreates a community into which it incorporates individuals, and it reactualizes moments of sacred history in a way that opens them to the active participation and concrete action of the people.Some comments on the nature and significance of commemoration in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, may illustrate what I mean. These are the central liturgical celebrations of Christianity, one recalling the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River, the other, more complex, connected to the events of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem. They are commemorations of past historical events, the memory of which is preserved in the theology and practice of the community. But their celebration by the community makes these events existentially present, and their meanings real and accessible, in several ways.Through Baptism, individuals enter into the Jesus community, and participate in the life of Christ. The rite is understood to effect a permanent bond between the one baptized, and Jesus, in whose name she is baptized. The one being baptized is taken down into water, and there is understood to die and rise with Christ: the ritual "makes present again what God has done through Jesus" and brings the Christian into direct, existential relation to the "actual happening of salvation in Christ." 1 Through this connection, the person undergoes a transition from the ways of "death" and "darkness" into the way of "light."The Eucharistic celebration, similarly, provides believers a way of entering into the events of Jesus' death and resurrection. In it, Christians both take part in these [End Page 90] acts of redemption--his death and rising again--and also take into themselves the body and blood of Jesus. The sacrament is a central way in which Christians partake of/take part in the Body of Christ. The rite commemorates a past event, but more importantly, it brings to present life the person of Christ, and allows active participation in the ongoing, communal expression of God's self-giving in Christ.In these rituals, a particular kind of historical memory is at work: that of anamnesis, which the Lutheran liturgist Frank Senn suggests might be best approximated in English as "reactualization." 2 This kind of remembering involves not simply a return to past events, but the placing of the past into the present situation. Ethicist John Pawlikowski reminds us that this concept has roots in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the biblical sense of zakar: just as it is only in being remembered by God that we continue in existence, remembering in this sense "brings the past as close as possible so that it becomes... (shrink)

While working with a long-distance running event organizer, the authors of this study observed considerable differences between event participants’ official finish time and their self-reported finish time in the post-event survey. Drawing on the notion of self-serving bias, we aim to explore the source of this disparity and how such psychological bias influences participants’ event experience at long-distance running events. Using evidence of 1,320 marathon runners, we demonstrated how people are more likely to be subject to a biased self-assessment contingent (...) upon achieving their best finish time at the event. The study samples were split into record-high-achieved and record-high-missed groups, and the self-serving biases of each group were explored. Results from the t-test comparing record-high-achieved and -missed groups showed that runners in the record-high-missed group were significantly more likely to report a positively biased finish time than runners in the record-high-achieved group. Additionally, results from logistic regression showed that as runners missed their best finish time by a wider margin, the probability of reporting a positively biased incorrect finish time increased. Lastly, we conducted an additional t-test and revealed that runners who are subject to self-serving bias showed a lower level of overall event satisfaction. The current study suggests one way to bypass the adverse effects of participant sport event participants’ worse-than-expected athletic performance. We specifically suggest that the event organizers target runners who had worse-than-expected performance and make extra efforts on non-race service attributes because these runners are more likely to be unsatisfied with the event. (shrink)

There can be no doubt that discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs should not be tolerated in academia. Surprisingly, however, in recent years, policies of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE), officially introduced to counteract discrimination, have increasingly led to quite the opposite result: the exclusion of individuals who do not share a radical 'woke' ideology on identity politics (feminism, other gender activisms, critical race theory, etc.), and to the suppression of the academic freedom to discuss such dogmas. (...) This subversion of academia — disguised Trojan-horse style as universal human rights advocacy — is unacceptable because academia must be politically neutral and protect freedom of speech, a cornerstone of professional scholarly activity without which universities as we know them will slowly but surely suffocate. Our purpose here is to put together some particularly illustrative cases of such repression in a single book, testifying to a ubiquitous trend within western culture, irreducible to a few isolated complaints. The essays contained here illustrate the abuse of power, censorship and witch-hunts at many universities and research centres in the name of DIE. List of coauthors in alphabetical order: Dorian Abbot, Tomonori Agoh, Gerhard Amendt, Ivar Arpi, David Benatar, Peter Boghossian, Civitas Research Team, David Díaz Pardo de Vera, Pedro Domingos, Janice Fiamengo, Étienne Forest, Jorge Gibert Galassi, Norman Goldstuck, José L. González Quirós, Lawrence M. Krauss, Patrick LaBelle, Martín López Corredoira, Heather Mac Donald, Martin Malmgren, Jordan Peterson, Constantin Polychronakos, Erik. J. Olsson, Philip C. Salzman, Alessandro Strumia, Tom Todd, Andrei Yafaev. (shrink)

