About a year after the start of the Iraq War, a story broke about the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison. Editorialists and science writers noted affinities between what happened at Abu Ghraib and Philip Zimbardo’s famous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo’s experiment is part of the “situationist” literature in social psychology, which suggests that the contexts in which agents act have a larger influence on behavior, and that personality traits have a smaller influence, (...) than is ordinarily supposed. Recently, there has been increased interest among philosophers in research like Zimbardo’s and its potential for influencing ethical theories. This increase is due in part to the publication of John Doris’ Lack of Character. More recently, Doris and Dominic Murphy have argued that soldiers, including those at Abu Ghraib, often act under conditions of moral excuse because the situational pressures to which they are exposed impair their capacities for moral judgment. I argue that soldiers can be morally responsible for wartime behavior even if their moral capacities have been substantially impaired. (shrink)
To naturalize religion we must identify what religion is, and what aspects of it we are trying to explain. In this paper religious social institutional behavior is the explanatory target, and an explanatory hypothesis based on shared primate social dominance psychology is given. The argument is that various religious features, including the high status afforded the religious, and the high status afforded to deities, is an expression of this social dominance psychology in a context for which it did not evolve: (...) high density populations made possible by agriculture. (shrink)
In this paper, I aim to offer a clear explanation of what monadic domination, understood as a relation obtaining exclusively among monads, amounts to in the philosophy of Leibniz (and this insofar as monadic domination is conceived by Leibniz not to account for the substantial unity of composite substances). Central to my account is the Aristotelian notion of a hierarchy of activities, as well as a particular understanding of the relations that obtain among the perceptions of monads that stand in (...) relations of monadic domination and subordination. (shrink)
Something is wrong with the desire to dominate nature. In this paper, I explain both the causes and solution to anti-environmental attitudes within the framework of Hegel's master-slave dialectic. I argue that the master-slave dialectic (interpreted as a metaphor, rather than literally) can provide reasons against taking an attitude of domination, and instead gives reasons to seek to be worthy of respect from nature, though nature cannot, of course, respect us. I then discuss what the social and economic conditions of (...) moving to a post-domination philosophy appear to be. (shrink)
Review of Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s11097-012-9255-1 Authors Dominic Shaw, Department of Philosophy, The University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD UK Journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Online ISSN 1572-8676 Print ISSN 1568-7759.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity, from Plotinus (third century) to the sixth-century schools in Athens and Alexandria, neglected the political dimension of their Platonic heritage in their concentration on an otherworldly life. Dominic O'Meara presents a revelatory reappraisal of these thinkers, arguing that their otherworldliness involved rather than excluded political ideas, and he reconstructs for the first time a coherent political philosophy of Late Platonism.
