Knowing the individual skills and competences of one's group members may be important for deciding from whom to learn (social learning), with whom to collaborate and whom to follow. We investigated whether 12 jackdaws could select conspecifics based on their helping skills, which had been exhibited in a previous context. The birds were tested in a blocked-exit-situation, where they could choose between two conspecifics, one of which could be recruited inside. One conspecific had previously displayed the ability to open the (...) exit door whilst the other individual lacked the skill. The subjects showed a significant preference for the skilled conspecific if they had previously directly benefited from this skill. If they had merely observed the skilled (and non-skilled) individual opening (or failing to open) the exit door, they did not preferably choose the skilled conspecific. Taken together, these results suggest that jackdaws are capable of assessing other individuals' competence under certain circumstances. (shrink)

John Lavery's The First Wounded, London Hospital, August 1914 records a memorable event in the First World War. This painting and the archives of the Royal London Hospital provide a fascinating insight into the nursing and medical care of these early war casualties.

Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary (...) precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework. (shrink)

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

The text of the tract De arcubus similibus was published for the first time by M. Curtze in 1887. However, after examining some more Latin manuscripts and the Arabic MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Marsh 663 it appeared, that Curtze's edition was rather an adaptation. Also Curtze's suggestion that Jordanus Nemorarius was the author was very probably wrong. The author of the tract was the Egyptian mathematician Ahmed ibn Jusuf as appears from the Latin manuscripts, and its translator, very probably, Gerard (...) of Cremona. In the tract Ahmed tried to prove, that the assertion ‘similar arcs are also equal arcs’ was wrong . His starting points were the propositions Euclid III, 20 and 21. Consequently, the tract can be looked upon as a commentary on the third book of the Elements. (shrink)

Book Information Probability Theory and Probability Semantics. By P. Roeper and H. Leblanc. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. 1999. Pp. xii + 240. Hardback, US$65.00.

Background In August 2017, Chile lifted its complete ban on abortion by permitting abortion in three limited circumstances: 1) to save a woman’s life, 2) lethal fetal anomaly, and 3) rape. The new law allows regulated use of conscientious objection in abortion care, including allowing institutions to register as objectors. This study assesses medical and midwifery students’ support for CO, following legal reform. Methods From October 2017 to May 2018, we surveyed medical and midwifery students from seven universities located in (...) Santiago, Chile. Universities included 4 secular and 3 private religiously-affiliated universities; all offering medical degrees with a specialization in obstetrics and gynecology and five offering midwifery degrees. We used generalized estimating equations to identify characteristics associated with student support for CO, intentions to use CO to refuse to care for someone seeking abortion, and support for CO at the institutional level. Results 333 of the 413 eligible students who opened the survey, completed the questions on conscientious objection; 26% were seeking medical degrees with an ob-gyn specialty, 25% were seeking midwifery degrees, and 49% were seeking medical degrees and had not yet decided their specialty. While nearly all endorse requirements for conscientious objecting clinicians to inform and refer abortion-seeking patients, a minority would personally use conscientious objection to avoid caring for a patient seeking abortion. About half of religious-university students and one-fifth of secular-university students support objections at the institutional level. Conclusions Most students support the regulated use of CO which preserves patients’ access to abortion care. Religious-university student views on the use of conscientious objection in abortion care are discordant with those of their institutions which currently support institutional-level objections. (shrink)

Von Wright argued that moral goodness is a derivative form of goodness. He proceeded to give an account of the moral goodness of an act, in terms of the good of man. Philosophical anthropology must render the phenomenon of morality intelligible. This chapter suggests that the roots of moral value lie in human sympathy, in maternal love, in intuitive recognition of the humanity of others, and in the nature of loving friendship. The sentiment of sympathy is virtually ubiquitous, but sympathetic (...) propensities vary from person to person, being partly a function of their imagination. Sympathy is an emotional tap‐root of moral reasons and a presupposition of moral reasoning. Kant's argument in support of a requirement of equal formal respect for human beings as moral agents is problematic. The explicit emergence of the idea of formal respect is one of the great advances in our evolving understanding of human nature and our conception of ourselves. (shrink)

The key to a perspicuous overview of axiology is the realization that all values arise from life. This chapter provides a brief overview of von Wright's categories, or ‘varieties’, of goodness. Medical goodness is the most elemental variety of natural value and disvalue. Any language‐using creature that has the skills to make and to use tools, instruments, and other artefacts is going to need the concepts of artefactual goodness and its subcategory of instrumental goodness. Morality is essentially a social phenomenon (...) – it is an aspect of the form of life of a community. In evolved societies, it overlaps with and fades into law, into social mores or small morals, and into individual critical morality. Virtue, or moral goodness, as well as the moral virtues, which are moral character traits, are attributes of social beings who are, and who identify themselves as being, members of a community, people, or nation. (shrink)

Onderwerp en gezegde, door D. M. Bakker.--Enkele opmerkingen over het Godsbegrip van Justinus Martyr, door J. den Boeft.--Heidegger, Descartes, Luther, door J. van der Hoeven.--"Geschichtlichkeit" bij Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, door G. Horsman.--Menselijke ontmaskering en Bijbels démasqué , door R. Huson.--Kleine geschiedenis van het begrip "niets" in de antieke wijsbegeerte (tot e met de Sofisten en Plato), door P. A. Meijer.--De structuur van opvoeden en opvoedkunde, door J. W. Mojet.--Individualiteit in de fysica, door M. D. (...) Stafleu. (shrink)

Book Information Probability Theory and Probability Semantics. By P. Roeper and H. Leblanc. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. 1999. Pp. xii + 240. Hardback, US$65.00.

