We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions—color, movement, and shape—thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that (...) described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien‐attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien‐attribute assignments participants produced during test were used as the training materials for the next participant in the transmission chain. As information was repeatedly transmitted an increasingly simplified, learnable stereotype‐like structure emerged for targets who shared the same color, such that by the end of the chains targets who shared the same color were more likely to share the same attributes (a reanalysis of data from Martin et al., which we term Experiment 1). The apparent bias toward the formation of novel stereotypes around the color category dimension was also found for objects (Experiment 2). However, when the category dimension of color was made less salient, it no longer dominated the formation of novel stereotypes (Experiment 3). The current findings suggest that context and category salience influence category dimension salience, which in turn influences the cumulative cultural evolution of information. (shrink)

We examined unconscious priming in a stem-completion task with both identity and form-related primes. Participants were given exclusion instructions to avoid completing a stem with a briefly flashed masked word . In Experiment 1, priming of around 7% occurred for both identity and form-based primes at a 33 ms exposure duration. When examining only trials in which the participants failed to identify the prime, this effect increased to 12% for identity primes, but remained the same for form-based primes. In Experiment (...) 2, priming without prime identification was 9% for identity primes, 4% for homophone primes, and 3% for orthographic control primes. Although identity priming was greater than form priming in both experiments, regression analyses revealed that orthographic and phonological overlap alone between the flashed primes and targets could completely account for unconscious identity priming. Hence, we conclude that masked words may only activate their sublexical orthographic and phonological representations and not their lexical representations. (shrink)

This book forms part of the multi-disciplinary Studies in Ethics Series from Liverpool Hope University. It explores the slipperiness of ethics as a concept and demonstrates the multiplicity of intellectual inquiry within contemporary Film Studies. At first glance, â ~ethicsâ (TM) is not necessarily a subject conventionally associated with film. Film is often regarded as a form of â ~lowbrowâ (TM) popular culture, either offering bland entertainment or deliberately setting out to shock â " or, more cynically, generate box office (...) revenue â " through gratuitous inclusion of sex and violence. Certainly, there have always been a minority of films based on the stereotypically â ~ethicalâ (TM) subject of religion, but these have often generated the most controversy, from the studio system decree that it was blasphemous to represent the corporeal body of Christ to the furore surrounding Martin Scorseseâ (TM)s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). This book shows that from the silent era to the present day, film has been inherently concerned with ethical issues. In this light, the definition of ethics that informs the volume and is taken as the starting point of each of the chapters is the notion of personal or institutional motivation; most usually because a character or industry figure makes a decision or choice based on their own moral â " or ethical â " code. Once this is defined, the ethical dimension to films is immediately evident. This book takes as its central theme the difficulty of decisions refracted through personal ethical codes, and thus recognises that what counts as ethics, or morality, is always subjective. Some of the chapters explore films which take conventionally â ~goodâ (TM) ethical standpoints, others investigate why â ~badâ (TM) decisions were made; at least one explores the celebration of practices invoking popular disgust, but all the contributions study ethical decisions within film that represent the strongly felt convictions of those involved and, moreover, address aspects of filmmaking which force the spectator to be an active and reciprocal participant in the creation of meaning, thus implicitly acknowledging that ethics are subjective and in perpetual flux rather than fixed, objective truths. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point a debate between Harry Frankfurt and J. David Velleman. Frankfurt argues that we need to resolve ambivalence since it necessarily threatens autonomy. Velleman challenges this claim, arguing that a desire to resolve ambivalence threatens autonomy when it prompts repression. I argue that the relationship between ambivalence and autonomy is more ambiguous than either theorist tends to acknowledge. In doing so, I recommend three features relevant for assessing whether or not ambivalence threatens autonomy.