There have been two different schools of thought on the evolution of dominance. On the one hand, followers of Wright [Wright S. 1929. Am. Nat. 63: 274–279, Evolution: Selected Papers by Sewall Wright, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; 1934. Am. Nat. 68: 25–53, Evolution: Selected Papers by Sewall Wright, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; Haldane J.B.S. 1930. Am. Nat. 64: 87–90; 1939. J. Genet. 37: 365–374; Kacser H. and Burns J.A. 1981. Genetics 97: 639–666] have defended the view that dominance (...) is a product of non-linearities in gene expression. On the other hand, followers of Fisher [Fisher R.A. 1928a. Am. Nat. 62: 15–126; 1928b. Am. Nat. 62: 571–574; Bürger R. 1983a. Math. Biosci. 67: 125–143; 1983b. J. Math. Biol. 16: 269–280; Wagner G. and Burger R. 1985. J. Theor. Biol. 113: 475–500; Mayo O. and Reinhard B. 1997. Biol. Rev. 72: 97–110] have argued that dominance evolved via selection on modifier genes. Some have called these “physiological” versus “selectionist,” or more recently [Falk R. 2001. Biol. Philos. 16: 285–323], “functional,” versus “structural” explanations of dominance. This paper argues, however, that one need not treat these explanations as exclusive. While one can disagree about the most likely evolutionary explanation of dominance, as Wright and Fisher did, offering a “physiological” or developmental explanation of dominance does not render dominance “epiphenomenal,” nor show that evolutionary considerations are irrelevant to the maintenance of dominance, as some [Kacser H. and Burns J.A. 1981. Genetics 97: 639–666] have argued. Recent work [Gilchrist M.A. and Nijhout H.F. 2001. Genetics 159: 423–432] illustrates how biological explanation is a multi-level task, requiring both a “top-down” approach to understanding how a pattern of inheritance or trait might be maintained in populations, as well as “bottom-up” modeling of the dynamics of gene expression. (shrink)
Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alternative to classical liberal theories of non-interference. As a theory of geopolitical affairs, however, his republicanism fails to fulfill this egalitarian promise in ways that closely echo John Rawls’s liberal law of peoples. Pettit’s republican law of peoples is ill equipped to address structural sources of transnational and global domination because it exaggerates the ontological separateness of peoples, it overvalues the self-sufficiency of states for purposes of achieving (...) internal non-domination, and it conceives of domination too narrowly as an evil that must be intentionally or negligently imposed by identifiable agents. (shrink)
Looking at pictures, we see in them the scenes they depict, and any value they have springs from these experiences of seeing-in. Sight and Sensibility presents the first detailed and comprehensive theory of evaluating pictures. Dominic Lopes confronts the puzzle of how the value of seeing anything in a picture can exceed that of seeing it face to face - his solution pinpoints how seeing-in is like and unlike ordinary seeing. Moreover, since part of what we see in pictures (...) is emotional expressions, his book also develops a theory of expression especially tailored to pictures. -/- Not all evaluations of pictures as opportunities for seeing-in are aesthetic - others are cognitive or moral. Lopes argues that these evaluations interact, for some imply others. His argument entails novel conceptions of aesthetic and cognitive evaluation, such that aesthetic evaluation is distinguished from art evaluation as essentially tied to experience, and that cognitive evaluations assess cognitive capacities, including perceptual ones. Ultimately, Lopes defends images against the widespread criticism that they thwart serious thought, especially moral thought, because they merely replicate ordinary experience. He concludes by presenting detailed case studies of the contribution pictures can make to moral reflection. -/- Sight and Sensibility will be essential reading for anyone working in aesthetics and art theory, and for all those intrigued by the power of images to affect our lives. (shrink)
Cudmore, Dominic Ecclesial movements, inspired by a desire to live the Gospel more intensively and to announce it to others, have always been manifest in the midst of the People of God. ... In our day and particularly during recent decades, new movements have appeared that are more independent of the structures and style of the religious life than in the past.
