Adolescence has been linked to an enhanced tolerance of uncertainty and risky behavior and is possibly connected to an increased response toward rewards. However, previous research has produced inconsistent findings. To investigate whether these findings are due to different reward probabilities used in the experimental design, we extended a monetary incentive delay task by including three different reward probabilities. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, 25 healthy adolescents and 22 adults were studied during anticipation of rewards in the VS. Differently colored (...) cue stimuli indicated either a monetary or verbal trial and symbolized different reward probabilities, to which the participants were blinded. Results demonstrated faster reaction times for lower reward probabilities in both age groups. Adolescents were slower through all conditions and had less activation on a neural level. Imaging results showed a three-way interaction between age group x condition x reward probability with differences in percent signal change between adolescents and adults for the high reward probabilities while adolescents demonstrated differences for the lowest. Therefore, previous inconsistent findings could be due to different reward probabilities, which makes examining these crucial for a better understanding of adolescent and adult behavior. (shrink)

PurposeChildhood onset speech fluency disorder is possibly related to dopaminergic dysfunction. Mesencephalic hyperechogenicity detected by transcranial ultrasound might be seen as an indirect marker of dopaminergic dysfunction. We here determined whether adults who stutter since childhood show ME.MethodsWe performed TCS in ten AWS and ten matched adults who never stuttered. We also assessed motor performance in finger tapping and in the 25 Foot Walking test.ResultsCompared to controls, AWS showed enlarged ME on either side. Finger tapping was slower in AWS. Walking (...) cadence, i.e., the ratio of number of steps by time, tended to be higher in AWS than in control participants.DiscussionThe results demonstrate a motor deficit in AWS linked to dopaminergic dysfunction and extending beyond speech. Since iron deposits evolve in childhood and shrink thereafter, ME might serve as an easily quantifiable biomarker helping to predict the risk of persistency in children who stutter. (shrink)

The sense of agency is a central aspect of human self-consciousness and refers to the experience of oneself as the agent of one’s own actions. Several different cognitive theories on the sense of agency have been proposed implying divergent empirical approaches and results, especially with respect to neural correlates. A multifactorial and multilevel model of the sense of agency may provide the most constructive framework for integrating divergent theories and findings, meeting the complex nature of this intriguing phenomenon.

We agree with Chapman et al. (2025) that the Common Rule needs revision, particularly regarding the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in health research with Indig...

Evidence does not support the claim that observers universally recognize basic emotions from signals on the face. The percentage of observers who matched the face with the predicted emotion (matching score) is not universal, but varies with culture and language. Matching scores are also inflated by the commonly used methods: within-subject design; posed, exaggerated facial expressions (devoid of context); multiple examples of each type of expression; and a response format that funnels a variety of interpretations into one word specified by (...) the experimenter. Without these methodological aids, matching scores are modest and subject to various explanations. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

A heterogeneous survey sample of for-profit, non-profit and government employees revealed that organizational factors but not personal characteristics were significant antecedents of misconduct and job satisfaction. Formal organizational compliance practices and ethical climate were independent predictors of misconduct, and compliance practices also moderated the relationship between ethical climate and misconduct, as well as between pressure to compromise ethical standards and misconduct. Misconduct was not predicted by level of moral reasoning, age, sex, ethnicity, job status, or size and type of organization. (...) Demographic variables predicted job satisfaction and organizational variables added significant incremental variance. Results suggest the importance of promoting a moral organization through the words and actions of senior managers and supervisors, independent of formal mechanisms such as codes of conduct. (shrink)

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provide the tools to teach the history of modern moral philosophy. What makes this selection distinctive is that it covers not only the familiar figures - Hobbes, Hume, Butler, Bentham and Kant - but also the important but generally ignored writers: new translations of Nicole, Wolff, Crusius and d'Holbach; as well as substantial excerpts from natural law theorists such as Suarez, Grotius and Pufendorf; from rationalists such as Malebranche, Cudworth, Spinoza and Leibniz; from (...) Epicurean writers such as Gassendi; and from their 'moral sense' and other critics: Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Price. In all, thirty-two authors are represented. The selections are preceded by a substantial contextual introduction, while each individual selection has a separate introduction, annotation and bibliography, and has been chosen for its centrality to a given philosopher's writings. The anthology can be used as an introductory survey or for more intensive graduate work as well. It can also be used as supplemental reading for courses on modern European intellectual history, the history of modern political thought, and the history of religious thought. (shrink)

