At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Music training is associated with enhanced executive function but little is known about the extent to which harmonic aspects of musical training are associated with components of executive function. In the current study, an array of cognitive tests associated with one or more components of executive function, was administered to young adult musicians and non-musicians. To investigate how harmonic aspects of musical training relate to executive function, a test of the ability to compose a four-part harmony was developed and administered (...) to musicians. We tested the working hypothesis that musicians would outperform non-musicians on measures of executive function, and that among musicians, the ability to harmonize would correlate positively with measures of executive function. Results indicate that musicians outperformed non-musicians on the Tower of London task, a measure of planning and problem-solving. Group differences were not detected on tasks more selective for inhibitory control, conflict resolution, or working memory. Among musicians, scores on the harmony assessment were positively correlated with performance of the Tower of London task. Taken together, the current results support a strong relationship between musicianship and planning and problem solving abilities, and indicate that the ability to harmonize is associated with components of executive function contributing to planning and problem solving. (shrink)

The information contained within the linear sequence of bases (the genome) must be faithfully replicated in each cell cycle, with a balance of constancy and variation taking place over the course of evolution. Recently, it has become clear that additional information important for genetic regulation is contained within the chromatin proteins associated with DNA (the epigenome). Epigenetic information also must be faithfully duplicated in each cell cycle, with a balance of constancy and variation taking place during the course of development (...) to achieve differentiation while maintaining identity within cell lineages. Both the genome and the epigenome are synthesized at the replication fork, so the events occurring during S‐phase provide a critical window of opportunity for eliciting change or maintaining existing genetic states. Cells discriminate between different states of chromatin through the activities of proteins that selectively modify the structure of chromatin. Several recent studies report the localization of certain chromatin modifying proteins to replication forks at specific times during S‐phase. Since transcriptionally active and inactive chromosome domains generally replicate at different times during S‐phase, this spatiotemporal regulation of chromatin assembly proteins may be an integral part of epigenetic inheritance. BioEssays 25:647–656, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

No mental phenomenon is more central than consciousness to an adequate understanding of the mind. Nor does any mental phenomenon seem more stubbornly to resist theoretical treatment. Consciousness is so basic to the way we think about the mind that it can be tempting to suppose that no mental states exist that are not conscious states. Indeed, it may even seem mysterious what sort of thing a mental state might be if it is not a conscious state. On this way (...) of looking at things, if any mental states do lack consciousness, they are exceptional cases that call for special explanation or qualification. Perhaps dispositional or cognitive states exist that are not conscious, but nonetheless count as mental states. (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

The literature on ‘institutional corruption’ has paradoxically missed what seems a central application of this expression, its application to institutions that are corrupt. In this article, I defend a view of what it is for an institution to be corrupt, in terms of the motivation of the institution’s rules. If an individual office-holder or role-occupant is corrupt when their actions are improperly motivated by private gain, then an institution is corrupt when the same can be said of its rules: the (...) institution’s rules are improperly motivated by private gain. Or if we should prefer a narrower account of corrupt conduct by individuals, as necessarily involving transactions with third parties, a correspondingly narrower account of an institution’s corruptness can also be given. Under either of these versions of my view, an institution’s being corrupt is to be distinguished from something else that might be called ‘institutional corruption’, namely the corruption of institutions, in the sense of their being degraded or undermined. I argue that some of the literature’s best-known accounts of ‘institutional corruption’ are best interpreted as being about the degrading of institutions, rather than about what it is for an institution to be corrupt. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. rightly consider how cultural variation may influence estimates of heritability by contributing to environmental sources of variation. We disagree, however, with the idea that generalisable estimates of heritability are ever a plausible aim. Heritability estimates are always context-specific, and to suggest otherwise is to misunderstand what heritability can and cannot tell us.

This anthology brings together readings mainly from contemporary philosophers, but also from writers of the past two centuries, on the philosophy of mind. Some of the main questions addressed are: is a human being really a mind in relation to a body; if so, what exactly is this mind and how it is related to the body; and are there any grounds for supposing that the mind survives the disintegration of the body?

Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise? Many theories of democracy answer by appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure, leaving aside whether it makes good decisions. In Democratic Authority, David Estlund offers a groundbreaking alternative based on the idea that democratic authority and legitimacy must depend partly on democracy's tendency to make good decisions.Just as with verdicts in jury trials, Estlund argues, the authority and legitimacy (...) of a political decision does not depend on the particular decision being good or correct. But the "epistemic value" of the procedure--the degree to which it can generally be accepted as tending toward a good decision--is nevertheless crucial. Yet if good decisions were all that mattered, one might wonder why those who know best shouldn't simply rule.Estlund's theory--which he calls "epistemic proceduralism"--avoids epistocracy, or the rule of those who know. He argues that while some few people probably do know best, this can be used in political justification only if their expertise is acceptable from all reasonable points of view. If we seek the best epistemic arrangement in this respect, it will be recognizably democratic--with laws and policies actually authorized by the people subject to them. (shrink)

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

The model of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) defended in the ASBH Core Competencies report has gained significant traction among scholars and healthcare providers. On this model, the aim of CEC is to facilitate deliberative reflection and thereby resolve conflicts and clarify value uncertainty by invoking and pursuing a process of consensus building. It is central to the model that the facilitated consensus falls within a range of allowable options, defined by societal values: prevailing legal requirements, widely endorsed organizational policies, and (...) professional standards of practice and codes of conduct. Moreover, the model stipulates that ethics consultants must refrain from giving substantive recommendations regarding how parties to a moral disagreement in the clinic should evaluate their options. We argue that this model of CEC is incomplete, because it wrongly assumes that what counts as the proper set of allowable options among which the parties are to deliberate will itself always be clearly discernible. We illustrate this problem with a recent case on which one of us consulted—a neonate born with trisomy 18 (T18). We try to show that law, policy, and standards of practice reveal no clear answer to the question posed by the case: namely, whether forgoing gastrostomy tube feedings for a baby with T18 is allowable. We suggest there may be other kinds of cases in which it may simply be unsettled whether a given choice falls within the set of allowable options within which consensus is to be facilitated. What should an ethicist do when confronting such unsettled cases? We agree with the facilitation model that an ethicist should remain neutral among the allowable options, when it is clear what the allowable options are. But, in unsettled cases, the role of a consultant should be expanded to include a process of moral inquiry into what the allowable options should be. We end by raising the issue of whether this means an ethicist should share his or her own conclusions or views about the allowability of a given clinical option. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Perfection of the Universe According to Aquinas: A Teleological Cosmology. By OLIVA BLANCHETTE. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii + 334. $35.00 (cloth). This work represents a significant and most welcome contribution to Thomistic interpretation as well as to the broader study of medieval philosophy. While its tone is unpretentious, its theme, the structure and purpose of the whole created universe, (...) is crucial for Aquinas's philosophy. Those familiar with Thomas's corpus know how often this theme appears-frequently supplying the foundation for the argument-and know equally well how elusive it becomes when one seeks an extended treatment of it. Hence, to have recognized the chief elements of the larger picture, to have identified and collected the pertinent texts, and to have ordered and synthesized them as this book has done represents a major and lasting scholarly achievement. Moreover, while primarily concerned with Aquinas's own philosophical thought, the book also places him in conversation with a number of classical and modern thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and Collingwood. Blanchette begins his study by clarifying the very notion of perfection (Chapter 1). It first refers, in the order of our conceptions, to the completion of a process. A thing is perjectum, "thoroughly made," when its process of generation is finished. Motion, in fact, is precisely a passage from imperfection to perfection. By extension, the term can then be applied apart from motion to anything which lacks nothing it should have, or, as in the case of God, which lacks nothing at all. Analyzing the Greek and Latin terms connected with generation and perfection (poiein/facere; genesthai/fieri; teleion/perfectum; telos/finis; teleiosislperfectio) Blanchette shows why it is that for the Greeks the infinite usually signified imperfection, while Aquinas was able to conceive of an infinity which was perfection. For the present study, a crucial distinction among the kinds of perfection is that between first and second perfection, i.e., between a being's "ontological " perfection, the complete generation of its nature with all its natural powers, and its "operational" perfection, the activities carried out by means of those powers. Only in its operations does a being attain its ultimate perfection, which always lies in a relation to something exterior to itself. This fundamental distinction between first and second perfection underlies the basic 485 486 BOOK REVIEWS structure of the book. Part One describes the universe in its first perfection, i.e., the constituent parts whose presence gives it its integrity. Part Two takes up the activities of the parts which taken together constitute the order within the universe and by which the universe attains to its external good, God himself. At the level of first perfection, the universe is considered to be perfect first of all simply because it is the universe, i.e., the whole of what is (Chapter 2). As a whole, it is perfect (complete) in comparison to any of its parts. Thus it is a priori impossible to have plural universes, since each "universe" would in fact be only a part of the whole which was the universe. Second, simply as a body, the universe enjoys the perfection of having all three dimensions. Third, not having any bodies outside it, the universe does not share the imperfection of being limited by bodies external to it, as does every particular body. Finally, in containing the perfection of each kind of being, the universe possesses a universal perfection not shared by any one kind of being. These perfections belong to the universe simply qua universe. Beyond these, however, we can speak of the perfection of this universe. As Blanchette points out, for Aquinas there is no "best of all possible worlds" in the sense that God could not create a better one. Yet we can speak of the perfection (or completeness) of this world that God, for reasons not accessible to human reason, actually chose to create. The perfection of this universe is such that were any new essential parts, i.e., new species, added, it would no longer be the same universe, but rather a new universe of which the old now constituted a part... (shrink)

