Mody and Carey (2016) investigated children's capacity to reason by the disjunctive syllogism by hiding stickers within two pairs of cups (i.e., there is one sticker in cup A or B, and one in cup C or D) and then showing one cup to be empty. They found that children as young as 3 years of age chose the most likely cup (i.e., not A, therefore choose B; and disregard C and D) and suggested that these children were representing the (...) dependent relationship between A and B by applying the logical operator “or”. However, it is possible that children succeeded using simpler strategies, such as avoiding the empty cup and choosing within the manipulated pair. We devised a new version of the task in which a sticker was visibly removed from one of the four cups so that 2.5- to 5-year-old children (N = 100) would fail if they relied on such strategies. We also included a conceptual replication of Mody and Carey's (2016) original condition. Our results replicated their findings and showed that even younger children, 2.5 years of age, could pass above chance levels. Yet, 2.5-, 3- and 4-year-olds failed the new condition. Only 5-year-old children performed above chance in both conditions and so provided compelling evidence of deductive reasoning from the premise “A or B", where “or” is exclusive. We propose that younger children may instead conceive of the relationship between A and B as inclusive “or” across both versions of the task. (shrink)

Recent research has provided compelling evidence that children experience the negative counterfactual emotion of regret, by manipulating the presence of a counterfactual action that would have led to participants receiving a better outcome. However, it remains unclear if children similarly experience regret’s positive counterpart, relief. The current study examined children’s negative and positive counterfactual emotions in a novel gain-or-loss context. Four- to 9-year-old children (N = 136) were presented with two opaque boxes concealing information that would lead to a gain (...) or loss of stickers, respectively. Half of the children chose between two keys that matched each box, whereas the other half were compelled to select one box because only one of the two keys matched. After seeing inside the alternative, non-chosen box, children were significantly more likely to report a change in emotion when they could have opened that box than when they could not have. The effects were similar for children who lost stickers and won stickers, and neither effect varied with age. These findings suggest that children may become capable of experiencing regret and relief around the same time, although their expression of these counterfactual emotions may vary with actual and counterfactual gains and losses. (shrink)

We explore the legalization of the cannabis industry in the US, and point at the conflicted path through which this emerging industry has traversed. In particular, we highlight how this industry has navigated controversy to become one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The paper also offers a theoretical model that explains the role played by social movements to propel and shape early antagonism towards increasing protagonism. Evidence of the latter is seen in the form of cannabis laws (...) passing at the state level in the US. We posit that resource mobilization and shaping effects were instrumental in laying the grounds for legalization. A detailed timeline of the legalization for over one and a half centuries is also provided. Our synergistic approach integrates a historical perspective with social movement theory to address a relatively new and under examined phenomenon in the emerging US legal cannabis industry and ensuing ethical implications. (shrink)

This volume consists of a collection of essays that explores the songs of Rabindranath Tagore, also known as Rabindrasangeet as independent poetic verses. It is an intellectual reading of his songs that are collected in the Gitabitan, which is a collection of all of his 2232 songs.

Sri Aurobindo dedicated his life to the transformation of humanity. His journey saw him traverse many paths, including that of poet, journalist, jailed revolutionary, philosopher, and radical mystic. Essays, translations, literary criticism, political articles, philosophical treatises, poetry, epics, plays and short stories-his writings encompass the depth and range of his extraordinary life. The modern sage commented on spiritual texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Gita, authored an epic poem, Savitri, presented his integral vision in The Life (...) Divine, wrote on contemporary issues, all the while writing thousands of letters to guide his disciples, and even documenting his inner life in meticulous detail. The relevance of Sri Aurobindo's message has never been more urgent and compelling, yet, his Complete Works, thirty-six volumes in all, can be a daunting prospect even for those acquainted with his philosophy and practice. Reading Sri Aurobindo introduces each of these volumes through the perspectives of twenty-one contributors. The result is a book packed with insights inviting us to explore Sri Aurobindo's deep wisdom and vision for resolving the fundamental issues facing individuals, societies, and nations today. (shrink)

Careful attention to contemporary political debates, including those around global warming, the federal debt, and the use of drone strikes on suspected terrorists, reveals that we often view our responsibility as something that can be quantified and discharged. Shalini Satkunanandan shows how Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Weber, and Heidegger each suggest that this calculative or bookkeeping mindset both belongs to 'morality', understood as part of our ordinary approach to responsibility, and effaces the incalculable, undischargeable, and more onerous dimensions of our (...) responsibility. These thinkers also reveal how the view of responsibility as calculable is at the heart of 'moralism' - the pettifogging, mindless, legalistic, excessively judgmental, or punitive policing of our own or others' compliance with moral duties. By elaborating their narratives of a difficult 'conversion' to the open-ended and relentless character of responsibility, Satkunanandan explores how we might be less moralistic and more responsible in politics. She ultimately argues for a political ethos attentive to how calculative thinking can limit our responsibility, but that still accepts a circumscribed place for calculation in responsible politics. (shrink)