While prior ecolabel research suggests that consumers’ trust of ecolabel sponsors is associated with their purchase of ecolabeled products, we know little about how third-party certification might relate to consumer purchases when trust varies. Drawing on cognitive theory and a stratified random sample of more than 1200 consumers, we assess how third-party certification relates to consumers’ use of ecolabels across different program sponsors. We find that consumers’ trust of government and environmental NGOs to provide credible environmental information encourages consumers’ use (...) of ecolabels sponsored by these entities, and consumers do not differentiate between certified versus uncertified ecolabels in the presence of trust. By contrast, consumers’ distrust of private business to provide credible environmental information discourages their use of business association-sponsored ecolabels. However, these ecolabels may be able to overcome consumer distrust if their sponsors certify the ecolabels using third-party auditors. These findings are important to sponsors who wish develop ecolabels that are more credible to consumers, and thus encourage more widespread ecolabel use. (shrink)

Researchers seeking to engage in projects related to Tribal communities and their citizens, lands, and non-human relatives are responsible for understanding and abiding by each Tribal nation’s research laws and review processes. Few studies, however, have described the many diverse forms of Tribal research review systems across the United States (US). This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations of research review processes administered by Tribal Research Review Boards (TRRBs) in the US. Through a systematic analysis, we consider TRRBs’ (...) online presence, online documentation, and themes across documents, for five entity types: Tribal nations and Tribal consortiums, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health organizations, Indian Health Services, and other Tribal organizations. Results include an assessment of online presence for 98 potential TRRBs, identification of 118 publicly available online documents, and analysis of 41 themes across four document types: Tribal research codes and TRRBs’ guidelines, applications, and post-approval documents. Altogether, this research provides a macro-level analysis of the most common types of TRRBs in the US in an effort to increase researchers’ understanding of these important processes as they prepare to ethically engage Tribal communities in research. These results aim to empower Tribal decision makers as they align their TRRBs’ online visibility and documentation with community priorities and strengthen their protections for the rights and wellbeing of their citizens and community. Ultimately, by expanding our knowledge of TRRBs across the US, this contribution seeks to uphold Tribal sovereignty in research and promote ethical approaches to research with Indigenous communities. (shrink)

All people have human rights and, intuitively, there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. The two main theories about the natureand value of human rights often fail to account for this connection. Interest theories, on which rights protect individuals’ important interests, usually fail to capturethe close relationship between human rights and autonomy; autonomy is not constitutive of the interests human rights protect. Will theories, on which human rights protect individuals’ autonomy, cannot explain why the nonautonomous have (...) a human right to meet their needs. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy if human rights at least protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives. It argues that people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. This argument also has importantimplications for some other key debates in the human rights literature. (shrink)

Should people have a legal human right to health? And, if so, what exactly does protecting this right require? This essay defends some answers to these questions recently articulated in Global Health Impact. It explains how these answers depend on a particular way of thinking about health and the minimally good life, how quality of life matters at and over time, what various agents should do to help people who are unable to live well enough, and many other things. Moreover, (...) it suggests some ways of improving common metrics for measuring and advancing our collective global health impact. (shrink)

In this paper, we locate a general rhetorical strategy employed in theoretical discourse wherein philosophers argue from the mere existence of internalized oppression to some kind of epistemic, moral, political, or cognitive deficiency of oppressed people. We argue that this strategy has harmful consequences for oppressed people, breaking down our analysis in terms of individual and structural harms within both epistemic and moral domains. These harms include attempting to undermine the self-trust of oppressed people, reinforcing unjust epistemic power hierarchies, undermining (...) the moral agency of oppressed people, and obscuring real issues of oppression. In light of these many harms, we conclude that there are pro tanto reasons not to employ this strategy, and instead offer a series of suggestions for those considering adopting such a rhetorical move. (shrink)

