Cockfighting is an ancient sport that has deep roots in rural parts of the world and in certain areas of the United States. It also has great symbolic significance to its practitioners and aficionados as an affirmation of masculine identity in a increasingly complex and diverse era. Although the activity is illegal in most jurisdictions, it continues, generally in a covert setting. Because cockfighting is subject to criminal sanction and informal social disapproval, cockfighters have developed rationalizations which they use among (...) themselves and offer to outsiders. These rationalizations are complex; some are overtly religious in nature. Cockfighters do more than merely talk about their pastime - they actively engage in formal and informal lobbying to keep criminal penalties for their activity at a low level of severity. As the nation continues to urbanize, these lobbying efforts, while effective in the past, are gradually losing legislative support. For a number of reasons, the pastime is losing respectability and adherents and will probably be criminalized nationwide before the end of the century.Cockfighting is an ancient sport that has deep roots in rural parts of the world and in certain areas of the United States. It also has great symbolic significance to its practitioners and aficionados as an affirmation of masculine identity in a increasingly complex and diverse era. Although the activity is illegal in most jurisdictions, it continues, generally in a covert setting. Because cockfighting is subject to criminal sanction and informal social disapproval, cockfighters have developed rationalizations which they use among themselves and offer to outsiders. These rationalizations are complex; some are overtly religious in nature. Cockfighters do more than merely talk about their pastime - they actively engage in formal and informal lobbying to keep criminal penalties for their activity at a low level of severity. As the nation continues to urbanize, these lobbying efforts, while effective in the past, are gradually losing legislative support. For a number of reasons, the pastime is losing respectability and adherents and will probably be criminalized nationwide before the end of the century. (shrink)

How do things persist? Are material objects spread out through time just as they are spread out through space? Or is temporal persistence quite different from spatial extension? This key question lies at the heart of any metaphysical exploration of the material world, and it plays a crucial part in debates about personal identity and survival. This book explores and compares three theories of persistence — endurance, perdurance, and stage theories — investigating the ways in which they attempt to account (...) for the world around us. Having provided valuable clarification of its two main rivals, the book concludes by advocating stage theory. Such a basic issue about the nature of the physical world naturally has close ties with other central philosophical problems. This book includes discussions of change and parthood, of how we refer to material objects at different times, of the doctrine of Humean supervenience, and of the modal features of material things. In particular, it contains new accounts of the nature of worldly vagueness, and of what binds material things together over time, distinguishing the career of a natural object from an arbitrary sequence of events. Each chapter concludes with a reflection about the impact of these metaphysical debates upon questions about our personal identity and survival. (shrink)

This collection of essays by eminent philosopher Fred Dretske brings together work on the theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind spanning thirty years. The two areas combine to lay the groundwork for a naturalistic philosophy of mind. The fifteen essays focus on perception, knowledge, and consciousness. Together, they show the interconnectedness of Dretske's work in epistemology and his more contemporary ideas on philosophy of mind, shedding light on the links which can be made between the two. The first (...) section of the book argues the point that knowledge consists of beliefs with the right objective connection to facts; two essays discuss this conception of knowledge's implications for naturalism. The next section articulates a view of perception, attempting to distinguish conceptual states from phenomenal states. A naturalized philosophy of mind, and thus a naturalized epistemology, is articulated in the third section. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students, and will also be of interest to cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers of biology. (shrink)

This paper proposes a third meditation-category—automatic self-transcending— to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automaticself-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, (...) included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automaticself-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects. (shrink)

"Taken as a trilogy, _consent not to be a single being_ is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of _Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination_ In _The Universal Machine_—the concluding volume to his landmark trilogy _consent not to be a single being_—Fred Moten presents a suite of three essays on Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, and Frantz Fanon in which he (...) explores questions of freedom, capture, and selfhood. In trademark style, Moten considers these thinkers alongside artists and musicians such as William Kentridge and Curtis Mayfield while interrogating the relation between blackness and phenomenology. Whether using Levinas's idea of escape in unintended ways, examining Arendt's antiblackness through Mayfield's virtuosic falsetto and Anthony Braxton's musical language, or showing how Fanon's form of phenomenology enables black social life, Moten formulates blackness as a way of being in the world that evades regulation. Throughout _The Universal Machine_—and the trilogy as a whole—Moten's theorizations of blackness will have a lasting and profound impact. (shrink)

Review of Beauty and Revolution in Science, by JW McAllister.