Can love really be considered another form of technology?Dominic Pettman says it can—although not before carefully redefining technology as a cultural challenge to what we mean by the "human" in the information age. Using the writings of such important thinkers as Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Bernard Stiegler as a springboard, Pettman explores the "techtonic" movements of contemporary culture, specifically in relation to the language of eros. Highly ritualized expressions of desire—love, in other words—always reveal an era's attitude toward (...) what it means to exist as a self among others. For Pettman, the articulation of love is a technique of belonging: a way of responding to the basic plurality of everyone's identity, a process that becomes increasingly complex as the forms of mediated communication, from cell phone and text messaging to the mass media, multiply and mesh together.Wresting the idea of love from the arthritic hands of Romanticism, Pettman demonstrates the ways in which this dynamic assemblage—"the stirrings of the soul"—have always been a matter of tools, devices, prosthetics, and media. Love is, after all, something we make. And, love, this book argues, is not eternal, but external. (shrink)
Recent years have witnessed a ground swell of interest in the application of evolutionary theory to issues in psychopathology (Nesse & Williams 1995, Stevens & Price 1996, McGuire & Troisi 1998). Much of this work has been aimed at finding adaptationist explanations for a variety of mental disorders ranging from phobias to depression to schizophrenia. There has, however, been relatively little discussion of the implications that the theories proposed by evolutionary psychologists might have for the classification of mental disorders. This (...) is the theme we propose to explore. We'll begin, in Section 2, by providing a brief overview of the account of the mind advanced by evolutionary psychologists. In Section 3 we'll explain why issues of taxonomy are important and why the dominant approach to the classification of mental disorders is radically and alarmingly unsatisfactory. We will also indicate why we think an alternative approach, based on theories in evolutionary psychology, is particularly promising. In Section 4 we'll try to illustrate some of the virtues of the evolutionary psychological approach to classification. The discussion in Section 4 will highlight a quite fundamental distinction between those disorders that arise from the malfunction of a component of the mind and those that can be traced to the fact that our minds must now function in environments that are very different from the environments in which they evolved. This mis-match between the current and ancestral environments can, we maintain, give rise to serious mental disorders despite the fact that, in one important sense, there is nothing at all wrong with the people suffering the disorder. Their minds are functioning exactly as Mother Nature intended them to. In Section 5, we'll give a brief overview of some of the ways in which the sorts of malfunctions catalogued in Section 4 might arise, and sketch two rather different strategies for incorporating this etiologically. (shrink)
This article discusses Philip Pettit’s neo-republicanism in light of the criterion of self-sustenance: the requirement that a political theory be capable of serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralist democracy. It argues that this criterion can only be satisfied by developing an adequate politics of virtue. Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as non-domination, and he does not say much about the virtues of citizens or the policies the state may employ to encourage their development. (...) In order to explain the motivation to comply with republican laws that promote non-domination, Pettit relies on the phenomenon of civility and the mechanism of the intangible hand. But to understand what underlies an adequate level of robust civility one needs to focus on the more basic phenomenon of personal virtue. Policies that aim to promote non-domination should take into account the need to cultivate virtue among citizens, as well as the full range of conditions that favor its exercise. (shrink)
Hegel may be read as endorsing a republican conception of freedom as non-domination. This may then be allied to an expressive conception of freedom not as communal integration and non-alienation, but rather as the development of new powers and capabilities. To this extent, he may be understood as occupying a position between nondomination and expressive freedom. This not only informs contemporary discussions of republicanism and democracy, but also suggests a ‘capabilities solution’ to the otherwise intractable problem of the rabble. Key (...) Words: creativity • democracy • domination • expression • freedom • G.W.F.Hegel • rabble • republicanism. (shrink)
One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing (...) their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal. (shrink)
All conceptions of equal opportunity draw on some distinction between morally justified and unjustified inequalities. We discuss how this distinction varies across a range of philosophical positions. We find that these positions often advance equality of opportunity in tandem with distributive principles based on merit, desert, consequentialist criteria or individuals' responsibility for outcomes. The result of this amalgam of principles is a festering controversy that unnecessarily diminishes the widespread acceptability of opportunity concerns. We therefore propose to restore the conceptual separation (...) of opportunity principles concerning unjustified inequalities from distributive principles concerning justifiable inequalities. On this view, equal opportunity implies that that morally irrelevant factors should engender no differences in individuals' attainment, while remaining silent on inequalities due to morally relevant factors. We examine this idea by introducing the principle of ‘opportunity dominance' and explore in a simple application to what extent this principle may help us arbitrate between opposing distributive principles. We also compare this principle to the selection rules developed by John Roemer and Dirk Van de Gaer. (shrink)
The central insights of Philip Pettit’s republican account of liberty are that (1) freedom consists in the absence of domination and (2) non-domination is not reducible to what is commonly called ‘negative liberty’. Recently, however, Matthew Kramer and Ian Carter have questioned whether the harms identified by Pettit under the banner of domination are not equally well accounted for by what they call the ‘pure negative’ view. In this article, first I argue that Pettit’s response to their criticism is problematic (...) insofar as it produces the following dilemma: either Pettit must concede that domination which one regards as consistent with one’s own best interests does not limit one’s freedom or he must embrace the implication that one can be forced to be free, a result he explici tly wants to avoid. Second, I argue that, despite the inadequacy of Pettit’s response, he is ultimately right in thinking that domination and negative liberty are sometimes compatible. My central contention, then, is that neither Pettit’s non-domination view nor Carter and Kramer’s pure negative view are able to account for the loss of liberty one suffers under conditions of domination. (shrink)
The review argues that Lovett’s theory of domination suffers from a problem. Lovett is aware of the problem and bites a fairly large bullet in response to it. What he does not seem aware of is that the problem can be avoided by opting for an account of welfare that he unfortunately ignores, despite the fact that it would serve his purposes well.
