In this essay, I first extend the insights of virtue ethics into environmental ethics and examine the possible dangers of this approach. Second, I analyze some qualities of character that an environmentally virtuous person must possess. Third, I evaluate “humility” as an environmental virtue, specifically, the position of Thomas E. Hill, Jr. I conclude that Hill’s conception of “proper” humility can be more adequatelyexplicated by associating it with another virtue, environmental “openness.”.

In this essay, I first extend the insights of virtue ethics into environmental ethics and examine the possible dangers of this approach. Second, I analyze some qualities of character that an environmentally virtuous person must possess. Third, I evaluate “humility” as an environmental virtue, specifically, the position of Thomas E. Hill, Jr. I conclude that Hill’s conception of “proper” humility can be more adequatelyexplicated by associating it with another virtue, environmental “openness.”.

There has been increased interest in developing what I call environmental virtue ethics (EVE). This paper presents some of the centralfeatures of this project. The first part is a general description of EVE, showing why there is a need for it. The second part spells out the central features of EVE including an account of the good life as flourishing in an expanded or mixed biotic community, and provides a tentative list of important environmental virtues. The third part examines one (...) virtue: friendship, showing how an understanding of it provides insight into current issues in environmental ethics. The final section addresses a challenge to the project of EVE. (shrink)

From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. The former head of the Sante Fe Institute, visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term "complexity" can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is that he has (...) found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by issues of aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science, creating a new understanding of energy use and metabolism: West found that despite the riotous diversity in the sizes of mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal's circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient--and lives 25% longer. This speaks to everything from how long we can expect to live to how many hours of sleep we need. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism's body. (shrink)

A heuristic proof is given that the divergent QCD perturbation series is, asymptotic. By treating it as an asymptotic expansion we show that it makes sense to keep only the first few terms. The example of e+e− annihilation is considered. It is shown that by keeping only the first few terms one can get within a per cent (or smaller) of the complete sum of the series even at very low momenta where the coupling is large. More generally, this affords (...) an explanation of the phenomena of precocious scaling and why keeping only leading order corrections generally works so well. (shrink)

It is known that, on average, people adapt their choice of memory strategy to the subjective utility of interaction. What is not known is whether an individual's choices are boundedly optimal. Two experiments are reported that test the hypothesis that an individual's decisions about the distribution of remembering between internal and external resources are boundedly optimal where optimality is defined relative to experience, cognitive constraints, and reward. The theory makes predictions that are tested against data, not fitted to it. The (...) experiments use a no-choice/choice utility learning paradigm where the no-choice phase is used to elicit a profile of each participant's performance across the strategy space and the choice phase is used to test predicted choices within this space. They show that the majority of individuals select strategies that are boundedly optimal. Further, individual differences in what people choose to do are successfully predicted by the analysis. Two issues are discussed: the performance of the minority of participants who did not find boundedly optimal adaptations, and the possibility that individuals anticipate what, with practice, will become a bounded optimal strategy, rather than what is boundedly optimal during training. (shrink)

In the United States, approximately 2.53 million people sustain a concussion each year. Relative to adults, youth show greater cognitive deficits following concussion and a longer recovery. An accurate and reliable imaging method is needed to determine injury severity and symptom resolution. The primary objective of this study was to characterize concussions with diffusion tensor imaging. This was performed through a normative Z-scoring analysis of DTI metrics, fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, and radial diffusivity, to quantify patient-specific injuries and identify commonly (...) damaged brain regions in paediatric concussion patients relative to healthy controls. It was hypothesized that personalizing the detection analysis through normative Z-scoring would provide an understanding of trauma-induced microstructural damage. Concussion patients were volunteers recruited from the Emergency Department of the McMaster Children’s Hospital with a recent concussion, 9 males and 17 females, mean age 14.22 ± 2.64, while healthy paediatric brain DTI datasets were obtained from an MRI data repository. Significant abnormalities were commonly found in the longitudinal fasciculus, fronto-occipital fasciculus, and corticospinal tract, while unique abnormalities were localized in a number of other areas reflecting the individuality of each child’s injury. Total injury burden, determined by the number of regions containing outliers per DTI metric per patient, was used as the metric to quantify the overall injury severity of each patient. The primary outcome of this analysis found that younger patients experienced a significantly greater injury burden when measured using fractional anisotropy. These results show that DTI was able to detect microstructural changes caused by concussion, on a per-person basis, and has the potential to be a useful tool for improving diagnostic accuracy and prognosis of a concussion. (shrink)