An ongoing debate in the United States relating to COVID-19 features the purported tension between containing the coronavirus to save lives or opening the economy to sustain livelihoods, with ethical overtones on both sides. Proponents of opening the economy argue that sustaining livelihoods should be prioritized over virus containment, with ethicists asking, “What about the risk to human life?” Defendants of restricting the spread of the virus endorse saving lives through virus containment but contend with the ethical concern “What about (...) people’s livelihoods and individual freedoms?” A commonly held belief is that political ideology drives these differential preferences: liberals are more focused on saving lives, whereas conservatives favor sustaining livelihoods with no additional government intervention in the free-market economy. We examine these lay beliefs among US residents in four studies and find that economic system justification (ESJ), an ideology that defends the prevailing economic system when under threat, is a reliable psychological predictor beyond political ideology. Specifically, compared to those who scored low on ESJ, people who scored high on ESJ judged China as more justified in downplaying the spread of virus to protect its interest in the global free-market economy, supported in-person over online learning, viewed shelter in place as less desirable, and perceived the opening of the Texas economy as more legitimate. We also find that multiple psychological mechanisms might be at work—resistance to market interventions, perceived legitimacy of opening the economy, perceived seriousness of the health crisis, and violation of human rights. (shrink)

Many political theorists assume that Kant's categorical imperative can only present itself to politics epistemologically—that is, as a test or procedure for acquiring more certain knowledge of duties. This study retrieves the ontological aspect of the categorical imperative by showing that the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals is a conversion narrative. In the Groundwork Kant describes a transformative encounter with the categorical imperative as a principle that discloses our ontological condition. This encounter opens a new mode of being characterized (...) by the feeling of awe. In its ontological aspect, the categorical imperative discloses human freedom and demands an unflagging thoughtfulness, but offers no material guidance about duties. When understood in both its ontological and epistemological aspects, the categorical imperative offers a rich portrait of human responsibility and can help illuminate the ethical stance appropriate to politics without becoming a standard to be imposed upon politics. (shrink)

Writing about “self” as an autobiography became an elite device in the hands of many Indian women post independence, who wished to write about their lives and exerted strenuously to break the restrictions imposed on them within the “four-walled peripheries” to construct their own identity and exhibit their individuality in various fields such as sports, business, film industry, defense, and in various other professions. They assertively voiced in the form of writing their life narratives to discard the burden of patriarchal (...) dominance where with a prevalent sense of gender discrimination, they are considered feeble, inept, or subjugated. This article explores and cognizes the course of an inspirational and tear-jerking narrative, A Life Apart, crafted by a well-off industrialist and writer, Prabha Khaitan who flouted her community codes and stated against injustices and hypocrisies prevalent in the male-dominated society. It analyses how Prabha footsteps the arduous trail between the passion for love, work, and independence and the pull of traditions and family restrictions to be her own woman creating her own identity. (shrink)

As students progress towards their PhD degrees, they will become more independent and practitioner-like; for those moving into academia, it is often assumed the programs of their PhD mentors will serve as prototypes for their own successful research programs. However, the author's research program as an Assistant Professor led him in directions never considered as a graduate student. The author had to make significant decisions in choosing a primary audience, finding an overarching theme, defining the individual problems, and developing these (...) problems into researchable projects. Infrastructure-related issues associated with the author's research program were also considered. The details of his journey from the end of his doctoral degree to his current position as an Assistant Professor are described in this article. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to refute the fregean assumption that declarative sentences refer to truth-Values. A consequence of the assumption is that the truth-Value of a declarative sentence containing another as part remains unchanged when the part is replaced by another sentence having the same truth-Value, Provided that the part as part has only customary reference and expresses a complete thought. The refutation proceeds by demonstrating this consequence to be false.