For a long while Bayesian techniques in statistics in general, and decision theory in particular, were considered suspect at best, and to be avoided; but now along comes Jeffrey with a system of subjective probability and utility functions determined by the individual's preferences, and a strongly Bayesian approach to decision-making, and by so doing puts the whole matter in a new light and makes it quite important to reassess the prior rejection of Bayesian methods. There are twelve chapters, each with (...) exercises, which begin with the model of deliberation, progress though scaling and ranking desirability, preference and propositional attitudes, thence to probability and measurement of desirability, and finally to induction and confirmation. The author's theory bears some resemblances to that sketched by Ramsey, but it draws somewhat on the later work of Von Neumann and Morgenstern. The author examines probability as viewed both statically—when the agent's attitudes are constant—and dynamically-when desirability and, consequently, probability assignments change. This text is one of the small but growing library of works whose interest is induction and probability theory; in that library, it will occupy an important place.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Crítica y metafísica es una compilación de artículos sobre la filosofía de Immanuel Kant, reunidos para rendir homenaje a la trayectoria de Mario Caimi en el ámbito de los estudios kantianos. Los trabajos que integran este volumen han sido elaborados por algunos de los especialistas más destacados, provenientes de distintos lugares del mundo, y abordan diversos aspectos del pensamiento de Kant. Mario Caimi (* 1947) ha sido profesor titular de filosofía moderna en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, y se desempeña (...) actualmente como Investigador superior en el Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la República Argentina. Es autor de numerosos trabajos sobre la filosofía de Kant, y ha traducido al español algunas de las obras más importantes del filósofo. En 2010 recibió el Kant-Preis, otorgado por la Kant-Gesellschaft, como reconocimiento a su destacada trayectoria. Crítica y metafísica ist ein Sammelband über die Philosophie Immanuel Kants, der den Werdegang Mario Caimis im Bereich der Kant-Studien würdigen möchte. Die hier gesammelten Beiträge wurden von einigen der anerkanntesten Kant-Spezialisten aus verschiedenen Ländern verfasst und behandeln diverse Aspekte des kantischen Denkens. Mario Caimi (* 1947) war Lehrstuhlinhaber für Philosophie der Neuzeit an der Universität von Buenos Aires und ist zur Zeit als investigador superior beim Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) der Republik Argentinien tätig. Er ist Autor mehrerer Aufsätze über die Philosophie Kants und hat einige der wichtigsten Werke dieses Philosophen übersetzt. 2010 erhielt er den von der Internationalen Kant-Gesellschaft verliehenen Kant-Preis in Anerkennung seines Werdegangs. (shrink)

Vorrede | In diesem charakteristischerweise hervorragend recherchierten Beitrag erörtern Kappeler und Fichtel die Konsequenzen sozialer und einkommensbedingter Ungleichheit für die individuelle Gesundheit und die empfundene Einsamkeit aus einer evolutionären Perspektive. Das zentrale Argument der Autoren ist, dass sich die modernen Großgesellschaften, in denen fast alle Menschen heutzutage leben, grundsätzlich von den egalitären Kleingesellschaften unterscheiden, in denen wir evolviert sind und in denen wir bis vor lediglich 20.000 Jahren alle gelebt haben. Diese Zeitspanne war gemäß den meisten Schätzungen viel zu kurz, (...) als dass sich durch die Evolution notwendige Anpassungen in der menschlichen Natur an das Leben in modernen Großgesellschaften hätten etablieren können. (shrink)

At some time around August 324b.c., Antipater, the regent of Macedonia received orders from Alexander the Great that he was to be replaced with another eminent officer in the Macedonian court, Craterus. In addition to his removal from office, Antipater was ordered by Alexander to leave Macedonia for the East, bringing with him fresh levies to replenish those that comprised Craterus' own contingent of veterans from Opis. Though Craterus left Alexander's court shortly thereafter, neither man can be said to have (...) made the journey speedily or directly. A range of reasons has been given to explain Craterus' slow advancement, including the construction of infrastructure to allow the transportation of military resources from east to west, the poor state of his health, and the need to recruit more men. By the time of Alexander's death in June of 323, Craterus and his forces had only reached the province of Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia. Antipater's immediate reaction to his new role is not recorded, but what is known is that he remained steadfast in Macedonia, seemingly in defiance of Alexander's orders. It is the purpose of this paper to evaluate Antipater's refusal to depart from Macedonia, to explore whether tensions between Antipater and his replacement could account for Craterus' sluggish advance and to highlight the impact that Greek domestic politics had on Antipater's position in Macedonia. (shrink)

1. Bd. Moralia Horatiana; das ist, Die horazische Sittenlehre, von P. von Zesen.--2. Bd. La doctrine des moeurs, tiree de la philosophie des stoiques, par M. Le R. de Gomberville.

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

We present an axiomatic framework for nonstandard analysis-the Nonstandard Class Theory which extends von Neumann-Godel-Bernays Set Theory by adding a unary predicate symbol St to the language of NBG means that the class X is standard) and axioms-related to it- analogs of Nelson's idealization, standardization and transfer principles. Those principles are formulated as axioms, rather than axiom schemes, so that NCT is finitely axiomatizable. NCT can be considered as a theory of definable classes of Bounded Set Theory by V. Kanovei (...) and M. Reeken. In many aspects NCT resembles the Alternative Set Theory by P. Vopenka. For example there exist semisets in NCT and it can be proved that a set has a standard finite cardinality iff it does not contain any proper subsemiset. Semisets can be considered as external classes in NCT. Thus the saturation principle can be formalized in NCT. (shrink)