Evolutionary models of human cooperation are increasingly emphasizing the role of reputation and the requisite truthful “gossiping” about reputation-relevant behavior. If resources were allocated among individuals according to their reputations, competition for resources via competition for “good” reputations would have created incentives for exaggerated or deceptive gossip about oneself and one’s competitors in ancestral societies. Correspondingly, humans should have psychological adaptations to assess gossip veracity. Using social psychological methods, we explored cues of gossip veracity in four experiments. We found that (...) simple reiteration increased gossip veracity, but only for those who found the gossip relatively uninteresting. Multiple sources of gossip increased its veracity, as did the independence of those sources. Information that suggested alternative, benign interpretations of gossip decreased its veracity. Competition between a gossiper and her target decreased gossip veracity. These results provide preliminary evidence for psychological adaptations for assessing gossip veracity, mechanisms that might be used to assess veracity in other domains involving social exchange of information. (shrink)

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) organelle is the key intracellular site of both protein and lipid biosynthesis. ER dysfunction, termed ER stress, can result in protein accretion within the ER and cell death; a pathophysiological process contributing to a range of metabolic diseases and cancers. ER stress leads to the activation of a protective signalling cascade termed the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR). However, chronic UPR activation can ultimately result in cellular apoptosis. Emerging evidence suggests that cells undergoing ER stress and UPR (...) activation can release extracellular signals that can propagate UPR activation to target tissues in a cell non‐autonomous signalling mechanism. Separately, studies have determined that the UPR plays a key regulatory role in the biosynthesis of bioactive signalling lipids including sphingolipids and ceramides. Here we weigh the evidence to combine these concepts and propose that during ER stress, UPR activation drives the biosynthesis of ceramide lipids, which are exported and function as cell non‐autonomous signals to propagate UPR activation in target cells and tissues. (shrink)

A message scribbled irreverently on the mediaeval walls of the Nonberg cloister says this: ‘Neither of us can go to heaven unless the other gets in.’ It suggests an argument against the view that those who love people who suffer in hell can be perfectly happy, or even free from all suffering, in heaven. This paper considers the challenge posed by this thought to the coherence of the traditional Christian doctrine on which there are some people in hell who are (...) suffering and others in heaven who are not suffering. More precisely, it defends the following argument:1. No one who loves another can be perfectly happy or free from suffering if they know that their beloved is suffering.2. Anyone in hell suffers.3. Anyone in heaven is perfectly happy or at least free from suffering.4. There can be no one in heaven who is aware of the fact that his or her beloved is in hell. The paper argues that the first premise is eminently plausible and that those who accept t.. (shrink)

I pay tribute to bell hooks in this essay by reflecting on the multiple provocations she offers to me and my feminist philosophy students: on revolutionary vs. reform feminism; the need for self-love and healing in the quest for social transformation; and deeply entrenched racist and sexist barriers to multiracial feminist coalition building. I consider hooks’s position, within academic spaces, as a Black Feminist killjoy who distinctively rejects respectability while offering sanctuary to those, like me, who come to theory from (...) a place of pain. I conclude by raising questions about hooks’s approach to the relationship between theory and praxis, arguing that she envisions a radical critical praxis theory while acknowledging that there may have been some limits on her “revolutionary” love. (shrink)

