Economists have suggested it was optimal to signal the odious character of bonds when they were issued. However, since the odious debt doctrine has not been recognized by any court, one could argue that denouncing odious debts is useless. Exploiting a unique historical episode, this paper quantifies the impact of protests on odious debts. In 1906, the Russian government floated a bond in Paris to cover the costs of its war against Japan but also to raise money to crush the (...) political movements wishing to reform Russia’s political system. Issued without parliamentary consent, this loan met with fierce opposition. Press campaigns in Great Britain, France and Germany denounced its odious character. If failure or success is determined solely by the ability to prevent a loan from being issued, then the campaign failed. We argue, however, that failure or success should be determined in light of the financial costs imposed on the issuer for future loans and even the ability to force a postponement of these loans. We show that these campaigns increased the yields of all Russian bonds traded in Paris, and thus Russia’s future borrowing cost. Yields on the 1906 loan, which was specially targeted by the campaigns, rose even more. However, once the press campaigns stopped, yields experienced a declining trend, highlighting the important role the press may have on odious debts. (shrink)

The inspiring true story of a teacher's experiences with her students and the life lessons she learned that can help others find joy and success. Crash Course chronicles the life lessons that Kim Bearden has learned during an award-winning career in education that has spanned three decades. Kim has taught more than 2,000 students, and each has shown her something about the world and the abundant capacity for love, resilience, and appreciation that we all possess. By sharing her students' stories, (...) she teaches their inspiring lessons to us all. Throughout the ups and downs of her professional and personal life, Kim found that her students were the light that illuminated her path; they were her sanctuary in the storm. From her challenges as a first year teacher, to her triumphs as the cofounder of the highly acclaimed Ron Clark Academy, Kim shares how children can teach each of us the importance of building relationships, abandoning fear, embracing one's unique gifts, and living with passion. Full of honesty, humor, heartbreak, and humanity, Kim's experiences show how children can help any one of us, despite life's obstacles, find the joy and significance in both our personal and professional lives. (shrink)

This paper argues that democratic collectives have reason to increase the voting power of their younger members. It first presents an intuitive case for weighted voting in general, before drawing support from a prominent principle of democratic inclusion – the all-affected principle. On a plausible understanding of that principle, a decision may affect people to varying degrees, and this variation should be reflected in the strength of their say. The paper then argues that exposure time to a decision’s effects is (...) typically a good proxy for tracking such variation, such that collectives have reason to gradually reduce their members’ voting power as they grow older. This holds, for example, in the ordinary parliamentary elections in representative democracies. It is then argued that we may build a similar case for age-weighting on a plausible version of the all-affected principle’s main rival, the all-subjected principle. The paper ends by addressing various objections. It argues that none of them undermine the case for age-weighting, and that some might even support age-weighting over its non-weighted (‘one person, one vote’) alternative. (shrink)

Since the early 1980’s, with the clinical advent of in vitro fertilization resulting in so-called “test tube babies,” a wide array of ethical considerations and concerns regarding artificial womb technology (AWT) have been described. Recent breakthroughs in the development of extracorporeal neonatal life support by means of AWT have reinitiated ethical interest about this topic with a sense of urgency. Most of the recent ethical literature on the topic, however, pertains not to the more imminent scenario of a physiologically improved (...) method of neonatal care through AWT, but instead to the remote scenario of “complete ectogenesis” that imagines human gestation occurring entirely outside of the womb. This scoping review of the ethical literature on AWT spans from more abstract concerns about complete ectogenesis to more immediate concerns about the soon-to-be-expected clinical life support of what we term the fetal neonate or fetonate. Within an organizing framework of different stages of human gestational development, from conception to the viable premature infant, we discuss both already identified and newly emerging ethical considerations and concerns regarding AWT and the care of the fetonate. (shrink)

To establish the claim that racism is an ideology that consists of having morally impermissible attitudes towards people in virtue of their racialised identities, Appiah claims that a (false) belief in race is not automatically morally wrong. This paper examines what is involved in believing in races and shows that believing in races is in itself morally problematic as it involves stereotyping that undermines agency.

Some people of colour feel shame in response to racist incidents. This phenomenon seems puzzling since, plausibly, they have nothing to feel shame about. This puzzle arises because we assume that targets of racism feel shame about their race. However, I propose that when an individual is racialised as non-White in a racist incident, shame is sometimes prompted, not by a negative self-assessment of her race, but by her inability to choose when her stigmatised race is made salient. I argue (...) that this can make sense of some shame responses to racism. My account also helps to highlight some of the emotional and cognitive costs of racism that have their root in shame as well as a new form of hermeneutical injustice and distinctive communicative harms, contributing to a fuller picture of what is objectionable about racism. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of linked essays written by one of the leading philosophers of biology, Kim Sterelny, on the topic of biological evolution. The first half of the book explores most of the main theoretical controversies about evolution and selection. Sterelny argues that genes are not the only replicators: non-genetic inheritance is also extremely important, and is no mere epiphenomenon of gene selection. The second half of the book applies some of these ideas in considering cognitive evolution. Concentrating (...) on the mental capacities of simpler animals rather than those of humans, Sterelny argues for a general distinction between detection and representation, and that the evolution of belief, like that of representation, can be decoupled from the evolution of preference. These essays, some never before published, form a coherent whole that defends not just an overall conception of evolution, but also a distinctive take on cognitive evolution. (shrink)

