Symbolic arithmetic is fundamental to science, technology and economics, but its acquisition by children typically requires years of effort, instruction and drill1,2. When adults perform mental arithmetic, they activate nonsymbolic, approximate number representations3,4, and their performance suffers if this nonsymbolic system is impaired5. Nonsymbolic number representations also allow adults, children, and even infants to add or subtract pairs of dot arrays and to compare the resulting sum or difference to a third array, provided that only approximate accuracy is required6–10. Here (...) we report that young children, who have mastered verbal counting and are on the threshold of arithmetic instruction, can build on their nonsymbolic number system to perform symbolic addition and subtraction11–15. Children across a broad socio-economic spectrum solved symbolic problems involving approximate addition or subtraction of large numbers, both in a laboratory test and in a school setting. Aspects of symbolic arithmetic therefore lie within the reach of children who have learned no algorithms for manipulating numerical symbols. Our findings help to delimit the sources of children’s difficulties learning symbolic arithmetic, and they suggest ways to enhance children’s engagement with formal mathematics. We presented children with approximate symbolic arithmetic problems in a format that parallels previous tests of non-symbolic arithmetic in preschool children8,9. In the first experiment, five- to six-year-old children were given problems such as ‘‘If you had twenty-four stickers and I gave you twenty-seven more, would you have more or less than thirty-five stickers?’’. Children performed well above chance (65.0%, t1952.77, P 5 0.012) without resorting to guessing or comparison strategies that could serve as alternatives to arithmetic. Children who have been taught no symbolic arithmetic therefore have some ability to perform symbolic addition problems. The children’s performance nevertheless fell short of performance on non-symbolic arithmetic tasks using equivalent addition problems with numbers presented as arrays of dots and with the addition operation conveyed by successive motions of the dots into a box (71.3% correct, F1,345 4.26, P 5 0.047)8.. (shrink)

The past five years have brought important and rapid developments for the scientific bioethics community in Germany. Bioethics was institutionalized as an obligatory part of the undergraduate and graduate schedule in medical schools. Clinical ethics committees are spreading all over the country, and research on ethical issues of biomedicine is sponsored on a large scale, for example, by the German Ministry of Education and Research. Two main institutions, dealing with bioethics and biopolicies, were established and have worked on central bioethical (...) issues, mostly ending up with diametrically opposed recommendations: the Enquetekommission Recht und Ethik der Modernen Medizin, composed of parliamentarians of all political parties and appointed external experts, and the National Ethics Council, composed of experts, politicians, several stakeholders, and representatives of the Catholic and Protestant churches. (shrink)

Several hundred thousand intellectually talented 12-to 13-year-olds have been tested nationwide over the past 16 years with the mathematics and verbal sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Although no sex differences in verbal ability have been found, there have been consistent sex differences favoring males in mathematical reasoning ability, as measured by the mathematics section of the SAT (SAT-M). These differences are most pronounced at the highest levels of mathematical reasoning, they are stable over time, and they are observed (...) in other countries as well. The sex difference in mathematical reasoning ability can predict subsequent sex differences in achievement in mathematics and science and is therefore of practical importance. To date a primarily environmental explanation for the difference in ability has not received support from the numerous studies conducted over many years by the staff of Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and others. We have studied some of the classical environmental hypotheses: attitudes toward mathematics, perceived usefulness of mathematics, confidence, expectations/ encouragement from parents and others, sex-typing, and differential course-taking. In addition, several physiological correlates of extremely high mathematical reasoning ability have been identified (left-handedness, allergies, myopia, and perhaps bilateral representation of cognitive functions and prenatal hormonal exposure). It is therefore proposed that the sex difference in SAT-M scores among intellectually talented students, which may be related to greater male variability, results from both environmental and biological factors. (shrink)

This study aims to analyze what drives and prevents the purchasing of eco-friendly products across different consumer groups and develops a conceptual model embracing the positive altruistic, positive ego-centric, and negative ego-centric antecedents of eco-friendly product purchase intention and behavior. We empirically validate the conceptual model for green and non-green consumers. Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis of the two groups. The results confirm the relevance of the determining factors in the model and show significant differences (...) in eco-friendly product purchasing patterns between green and non-green consumers. Altruistic motives are more important for green than for non-green consumers. Negative ego-centric motives affect the purchase intentions of non-green consumers more than the intentions of green consumers, whereas the impact of negative motives on behavior is stronger for green than for non-green consumers. The first contribution of this paper is the development and testing of a parsimonious model of eco-friendly products purchasing that embraces both positive and negative antecedents, which have been theoretically suggested in the past but have rarely been empirically tested together. The second contribution of this study is that it develops insight into the specific antecedents of eco-friendly products purchasing for green and non-green consumers to assess potential similarities and differences in eco-friendly products purchasing process, the hypothesized antecedents, their impact on eco-friendly products purchase intention and behavior, and the intention–behavior relation. (shrink)