Background: When adolescent boys experience close, secure relationships with their parents and peers, the implications are potentially far reaching, including lower levels of mental health problems in adolescence and young adulthood. Here we use rare prospective intergenerational data to extend our understanding of the impact of adolescent attachments on subsequent postpartum mental health problems in early fatherhood.Methods: At age 17–18 years, we used an abbreviated Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment to assess trust, communication, and alienation reported by 270 male (...) participants in their relationships with mothers, fathers, and peers. More than a decade later, we assessed the adult males, now fathers, at 12 months postpartum for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Logistic regression was used to examine the extent to which attachment dimensions predicted paternal postpartum mental health, adjusting for potential confounding, and with assessment for interactions between parent and peer attachments.Results: Trust in mothers and peers, and good communication with fathers during adolescence, were associated with 5 to 7 percentage point reductions in postpartum mental health symptoms in early fatherhood. Weak evidence of parent-peer interactions suggested secure attachments with either parent or peer may compensate for an insecure attachment with the other.Conclusions: Our results suggest that fostering trust and communication in relationships that adolescent boys have with parents and peers may have substantial effects on rates of paternal postpartum mental health problems. The protective benefits may be preventative in intergenerational cycles of risk for mental health problems. (shrink)

One of the clear targets of Thomason’s paper is the Feyerabendian portrait of Galileo as epistemic opportunist, hastening to substitute rhetoric for reason. Thomason reveals that Feyerabend has fallen into that awkward trap all critics must fear: when we claim to detect blemishes of logic, the defect may well be in our own grasp of the argument. Yet in making this very point, Thomason is already defending one of Feyerabend’s favourite claims — the reasoning processes used by great scientists are (...) remarkably untidy and do not readily compress themselves into neat philosophic formulation. (shrink)

What does world peace mean? Peace is more than the absence and prevention of war, whether international or civil, yet most of our ways of conceptualizing and measuring peace amount to just that definition. In this essay, as part of the roundtable “World Peace,” I argue that any vision of world peace must grapple not only with war but with the continuums of violence and peace emphasized by feminists: running from the home and community to the public spaces of international (...) relations. Breaking free of the constraints of the last century's intellectual boundaries, I suggest that war and peace are not a dichotomy but rather are intimately related. Yet the dearth of feminist perspectives in global debates prevents us from seeing how violence and harm are exacerbated in households and through the global economy under conditions of both “war” and “peace.” To understand the possibilities for world peace, we must understand these varieties of violence and harm that threaten peace. And tosustainpeace we must address the harmful gendered identities, ideologies, and social dynamics that support violence in every society. A narrow understanding of peace as merely the absence of organized violence does not engender the kind of nuanced and rich understanding of human history and human relations needed to bring an end to the structural and physical violence that remains pervasive worldwide. (shrink)

The gut protozoan parasite, Giardia duodenalis, is the best characterized example of the most ancient eukaryotes, which are anaerobic and appear to be primitively amitochondrial. Apart from its obvious medical importance, Giardia is fascinating in its own right. Its prokaryotic-like anaerobic metabolism renders it selectively sensitive to some bacterial drugs, especially the nitroimidazoles, which are activated to form toxic radicals. Other features, including an enzyme that reduces oxygen directly to water, cysteine as the keeper of redox balance, a plasmid, and (...) toxin-like genes are also distinctly prokaryotic-like. But, unlike prokaryotes, Giardia has a sophisticated, highly developed cytoskeleton, bounded nuclei, linear chromosomes capped with telomeric repeats, and telomere positional regulation of gene expression. BioEssays 20:256–263, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This study provides evidence of the significant life experiences , which influence advocates for nonhuman animals to develop sensitivity toward animals. Thirty-nine humane educators participated in an online survey. Findings indicate that having a relationship with a companion animal in adulthood is the most important life experience, followed by having a childhood experience with an animal, being exposed to a positive role model in childhood, and reading about animals and animal issues. The study did not find age and gender related (...) differences in life experiences. This paper compares the results from this study to two previous studies. The first study examined the SLEs of animal advocate leaders through analysis of autobiographies, biographies, oral histories, and written interviews. The second study examined the SLEs of animal rescuers through an open-ended survey. This paper discusses similarities and differences among these three groups. (shrink)