It is widely supposed that the scientists in any field use identical standards for evaluating theories. Without such unity of standards, consensus about scientific theories is supposedly unintelligible. However, the hypothesis of uniform standards can explain neither scientific disagreement nor scientific innovation. This paper seeks to show how the presumption of divergent standards (when linked to a hypothesis of dominance) can explain agreement, disagreement and innovation. By way of illustrating how a rational community with divergent standards can encourage innovation and (...) eventually reach consensus, recent developments in geophysics are discussed at some length. (shrink)
In this article I will do three things: I will argue that solidarity is not necessary for political legitimacy, that non-domination is a strong candidate for legitimacy criterion, and, finally, that non-domination can legitimate the egalitarian welfare state.
Despite the variety of competing interpretations of domination, a common feature of the most influential analyses of the concept is their reliance on a normative criterion: the detrimental effect of domination on those subject to it. This article offers a non-evaluative, non-consequence-based definition of domination, in line with the perspective on power developed by the theory of the social exchange. Domination, it is argued, should be seen as a structural property of a power relation, and consists in an extreme inequality (...) in the social distribution of power. It is contended, accordingly, that the postulation of a society in which domination is avoided (or minimized) should rely on the ideal of the minimization of inequality, and, more specifically, that it should be based on a distributional pattern of maximally equal social resources. (shrink)
Mazur & Booth's (1998) target article concerns basal and reciprocal relations between testosterone and dominance, and has its roots in Mazur's (1985; 1994) model of primate dominance-submissiveness interactions. Threats are exchanged in these interactions and a psychological stress-manipulation mechanism is suggested to operate, making sure that face-to-face dominance contests are usually resolved without aggression. In this commentary, a recent line of evidence from human research on the relation between testosterone, cortisol, and vigilant (dominant) and avoidant (submissive) responses to threatening “angry” (...) faces is discussed. Findings, to a certain extent, converge with Mazur & Booth's theorizing. However, the strongest relations have been found in subliminal exposure conditions, suggesting that biological instead of psychological mechanisms are involved. (shrink)
With her conception of epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker has opened up new normative dimensions for epistemology; that is, the injustice of denying one?s status as a knower. While her analysis of the remedies for such injustices focuses on the epistemic virtues of agents, I argue for the normative superiority of adapting a broadly republican conception of epistemic injustice. This argument for a republican epistemology has three steps. First, I focus on methodological and explanatory issues of identifying epistemic injustice and argue, (...) against Fricker, that identity prejudice fails to provide a sufficient explanatory basis for the spread and maintenance of such systematic epistemic injustice. Second, this systemic basis can be found not so much in the psychological attitudes of individual knowers, but in the relations of domination among groups and individuals in a society. Third, if such a presence of domination plays a primary explanatory role in all forms of epistemic injustice, it is likely that those who suffer from epistemic injustice will also suffer other forms of injustice and loss of status via the exercise of other forms of power and exclusion. (shrink)
The purpose of this article is to explore the meaning of domination and slavery in the political philosophy of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), particularly in the major work of his later years, the City of God. It offers an exploration of this aspect of Augustine's thought in the light of relatively recent scholarship on the meaning of these terms for political philosophy (in particular, the work of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit). It finds that, in Augustine's eyes, the nature of (...) domination or slavery in the political sphere differed from its nature in the domestic sphere. (shrink)
