Intentions and emotions arise together, and emotions compel us to pursue goals. However, it is not clear when emotions become objects of awareness, how emotional awareness changes with goal pursuit, or how psychological and neural processes mediate such change. We first review a psychological model of emotional episodes and propose that goal obstruction extends the duration of these episodes while increasing cognitive complexity and emotional intensity. We suggest that attention is initially focused on action plans and their obstruction, and only (...) when this obstruction persists does focal attention come to include emotional states themselves. We then model the self-organization of neural activities that hypothetically underlie the evolution of an emotional episode. Phases of emotional awareness are argued to parallel phases of synchronization across neural systems. We suggest that prefrontal activities greatly extend intentional states while focal attention integrates emotional awareness and goal pursuit in a comprehensive sense of the self in the world. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that predictive processing (PP) theory cannot account for the phenomenon of affect-biased attention prioritized attention to stimuli that are affectively salient because of their associations with reward or punishment. Specifically, the PP hypothesis that selective attention can be analyzed in terms of the optimization of precision expectations cannot accommodate affect-biased attention; affectively salient stimuli can capture our attention even when precision expectations are low. We review the prospects of three recent attempts to accommodate affect with (...) tools internal to PP theory: Miller and Clark’s (2018) embodied inference; Seth’s (2013) interoceptive inference; and Joffily and Coricelli’s (2013) rate of change of free energy. In each case we argue that the account does not resolve the challenge from affect-biased attention. For this reason, we conclude that prediction error minimization is not sufficient to explain all mental phenomena, contrary to the claim that the PP framework provides a unified theory of all mental phenomena or the brain ‘s cognitive functioning. Nevertheless, we suggest that empirical investigation of the interaction between affective salience and precision expectations should prove helpful in understanding the limits of PP theory, and may provide new directions for the application of a Bayesian perspective to perception. (shrink)

Emotionally arousing events reach awareness more easily and evoke greater visual cortex activation than more mundane events. Recent studies have shown that they are also perceived more vividly and that emotionally enhanced perceptual vividness predicts memory vividness. We propose that affect-biased attention (ABA) – selective attention to emotionally salient events – is an endogenous attentional system tuned by an individual's history of reward and punishment. We present the Biased Attention via Norepinephrine (BANE) model, which unifies genetic, neuromodulatory, neural and behavioural (...) evidence to account for ABA. We review evidence supporting BANE's proposal that a key mechanism of ABA is locus coeruleus–norepinephrine (LC–NE) activity, which interacts with activity in hubs of affective salience networks to modulate visual cortex activation and heighten the subjective vividness of emotionally salient stimuli. We further review literature on biased competition and look at initial evidence for its potential as a neural mechanism behind ABA. We also review evidence supporting the role of the LC–NE system as a driving force of ABA. Finally, we review individual differences in ABA and memory including differences in sensitivity to stimulus category and valence. We focus on differences arising from a variant of the ADRA2b gene, which codes for the alpha2b adrenoreceptor as a way of investigating influences of NE availability on ABA in humans. (shrink)

Debates about indoctrination raise fundamental questions about the ethics of teaching. This paper presents a philosophical analysis of indoctrination, including 1) an account of what indoctrination is and why it is harmful, and 2) a framework for understanding the responsibilities of teachers and other educational actors to avoid its negative outcomes. I respond to prominent outcomes-based accounts of indoctrination, which I argue share two limiting features—a narrow focus on the threat indoctrination poses to knowledge and on the dyadic relationship between (...) indoctrinator and indoctrinated person. I propose a system-based account of indoctrination in which actors with authority contribute to the production or reinforcement of closed-mindedness, which threatens both knowledge and understanding. By taking a system-based approach, my account is better equipped to identify the implications of indoctrination for educational policy and practice. (shrink)

1. Sexual Brains and Body Politics 2. Hormones and Hardwiring 3. Making Sense of Brain Organization Studies 4. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Brain Organization 5. Working Backward from “Distinct‘ Groups 6. Masculine and Feminine Sexuality 7. Sexual Orienteering 8. Sex-Typed Interests 9. Taking Context Seriously 10. Trading Essence for Potential.