We seek to understand how third-party observers respond to allegations of sexual transgressions, whether their responses vary and if so why, how they determine perpetrator sanctions, who is more forgiving of them, and what is the psychological mechanism underlying this preference. We draw on one dimension of Hofstede's theory of cultural orientations—power distance belief, and one dimension of Haidt's work on moral reasoning—moral decoupling. Results from three studies on recent real-life cases—those pertaining to Harvey Weinstein, Brett Kavanaugh, and Peter Martins—reveal (...) interesting, consistent, and dramatic findings pertaining to these research questions. Specifically, compared to observers who endorse a low power distance belief, high PDB observers selectively suspend judgments of culpability and express higher evaluations of the alleged perpetrators, are significantly more forgiving of them, convey a lower preference for naming and shaming them, and consider the alleged transgressions as less serious. These outcomes are predicated on the psychological mechanism of moral decoupling. Both high and low PDB respondents decouple the perpetrators’ competence and morality. However, high PDB observers gauge the actions of the perpetrators by emphasizing competence, while low PDB observers gauge their actions by emphasizing morality. (shrink)

The initial online publication contained a typesetting mistake. The original article has been corrected.

Political commentators claim that the rule of law relies, in part, on those bound by law having a sense of shame. I elucidate shame’s underlying structure and its role in law’s rule through a study of aidōs in Plato’s Laws and Phaedrus. The Greek aidōs names a feeling in which one pulls back from violating a limit. It signifies shame, but also reverence, awe, and modesty. I argue that aidōs is an affect in which we pause before limits and are (...) invited to a perception of the whole, whether it be our lives or the polity or the cosmos, which animates and is constituted by those limits. I then identify an implicit sense of aidōs in the Laws: reverence for the law-bound polity as a fragile whole. Such reverence shares shame’s bare structure, but offers affective support for law’s rule that is less vulnerable to shame’s moralizing and exclusionary effects. (shrink)

The successful global diffusion of formal democracy has gone hand in hand with the hollowing out of its substance. Ever more realms of domestic public policy are removed from the purview of national legislative deliberation and insulated from popular scrutiny. Rhetoric of accountability has accompanied the increasing unaccountability of international financial and trade organizations, transnational corporations as well as of states and NGOs. The new architecture of global governance characterized by legal plurality and overlapping sovereignties has facilitated a game of (...) ‘passing the blame’ among these four actors. There is a curious ambivalence in current debates on globalization about the role of the state, which is conceived of as both central and marginal. Globalization is seen to be marked by the decline of both the external and the internal sovereignty of the state. Contrary to such a view, it will be argued here that the state is both an agent and an object of globalization. Although inadequate, the state remains indispensable as its laws and policies play a key role in transposing neo-liberal agendas to the national and local levels. If in the age of globalization and of economic Empire, political violence has been replaced by legal violence, resistance to it is also articulated in the language of law. This paper focuses on the dynamic of legal politics against impoverishment and dispossession caused by the new global designs of intellectual property protection, biodiversity conservation and privatization of the commons in India. The case studies in this paper point to the emergence of intertwined structures of rule, overlapping sovereignties and complex processes of legal transnationalization that have reconfigured the relations between law, state, and territoriality. If welfare states were concerned with the redistribution of risk and resources, cunning states seek to redistribute responsibility. Sensitivity to the history of colonialism would be an important corrective to the presentism and Westerncentrism of analyses of (legal) globalization. (shrink)

In A Compendium of the Characteristics of Categories (Padārthadharmasaṃgraha) the classical Vaiśeṣika philosopher Praśastapāda (6th c. CE) presents an innovative metaphysics of the self. This article examines the defining metaphysical and axiological features of this conception of self and the dualist categorial schema in which it is located. It shows how this idea of the self, as a reflexive and ethical being, grounds a multinaturalist view of natural order and offers a conception of agency that claims to account for all (...) the reflexive features of human mental and bodily life. Finally, it discusses the ends of self’s reflexivity and of human life as a return to the true self. It argues that at the heart of Praśastapāda’s metaphysics of self is the idea that ethics is metaphysics, and that epistemic practice is ethical practice. (shrink)