The republican project of freedom as non-domination commits the State to endowing citizens with the resources and attitudes necessary to both apprehend domination and abstain from dominating others. This, some have argued, renders it incompatible with political liberalism, which eschews the promotion of personal liberal virtues, being derived independently of any 'comprehensive doctrine'. Republican freedom is therefore depicted as penetrating deeper, in its application, into intimate and 'private' spheres. I argue, through a Rousseauist interpretation of Rawls's social contract, that its (...) 'political' stricture need not, however, preclude any socially transformative, emancipatory role. Thus, the promotion of freedom as non-domination is compatible with the 'modelled constraints' of Rawls's original position. Far from transgressing the 'political' limits of State power, the goods associated with non-domination may instead be seen as necessary to the realisation of 'moral personality'—independently of the 'final ends' for which it may be exercised. (shrink)
Jeff Paris (2001) proves a generalized Dutch Book theorem. If a belief state is not a generalized probability (a kind of probability appropriate for generalized distributions of truth-values) then one faces ‘sure loss’ books of bets. In Williams (manuscript) I showed that Joyce’s (1998) accuracy-domination theorem applies to the same set of generalized probabilities. What is the relationship between these two results? This note shows that (when ‘accuracy’ is treated via the Brier Score) both results are easy corollaries of the (...) core result that Paris appeals to in proving his dutch book theorem (Minkowski’s separating hyperplane theorem). We see that every point of accuracy-domination defines a dutch book, but we only have a partial converse. (shrink)
Jeff Paris (2001) proves a generalized Dutch Book theorem. If a belief state is not a generalized probability (a kind of probability appropriate for generalized distributions of truth-values) then one faces ‘sure loss’ books of bets. In <span class='Hi'>Williams</span> (manuscript) I showed that Joyce’s (1998) accuracy-domination theorem applies to the same set of generalized probabilities. What is the relationship between these two results? This note shows that (when ‘accuracy’ is treated via the Brier Score) both results are easy corollaries of (...) the core result that Paris appeals to in proving his dutch book theorem (Minkowski’s separating hyperplane theorem). We see that every point of accuracy-domination defines a dutch book, but we only have a partial converse. (shrink)
This paper argues the case for a renewed interest in Schutz's work by extending his theory of the conscious subject to the feminist concern with the issue of domination. We present a theoretical analysis of the subjective and intersubjective experiences of individuals relating to each other as dominant and subordinate; as our theoretical point of departure we use Schutz's concepts of the we-relation, the assumption of reciprocity of perspectives, typification, working, taken-for-grantedness, and relevance. Schutz's sociology of the conscious subject is (...) striking in its lack of any extended consideration of power, perhaps one reason why support for his work has diminished since the mid-1970s. Our overlayering of feminist sociological theory's interest in domination with Schutz's concerns about subjectivity and intersubjectivity produces an elaboration and a critique of Schutz and expands feminist understanding of relationships of domination. (shrink)
In this article, I wish to show the importance of the consequentialist method for the realisation of the ideal of non-domination. If, as stated by Philip Pettit, consequentialist ethics helps to better conceive republican political institutions, we then have to see how the fundamental principles of republican liberty can meet the norms traditionally associated with consequentialism. After a brief presentation of consequentialism and republican liberty (as Pettit defines it), I criticize the idea that liberty as non-domination could be included in (...) a bundle of goods that we seek to maximize. Next, I argue that we should reject the maximization of liberty as non-domination when this concept is considered as an absolute. Finally, I explore the idea of liberty as a condition for other goods, where liberty is still taken in the republican sense. These three theses are all rejected by demonstrating that the maximization of republican liberty is not really the maximization of liberty itself, but the maximization of protections granted to the individuals with the aim of defending their liberty. (shrink)
This article summarizes the theory of federalism as non-domination Iris Marion Young began to develop in her final years, a theory of self-government that tried to recognize interconnectedness. Levy also poses an objection to that theory: non-domination cannot do the work Young needed of it, because it is a theory about the merits of decisions not about jurisdiction over them. The article concludes with an attempt to give Young the last word.