"Taken as a trilogy, _consent not to be a single being_ is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of _Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination_ In _Stolen Life_—the second volume in his landmark trilogy _consent not to be a single being_—Fred Moten undertakes an expansive exploration of blackness as it relates to black life and the collective refusal of social (...) death. The essays resist categorization, moving from Moten's opening meditation on Kant, Olaudah Equiano, and the conditions of black thought through discussions of academic freedom, writing and pedagogy, non-neurotypicality, and uncritical notions of freedom. Moten also models black study as a form of social life through an engagement with Fanon, Hartman, and Spillers and plumbs the distinction between blackness and black people in readings of Du Bois and Nahum Chandler. The force and creativity of Moten's criticism resonate throughout, reminding us not only of his importance as a thinker, but of the continued necessity of interrogating blackness as a form of sociality. (shrink)

In this article, I shall contend that Rawlsian public reason liberalism (PRL) is in tension with non-anthropocentric environmentalism. I will argue that many reasonable citizens reject non-anthropocentric values, and PRL cannot allow them to be used as the justification for ecological policies. I will analyse attempts to argue that PRL can incorporate non-anthropocentric ideas. I shall consider the view, deployed by theorists such as Derek Bell and Mark A. Michael, that PRL can make a distinction between constitutional essentials and non-essentials, (...) and therefore ecocentric values can be employed when only non-essentials are at stake. I will also consider Simon Hailwood’s argument that PRL can incorporate concern for nature based on its ‘otherness’. I shall conclude that both positions fail to rebut the claim that PRL excludes non-anthropocentric viewpoints. I will consider the question of whether PRL’s exclusion of non-anthropocentric ethics is a problem, and I shall show that appealing to purely anthropocentric arguments leads to a variety of unpalatable conclusions. I will suggest that comprehensive liberalism can include non-anthropocentric concerns, and hence is superior from an environmental perspective. (shrink)

When people go shopping for gametes, their first and most important criterion is the donor's race. In so choosing, they are making wrong and invidious assumptions about what race is. They are also assuming that their child will develop her sense of self within those parameters. The effect is harmful both for children and for society at large. People should be able to recognize racial categories as they construct their own identities, but those categories should not limit their self‐identification from (...) the very outset. (shrink)

By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the (...) source of this lenient assessment? In this contentious new book, one of our leading philosophers argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments. Through a detailed look at how these tendencies operate, Unger shows that, on the good morality that we already accept, the fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. By uncovering the eminently sensible ethics that we've already embraced fully, and by confronting us with empirical facts and with easily followed instructions for lessening serious suffering appropriately and effectively, Unger's book points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy. (shrink)

For much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an "art of living." This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of (...) these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Why does each of these philosophers—each fundamentally concerned with his own originality—return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterizes the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind. How Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. No tenets are proposed. Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. This, Nehamas shows, is what allowed Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault to return to Socrates as a model without thereby compelling them to imitate him. This highly readable, erudite study argues for the importance of the tradition within Western philosophy that is best described as "the art of living" and casts Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault as the three major modern representatives of this tradition. Full of original ideas and challenging associations, this work will offer new ways of thinking about the philosophers Nehamas discusses and about the discipline of philosophy itself. (shrink)

In _I Can Learn from You_, Michael Reichert and Richard Hawley—the authors of _Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys_—set out to probe deeply into the relational dynamics that help boys succeed as learners. Drawing on interviews with students and teachers in thirty-five schools across six countries, they examine the particular ways boys extend and receive empathy—modes of interaction that remain consistent across a wide range of schools, teachers, countries, and cultures. The book shows how teachers can help boys form productive learning (...) relationships and how schools can support the development of teachers’ relational capacities. At the heart of the book is the belief that educators must—and can—put relational teaching at the center of school life. (shrink)

Arnold and Bowie (2003) attempt to derive ethical constraints on the actions of the managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs), orthe MNEs themselves, from a Kantian perspective. We contest Arnold and Bowie’s claims regarding MNE duties, in particular that MNEs have a duty to pay a subsistence wage above market levels. We conclude that even within Arnold and Bowie’s Kantian framework such a duty does not properly emerge. In addition, we argue that the account of coercion used by Arnold and Bowie (...) does not serve their purposes. Arnold and Bowie address consequentialist issues by arguing that their conclusions are not undercut by economic considerations regarding unemployment. We argue that Arnold and Bowie have misread the economic literature in this regard. (shrink)