Jordan Peterson is a darling among conservatives and religious people alike. In defending religious belief as the only bulwark against a return to the dark ages, it becomes obvious that Peterson himself doesn't believe in what he preaches. People, he insists, should believe in the archetypal symbolism that is only revealed through a close reading of the Bible. If atheists would only read scripture with more sophistication they wouldn't so embarrassingly reject religion, and simultaneously threaten the very foundations of (...) Western Civilization. It turns out that it's Peterson who comprehensively ignores symbolism. A simple Sunday school lesson shows this. (shrink)

Michael Jordan is widely acclaimed as the greatest athlete who ever lived. The announcement of his retirement in January 1999 unleashed an unparalleled hyperbole of adjectives describing his superlative athletic accomplishments. Yet his continuing media presence and adulation after his retirement confirmed that Jordan is one of the most popular and widely known sports icons throughout the world. In China, the Beijing Morning Post ran a front paged article titled "Flying Man Jordan is Coming Back to Earth" (...) and in Bosnia Jordan 's statement declaring his retirement was the lead story on the evening television news, pushing aside the war in Kosovo.[1] An icon of the global popular, Jordan is "a kind of new world prince," in the words of Pulitzer Prizewinning author David Halberstam, who recently published a biography of the basketball legend : "You hear time and again about people being in Borneo or somewhere and coming across a kid in a tattered Michael Jordan T-shirt. He's the most famous American in the world.". (shrink)

This study employed quantitative methodologies to investigate the impact of a 12-week mindfulness-based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program on lowering stress and improving mental well-being in a sample of 300 adolescents from Jordan. The study employed a stratified random sampling strategy to choose participants from diverse urban and rural populations. Data was collected utilizing the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The data evaluation involved the use of descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, regression analysis, (...) and an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The results indicate a significant decrease in stress levels and positive changes in mental health outcomes following the intervention. The regression analysis revealed that age was a likely predictor of changes in stress levels, indicating that older persons saw more significant declines. The analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated significant gender-specific discrepancies in the impacts of the intervention. Independent samples t-tests revealed statistically significant variations in the average rankings across specific age groups and school environments. Proposed measures include implementing mindfulness-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs in school systems, tailoring treatments to suit different demographic groups, examining gender-specific factors, and advocating for policy integration. Performing a longitudinal study is typically advised to assess the long-term sustainability of intervention results. (shrink)

In the course of reading David Lapoujade’s Aberrant Movements, readers will undoubtedly encounter its overtly nuanced positioning. In relation to the existent patterns of critical engagement with Deleuze’s works, Lapoujade chooses to make his book seem like an expressive tissue of an expanding poetic universe rather than a measurable extensity from some representational whole. So the potency of his book, as Rajchman makes evident in the ‘Introduction’ to Aberrant Movements, doesn’t lie in unfolding like a teleological mimicry of what stands (...) before us as some kind of palimpsestic accretion of a-categorical Deleuzean readings. Rather his work is a perversely creative exercise in repeating these readings into openings of inassimilable differences. Such an inclusively ‘exclusive positioning’ of his book brings about what we may call a transformative de-familiarization of it, rendering it as indistinct patterns of aberrant movements that continuously and creatively shift us from one kind of complex territorial intensity to another. (shrink)

This volume contains 17 papers from the pre-war period of the famous Polish School of Logic. Only two of the papers have appeared in English before and most of them had been inaccessible to the philosophical reader-at-large. An introduction by T Kotarbiński and the reprint of the first six sections of the well-known book by Z Jordan The Development of Mathematical Logic and of Logical Positivism in Poland between the Two Wars provide the reader with the necessary historical perspective.