The lives and labour of migrants are increasingly shaped by political precarity and rightlessness in an unevenly globalized world. We argue that ‘undesirableness’ rather than mobility is constitutive of the ‘migrant’ position. Besides underscoring the asymmetrical power relations that define the position of the ‘migrant’ vis-à-vis the receiving state and society, an optic of ‘undesirableness’ also foregrounds the governmental techniques deployed to produce the figure of the ‘migrant’. We suggest that the framing of migrants as ‘unwanted’ is pivotal to the (...) European non-entrée regime, which parallels cultural exclusion through an Orientalization of the discourse on migration. The immutable cultural alterity of the ‘migrant’ is thus presumed to pose a perennial threat to Western ‘liberal’ values. Two assumptions undergird this narrative of the ‘undesirable’ migrant as the quintessential ‘Other’ of the European Self: cultural determination of behaviour in migrant communities, and incompatibility of ‘migrant cultures’ with those of ‘host’ societies. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of Freedom of Information/Right to Information from an international perspective and analyse it as an indispensable tool for good governance through the use of information and communication technologies with special reference to India.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the worldwide occurrence of Right to Information with reference to International Covenants, the genesis of RTI Act in India and the use of ICT in India as a tool for empowering the citizen's.FindingsThe study demonstrates that (...) RTI has far reaching impact and it clearly contributes to a better and informed citizenry however the use of ICT in India can further facilitate the access of such records.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses on the genesis of RTI from an international perspective but the use of ICT for further facilitating the use of RTI is limited to Indian context.Practical implicationsThe paper will outline a detailed analysis on the present usage of ICT and the initiatives taken for facilitating information dissemination and further provide suggestions for the benefit of civil society towards good governance.Originality/valueThe study is the first to address the issue of the implementation of right to information act through the use of ICT and also suggests methodology for its further improvement. Also, the study comprehends the genesis of RTI both from the international as well as Indian perspective. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality warns that revenge’s reactiveness can jeopardize salutary change in shared values. I identify an overlooked revenge-mitigating praxis in the spatial movements of Nietzsche’s fictional prophet Zarathustra, who seeks collaborators to overcome Christian morality and create new world-affirming values. Zarathustra’s well-known response to revenge, specifically the revenge against time undergirding interpersonal revenge, is willing the eternal return of the same. But he also exemplifies a more available response. “Passing by” is a coming close to, followed (...) by a veering away from, the most insistent embodiments of reigning values. Although Nietzsche inspires agonistic political theory, Zarathustra avoids direct contest in the usual late modern milieux, which he finds constitutively vulnerable to revenge. When revenge floods the communal passional reservoir, it forestalls recovery—essential to new-values creation—of passions effaced by reigning values. Zarathustra still approaches the usual milieux to know the present-past as the raw material of the future. But by then veering away he practices relaxing his value-creative will and not raging against the present-past. Repeated passing by helps him accept and thus better take up the raw material of the future and accept value change’s slow temporality. Since passing by’s concern is the value horizon, not the political sphere, and since it minimizes direct resistance, it may be less reactive to the political sphere than directly contestatory versions of “refusal.” Analysis of Gandhi’s value-praxis confirms passing by as a tactic for less reactive value-creation and as a lens on the reactiveness of different value-praxes. (shrink)

This book initiates the discussion between psychoanalysis and recent humanist and social scientific interest in a fundamental contemporary topic – the nonhuman. The authors question where we situate the subject in current critical investigations of a nonanthropoentric universe. In doing so they unravel a less-than-human theory of the subject; explore implications of Lacanian teachings in relation to the environment, freedom, and biopolitics; and investigate the subjective enjoyments of and anxieties over nonhumans in literature, film, and digital media. This innovative volume (...) fills a valuable gap in the literature, extending investigations into an important and topical strand of the social sciences for both analytic and pedagogical purposes. (shrink)

Language and Materiality integrates linguistic anthropological and sociolinguistic scholarship on a range of topics: semiotic approaches to language, language commodification, sound, embodiment, mediatization, and aesthetics. Empirically rigorous, the volume engages scholars and students interested in language, its use, and meanings. It consists of three sections - 'Texts, Objects, Mediality', 'Sound, Aesthetics, Embodiment', and 'Time, Place, Circulation' - containing chapters and short commentaries, framed by a curated conversation about semiotics and materiality in anthropology. Each section theorizes intersections, connections, and relationships between (...) language and materiality across diverse topics and ethnographic contexts. The volume shows that materiality may be approached as a feature of political economy, sensual experience, aesthetics, and affective relationships in its relation to language as talk, register, genre, ideology, and acoustic object. It consists of new perspectives on materiality as a vital dimension of social life and signification in global capitalism, connecting inquiries on subjects as diverse as food, media, fonts, and music. (shrink)