We examined whether positive and negative affect motivates verbal and spatial working memory processes, respectively, which have implications for the expenditure of mental effort. We argue that when emotion promotes cognitive tendencies that are goal incompatible with task demands, greater cognitive effort is required to perform well. We sought to investigate whether this increase in cognitive effort impairs behavioural control over a broad domain of self-control tasks. Moreover, we predicted that individuals with higher behavioural inhibition system (BIS) sensitivities would report (...) more negative affect within the goal incompatible conditions because such individuals report higher negative affect during cognitive challenge. Positive or negative affective states were induced followed by completing a verbal or spatial 2-back working memory task. All participants then completed one of three self-control tasks. Overall, we observed that conditions of emotion and working memory incompatibility (positive/spatial and negative/verbal) performed worse on the self-control tasks, and within the incompatible conditions individuals with higher BIS sensitivities reported more negative affect at the end of the study. The combination of findings suggests that emotion and working memory compatibility reduces cognitive effort and impairs behavioural control. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch ethics and the measures deployed to ensure ethical oversight of research (e.g., informed consent forms, ethics review) are vested with extremely important ethical and practical goals. Accordingly, these measures need to function effectively in real-world research and to follow high level standards.MethodsWe examined approved consent forms for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies approved by Canadian research ethics boards (REBs).ResultsWe found evidence of variability in consent forms in matters of physical and psychological risk reporting. (...) Approaches used to tackle the emerging issue of incidental findings exposed extensive variability between and within research sites.ConclusionThe causes of variability in approved consent forms and studies need to be better understood. However, mounting evidence of administrative and practical hurdles within current ethics governance systems combined with potential sub-optimal provision of information to and protection of research subjects support other calls for more scrutiny of research ethics practices and applicable revisions. (shrink)

Invertebrate research ethics has largely been ignored compared to the consideration of higher order animals, but more recent focus has questioned this trend. Using the robotic control of Aurelia aurita as a case study, we examine ethical considerations in invertebrate work and provide recommendations for future guidelines. We also analyze these issues for prior bioethics cases, such as cyborg insects and the ‘microslavery’ of microbes. However, biohybrid robotic jellyfish pose further ethical questions regarding potential ecological consequences as ocean monitoring tools, (...) including the impact of electronic waste in the ocean. After in-depth evaluations, we recommend that publishers require brief ethical statements for invertebrate research, and we delineate the need for invertebrate nociception studies to revise or validate current standards. These actions provide a stronger basis for the ethical study of invertebrates, with implications for individual, species-wide, and ecological impacts, as well as for studies in science, engineering, and philosophy. (shrink)

This intervention study explored the effects of a newly developed intergenerational encounter program on cross-generational age stereotyping. Based on a biographical-narrative approach, participants were invited to share ideas about existential questions of life. Therefore, the dyadic Life Story Interview had been translated into a group format, consisting of 10 90-min sessions. Analyses verified that LSEP participants of both generations showed more favorable CGAS immediately after, but also 3 months after the program end. Such change in CGAS was absent in a (...) control group. The LSEP-driven short- and long-term effects on CGAS could be partially explained by two program benefits, the feeling of comfort with and the experience of learning from the other generation. (shrink)

It is a well-established fact that most new, non-traditional religious groups are treated negatively in the mass media. However, Falun Gong, the qi gong group that was banned in China in 1999, is a marked exception to this general tendency. Why should this be the case? In the present paper, we examine the various factors that combine to make Falun Gong the exception to the rule. We also call attention to this organization’s pattern of attacking critics, as well as their (...) pattern of attacking anyone who offers an interpretation of events that is at odds with Falun Gong’s interpretation. However, this heavy-handed tactic has the potential to backfire, and to prompt the media to reperceive them as a bully rather than as an innocent victim. (shrink)

This paper describes a novel perspective on the foundations of mathematics: how mathematics may be seen to be largely about “information compression via the matching and unification of patterns”. That is itself a novel approach to IC, couched in terms of nonmathematical primitives, as is necessary in any investigation of the foundations of mathematics. This new perspective on the foundations of mathematics reflects the facts that mathematics is almost exclusively the product of human brains, and has been developed, as an (...) aid to human thinking, mathematics is likely to be consonant with much evidence for the importance of IC in human learning, perception, and cognition. This perspective on the foundations of mathematics has grown out of a long-term programme of research developing the SP Theory of Intelligence and its realization in the SP Computer Model, a system in which a generalised version of ICMUP—the powerful concept of SP-multiple-alignment—plays a central role. This paper shows with an example how mathematics, without any special provision, may achieve compression of information. Then, it describes examples showing how variants of ICMUP may be seen in widely used structures and operations in mathematics. Examples are also given to show how several aspects of the mathematics-related disciplines of logic and computing may be understood as ICMUP. Also discussed is the intimate relation between IC and concepts of probability, with arguments that there are advantages in approaching AI, cognitive science, and concepts of probability via ICMUP. Also discussed is how the close relation between IC and concepts of probability relates to the established view that some parts of mathematics are intrinsically probabilistic, and how that latter view may be reconciled with the all-or-nothing, “exact,” forms of calculation or inference that are familiar in mathematics and logic. There are many potential benefits and applications of the mathematics-as-IC perspective. (shrink)