In this article I take up a central question posed by the article jointly authored with Bill Winslade in this issue of JCE: What should be the role of clinical ethics consultants (CECs) in (what we call) an unsettled case: that is, a situation in which the range of allowable choices, among which the parties to a bioethical disagreement must select, cannot be clearly or completely specified? I argue here that CECs should, in such cases, guide the parties by presenting (...) their own reasoned conclusions about what the scope of allowable choices should be taken to include. Since this position challenges the received view that CECs must not express their own moral positions or conclusions in their role as ethicists, I try to defend my view of the CEC’s role in unsettled cases against several objections. (shrink)

Universalism vs. Communitarianism focuses on the question, raised by recent work in normative philosophy, of whether ethical norms are best derived and justified on the basis of universal or communitarian standards. It is unique in representing both Continental and American points of view and both the older and a younger generation of scholars. The essays introduce the key issues involved in universalism vs. communitarianism and take up ethics in historical perspective, practical reason and ethical responsibility, justification, application and history, and (...) communitarian alternatives. Based on a special issue of the Journal Philosophy and Social Criticism, the book includes two additional essays by Chantal Mouffe and by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus. David Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and editor of Philosophy and Social Criticism. Contents: introduction, David, Rasmussen. Universalisms: Procedural, Contextualist, and Prudential, Alessandro Ferrara. Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism: Toward a Critical Theory of Social Justice, Gerald Doppelt. The Liberal/Communitarian Controversy and Communicative Ethics, Kenneth Baynes. Discourse Ethics and Civil Society, Jean Cohen. Equality, Political Order and Ethics: Hobbes and the Systematics of Democratic Rationality, Rolf Zimmermann. Atomism and Ethical Life: On Hegel's Critique of the French Revolution, Axel Honneth. The Gadamer-Habermas Debate Revisited: The Question of Ethics, Michael Kelly. What Is and What Is Not Practical Reason? Agnes Heller. Adorno, Heidegger, and Postmodernity, Hauke Brunkhorst. Impartial Application of Moral and Legal Norms: A Contribution to Discourse Ethics, Klaus Günther. An Ethics, Politics, and History, Jürgen Habermas in an interview conducted by Jean-Marc Ferry. Rawls: Political Philosophy without Politics, Chantal Mouffe. What Is Morality: A Phenomenological Account of the Development of Ethical Expertise, Hubert L Dreyfus, Stuart E. Dreyfus. Universalism and Communitarianism: A Bibliography, Michael Zilles. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

Ned BlockÕs influential distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness has become a staple of current discussions of consciousness. It is not often noted, however, that his distinction tacitly embodies unargued theoretical assumptions that favor some theoretical treatments at the expense of others. This is equally so for his less widely discussed distinction between phenomenal consciousness and what he calls reflexive consciousness. I argue that the distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, as Block draws it, is untenable. Though mental states that (...) have qualitative character plainly differ from those with no mental qualities, a mental stateÕs being conscious is the same property for both kinds of mental state. For one thing, as Block describes access consciousness, that notion does not pick out any property that we intuitively count as a mental stateÕs being conscious. But the deeper problem is that BlockÕs notion of phenomenal consciousness, or phenomenality, is ambiguous as between two very different mental properties. The failure to distinguish these results in the begging of important theoretical questions. Once the two kinds of phenomenality have been distinguished, the way is clear to explain qualitative consciousness by appeal to a model such as the higher-order-thought hypothesis. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved. (shrink)