An argument is made that to further develop the field of environmental virtue ethics it must be connected with an account of environmental sentiments. Openness as both an environmental sentiment and virtue is presented. This sentiment is shown to be reflected in the work of Barbara McClintock. As a virtue it is shown to a mean between arrogance and the disvaluing of individuals, a disposition to be open to the natural world and the values found there. Further development of EVE (...) is then shown to require a connection with an account of environmental wisdom. (shrink)

In their recent paper on “Challenges in mathematical cognition”, Alcock and colleagues (Alcock et al. [2016]. Challenges in mathematical cognition: A collaboratively-derived research agenda. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2, 20-41) defined a research agenda through 26 specific research questions. An important dimension of mathematical cognition almost completely absent from their discussion is the cultural constitution of mathematical cognition. Spanning work from a broad range of disciplines – including anthropology, archaeology, cognitive science, history of science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology – we (...) argue that for any research agenda on mathematical cognition the cultural dimension is indispensable, and we propose a set of exemplary research questions related to it. (shrink)

Ethical issues surrounding the marketing and trade of controversial products such as tobacco require a better understanding. Virginia Slims, an exclusively women’s cigarette brand first launched in 1968 in the USA, was introduced during the mid 1980s to major Asian markets, such as Japan and Korea, dominated by male smokers. By reviewing internal corporate documents, made public from litigation, we examine the marketing strategies used by Philip Morris as they entered new markets such as Japan and Korea and consider the (...) extent that the company attempted to appeal to women in markets where comparatively few women were smokers. The case study of Virginia Slims reveals that the classification of “vulnerable” consumers is variable depending on culture, tobacco firms display responsive efforts and strategies when operating within a “mature” market, and cultural values played a role in informing Philip Morris’ strategic decision to embrace an adaptive marketing approach, particularly when entering the Korean market. Finally, moral questions are raised with tobacco being identified as a priority product for export and international trade agreements being used by corporations, governments, or trade partners in efforts to undermine domestic public health policies. (shrink)

Standard proofs of generalized Bell theorems, aiming to restrict stochastic, local hidden-variable theories for quantum correlation phenomena, employ as a locality condition the requirement of conditional stochastic independence. The connection between this and the no-superluminary-action requirement of the special theory of relativity has been a topic of controversy. In this paper, we introduce an alternative locality condition for stochastic theories, framed in terms of the models of such a theory (§2). It is a natural generalization of a light-cone determination condition (...) that is essentially equivalent to mathematical conditions that have been used to derive Bell inequalities in the deterministic case. Further, it is roughly equivalent to a condition proposed by Bell that, in one investigation, needed to be supplemented with a much stronger assumption in order to yield an inequality violated by some quantum mechanical predictions. It is shown here that this reflects a very general situation: from the proposed locality condition, even adding the strict anticorrelation condition and the auxiliary hypotheses needed to derive experimentally useful (and theoretically telling) inequalities, no Bell-type inequality is derivable. (These independence claims are the burden of §4.) A certain limitation on the scope of the proposed stochastic locality condition is exposed (§5), but it is found to be rather minor. The conclusion is thus supported that conditional stochastic independence, however reasonable on other grounds, is essentially stronger than what is required by the special theory.Our results stand in apparent contradiction with a class of derivations purporting to obtain generalized Bell inequalities from locality alone. It is shown in Appendix (B) that such proofs do not achieve their goal. This fits with our conclusion that generalized Bell theorems are not straightforward generalizations of theorems restricting deterministic hidden-variable theories, and that, in fact, such generalizations do not exist. This leaves open the possibility that a satisfactory, non-deterministic account of the quantum correlation phenomena can be given within the framework of the special theory. (shrink)