This qualitative study examines the childhood experiences of adult animal rights activists regarding their feelings about, and interactions with, nonhuman animals. Central to children's experiences with animals is the act of eating them, a ritual both normalized and encouraged by the dominant culture and agents of socialization. Yet, despite the massive power of socialization, sometimes children resist the dominant norms of consumption regarding animals. In addition to engaging in acts of resistance, some children, as suggested in the biographical narratives of (...) adult vegan animal activists, also possess a predisposition to respond to the perceived suffering of animals. This predisposition is a variant of the trait empathy but is specifically animal-oriented. In open-ended interviews with 30 vegan animal activists about their paths into the movement, this study examined these childhood experiences and the predisposition that may help set the stage for later adoption of a vegan, animal-rights lifestyle. (shrink)

Sex differences in physical and indirect aggression have been found in many societies but, to our knowledge, have not been studied in a population of hunter-gatherers. Among Aka foragers of the Central African Republic we tested whether males physically aggressed more than females, and whether females indirectly aggressed more than males, as has been seen in other societies. We also tested predictions of an evolutionary theory of physical strength, anger, and physical aggression. We found a large male bias in physical (...) aggression. Controlling for anger, we found an adult female bias in indirect aggression. Physical strength predicted anger, which predicted hitting, although results were sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of traditional healers, who were physically and emotionally distinct from other Aka. With some important caveats, our results generally support the predicted sex differences in physical aggression and indirect aggression, and the predicted relationships among anger, strength, and aggression. (shrink)

This paper examines the mentalities associated with the transformation of 'nature' into urban life in industrial societies, with particular reference to the conversion of rainwater into tap water. It argues that industrial technologies dissociate urban dwellers from the natural environment upon which they depend. The paper maintains that this dissociation has contributed to mentalities encouraging the depletion and degradation of water resources and critically examines technological strategies for managing urban water use. The paper argues that epistemological systems must be reformed (...) in conjunction with changing technological systems before environmental management strategies are likely to succeed. It concludes by suggesting ways in which urban water provision could be transformed so as to encourage greater ecological awareness and activism. (shrink)

Background Despite recent developments aimed at creating international guidelines for ethical global health research, critical disconnections remain between how global health research is conducted in the field and the institutional ethics frameworks intended to guide research practice. Discussion In this paper we attempt to map out the ethical tensions likely to arise in global health fieldwork as researchers negotiate the challenges of balancing ethics committees’ rules and bureaucracies with actual fieldwork processes in local contexts. Drawing from our research experiences with (...) an implementation and evaluation project in Jamaica, we argue that ethical research is produced through negotiated spaces and reflexivity practices that are centred on relationships between researchers and study participants and which critically examine issues of positionality and power that emerge at multiple levels. In doing so, we position ethical research practice in global health as a dialectical movement between the spoken and unspoken, or, more generally, between operationalized rules and the embodied relational understanding of persons. Summary Global health research ethics should be premised not upon passive accordance with existing guidelines on ethical conduct, but on tactile modes of knowing that rely upon being engaged with, and responsive to, research participants. Rather than focusing on the operationalization of ethical practice through forms and procedures, it is crucial that researchers recognize that each ethical dilemma encountered during fieldwork is unique and rooted in social contexts, interpersonal relationships, and personal narratives. (shrink)

