Tomasello argues that humans’ sense of moral obligation emerges early in development, relies on a shared “we,” and serves as the foundation of cooperation. This perspective complements our theoretical view of the human self as information agent. The shared “we” promotes not only proximal cooperative goals but also distal ones via the construction of shared understanding – it promotes culture.

The present debate over the creation and potential deployment of lethal autonomous weapons, or ‘killer robots’, is garnering more and more attention. Much of the argument revolves around whether such machines would be able to uphold the principle of noncombatant immunity. However, much of the present debate fails to take into consideration the practical realties of contemporary armed conflict, particularly generating military objectives and the adherence to a targeting process. This paper argues that we must look to the targeting process (...) if we are to gain a fuller picture of the consequences of creating or fielding lethal autonomous robots. This paper argues that once we look to how militaries actually create military objectives, and thus identify potential targets, we face an additional problem: the Strategic Robot Problem. The ability to create targeting lists using military doctrine and targeting processes is inherently strategic, and handing this capability over to a machine undermines existing comman.. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAutonomous weapons systems pose many challenges in complex battlefield environments. Previous discussions of them have largely focused on technological or policy issues. In contrast, we focus here on the challenge of trust in an AWS. One type of human trust depends only on judgments about the predictability or reliability of the trustee, and so are suitable for all manner of artifacts. However, AWSs that are worthy of the descriptor “autonomous” will not exhibit the required strong predictability in the complex, changing (...) contexts of war. Instead, warfighters need to develop deeper, interpersonal trust that is grounded in understanding the values, beliefs, and dispositions of the AWS. Current acquisition, training, and deployment processes preclude the development of such trust, and so there are currently no routes for a warfighter to develop trust in an AWS. We thus survey three possible changes to current practices in order to facilitate the type of deep trust that is required for appropri... (shrink)

The passage of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children in 2000 marked the first global effort to address human trafficking in 50 years. Since the passage of the UN Protocol international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and individual states have devoted significant resources to eliminating human trafficking. This article critically examines the impact of these efforts with reference to the trends, political, and empirical challenges in data collection and the limitations of international law. (...) I argue that current international law disproportionately addresses the criminal prosecution of traffickers at the expense of trafficking victims’ human rights, and has therefore not yet reached its full potential in the fight against human sex trafficking. (shrink)

Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey provide useful updates to the EI ability model and related concepts. However, they do not acknowledge conceptual limitations with the MSCEIT proportion scoring algorithm. In our view, failure to recognize these limitations has impeded refinements to the EI ability model and delayed support for positioning EI within the Cattell-Horn-Carroll three-stratum theory of intelligence. Fully appreciating algorithm-related issues justifies the reanalysis of MSCEIT data and may expand the range of metrics that are available to refine EI theory.

This article explores how US legal expansions narrow justice possibilities. Drawing from Joan Scott's work on experience, echo and reverberation, the article puts forth a method for reading the convergence of historical absences within legal subjectivity. In particular, it traces the denial of one Nigerian woman's US political asylum claim within the context of US handlings of Nigerian human rights cases focused on petroleum violence alongside the expansion of political asylum to include gender and sexual violence. The article accounts for (...) the production of gender within a larger context of colonial state violence and questions how gender becomes a viable legal category through a variety of violent histories that implicate the US. By reframing questions of feminist justice within the site of law, the article argues for a deeper engagement with discontinuous narratives, which read against our common sense understandings, as a first step in divesting in US legal privilege. (shrink)

Book Reviews Howard Williams, Kantian Review, FirstView Article.