Abstract What sense are we to make of the promise of love against the contingency of human life? I discuss two replies to this question: (1) the suggestion that marriage, based on the probable success of this kind of relationship, is a more or less worthwhile endeavour (cf. Moller and Landau), and (2) Martha Nussbaum's Aristotelian proposal that we only live life fully if we embrace aspects of life, such as loving relationships, that are vulnerable to fortune. I show that (...) both responses, in different ways, depend on the presupposition that the sense of our promises to love is dependent on our ability to make predictions. The philosophers I discuss assume an epistemological standpoint from which we may attempt to judge whether it is in our general interest to love. I argue that embracing such a perspective by itself leads our attention away from the kind of personal and moral engagement in other people of which our promises to love are expressive. From the perspective of love, the attempt to calculate the risks and gains of loving itself appears as a moral failure to be present to the reality of other people. (shrink)

In most countries in the global north, social differences in health status and disease prevalence and outcomes are persistent and growing. This is also the case in the welfare states of Scandinavia. In Denmark, the empirical point of departure for this article, income inequality is relatively low and social mobility is generally considered to be high. One of the ideals of the Danish welfare state is that all citizens have free and open access to the tax-funded health-care system. All Danish (...) citizens can register at a general practice, which serves as the gatekeeper for more specialized health-care... (shrink)

One of the standard examples in contemporary moral psychology originates in the works of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He treats people's responses to the story of Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide to have casual, consensual, protected sex, as facts of human morality, providing evidence for his social intuitionist approach to moral judgements. We argue that Haidt's description of the facts of the story and the reactions of the respondents as ‘morally dumbfounded’ presupposes a view about moral reasoning that (...) is more substantial than he acknowledges. Drawing on the philosophical work by Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond, we explore how different descriptions of human morality, sexuality, and family relations engage us in evaluations about distinctive features of human life and language that go deeper than Haidt envisages. Thus, we show the need to attend to the concepts used to describe the facts of human moral psychology and the pictures of morality these concepts reveal about the researcher's own understanding of moral experience. This points to the particular responsibility any researcher into human moral psychology has for ensuring that the descriptions they offer are attuned to the complexities of the lives of those they form theories about and that these do not appear conceptually confounding. (shrink)

Are there reasons for loving? How can I promise to love someone? Is there such a thing as unconditional love? Am I responsible for loving or for failing to love someone? Can there be love without idealization? -/- This work sets out to show that many of the questions we raise when philosophizing about love are expressive of confusions about what we talk about when we talk about love. Addressing questions pertaining to philosophical discussions about emotions, personal identity and the (...) meaning of language and morality, the author shows how these confusions can be dissolved by carefully attending to our different conversations about love. Her investigations show that many of the challenges we face when reflecting on love do not have the kind of scientific or strictly philosophical character that would allow us to settle them once and for all. They are moral in character and gain their significance from the questions they raise about the place love has in our own lives. The kind of reflection on the meaning of love suggested in this work does not depend on any new discoveries about the phenomena of love. It is available to anyone who is prepared to reflect on our ways of speaking and to question our preconceptions of love and of philosophy. Through such reflection our understanding of love may continually deepen. (shrink)

What does a lover mean when he says, ‘You're the most beautiful girl in the world’?

In order to articulate an account of erotic love that does not attempt to transcend its personal features, Robert Solomon and Martha Nussbaum lean on the speeches by Aristophanes and Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium. This leads them to downplay the sense in which love is not only for another person, but also for the good. Drawing on a distinction between relative and absolute senses of speaking about the good, I mediate between two features of love that at first may seem (...) irreconcilable. The first is the sense in which love is deeply personal in character. The second is the sense in which we in love come to articulate ethical demands. With the help of the Diotimian ascent of love that Socrates presents in his speech, I submit that these two can come together in the realization that our personally conditioned responses in love are transformed to accommodate demands that carry an unconditional meaning. (shrink)

Can rational agents coordinate in simultaneous interactions? According to standard game theory they cannot, even if there is a uniquely best way of doing so. To solve this problem we propose an argument in favor of ‘belief-less reasoning’, a mode of inference that leads to converge on the optimal solution ignoring the beliefs of the other players. We argue that belief-less reasoning is supported by a commonsensical Principle of Relevant Information that every theory of rational decision must satisfy. We show (...) that this principle can be used to justify (some versions of) team reasoning, as well as other schemes of practical reasoning that do not involve sophisticated meta-representation. (shrink)

Negative conditional stimulus valence acquired during fear conditioning may enhance fear relapse and is difficult to remove as it extinguishes slowly and does not respond to the instruction that unconditional stimulus presentations will cease. We examined whether instructions targeting CS valence would be more effective. In Experiment 1, an image of one person was paired with an aversive US, while another was presented alone. After acquisition, participants were given positive information about the CS+ poser and negative information about the CS− (...) poser. Instructions reversed the pattern of differential CS valence present during acquisition and eliminated differential electrodermal responding. In Experiment 2, we compared positive and negative CS revaluation by providing positive/negative information about the CS+ and neutral information about CS−. After positive revaluation, differential valence was removed and differential electrodermal responding remained intact. After negative revaluation, differential valence was strengthened and differential electrodermal responding was eliminated. Unexpectedly, the instructions did not affect the reinstatement of differential electrodermal responding. (shrink)