One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing (...) their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal. (shrink)
This article investigates the factors affecting how public relations autonomy, legal dominance, and strategic orientation affect crisis communicative response in corporate contexts. Communication managers, crisis managers, public affairs managers, and/or public relations managers were solicited from Taiwan’s top 500 companies to participate in a survey. The results revealed that, in contrast to public relations autonomy being the strongest and sole predictor of concession strategy, legal dominance could predict defensive and diversionary responses in crisis events. The article concludes with a discussion (...) of practical applications and theoretical implications. (shrink)
Even if game theory is broadened to encompass other-regarding preferences, it cannot adequately model all aspects of interactive decision making. Payoff dominance is an example of a phenomenon that can be adequately modeled only by departing radically from standard assumptions of decision theory and game theory – either the unit of agency or the nature of rationality. (Published Online April 27 2007).
The logic of dominance arguments is analyzed using two different kinds of conditionals: indicative (epistemic) and subjunctive (counter‐factual). It is shown that on the indicative interpretation an assumtion of independence is needed for a dominance argument to go through. It is also shown that on the subjunctive interpretation no assumption of independence is needed once the standard premises of the dominance argument are true, but that independence plays an important role in arguing for the truth of the premises of the (...) dominance argument. A key feature of the analysis is the interpretation of the doubly conditional comparative "I will get a better outcome if A than if B" which is taken to have the structure "(the outcome if A) is better than (the outcome if B)". (shrink)
Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown. Working within in a framework in which freedom is understood as independence from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed. Republicans rely on processes of rational public (...) deliberation to highlight and combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice, she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be independent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern political discussion. (shrink)
Research from ethology and evolutionary biology indicates the following about the evolution of reasoning capacity. First, solving problems of social competition and cooperation have direct impact on survival rates and reproductive success. Second, the social structure that evolved from this pressure is the dominance hierarchy. Third, primates that live in large groups with complex dominance hierarchies also show greater neocortical development, and concomitantly greater cognitive capacity. These facts suggest that the necessity of reasoning effectively about dominance hierarchies left an indelible (...) mark on primate reasoning architectures, including that of humans. In order to survive in a dominance hierarchy, an individual must be capable of (a) making rank discriminations, (b) recognizing what is forbidden and what is permitted based one's rank, and (c) deciding whether to engage in or refriin from activities that will allow one to move up in rank. The first problem is closely tied to the capacity for transitive reasoning, while the second and third are intimately related to the capacity for deontic reasoning. I argue that the human capacity for these types of reasoning have evolutionary roots that reach deeper into our ancestral past than the emergence of the hominid line, and the operation of these evolutionarily primitive reasoning systems can be seen in the development of human reasoning and domain-specific effects in adult reasoning. (shrink)
Points of criticism of the target include: the extreme violence of females in defence of young despite high potential cost, the reality of female dominance striving, differences in male and female ritualization of aggression, the real existence of institutionalized female instrumental aggression, and the uselessness of “patriarchy” as defined as a category for differential analysis. It is concluded that it may in fact be the decline of patriarchy in the strict sense that leads to the female use of exculpatory explanations (...) for aggression, thus reversing Campbell's proposed causal sequence. (shrink)