"My work has had nothing to do with gay liberation," Michel Foucault reportedly told an admirer in 1975. And indeed there is scarcely more than a passing mention of homosexuality in Foucault's scholarly writings. So why has Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984, become a powerful source of both personal and political inspiration to an entire generation of gay activists? And why have his political philosophy and his personal life recently come under such withering, normalizing scrutiny by commentators as (...) diverse as Camille Paglia, Richard Mohr, Bruce Bawer, Roger Kimball, and biographer James Miller? David M. Halperin's Saint Foucault is an uncompromising and impassioned defense of the late French philosopher and historian as a galvanizing thinker whose career as a theorist and activist will continue to serve as a model for other gay intellectuals, activists, and scholars. A close reading of both Foucault and the increasing attacks on his life and work, it explains why straight liberals so often find in Foucault only counsels of despair on the subject of politics, whereas gay activists look to him not only for intellectual inspiration but also for a compelling example of political resistance. Halperin rescues Foucault from the endless nature-versus-nurture debate over the origins of homosexuality ("On this question I have absolutely nothing to say," Foucault himself once remarked) and argues that Foucault's decision to treat sexuality not as a biological or psychological drive but as an effect of discourse, as the product of modern systems of knowledge and power, represents a crucial political breakthrough for lesbians and gay men. Halperin explains how Foucault's radical vision of homosexuality as a strategic opportunity for self-transformation anticipated the new anti-assimilationist, anti-essentialist brand of sexual identity politics practiced by contemporary direct-action groups such as ACT UP. Halperin also offers the first synthetic account of Foucault's thinking about gay sex and the future of the lesbian and gay movement, as well as an up-to-the-minute summary of the most recent work in queer theory. "Where there is power, there is resistance," Michel Foucault wrote in The History of Sexuality, Volume I. Erudite, biting, and surprisingly moving, Saint Foucault represents Halperin's own resistance to what he views as the blatant and systematic misrepresentation of a crucial intellectual figure, a misrepresentation he sees as dramatic evidence of the continuing personal, professional, and scholarly vulnerability of all gay activists and intellectuals in the age of AIDS. (shrink)

Remarks such as ‘I am in pain’ and ‘I think that it’s raining’ are puzzling, since they seem to literally describe oneself as being in pain or having a particular thought, but their conditions of use tend to coincide with unequivocal expressions of pain or of that thought. This led Wittgenstein, among others, to treat such remarks as expressing, rather than as reporting, one’s mental states. Though such expressivism is widely recognized as untenable, Bar-On has recently advanced a neo-expressivist view, (...) on which such remarks exhibit characteristics of both expressions of mental states and reports of those states. I argue against any attempt to see such remarks as both reporting and expressing the same mental states, and that a correct account rests on distinguishing the truth conditions of such remarks from their conditions of use. (shrink)

Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from (...) 33 countries located on six continents and five islands. For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues toresource acquisitionin potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signalingreproductive capacitywere valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study. (shrink)

Striking experimental results by Benjamin Libet and colleagues have had an impor- tant impact on much recent discussion of consciousness. Some investigators have sought to replicate or extend Libet’s results (Haggard, 1999; Haggard & Eimer, 1999; Haggard, Newman, & Magno, 1999; Trevena & Miller, 2002), while others have focused on how to interpret those findings (e.g., Gomes, 1998, 1999, 2002; Pockett, 2002), which many have seen as conflicting with our commonsense picture of mental functioning.

An expanded and updated edition of this classic collection.

There is an awakening of interest in links between geography and moral philosophy, or ethics. This paper reviews a range of issues where common ground might be found on this new disciplinary interface. These issues include the historical geography of moralities, the notion of moral geographies, inclusion and exclusion in the context of the bounding of spaces, and the moral significance of distance and proximity, as well as the more familiar concern with social justice. Environmental ethics provides a link with (...) the physical side of the subject. Some suggestions are made as to the possible contribution of geography to the understanding of moral issues. (shrink)

We argued in our joint article that the facilitated consensus model of clinical ethics consultation is incomplete because it does not address the problem of what we have called “unsettled cases.” Sabrina Derrington and April Dworetz, Mark Aulisio, and Al Jonsen have each usefully challenged our claims and conclusions. In this brief article we respond to some of their arguments.