Arguments about constitutional and personal rights often invoke the concept of privacy. In the United States it has been said that the constitution "embodies a promise that a certain private sphere of individual liberty will be kept largely beyond the reach of government". A number of formulae has been invoked in an attempt to define the sphere of constitutional privacy. They include: Fundamental rights of interests; personal decisions and issues; important questions intimately affecting private lives; and decisions affecting education, child-rearing, (...) marriage and contraception.Canadian and Europian courts have resorted to balancing formulae and to proportionality to set the limits to liberty guarantees. All of them need, however, an implied general theory of liberty such as that propounded by Mill , since privacy is a special sub-category of liberty.Privacy claims are made not only against the State, but in tort law relations between individuals, or between individuals and organisations such as the Press. Proposals for legislation to protect personal privacy encompass two different types of claim. One relates to physical intrusion: the other to proprietary rights over information of certain kinds. It is questionable whether general legislation to establish a statutory tort of breach of privacy is defensible. It may even be dangerous and be exploitable to protect government information. A public interest defence is essential. That throws the balancing role back on the courts, but they cannot rely on any obvious social consensus in weighing the interests at issue. In der Auseinandersetzung über subjektive Rechte, die von einer Verfassung garantiert sind oder deren Verletzung privatrechtliche Ansprüche auslöst, berufen sich viele Stimmen auf das Konzept der Privatsphäre. Nach einer in den Vereinigten Staaten vertretenen These liegt der amerikanischen Verfassung "das Versprechen zugrunde, daß die Privatsphäre, d.i. eine bestimmte Sphäre individueller Freiheit, im großen und ganzen außerhalb des Zugriffs des Staates liegt". Wie läßt sich rechtlich präzisieren, was diese verfassungsrechtlich garantierte Privatsphäre eigentlich einschließt? Eine Reihe von Antworten, die auf diese Frage gegeben werden, bezeichnen als vom Begriff der Privatsphäre erfaßt a) fundamentale Rechte oder Interessen, b) persönliche Probleme oder Entscheidungen, c) wesentliche Fragen, die das Privatleben ganz existenziell berühren, d) Entscheidungen, die die Erziehung und Ausbildung von Kindern, Empfängnisverhütung und Eheschließung betreffen. Einige dieser Formeln enthalten Elemente eines logischen Zirkels, da sie bei dem Versuch, die Privatsphäre näher zu umschreiben, ihrerseits selbst den Ausdruck "privat" benutzen. Andere sind entweder offensichtlich zu weit oder zu eng oder sonst schlechterdings ungenügend. Darüber hinaus ist es nicht klar, wann bei den subjektiven Rechten, die als fundamental bezeichnet werden, Ausnahmen gemacht werden. Ein Beispiel liefert die US-amerikanische Entscheidung Bowers v. Hardwick. (shrink)

The argument I defend in this paper challenges whether Waldron’s explanation of the conditions required for a moral right to satisfy its autonomy-promoting function is the best one available. It questions the suitability of Waldron’s preferred taxonomy of moral action, where acts are divided into: (1) those that are morally required; (2) those that are morally prohibited; and (3) those that are morally indifferent, advocating instead for a binary classification consisting of: (a) actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement; and (...) (b) actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement. My claim is that the protective sphere moral rights set up in organizing the moral relations among persons is applicable only to the former category—namely, actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement. Actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement will either: (b’) not normally demand a right against interference in the first place (if the action is unquestionably permissible); or (b”) fail to admit of a right against interference at all (if the action is unquestionably impermissible). This competing explanation allows us to preserve the autonomy-promoting conception of moral rights Waldron endorses while avoiding a number of its suspect implications. (shrink)

While this article sets out to advance our knowledge about the characteristics of Nigerian cybercriminals (Yahoo-Boys), it is also the first study to explore the narratives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officers concerning them. It appraises symbolic interactionist insights to consider the ways in which contextual factors and worldview may help to illuminate officers’ narratives of cybercriminals and the interpretations and implications of such accounts. Semi-structured interviews of forty frontline EFCC officers formed the empirical basis of this (...) study and were subjected to a directed approach of qualitative content analysis. While prior studies, for example, indicated that only a group of cybercriminals deploy spiritual and magical powers to defraud victims (i.e. modus operandi), our data analysis extended this classification into more refined levels involving multiple features. In particular, analysis bifurcates cybercriminals and their operations based on three factors: [a] educational-attainment, [b] modus-operandi, and [c] networks-collaborators. Results also suggest that these cybercriminals and their operations are embedded in “masculinity-and-material-wealth”. These contributions thus have implications for a range of generally accepted viewpoints about these cybercriminals previously taken-for-granted. Since these criminals have victims all over the world, insights from our study may help various local and international agencies [a] to understand the actions/features of these two groups of cybercriminals better and develop more effective response strategies. [b] to appreciate the vulnerabilities of their victims better and develop more adequate support schemes. We also consider the limitations of social control agents’ narratives on criminals. (shrink)

Summary In her highly publicised polemic, All Must Have Prizes (1996), Melanie Phillips launches a scathing attack upon the British educational establishment and various facets of policy and practice during the past three decades. She is especially critical of progressivism and approaches to teaching and learning supposedly predicated upon relativist principles (e.g. multicultural education). Our own research on primary?school children's constructions of British identity (Carrington, B. & Short, G. (1995): What makes a person British? Children's conceptions of their national culture (...) and identity, Educational Studies, 21, pp. 217?238) is singled?out for criticism. We begin this paper with a rejoinder to Phillips. Among other things, we take issue with her defence of an assimilationist approach to the curriculum. In the second part of the paper, we present the findings of a recently completed case?study of 12? and 13?year?olds? constructions of their national identity, which replicates the earlier work (criticised by Phillips) with 8? to 11?year?olds. We show that the young adolescents, in common with their counterparts in primary schools, tended to adopt a pluralist viewpoint. Once again, there was an almost complete dearth of comments that were racist or nationalistic. We conclude by briefly exploring the policy implications of the findings. [1] Paper presented to the 1997 Conference of the Association for Moral Education: The Voices of Care and Justice?enhancing dialogue among theorists, researchers and practitioners, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. (shrink)

Given two incomparable c.e. Turing degrees a and b, we show that there exists a c.e. degree c such that c = (a ⋃ c) ⋂ (b ⋃ c), a ⋃ c | b ⋃ c, and c < a ⋃ b.