Mental fatigue is a psycho-biological state that impairs sports-related performances. Recently, it has been proved that MF can affect basketball performance. However, a systematic overview detailing the influences of MF on basketball performance is still lacking. This study aims to investigate the effects of MF on the physical, technical, tactical, and cognitive performance of basketball. We used the databases of PubMed, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, Scopes, and CKNI for articles published up to 31 May 2021. The articles included in this (...) study were projected to test whether MF influences basketball athlete performance. Only experimental design studies were selected, and the control condition was without MF. Finally, seven articles fit the inclusion criteria. The results imply that MF impairs the technical aspects of basketball and the players' cognitive [take-the-first heuristics and decision-making] performance, which results in athletes not using their techniques skillfully and being unable to make practical decisions during critical points in the game. In addition to that, the influences of MF on physical and tactical performance have not been studied. Further studies should look into comprehensive research on the influences of MF on basketball performance, especially on a player's physical and tactical performance.Systematic Review Registration: [https://inplasy.com/] [INPLASY2021100017]. (shrink)

We offer a precautionary account of why business managers should proactively rethink about what kinds of automation firms ought to implement, by exploring two challenges that automation will potentially pose. We engage the current debate concerning whether life without work opportunities will incur a meaning crisis, offering an argument in favor of the position that if technological unemployment occurs, the machine age may be a structurally limited condition for many without work opportunities to have or add meaning to their lives. (...) We term this the axiological challenge. This challenge, if it turns out to be persuasive, leads to a second challenge, to which managers should pay special attention: the teleological challenge, a topic especially relevant to the broad literature about corporate purpose and governance. We argue that both the shareholder profit-maximization model and its major alternative, stakeholder theory, are insufficient to address the meaning crisis. Unless rebutted, the two challenges compel business leaders to proactively rethink the purpose of business for future society. Otherwise, businesses will be contributors to a major ethical crisis and societal externality in the coming society. (shrink)

It has been highly controversial from the beginning of the study of religion to the present day whether it is insiders who follow that religion or outsiders who understand the religion studied the best. It is also questioned if it is really possible to study a religion objectively whether the one who studies is an insider or outsider to that religion. This topic also brings with it the issues that need to be considered, such as emic/ethical positions, ‘experience-near’ and ‘experience-distant’ (...) and the process of reflexivity. In this article, Kim Knott examines the problem of insider and outsider by considering the accounts of different researchers who have adopted the roles of complete participant, observer as participant, participant as observer and complete observer within the framework of these concepts. (shrink)

Incomplete preferences displaying ‘mildly sweetened’ structure are common, yet theoretically problematic. This paper examines the properties of the rankings induced by the set of all coherent completions of the mildly sweetened partial preference structure. Building on these properties, I propose an ensemble-based refinement of Hare’s prospectism criterion for rational choice when preferences are incomplete. Importantly, this ensemble-based refinement is immune to Peterson’s weak money pump argument. Hence, ensemble prospectism ensures outcome rationality. Furthermore, by recognizing the structural isomorphism between mildly sweetened (...) preference structures and Cover’s splitting rule in Blackwell’s Pick the Largest Number problem, ensemble prospectism can be shown to yield better-than-even odds of selecting the ex-post higher utility option—despite the absence of all-things-considered preferences ex ante. (shrink)

This book assesses the real differences between the two conceptions of evolution.

This book examines why individuals and communities invest heavily in their religious life through multi-disciplinary perspectives. It pursues philosophical, psychological, deep time historical and adaptive answers to this question. Religion is a profoundly puzzling phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective. Commitment to religions are typically expensive, and most of the beliefs that motivate them cannot be true (since religious belief systems are inconsistent with one another). Yet some form of religion seems to be universal and resilient in historically known cultures – (...) though not, if archaeology is to be trusted, in human communities early in the evolution of our species. We have collectively invented religion over about the last 100,000 years. Stemming from an interdisciplinary workshop, this book grapples with these challenges and features diverse contributions: some offer evolutionary and historical analyses, identifying hidden adaptive benefits to religion independent of the veracity of religious belief. Others see connections between religious commitment and commitment to the social norms that make cooperative life possible and explore aspects of human psychology that make religious belief tempting. Broad in scope and theoretically ambitious, Religion and Its Evolution: Signals, Norms and Secret Histories will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, sciences of religion, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between corporate social responsibility and institutional investor ownership, and the impact of this relation on stock return volatility. We find that institutional ownership does not strictly increase or decrease in CSR; rather, institutional ownership is a concave function of CSR. This evidence suggests that institutional investors do not see CSR as strictly value-enhancing activities. Institutional investors adjust their percentage of ownership when CSR activities go beyond the perceived optimal level. Employing the path analysis, we also (...) examine the mediating effect of institutional ownership on the relation between CSR and stock return volatility. We find that CSR decreases stock return volatility at a decreasing rate through its effect on institutional ownership. Our results remain robust under several different CSR measures and estimation methods. (shrink)