Over the past decade, Convergence Research has increasingly gained prominence as a research, development, and innovation (RDI) strategy to address grand societal challenges. However, a dearth of research-based evidence is available to aid researchers, research teams, and institutions with navigating the complexities attendant to the specifics of Convergence Research. This paper presents a multilevel research agenda that accounts for an integral understanding of Convergence Research as a complex adaptive system. Furthermore, by developing a framework that accounts for ancillary, yet essential, (...) systems associated with Convergence Research, we enrich the agenda with a literature-steeped discussion that considers how systems-based practices of collaboration, inquiry, and context interact with the processes and products of Convergence Research. Finally, we synthesize and apply insights from the reviewed literature by providing paths for empirical exploration emphasizing systems-based practices. In so doing, we delineate an extended boundary for a research stream that both clarifies and enlarges our understanding of Convergence Research as a ‘system-of-systems’. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical implications of "poison put" provisions included in bond offerings. A number of firms are using event-risk protections in bond offerings in an effort to attract investors back into the bond market. One of the most common event-risk protections is a "poison put" provision, which allows the bondholder to "put" the bond back to the firm at par or at a premium under certain specified conditions, such as a takeover effort or a downgrading of the bond (...) by rating agencies. While such a provision is obviously of value to the bondholders, there is a secondary effect that is not as obvious. Using such a provision helps to insure that boards of directors must put the interests of all of the stakeholders ahead of any personal interests of the board members, thus protecting the stakeholders. The use of event-risk protections helps to deter takeovers, induce bidders to negotiate with management in any takeover efforts, and avoid two-tier takeover offers. As a result, the "poison put" provisions have a positive impact on share values while simultaneously protecting the investments of bondholders. Such an impact makes the use of "poison put" provisions in bonds an ethical use of management power. (shrink)

One cannot deny the fact that we all have some understanding of moral issues. Each one of us can be said to have some sense of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what ought to be done, and what ought not to be done. This moral understanding can be in the form of some vague idea, notion, or simply a gut feeling. No matter who the person is, from which culture or community the person (...) belongs to, everybody faces a moral quandary sometime or other in one’s life. All of this presupposes that there is some fundamental sense or understanding of what is right and what is wrong. We all seem to have some understanding about actions that are right and those that are wrong. Some actions, for instance, torturing babies just for fun, killing an innocent person, raping, etc. are exemplars of morally wrong actions. Assisting a person in need, giving to famine relief, etc. on the other hand are examples of morally right actions. The present essay is an attempt to delve into the question of the source of moral knowledge. Three sources, experience, reason, and intuition have been identified. Views of philosophers like G.E Moore, WD Ross, Immanuel Kant, JS Mill, Plato, Samuel Clarke, Aristotle Hume, and Anthony Ashley Cooper have been discussed to gain clarity about the issue. (shrink)

The article seeks to highlight the relation between ontology and communication while considering the role of AI in society and environment. Bioinformationalism is the technical term that foregrounds this relationality. The study reveals instructive consequences for philosophy of technology in general and AI in particular. The first section introduces the bioinformational approach to AI, focusing on three critical features of the current AI debate: ontology of information, property-based vs. relational AI, and ontology vs. constitution of AI. When applied to the (...) themes of relationality and non-anthropocentric communications, bioinformational insights highlight an inclusive and meaningful groundwork for understanding AI by ‘relating’ it with society and the environment through an engagement with the ongoing critique of human supremacy. In the second section, we move from ‘relating’ AI to ‘rewilding’ AI by proposing taxonomical classification for certain technological entities. We situate our proposal in the broader personhood debate with the proposal of taxonomical ranking. In the last section, we show an instance of a relational approach steeped in substantialist ontology by introducing the fourth feature of the AI debate. A broad critique of Floridi’s philosophy of information introduces this fourth feature from the domain of philosophy and sociology to address various theoretical and ecological problems with current relational accounts. In doing so, we argue for ‘communication’ to be the replacement of ‘information’ as the moral unit. A bioinformational understanding of AI advocates taking ontological commitments seriously at all levels of informational and technological processes and products. (shrink)

The mind maps symbols and the extra-symbolic relationships amongst them to specific meanings. When symbols of various levels are placed in a hierarchical ordering, one may look at such ordered classes as distinct worlds where one class represents objects and the other represents the objects’ corresponding meanings. However, such an explanation can only be partial because the number of potential levels in such an ordering is infinite and, therefore, it engenders problems of recursion and infinite regress. There are also logical (...) problems in the form of paradoxes that emanate from the consideration of sets of sets. Given that most prior studies only consider symbols that are classical objects in associative relationships, we argue that there is a need to also consider objects with shifting boundaries and quantum objects. We believe that objects belonging to each of these three classes—that is classical objects, objects with shifting boundaries, and quantum objects—play a role in the workings of the mind. (shrink)

Anthropocene jurisprudence amounts to a legal attitude that posits human beings as the ultimate subject to which the legal ontology, epistemology, and language serve. This attitude inevitably leads to exceptionalism not only in terminology but also in the impact which legal verdicts incur, especially on the natural environment and species. In this paper, we make a coupled reading of jurisprudence and environmental science while suggesting a post-Anthropocene model of law which can be made philosophically consistent by appropriating a new theory (...) of human as a 'biocultural creature' to outgrow the attitude of exceptionalism in law. In doing so, we take recourse of dynamic systems and complexity theory for a law to account for the ontology, epistemology and linguistics of post-Anthropocene jurisprudence. (shrink)