This response (a) integrates non-equilibrium evolutionary genetic models, such as coevolutionary arms-races and recent selective sweeps, into a framework for understanding common, harmful, heritable mental disorders; (b) discusses the forms of ancestral neutrality or balancing selection that may explain some portion of mental disorder risk; and (c) emphasizes that normally functioning psychological adaptations work against a backdrop of mutational and environmental noise. (Published Online November 9 2006).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY is a great deal to blame for the wrongheaded views that got about in the ancient world concerning this gifted Alexandrian thinker; and in the whole business there is more than a hint of clash between Eastern and Western temperament. When, in dealing with modern critics of Origen, he roundly castigates the scholarly ghettoism that goes on, one is in complete sympathy. Kerr for instance (...) gets scolded for not quoting De Lubac. Lutheran scholars and Catholic, Germans perhaps and French, will tend to approach Origen with preformed conclusions. They have too often written within an exceedingly limited scholarly tradition. Fair enough. People have not any excuse for ignoring one another's contributions. Evidences of this sort of thing, with conspicuous faults on both sides (Lutheran and Catholic, that is) are not far to seek, God knows. One is not so happy however when the faint suggestion is made, particularly in the appendix, that it is only to students with the proper dispositions that Origen will yield up his message. That one must believe with Origen, so to speak. It may be the enthusiasm of the moment, or the undue influence of Origen's own attitude to holy writ; but this could be a disastrous line of argument. It comes perilously near to the reasons Julian the Apostate gave for excluding Christians from the Hellenist schools. And it smacks too much of Hellenistic ideas about doctrine for the multitude and for the initiate. Incidentally Crouzel argues that Origen, contrary to the accepted beliefs about him, was singularly free of this sort of thing. Some of his supposedly esoteric doctrines are found in the most popular of his compositions, and vice versa. In all it is a book calculated to set students of Origen thinking, and searching. DENIS MEEIIAN Valyermo Priory Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings: A Selection. Edited and translated by Allan Wolter, O.F.M. (The Nelson Philosophical Texts; Edinburgh: Nelson, 1962. Pp. xxiii + 198. Latin text and translation, 162 parallel pages. SOs., $6.50.) Minor, sometimes indirect, causes have kept the name of John Duns Scotus in the minds of many philosophers of the twentieth century. The dependence of Gerard Manly Hopkins' notion of inscape on Duns Scotus' doctrine on intuitive cognition and individuation is a case in point. Another and more direct instance is that of the concurrence of some modern theories on free will with the exposition of Scotus. Those whose interest in Duns Scotus has been piqued by some allusion invariably ask the question, where can one get something in English by the man? The answer still is, the man has had quite a few expositors but not many translators. The latest of such expositions is Duns Scotus: The Basic Principles of His Philosophy, B. Bonansea's translation of an Italian work by E. Bettoni. The only complete work of Duns Scotus in English translation is his small opus presenting a demonstration of the existence of God: The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus, (St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: 1949), translated by Evan Roche, O.F.M. Allan Wolter is presently engaged in producing a new translation with more extensive notes, since the original translation is out of print. A small selection from Scotus' Oxford Commentary is contained in Richard McKeon's Selections from Medieval Philosophers, Vol. II. The reason for the scarcity of translations has been the lack of a definitive edition of BOOK REVIEWS 93 Scotus's works. No one wanted to undertake an extensive translation from insufficiently edited texts, especially when a definitive text was thought to be imminent. A commission was appointed thirty-six years ago to do for John Duns Scotus what had been done so magnificently for his Franciscan predecessor, St. Bonaventure. The first definitive edition of the opera ornnia of a Scholastic in the period of Scholastic revival was published by Franciscan scholars at Quaracchi near Florence: the Opera Ornnia Sancti Bonaventurae (1882-1901) in nine volumes. The same scholars, under the leadership of E. Longpr~, O.F.M., turned their attention to the works of Scotus. The problems facing the commission were admittedly much greater. Manuscripts had to be gathered, authenticated, compared. Work went slowly... (shrink)