Background: Moral distress is an important and well-studied phenomenon among nurses and other healthcare providers, yet the conceptualization of parental moral distress remains unclear. Objective: The objective of this dimensional analysis was to describe the nature of family moral distress in serious pediatric illness. Design and methods: A dimensional analysis of articles retrieved from a librarian-assisted systematic review of Scopus, CINAHL, and PsychInfo was conducted, focusing on how children, parents, other family members, and healthcare providers describe parental moral distress, both (...) explicitly through writings on parental moral experience and implicitly through writings on parental involvement in distressing aspects of the child’s serious illness. Ethical considerations: To promote child and family best interest and minimize harm, a nuanced understanding of the moral, existential, emotional, and spiritual impact of serious pediatric illness is needed. The cases used in this dimensional analysis come from the first author’s IRB approved study at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and subsequent published studies; or have been adapted from the literature and the authors’ clinical experiences. Findings: Three dimensions emerged from the literature surrounding parent moral distress: an intrapersonal dimension, an interpersonal dimension, and a spiritual/existential dimension. The overarching theme is that parents experience relational solace and distress because of the impact of their child’s illness on relationships with themselves, their children, family, healthcare providers, their surrounding communities, and society. Discussion: Elucidating this concept can help nurses and other professionals understand, mitigate, or eliminate antecedents to parental moral distress. We discuss how this model can facilitate future empirical and conceptual bioethics research, as well as inform the manner in which healthcare providers engage, collaborate with, and care for families during serious pediatric illness. Conclusion: Parent moral distress is an important and complex phenomenon that requires further theoretical and empirical investigation. We provide an integrated definition and dimensional schematic model that may serve as a starting point for future research and dialogue. (shrink)

This study explored the impact of facilitating collaborative philosophical inquiry, in the tradition of “Philosophy for Children,” on connectedness pedagogies. The study employed an experimental design that included 59 primary teachers in 2 groups. The experimental group received an intervention that comprised training in CPI and the comparison group received training in Thinking Tools, a subset of the CPI training. Lessons were coded on four variables of connectedness pedagogies, across the two groups, at three time-points. Teacher interviews were conducted to (...) gather participants’ perspectives. Between-groups analysis of variance on particular measures of pedagogy revealed that CPI significantly broadened teachers’ pedagogical repertoires, in ways that included drawing on students’ background knowledge and preparing a problem-based curriculum which connects students to the world beyond the classroom. (shrink)

Background As Korean neonatal nurses frequently experience the deaths of infants, moral distress occurs when they provide end-of-life care to the infants and their families. Although they need to care for the patients’ deaths and consequently experience burnout and turnover due to moral distress from the situation, there is a lack of a support for nurses. Moreover, not much information is available on the moral distress of neonatal nurses. There is a need to better understand Korean neonatal nurses’ moral distress (...) to develop and implement appropriate supports. Objective This study aimed to describe nurses’ experience of moral distress when they provide end-of-life care to infants and their families in neonatal intensive care units. Research design This is a secondary analysis qualitative study. Content analysis was performed based on Corley’s theory of moral distress to develop a codebook and identify themes regarding moral distress among the nurses. Participants and research context Qualitative data were collected from 20 nurses working in two NICUs in Seoul, South Korea. Ethical considerations The original study obtained permission from a university’s institutional review board (IRB). This secondary analysis study obtained the exemption from another university’s IRB. Nurses’ participation was voluntary and confidential. Findings The nurses’ moral distress was derived when they faced moral constraints and/or moral conflicts. Two distinct categories of moral constraints and four distinct categories of moral conflicts were identified among the neonatal nurses. In addition, impacts of moral distress on patients and nurses were identified. Conclusions This study identified occasions neonatal nurses experience moral distress, and thus can guide in developing and implementing effective interventions to decrease their moral distress and improve their resilience in end-of-life care by providing insight into neonatal nurses’ needs for support in end-of-life care. (shrink)

The history of the research on peptic ulcer disease is characterized by a premature abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis, which subsequently had its comeback, leading to the discovery of Helicobacter pylori – the major cause of the disease. In this paper we examine the received view on this case, according to which the primary reason for the abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis in the mid-twentieth century was a large-scale study by a prominent gastroenterologist Palmer, which suggested no bacteria could be (...) found in the human stomach. To this end, we employ the methodof digital textual analysis and study the literature on the etiology of PUD published in the decade prior to Palmer’s article. Our findings suggest that the bacterial hypothesis had already been abandoned before the publication of Palmer’s paper, which challenges the widely held view that his study played a crucial role in the development of this episode. In view of this result, we argue that the PUD case does not illustrate harmful effects of a high degree of information flow, as it has frequently been claimed in the literature on network epistemology. Moreover, we argue that alternative examples of harmful effects of a high degree of information flow may be hard to find in the history of science. (shrink)