Exploiting the skills of others enables individuals to reduce the risks and costs of resource innovation. Social corvids are known to possess sophisticated social and physical cognitive abilities. However, their capacity for imitative learning and its inter-individual transmission pattern remains mostly unexamined. Here we demonstrate the large-billed crows' ability to learn problem-solving techniques by observation and the dominance-dependent pattern in which this technique is transmitted. Crows were allowed to observe one of two box-opening behaviours performed by a dominant or subordinate (...) demonstrator and then tested regarding action and technique. The observers successfully opened the box on their first attempts by using non-matching actions but matching techniques to those observed, suggesting emulation. In the subsequent test sessions, dominant observers (i.e. those dominant to the bird acting as demonstrator) consistently used the learned technique, whereas subordinates (i.e. those subordinate to the bird acting as demonstrator) learned alternative techniques by explorative trial and error. Our findings demonstrate crows' capacity to learn by observing behaviours and the effect of dominance on transmission patterns of behavioural skills. Keywords: social learning; imitation; emulation; affordance; culture; innovation. (shrink)
This article argues that Rousseau's endorsement of male domination and his illiberal views of rape, punishment and the education of women have been seriously underestimated by twentieth century commentators who tend to produce expoisitions of his work that evade, ignore or marginalise this 'darker side' of his educational philosophy.
Hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation,is well accepted in the humanities. In thefield of education, hermeneutics has played arelatively marginal role in research. It isthe task of this essay to introduce thegeneral methods and findings of Paul Ricoeur'shermeneutics. Specifically, the essayinterprets the usefulness of Ricoeur'sphilosophy in the study of domination. Theproblem of domination has been a target ofanalysis for critical pedagogy since itsinception. However, the role of interpretationas a constitutive part of ideology critique isrelatively understudied and it is here thatRicoeur's (...) ideas are instructive. Last, theessay radicalizes Ricoeur's insights in orderto realize their potential to disruptasymmetrical relations of power in education. To this extent, the author contributes to thebuilding of a critical brand of hermeneutics,or the interpretation of domination. (shrink)
Social justice education, it is argued, is a form of and essential to moral education, especially for dominant group affiliated students. Under this condition, one of the essential goals of social justice education must be raising an awareness of dominance. The meaning of dominance is discussed and it is argued that overly simplistic conceptions of what dominance means may lead to the mistaken assumption that in order to recognise one's own dominance, one has to reject the values of the dominant (...) group. The distinction between the "dominance of values" and the "values of the dominant group" is suggested but found inadequate. What is required is a critical analysis of the complexity, subtlety and systemic interrelatedness and embeddedness of dominant beliefs, values and standards in western, democratic societies. Without a serious approach to the complexities of dominance, future teachers will not be able to tend successfully to all their students, will not be able to contribute to social justice and will be able to hide all this behind good intentions. (shrink)
Testosterone is related to dominance, but in a broader sense than Mazur & Booth suggest. Dominance need not be competitive. It can arise from strong personal characteristics that produce admiration and deference in others. To understand the testosterone–dominance relationship fully, we must examine behaviors that affect ordinary social encounters. Baseline testosterone levels may be more important than testosterone changes in predicting everyday dominance.
Some photographs, more than mere representations, are ethical commands, calling us to respond to human suffering. Photos of Abu Graib, like iconic photos of Vietnam, called us to a posture of care, and confronted us with ourselves, with our national domination, and with how we represent ourselves to the world. This article, drawing on Kittay (1999), Butler (2004), and Levinas (1961, 1974, 1985), attempts to untangle the relation among care, domination, and representation. Implications for philosophers and journalists are suggested.