Among the beliefs Wittgenstein holds that cannot be taken to be true or false, but rather appear to him as certain, are "all human beings have parents" (On Certainty §240): "I believe that I have forebears and that every human being has them" (OC §240) and "I have a father and a mother" (OC §282). I ask what moral questions are entailed in thinking of the changes that our current Western conceptual landscape has undergone in relation to parenthood and family (...) life in the light of the growing rights and recognition of sexual and gendered minorities. What is changing when we start to think of sentences such as "Everyone has a father and a mother" as not expressing an indubitable truth, a fundamental fact of our existence, but as constituting an oppressive social norm? What has already changed in our ways of conceiving of ourselves when we stop regarding such ways of expressing ourselves as a necessary aspect of our natural history but start thinking of them as one possibility among others in finding good and meaningful forms of life? What aspects remain unquestionable in Wittgenstein's beliefs throughout these changes, and what aspects of our family ties would we do best not to let slide? (shrink)

This volume represents the state of the art in research on the controversial Muslim legal scholar, theologian and man of letters Ibn azm of Cordoba (d. 456/1064), who is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of Islamic Spain.

In this article, I argue that Adorno’s conception of a possible reconciliation with nature is neither one of complete synthesis, nor absolute alienation. The most elaborated formulations regarding the possibility of such a reconciliation, which would be tantamount to a liberated nature, are to be found in Adorno’s aesthetics, and particularly in his discussion of the art–nature relation. The article engages Simon Hailwood’s recent criticism of the concept of the Anthropocene and his discussion of Adorno’s conception of the domination of (...) nature. While I concur with Hailwood’s insistence on the idea of “alienation from nature” in order to reach a more appropriate understanding of our current predicament, his analysis of Adorno’s take on this idea is problematic. I conclude by discussing another recent work on our troubled relationship with nature. While more attentive to artistic expressions than Hailwood’s work, Andreas Malm’s The Progress of This Stormconstitutes an inverted parallel to the former through its negligence of Adorno’s contribution to the discussion of the human–nature dialectic. (shrink)

Questa ricerca, attraverso alcune letture incrociate di Michel Foucault e di Claude Lévi-Strauss, mette in luce l’attualità di due grandi pensatori che pongono al centro delle loro teorie il tema della distanza, dell’altro da sé e del ritorno a sé per comprendere il ruolo del soggetto nella civiltà occidentale. Al di là delle rilevanti differenze che li contraddistinguono, Foucault e Lévi-Strauss percorrono due cammini teorici volti a decostruire il rapporto tra verità e soggetto nella civiltà occidentale adottando una prospettiva della (...) distanza e dell’allontanamento da sé, quali tecniche per comprendere se stessi. Da una parte il concetto foucaultiano di eterotopia, in quanto «spazio assolutamente altro», permette di comprendere i meccanismi attraverso i quali ci si proietta in un altrove senza luogo preciso per localizzare se stessi. Il campo dell’etnologia, sarà dunque letto attraverso la lente foucaultiana, quale «eterotopologia», o scienza eterotopica, per eccellenza. Dall’altra, questo concetto sarà analizzato alla luce di quello che Lévi-Strauss ha definito nel saggio sui Tre umanesimi una «tecnica dello straniamento», ovvero un metodo che permette di pensare se stessi grazie al confronto con l’Altro, con culture di altri luoghi ed altri tempi: per conoscere il soggetto che è l’uomo, non si può non prescindere da un lavoro di continui raffronti e paragoni tra diverse società nel tempo e nello spazio. (shrink)

This is the first book to unpack the legal and ethical issues surrounding unauthorised intimate examinations during labour. The book uses feminist, socio-legal and philosophical tools to explore the issues of power, vulnerability and autonomy. The collection challenges the perception that the law adequately addresses different manifestations of unauthorised medical touch through the lens of women's experiences of unauthorised vaginal examinations during labour. The book unearths several broader themes that are of huge significance to lawyers and healthcare professionals such as (...) the legal status of women and their bodies. The book raises questions about women's experiences during childbirth in hospital settings. It explores the status of women's bodies during labour and childbirth where too easily they become objectified, and it raises important issues around consent. The book highlights links to the law on sexual offences and women's loss of power under the medical gaze. The book includes contributions from leading feminist philosophers, medical professionals, and academics in medicine and law, and offers pioneering analysis relevant to lawyers and healthcare professionals with an interest in medical law and ethics; feminist theory; criminal law; tort law; and human rights law. (shrink)