Debates about indoctrination raise fundamental questions about the ethics of teaching. This paper presents a philosophical analysis of indoctrination, including 1) an account of what indoctrination is and why it is harmful, and 2) a framework for understanding the responsibilities of teachers and other educational actors to avoid its negative outcomes. I respond to prominent outcomes-based accounts of indoctrination, which I argue share two limiting features—a narrow focus on the threat indoctrination poses to knowledge and on the dyadic relationship between (...) indoctrinator and indoctrinated person. I propose a system-based account of indoctrination in which actors with authority contribute to the production or reinforcement of closed-mindedness, which threatens both knowledge and understanding. By taking a system-based approach, my account is better equipped to identify the implications of indoctrination for educational policy and practice. (shrink)

Open-mindedness is widely valued as an important intellectual virtue. Definitional debates about open-mindedness have focused on whether open-minded believers must possess a particular first-order attitude toward their beliefs or a second-order attitude toward themselves as believers, taking it for granted that open-mindedness is motivated by the pursuit of propositional knowledge. In this article, Rebecca Taylor develops an alternative to knowledge-centered accounts of open-mindedness. Drawing on recent work in epistemology that reclaims understanding as a primary epistemic good, Taylor argues for (...) an expanded account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue motivated by the pursuit of both knowledge and understanding. Incorporating understanding allows for a more robust account of open-mindedness that better accommodates common usage, avoids common criticisms, and better explains the widespread acceptance of open-mindedness as an important intellectual virtue. Taylor also identifies the connections between open-mindedness and several other intellectual virtues, including intellectual humility, intellectual courage, and intellectual diligence. (shrink)

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is credited as one of the first clinicians to formalize recommendations for working with patients with advanced medical illnesses. In her seminal book, On Death and Dying,...

Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart invites readers to embark on a new journey into a land of rationality that differs from the familiar territory of cognitive science and economics. Traditional views of rationality tend to see decision makers as possessing superhuman powers of reason, limitless knowledge, and all of eternity in which to ponder choices. To understand decisions in the real world, we need a different, more psychologically plausible notion of rationality, and this book provides it. It is about (...) fast and frugal heuristics--simple rules for making decisions when time is pressing and deep thought an unaffordable luxury. These heuristics can enable both living organisms and artificial systems to make smart choices, classifications, and predictions by employing bounded rationality. But when and how can such fast and frugal heuristics work? Can judgments based simply on one good reason be as accurate as those based on many reasons? Could less knowledge even lead to systematically better predictions than more knowledge? Simple Heuristics explores these questions, developing computational models of heuristics and testing them through experiments and analyses. It shows how fast and frugal heuristics can produce adaptive decisions in situations as varied as choosing a mate, dividing resources among offspring, predicting high school drop out rates, and playing the stock market. As an interdisciplinary work that is both useful and engaging, this book will appeal to a wide audience. It is ideal for researchers in cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science, as well as in economics and artificial intelligence. It will also inspire anyone interested in simply making good decisions. (shrink)

Contadini—peasant farmers—are central figures of belonging in a Northern Italian winegrowing community. The skills and languages in which contadini are fluent and who is recognized as one of them organize the values attached to various roles in this world. I show how the immigrant vineyard workers who maintain local landscapes engage with this identity, producing new selves through the labor of caring for vines. Earning the title of contadino allows some immigrants to cross social boundaries usually policed by strict ethnic (...) lines in Italy, generating recognition and benefits unavailable from the state. At the same time, Italian employers’ relation to the land changes as they hand off ways of knowing and doing to categorical outsiders. ‘Traditional’ labor and products are what pull these two groups into a collaborative encounter, but rather than simply keeping the past in practice, immigrants and Italians also generate new forms of personhood and value. (shrink)

This review addresses the current and future potential of nanomedicine, and its ethical considerations within the comprehensive framework of the four dimensions of medical ethics: Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, Respect, and Justice. From this perspective, the ethical considerations for nanomedicine are not novel, but have been addressed by precedents throughout the history of medicine. While these ethical challenges are not unique to nanomedicine, some require additional consideration, given the envisioned pervasive impact of nanomedicine on society.