: None dispute that Aldo Leopold has made an invaluable contribution to environmental discourse. However, it is important for those involved in the field of environmental ethics to be aware that his works may unwittingly promote an attitude of domination toward the nonhuman world, due to his frequent and unregenerate hunting. Such an attitude runs counter to most strains of environmental ethics, but most notably ecofeminism. By examining Leopold through the lens of ecofeminism, I establish that the effect of such (...) narrative is to portray the natural world as an object available for exploitation, thereby casting it as the "other" referred to in feminist writings. Thus I conclude that Leopold's work, if accepted uncritically, may actually reinforce the very notions that have been revealed as damaging to the nature/culture relationship. (shrink)
A number of animal species from different lineages live socially. One of the features of social living is the formation of dominance hierarchy. Despite its obvious benefit in the survival probability of the species, the hierarchical structureitself poses psychological and physiological burden leading to the chronic activation of stress related pathways. Considering these apparently conflicting observations, here we propose that social hierarchy can act as a selective force in the evolution of social species. We also discuss its role on social (...) psychology. (shrink)
The creation story in Genesis speaks of humankind being given dominion over nature. Does this support the view that nature has solely instrumental value, and is of worth only insofar as it serves the necessities and conveniences of the human species? Does dominion amount to unfettered domination here? An interpretation of the story is advanced employing procedures of practical criticism. Three central images are focussed on: Adam's being given dominion over the other creatures, his naming of them, and his being (...) made in God's likeness. It is argued that these images, in their qualification and enrichment of each other, develop the idea that animals are of worth independently of their usefulness to us. Other key parts of the Bible, that at first may seem to promote unfettered domination, are shown to be more properly read as supporting an animal-benign religious ethics. (shrink)
The testosterone–dominance model is noteworthy but should incorporate the ecological factors that often underlie variability in basal testosterone. This is evident in the ethnic testosterone differences discussed in the target article (sect. 8). The significance of acute changes in testosterone levels in response to competition is also poorly understood. Significant metabolic effects have been reported, suggesting that other physiological explanations should be explored, independent of potential behavioral or social factors.
In this essay, I use encounters with the white-tailed deer of Fire Island to explore the “call of the wild”—the attraction to value that exists in a natural world outside of human control. Value exists in nature to the extent that it avoids modification by human technology. Technology “fixes” the natural world by improving it for human use or by restoring degraded ecosystems. Technology creates a “new world,” an artifactual reality that is far removed from the “wildness” of nature. The (...) technological “fix” of nature thus raises a moral issue: how is an artifact morally different from a natural and wild entity? Artifacts are human instruments; their value lies in their ability to meet human needs. Natural entities have no intrinsic functions; they were not created for any instrumental purpose. To attempt to manage natural entities is to deny their inherent autonomy: a form of domination. The moral claim of the wilderness is thus a claim against human technological domination. We have an obligation to struggle against this domination by preserving as much of the natural world as possible. (shrink)
To illustrate the strength of Bartky's clarity of insight I focus on her discussion of shame found in two essays in Femininity and Domination. I argue that these essays as well as the other in the collection identify and offer a clear analysis of many issues central to feminism and call for Bartky to write a sequel which offers constructive suggestions of ways out.
Merleau-Ponty's claim in Phenomenology of Perception (1962) that the anonymous body guarantees an intersubjective world is problematic because it omits the particularities of bodies. This omission produces an account of "dialogue" with another in which I solipsistically hear only myself and dominate others with my intentionality. This essay develops an alternative to projective intentionality called "hypothetical construction," in which meaning is socially constructed through an appreciation of the differences of others.
The probability that the fitter of two alleles will increase in frequency in a population goes up as the product of N (the effective population size) and s (the selection coefficient) increases. Discovering the distribution of values for this product across different alleles in different populations is a very important biological task. However, biologists often use the product Ns to define a different concept; they say that drift “dominates” selection or that drift is “stronger than” selection when Ns is much (...) smaller than some threshold quantity (e.g., ½) and that the reverse is true when Ns is much larger than that threshold. We argue that the question of whether drift dominates selection for a single allele in a single population makes no sense. Selection and drift are causes of evolution, but there is no fact of the matter as to which cause is stronger in the evolution of any given allele. (shrink)