This article looks at the discourses of love through an analysis of the ‘stratification of intimacy’ within lesbian families. I suggest that traditional discourses of love effectively reify our emotions into socially prescribed categories, where ‘mature love’ is conflated with sex and desire. The love that mothers feel for their child is set apart, ‘instinctive’, wholly separate to adult love. However this ‘stratification of intimacy’ obscures the lived experiences and feelings of many parents. In this article the author argues that (...) whom we love is culturally constituted: it is unnecessarily quantified whereby monogamy is read as the sign of true love. I illustrate how lesbian mothers’ location on the social margins enables them to construct new ‘patterns of love’ within their ‘families of choice’ in ways that challenge these traditional discourses of love. This theoretical analysis is based upon ‘patterned variations’ drawn from qualitative research with 20 lesbian families with children living within the Yorkshire region in the UK. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum subscribes to the view that our identity is an evaluative question determined by our common, deeply held beliefs about what is worthwhile in human life. In so doing, she asserts that for an account of ethics to have “philosophical power” it needs to be grounded in an account of human nature that is both evaluative and internal. I focus on Nussbaum's claim that personal identity has to include the necessary features of practical rationality and sociability. Although Nussbaum puts (...) forward self-validating arguments to prove that we cannot – on pain of pragmatic in consistency – dispute that practical rationality and sociability are necessary features of human life, it is my claim that her account is flawed. The nature of the relationship between ethics and human nature is the broader context to such debates. This paper raises questions regarding on the one hand, whether it is possible to found ethics in human nature and, on the other, what we are to make of accounts that turn on the assumption that identity is ethical, not meta physical. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(2) 2005: 87-96. (shrink)

With reference to examples of violence during Apartheid, I argue that the socio-political contexts in which violence occurs significantly shape agents ideas about and responses to violence. As such, philosophers can only make sense of why perpetrators and bystanders alike may have judged violent acts morally justifiable or failed to challenge instances of violence against the backdrop of the particular characteristics of the socio-political context in which it occurs.

Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the "West" and in the "Third World." This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides (...) a comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women. (shrink)

Most healthcare providers work from ethical principles based on a Western model of practice that may not adhere to the cultural values intrinsic to Indigenous peoples. Breaking bad news is an important topic of ethical concern in health research. While much has been documented on BBN globally, the ethical implications of receiving bad news, from an Indigenous patient perspective in particular, is an area that requires further inquiry. This article discusses the experiences of Māori lung cancer patients and their families, (...) in order to investigate the ethical implications of receiving bad news. Data collection occurred through 23 semistructured interviews and nine focus groups with Māori lung cancer patients and their families in four districts in the Midland Region of New Zealand: Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Lakes and Tairāwhiti. The findings of this study were categorised into two key themes: communication and context. Avenues for best practice include understanding the centrality of the HCP–patient relationship and family ties in the healthcare journey, and providing patients with the full range of viable treatment options including hope, clear advice and guidance when the situation calls for it. Overall, the findings of this study hold implications for providing culturally safe and humanistic cancer care when BBN to Māori and Indigenous patients. (shrink)

The virtue of trust is often spoken of as central to the work of dietitians working in nutrition counseling, especially in the context of disordered eating/eating disorders nutrition therapy. Indeed, dietitians are purported to be the most trusted source of information on nutrition and food by professional associations such as Dietitians of Canada. Here trust is explored through educational, relational, and virtue theory in order to elucidate trusts meaning and relevance to dietitians work and interactions with each other, including the (...) general public. If dietitians are to continue to be trusted during times of skepticism in expert knowledge, reflexivity, active contestation, and moral testing in the context of our socio-political milieu need be employed so that we as a profession may respond to clients in respectful, authentic, meaningful ways; practices worthy of our trust. (shrink)

This article examines the public significance of emotions, most specifically their role in constituting identity and community in the wake of political violence and trauma. It offers a conceptual engagement with processes of healing and reconciliation, showing that emotions are central to how societies experience and work through the legacy of catastrophe. In many instances, political actors deal with the legacy of trauma in restorative ways, by re-imposing the order that has been violated. Emotions can in this way be directed (...) by elites who are concerned with reinstating political stability and social control. Healing often becomes more about retribution and revenge, rather than a long-term project begetting peace, collaboration and emotional catharsis. The emotions triggered by trauma thus tend to perpetuate existing antagonisms, further entrenching the disingenuous perceptions of identity that may have created violence in the first place. Surveying this process, this article suggests that scholars of politics and reconciliation need to be more attentive to the role emotion plays in shaping particular forms of community. Doing so requires a systematic understanding not only of the feelings associated with first-hand experiences of trauma, but also of the manner in which these affective reactions can spread and generate collective emotions, thus producing new forms of antagonism. Addressing this challenge, the authors explore how a more conscious and active appreciation of the whole spectrum of emotions — not only anger and fear, for instance, but also empathy, compassion and wonder — may facilitate more lasting and ingenuous forms of social healing and reconciliation. (shrink)

____Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic__ ____Futures__ provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the "West" and in the "Third World." This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides (...) a comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women. (shrink)

Despite concerns about the relationships between health professionals and the medical device industry, the issue has received relatively little attention. Prevalence data are lacking; however, qualitative and survey research suggest device industry representatives, who are commonly present in clinical settings, play a key role in these relationships. Representatives, who are technical product specialists and not necessarily medically trained, may attend surgeries on a daily basis and be available to health professionals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to provide (...) advice. However, device representatives have a dual role: functioning as commissioned sales representatives at the same time as providing advice on approaches to treatment. This duality raises the concern that clinical decision-making may be unduly influenced by commercial imperatives. In this paper, we identify three key ethical concerns raised by the relationship between device representatives and health professionals: impacts on healthcare costs, the outsourcing of expertise and issues of accountability and informed consent. These ethical concerns can be addressed in part through clarifying the boundary between the support and sales aspects of the roles of device representatives and developing clear guidelines for device representatives providing support in clinical spaces. We suggest several policy options including hospital provision of expert support, formalising clinician conduct to eschew receipt of meals and payments from industry and establishing device registries. (shrink)

In this paper we defend the notion of narrative identity against Galen Strawson's recent critique. With reference to Elyn Saks's memoir of her schizophrenia, we question the coherence ofStrawsons conception of the Episodic self and show why the capacity for narrative integration is important for a flourishing life. We aho argue that Scú put pressure on narrative theories that specify unduly restncúve constraints on self-constituting narratives, and chrify the need to distinguish identity from autonomy.

The essays in this volume open up reflection on the implications of social inequality for theorizing about moral responsibility. Collectively, they focus attention on the relevance of the social context, and of structural and epistemic injustice, stereotyping and implicit bias, for critically analyzing our moral responsibility practices.

As the price of pharmaceuticals and biologicals rises so does the number of patients who cannot afford them. In this article, we argue that physicians have a moral duty to help patients access affordable medicines. We offer three grounds to support our argument: (i) the aim of prescribing is to improve health and well-being which can only be realized with secure access to treatment; (ii) there is no morally significant difference between medicines being unavailable and medicines being unaffordable, so the (...) steps physicians are willing to take in the first case should extend to the second; and (iii) as the primary stakeholder with a duty to put the individual patient’s interests first, the medical professional has a duty to address cost-barriers to patient care. In articulating this duty, we take account of important epistemic and control conditions that must be met for the attribution of this duty to be justified. (shrink)

The paper discusses whether codes of ethics are Kantian notions through an analysis of their intention and structure. The article also discusses some of the ideas put forward by William Starr in his article, Codes of Ethics — Towards a Rule-Utilitarian Justification,Journal of Business Ethics 2(2) (May 1983).The paper refers to recent definitions of codes of ethics and considers reasons for the proliferation of such codes. It examines the moral justification for these codes and analyses the underlying ethical theory particularly (...) in relation to Kantian ethics. There is an account of how Kant''s views of the source of morality and moral obligation, the structure and nature of Kantian moral law and the role of the individual and his/her relationship with others, which is relevant to the development of a theoretical base for codes of ethics. There is some discussion of potential problems in the practical application of Kantian ethics to a specific code. (shrink)

CareVisions (2022–2026) is an interdisciplinary researcj project reflecting on care experiences during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to re-imagine care relations, practices and policies in Irela...

Despite its place in the humanities, the career prospects and numbers of women in philosophy much more closely resemble those found in the sciences and engineering. This book collects a series of critical essays by female philosophers pursuing the question of why philosophy continues to be inhospitable to women and what can be done to change it. By examining the social and institutional conditions of contemporary academic philosophy in the Anglophone world as well as its methods, culture, and characteristic commitments, (...) the volume provides a case study in interpretation of one academic discipline in which women's progress seems to have stalled since initial gains made in the 1980s. Some contributors make use of concepts developed in other contexts to explain women's under-representation, including the effects of unconscious biases, stereotype threat, and micro-inequities. Other chapters draw on the resources of feminist philosophy to challenge everyday understandings of time, communication, authority and merit, as these shape effective but often unrecognized forms of discrimination and exclusion. Often it is assumed that women need to change to fit existing institutions. This book instead offers concrete reflections on the way in which philosophy needs to change, in order to accommodate and benefit from the important contribution women's full participation makes to the discipline. (shrink)