While the definitions employed by different governmental agencies and scientific societies differ somewhat, the term “nanotechnology” is generally understood to refer to the manufacturing, characterization, and use of man-made devices with dimensions on the order of 1-100 nanometers. Devices that comprise a fundamental functional element that is nanotechnological are also frequently comprised within nanotechnology, as are manufactured objects with dimensions less than one micrometer. The differences in definition lead to occasional paradoxes, such as the fact that the most widely used (...) nanodrug is labeled a “nanopharmaceutical” by governments of European countries, Canada, and Australia, but it is not a nanotechnology for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is also common in scientific domains to restrict the term “nanotechnology” to objects that possess special, “emerging” properties that only arise because of their nanoscale dimension. (shrink)

Professors are increasingly encouraged to adopt multiple role relationships with their students. Regardless of professor intent, these relationships carry risks. Left unexamined is whether student–faculty social multiple relationships impact student in-class behaviors. Provocatively, our exploratory study provides empirical support suggesting that when undergraduate students perceive that their professors engage in the multiple faculty–student relationships of friendships, drinking relationships, and sexual partnerships, students report they are more likely to engage in uncivil behaviors in the professor’s classroom. Accordingly, our study provides a (...) backdrop against which to think more substantively about the professorial role and the boundaries that accompany it. (shrink)

Results of R. Miller in 2009 proved several theorems about algebraic fields and computable categoricity. Also in 2009, A. Frolov, I. Kalimullin, and R. Miller proved some results about the degree spectrum of an algebraic field when viewed as a subfield of its algebraic closure. Here, we show that the same computable categoricity results also hold for finite-branching trees under the predecessor function and for connected, finite-valence, pointed graphs, and we show that the degree spectrum results do not hold for (...) these trees and graphs. We also offer an explanation for why the degree spectrum results distinguish these classes of structures: although all three structures are algebraic structures, the fields are what we call effectively algebraic. (shrink)

Under higher education’s contemporary consumer model, students are treated as customers and professors are encouraged to increase student engagement through more personal out-of-class interactions, often in social settings. In the course of this more personal student-faculty involvement, students inevitably encounter or learn of their professors’ occasional inappropriate or unethical behavior. In the present study, we investigated the impact of 145 American undergraduate Business students’ perceptions of their professors’ inappropriate out-of-class behavior on student beliefs and in-class behavior. Results indicate that student (...) perceptions of professors engaging in inappropriate out-of-class behavior were associated with students viewing these professors as lower in ethical character and reporting a stronger likelihood of attending these professors’ classes under the influence of alcohol and illicit drugs, swearing and using vulgarity in these professors’ class discussions, and showing disregard for these professors’ rules, time, and effort. These relationships held even when student grade satisfaction and professor in-class behavior were accounted for. Our results suggest professors’ behavior outside the classroom may impact students’ behavior inside the classroom, re-igniting dialogue regarding the professorial role and the boundaries on oversight of that role. We offer suggestions as to how higher education may address these concerns without infringing upon professors’ personal freedoms. (shrink)

Bluffing, a common and consequential form of competitive behavior, has been comparably ignored in the management literature, even though misleading one's rivals is suggested to be an advantageous skill in a multifaceted and highly competitive environment. To address this deficiency and advance scholarship on competitive dynamics, our study investigates the moral reasoning behind competitive bluffing and, using a simulated market-entry game, examines the performance effects of bluffing. Findings suggest that decision makers' views on the ethicality of bluffing competitors differ from (...) their beliefs on the ethicality of misleading other organizational stakeholders. Analysis also indicates that decision makers who view competitor bluffing as more ethical (less unethical) are more willing to engage in competitive bluffing. Finally, while bluffing is often thought to be an effective business practice, results show that in the context of repeated interaction, bluffing is not conducive to high levels of performance and, in fact, can have undesirable consequences. (shrink)

Polls suggest up to twenty percent of Americans describe their beliefs as 'libertarian', but libertarians are often derided as heartless Social Darwinists or naïve idealists. This illuminating handbook brings together scholars from a range of fields and political perspectives to consider how classical liberal principles can help us understand and potentially address a variety of pressing social problems including immigration, climate change, the growth of the prison population, and a host of others. Anyone interested in political theory or practical law (...) and politics will find this book an essential resource for understanding this major strand of American politics. (shrink)