All people have human rights and there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. Accounting for this connection is difficult on many of the traditional rights theories. On many traditional theories, human rights protect individuals’ important interests. These theories are well suited to account for the fact that human rights protect individuals from dire need. Even the non-autonomous have some needs, which constitute some of their important interests. But because these theories sometimes say autonomy is not constitutive (...) of the interests human rights protect they can fail to capture the close relationship between human rights and autonomy. On other traditional human rights theories, human rights only protect individuals’ autonomy. These theories avoid the problem sketched above. But, purely autonomy-based theories cannot explain the universality of rights -- some people lack autonomy. Furthermore, if human rights only protect individuals’ autonomy, human rights can be fulfilled and yet some can be left in dire need. So, some of the best known attempts to justify human rights either cannot appropriately connect human rights and autonomy or cannot account for the human right of all to meet their basic needs. This paper suggests that a theory on which human rights protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives should be taken seriously because it can avoid this dilemma. For, it argues, people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. (shrink)

Der Band setzt sich mit den Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten internationalen oder globalen Regierens in einer sozialen Umwelt (Weltgesellschaft) unter drei Perspektiven auseinander: der Perspektive von Theorien globaler Ordnung, der Perspektive spezifischer Formen globaler Ordnungsbildung und der Perspektive die Normativität globaler Ordnung. Die Beiträge des Bandes besetzen Schnittstellen in einer Reihe von Diskussionen, die in den Internationalen Beziehungen zu Ordnung und Ordnungsbildung in der internationalen Politik, zum Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates, sowie zur Stellung internationaler Politik in der Weltgesellschaft geführt werden.

Le discours managérial constitue un véritable genre et représente une catégorie particulière au sein des énoncés performatifs. L’objectif annoncé de présentation des orientations stratégiques et de dynamisation des équipes s’accompagne d’une mise en scène particulière qui constitue une des conditions de sa félicité, de son accomplissement. Le contexte d’internationalisation et d’interdépendance dans lequel se déroule l’activité des entreprises renforce la stéréotypie de ce langage qui mobilise un format, un vocabulaire et une syntaxe particulière marqués par l’anglicisme et l’asyncticité. Destiné à (...) unifier et à galvaniser les équipes, ce langage est porteur de signes de pouvoir et de distinction, il exclut plus qu’il n’inclut, génère la perplexité et le désarroi et s’inscrit dans une stratégie du flou qui semble être le seul mode contemporain de l’avenir économique. Circulant à l’envi dans la communauté internationale et de la finance qu’il unifie à sa manière, il a une force incantatoire sur la scène financière et médiatique mais un impact paradoxal sur le travail quotidien des hommes et des femmes. Langage de la spéculation et de l’anticipation, il est plus proche des discours de la performance que des énoncés performatifs.Managerial language is a genre in itself and makes up a particular category of performative speech. The stated objective when presenting strategic goals or team building strategies is always dressed up in a particular way that will determine its aptness and success. The context of internationalisation and interdependence in which business activities take place reinforces a stereotype of management-speak, based on a particular format, vocabulary and grammar permeated by anglicisms and lack of syntax. Aimed at unifying and galvanising business teams, « corpu-speak » conveys a sense of power and distinctiveness, suggests exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness, generates bewilderment and anxiety and is very much at one with the strategy of obfuscation that seems to be the sole contemporary register where the economic future is concerned. Circulating freely within the international and finance community and uniting it as it goes, it acts with the hypnotic effect of incantation on the financial and media scene but has a paradoxical impact on the daily working lives of men and women. As the language of speculation and anticipation, it is more akin to performance discourse than to performative speech. (shrink)

Cet article retrace les changements intervenus au sein du militantisme féministe chinois dans un climat de détérioration politique deux décennies après la Quatrième Conférence mondiale sur les femmes (QCMF) en 1995. Il met en lumière les actions novatrices menées par les jeunes féministes, de même que l’intense surveillance qu’exerce, sur le militantisme organisé, un État totalitaire qui craint de perdre son pouvoir. Bien que la sphère publique et le cyber espace ne laissent guère beaucoup de place à l’activisme, les féministes (...) chinoises se sont mobilisées pour continuer d’expérimenter de nouvelles façons d’exiger l’égalité de genre et de poursuivre des transformations sociales et culturelles. (shrink)