A motivational system approach to avoidance behavior is presented. According to this approach, a motivational state increases the probability of relevant response patterns and establishes the appropriate or “ideal” consummatory stimuli as positive reinforcers. In the case of feeding motivation, for example, hungry rats are likely to explore and gnaw, and to learn to persist in activities correlated with the reception of consummatory stimuli produced by ingestion of palatable substances. In the case of defense motivation, fearful rats are likely to (...) flee or freeze, and to learn to persist in activities correlated with consummatory stimuli produced by flight from a dangerous place. Defense system activation is distinct from alarm reactions. The latter prepare the animal for probable noxious events, involve relatively intense negative affect and extinguish rapidly in situations where the noxious event no longer occurs. In contrast, defense system activation potentiates innate and modified defense reactions, thus preparing the animal for possible, but not necessarily probable, noxious events; it involves little or no negative affect and extinguishes very slowly when the noxious event no longer occurs. With these assumptions and the resulting model we attempt to resolve several long-standing problems in avoidance learning, including the low correlation between negative affect and avoidance performance, differential rates of extinction for avoidance performance and conditioned emotional responses, and evidence that some avoidance responses are much more easily learned than others. In addition, the model has implications for the study of parallels between appetitive and aversive motivation, sign tracking in aversive conditioning, and orientation of flight responses. Historical antecedents and alternative approaches are discussed. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in ethical consumer behaviour research, ambiguity remains regarding what motivates consumers to purchase ethical products. While researchers largely attribute the growth of ethical consumerism to an increase in ethical consumer concerns and motivations, widened distribution of ethical products, such as fairtrade, questions these assumptions. A model that integrates both individual and societal values into the theory of planned behaviour is presented and empirically tested to challenge the assumption that ethical consumption is driven by ethical considerations alone. Using (...) data sourced from fairtrade shoppers across the UK, structural equation modelling suggests that fairtrade purchase intention is driven by both societal and self-interest values. This dual value pathway helps address conceptual limitations inherent in the underlying assumptions of existing ethical purchasing behaviour models and helps advance understanding of consumers’ motivation to purchase ethical products. (shrink)

Examines the origins of life on earth, analyzes the Darwinian theory of evolution, and argues that life is the result of a deliberate plan.

Student-generated video creation assessments are an innovative and emerging form of assessment in higher education. Academic staff may be understandably reluctant to transform assessment practices without robust evidence of the benefits and rationale for doing so and some guidance regarding how to do so successfully. A systematic approach to searching the literature was conducted to identify relevant resources, which generated key documents, authors and internet sources which were thematically analysed. This comprehensive critical synthesis of literature is presented here under the (...) headings of findings from literature, relevance of digital capabilities, understanding the influence of local context and resources, and pedagogical considerations. Student-generated video creation for assessment is shown to have several benefits, notably in supporting development of digital and communication skills relevant to today’s world and in enhancing learning. As an emerging innovation within assessment, intentionally planning and supporting a change management process with both students and staff is required. The importance of alignment to learning outcomes, context and resources, choice of video format to desired skills development, and to relevance beyond graduation is emphasised for video creation in assessment to be used successfully. Video creation for assessment is likely to grow in popularity and it is hoped the evidence of benefits, rationale and guidance as to how to do this effectively presented here will support this transformation. Further research to consider video creation for assessment with individuals rather than collaborative group assessments, and to establish academic rigour and equivalence would be beneficial. (shrink)

Fred Miller offers a controversial reappraisal of the Politics, suggesting that nature, justice, and rights are central to Aristotle's political thought. He sheds new light on Aristotle's relation to modern natural rights theorists, and to the current liberalism-communitarianism debate.

This book provides an introduction to measurement theory for non-specialists and puts measurement in the social and behavioural sciences on a firm mathematical foundation. Results are applied to such topics as measurement of utility, psychophysical scaling and decision-making about pollution, energy, transportation and health. The results and questions presented should be of interest to both students and practising mathematicians since the author sets forth an area of mathematics unfamiliar to most mathematicians, but which has many potentially significant applications.

We will show that there is a strong form of emergence in cell biology. Beginning with C.D. Broad’s classic discussion of emergence, we distinguish two conditions sufficient for emergence. Emergence in biology must be compatible with the thought that all explanations of systemic properties are mechanistic explanations and with their sufficiency. Explanations of systemic properties are always in terms of the properties of the parts within the system. Nonetheless, systemic properties can still be emergent. If the properties of the components (...) within the system cannot be predicted, even in principle, from the behavior of the system’s parts within simpler wholes then there also will be systemic properties which cannot be predicted, even in principle, on basis of the behavior of these parts. We show in an explicit case study drawn from molecular cell physiology that biochemical networks display this kind of emergence, even though they deploy only mechanistic explanations. This illustrates emergence and its place in nature. (shrink)

The management literature is replete with studies on business ethics. Unfortunately, most of these studies have dealt exclusively with ethics in large businesses. Although a handful of studies can be found on small business ethics, none has paid attention to the issue of ethics in small minority businesses. Similarly, several studies on ethics have utilized the Wood et al. (1988) 16-vignette ethics scale, although reliability and validity issues associated with the scale have never been fully addressed. In this study, a (...) purification (via content analysis) of the above mentioned scale was performed. Three reliable factors were extracted from the purified scale. They were used to investigate the ethics in small minority businesses. The study found an association between business ethics and demographic and company-related variables. In the case of age of respondents, findings ran counter the usual relationship of age being positively related to ethical attitudes. The implications of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)