Activists have challenged the reach of the carceral state into higher education. Whether calling out the exclusion of currently and formerly incarcerated people from higher education or the ways campus police perpetuate the racial and economic biases that plague the US criminal legal system, these voices offer insights that higher education leaders should take seriously. Yet, these challenges are often met with appeals to safety, which purport to override concerns about the harms produced by extension of the criminal legal system (...) into educational contexts. Campus safety debates offer an opportunity to examine the role of wilful ignorance in the perpetuation of systemic injustices on college and university campuses, highlighting tensions between the testimony of those challenging these systems and practices and prevailing narratives around safety. In analysing the operation of wilful ignorance in this context, we will focus on campus policing as a manifestation of carcerality in higher education. We argue that the perpetuation of policing in higher education in the USA reflects wilful White ignorance that represents both an epistemic and moral failing on the part of higher education leaders. (shrink)

In recent years, democracies across the globe have seen an increase in the popularity and power of authoritarian, nationalist politicians, groups, and policies. In this climate, the proper role of education in liberal democratic society, and in particular its role in promoting characteristics like autonomy and open-mindedness, is contested. This paper engages this debate by exploring the concept of autonomy and the obligations of liberal democratic societies to promote it. Presenting the conditions for the exercise and development of autonomy, I (...) argue that the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness is necessary for possession of the capacity for autonomy and the motivation to exercise this capacity. In considering the importance of autonomy in liberal democratic societies, I argue that education for autonomy and open-mindedness can be justified by appealing to several liberal democratic aims: ensuring fair opportunity in the pursuit of the good life and preparing students for citizenship in diverse society. My analysis of the relationship between autonomy and open-mindedness aims to contribute to the literature by identifying a conception of autonomy that explicitly acknowledges its connections to intellectual virtue, thus clarifying one aspect of its value and identifying an important component of education that supports autonomy. (shrink)

At its birth, a new scientific discipline is baptized with the names of the two parent disciplines, Science X and Science Y. Subsequently, usage tends to shorten this compound name by giving preference to one or the other of the constituting terms so that the new term is less disconcerting and novel. Take biophysics, for example. Is it more closely related to physics than to biology, or the other way round? Today this question seems naive but it did not appear (...) so a scarce thirty years ago, that is, at the beginning of the creative activity of the most, eminent scientists in the field of biophysics: it was then the subject of intense discussion. (shrink)

Nassim Noroozi proposes a juxtaposition of pedagogy with and a characterization of it as justice. The term pedagogical here is not limited to “the educational,” nor is pedagogy limited to the methods of teaching. At the same time, the term justice will not be framed in terms of liberal conceptual grounds. Noroozi defines pedagogy as an arrangement of meaning so that it becomes impossible not to see injustice. Noroozi argues that “pedagogy-as-justice” concerns itself with exposing injustice in transformative ways, and (...) as such it is an ethical undertaking. She explores how philosophizing for struggle is inherently pedagogical and, because of our perception of “the pedagogical,” how it is inherently transformative. Furthermore, she argues that seeing pedagogy as justice will consequentially deem “the arrangements of meanings to engage others in the issues pertaining to injustice” as equally important to writing or thinking about those struggles. To illustrate the above points, Noroozi analyzes a case of public philosophical engagement against war. By expanding on this case, she proposes some central attributes of pedagogy-as-justice, namely its preoccupation with grounding abstract and anonymous concepts in their contested historical realities; its commitment to wrestling with an “opacity of concepts” or with “dishonest reasonings” that end up promoting suffering and injustice; and its recognition of the precarities inherent in undertaking pedagogy-as-justice. Noroozi traces a genealogy of the concept of pedagogy-as-justice going back to Socratic public philosophical engagements. (shrink)

New Zealand has an unspoken commandment: ‘thou shalt not be a tall poppy’. A tall poppy is someone who stands out from the crowd, usually by excelling at one or more pursuits. Sadly, many New Zealanders are all too familiar with this phrase as they have been ‘cut down’ by those around them, taunted for their success and discouraged from celebrating their achievements. This social phenomenon of cutting down tall poppies is called Tall Poppy Syndrome and is present in many (...) areas of New Zealand culture, such as sport, academic achievement, and entrepreneurship. Consequently, the church is not immune to this phenomenon. Tall Poppy Syndrome, whether within or outside the church, discourages excellence and prevents flourishing. This article engages Moral Foundations Theory to understand why Tall Poppy Syndrome exists in New Zealand, and then proposes Christian humility as a remedy for Tall Poppy Syndrome within the church. When humility and excellence can co-exist, then Tall Poppy Syndrome will no longer exist; thus the church could have an important role in enabling New Zealand to be a place where tall poppies can freely flourish. (shrink)

_CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2022__ In this thought-provoking volume, editors Rebecca M. Taylor and Ashley Floyd Kuntz invite readers to explore the many facets of on-campus ethical dilemmas and the careful, nuanced decision-making processes required to address them._ Taylor and Kuntz demonstrate how to apply collaborative, multidisciplinary, philosophical inquiry to deeply complex issues. They present seven normative case studies focusing on a variety of campus quandaries, from urgent matters such as Title IX violations and free speech in social media (...) policy to long-simmering concerns such as admissions and access and the future of historically Black colleges and universities. The editors then bring together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners with a broad array of disciplinary and personal backgrounds to offer their commentary and insight on the cases. Leaders in higher education are under immense pressure to respond to campus crises quickly, to quell controversy, and to avoid the backlash of public scrutiny in an ever-shifting sociopolitical terrain. Yet, in tension with such pressures, adequate responses to these dilemmas require leaders to make ethical, contextual choices that effectively foster inclusion, respect individual and institutional freedoms, and promote equity. Expanding the scope of inquiry, the contributors challenge underlying assumptions, raise points that had been omitted from the original cases, and imagine alternative solutions. _Ethics in Higher Education_ appeals to readers to do the same, in the interest of advancing ethical decision-making on campuses. (shrink)

Normative case studies represent empirically grounded phenomena that raise normative philosophical questions. Growth in the popularity of case-based inquiry in philosophy reflects a recent trend in the field not to shy away from engaging with empirical realities, but instead to advance philosophical projects that recognize and speak directly to these realities, including social inequities endemic to our societies. Yet, as the use of case studies and other empirically engaged philosophical approaches has grown, concerns have been raised about whether these methods (...) risk reducing philosophy to social science and, in turn, burdening philosophy with the constraints of social science research. Responding to these concerns calls for more attention to the methodological dimensions of case-based inquiry in philosophy. In this article, Rebecca Taylor offers reflections on two core clarifying questions: (1) What makes normative case studies distinct from other related tools for inquiry — in particular, philosophical thought experiments and qualitative case studies? (2) What quality criteria should guide the development of normative case studies? (shrink)

Soltis' analysis of signal functions of young infants' cries stimulates testable questions regarding abuse, neglect, and infanticide. Nevertheless, his evolutionary perspective oversimplifies the cry event, and does little to promote developmental analysis of crying during infancy. Studies of the cry in its behavioral and developmental context are needed if we are to understand the proximate causes of optimal and suboptimal care.

_Endless Night: Cinema and Psychoanalysis, Parallel Histories_ Edited by Janet Bergstrom Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0-520-20747-5 (hbk); 0-520-20748-3 (pbk) 307 pp.

Many proteins responsible for genome maintenance interact with one another via short sequence motifs. The best known of these are PIP motifs, which mediate interactions with the replication protein PCNA. Others include RIR motifs, which bind the translesion synthesis protein Rev1, and MIP motifs, which bind the mismatch repair protein Mlh1. Although these motifs have similar consensus sequences, they have traditionally been viewed as separate motifs, each with their own target protein. In this article, we review several recent studies that (...) challenge this view. Taken together, they imply that these different motifs are not distinct entities. Instead, there is a single, broader class of motifs, which we call “PIP‐like” motifs, which have overlapping specificities and are capable of binding multiple target proteins. Given this, we must reassess the role of these motifs in forming the network of interacting proteins responsible for genome maintenance. (shrink)

In this paper, Caitlin Murphy Brust and Rebecca Taylor examine the responsibilities of college educators to resist conditions of epistemic injustice within their institutions. Pedagogy alone cannot bring about epistemic justice in higher education, for no individual epistemic agent can single-handedly transform their epistemic environment. The roots of such injustices are structural and thus require structural interventions. However, college educators do retain some agency to engage in epistemic resistance. Brust and Taylor argue that they can and should take steps (...) to foster just relations within the epistemic communities of their classrooms — calling for pedagogy that both recognizes the unjust features of the broader epistemic environment and responds to the unique forms of epistemic injustice that manifest in the classroom, with particular attention to seminar-style courses. (shrink)