This paper illustrates the interplay between theory development and data analysis by considering the ability of the rational expectations hypothesis to explain the empirical cointegration structure found in the term structure. It finds that although a standard no-arbitrage theory that incorporates rational expectations can explain some of the properties of Treasury Bill yields, this theoretical explanation is incomplete. A broader-based explanation that accounts for government debt and time-varying risk premia can improve predictions of yield movements, relative to those predictions based (...) solely on a bill yield spread. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Kant claimed that human beings have no duties to animals because they are not autonomous ends in themselves. I argue that Kant was wrong to exclude animals from the realm of moral consideration. Animals, although they do not set their own ends and thus cannot be regarded as ends in themselves, do have ends that are given to them by nature. As beings with ends, they stand between mere things that have no ends, and rational beings that are ends in (...) themselves. I propose a broader version of Kant's kingdom of ends, in which rational beings respect the ends of all other beings that have them, including animals. The moral status of animals would still be dependent on the existence of rational beings, but our duty to take their ends into account would be a direct duty to them, rather than being a covert duty to human beings. (shrink)

This study examines the similarities and differences in pre- and post-Sarbanes-Oxley corporate ethics codes and codes of conduct using the framework of structuration theory. Following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation in 2002 in the United States, publicly traded companies there undertook development and revision of their codes of ethics in response to new regulatory requirements as well as incentives under the U.S. Corporate Sentencing Guidelines, which were also revised as part of the SOX mandates. Questions that remain are (...) whether these new or revised codes are effective means of communicating changed ethical foci and attitudes in organizations. Centering resonance analysis (CRA) is used to identify differences and similarities across time and industries by analyzing word networks of 46 pre- and post-SOX corporate codes of ethics. Analyses focus on content and structure of generated word networks as well as resulting factors that emerged from the texts. Results are interpreted from the structuration perspective that content and structure of codes are constrained and enabled by system structures while they function to produce and reproduce those structures. Results indicate that corporate codes of ethics are formal discourses of ethics, laws, and control. Code structure has changed across time, with an increased emphasis on compliance in post-SOX codes. Implications for research and practice are discussed in light of findings. (shrink)

Three experiments introduced a recognition memory paradigm designed to investigate reported subjective awareness during retrieval. At study, in Experiments 1A and 2, words were either generated or read , while modality of presentation was manipulated in Experiment 1B. Word pairs were presented during test trials, and participants indicated if they contained an old word by responding “remember”, “know” or “new” in Experiments 1A and 1B, and by responding “strong no”, “weak no”, “weak yes”, or “strong yes” in Experiment 2. Participants (...) were then required to decide which of the 2 words was old. We demonstrated that the proportion measures used in the Remember Know paradigm substantially underestimated the influence of generation on familiarity resulting in an artificial dissociation between indices of knowing and remembering . We also found a qualitatively different pattern of forced-choice recognition performance as a function of claimed awareness. (shrink)

Technological advances in veterinary medicine have produced considerable progress in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases in animals. At the same time, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and owners of animals face increasingly complex situations that raise questions about goals of care and correct or reasonable courses of action. These dilemmas are frequently controversial and can generate conflicts between clients and health care providers. In many ways they resemble the ethical challenges confronted by human medicine and that spawned the creation of (...) clinical ethics committees as a mechanism to analyze, discuss, and resolve disagreements. The staff of the North Carolina State University Veterinary Hospital, a specialty academic teaching institution, wanted to investigate whether similar success could be achieved in the tertiary care veterinary setting. We discuss the background and rationale for this method, as well as the approach that was taken to create a clinical ethics committee. (shrink)

Review of extant research on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) link generally demonstrates a positive relationship. However, some arguments and empirical results have demonstrated otherwise. As a result, researchers have called for a contingency approach to this research stream, which moves beyond the basic question “does it pay to be green?” and instead asks “when does it pay to be green?” In answering this call, we provide a meta-analytic review of CEP–CFP literature in which we (...) identify potential moderators to the CEP–CFP relationship including environmental performance type (e.g., reactive vs. proactive performance), firm characteristics (e.g., large vs. small firms), and methodological issues (e.g., self-report measures). By analyzing these contingencies, this study attempts to provide a basis on which to draw conclusions regarding some inconsistencies and debates in the CEP–CFP research. Some of the results of the moderator analysis suggest that small firms benefit from environmental performance as much or more than large firms, US firms seem to benefit more than international counterparts, and environmental performance seems to have the strongest influence on market-measures of financial performance. (shrink)

Strangers to Nature brings together many of the leading scholars who are working to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. This volume will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about the human/non-human animal relationship that is currently taking place.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (TSE) has shaped African Americans’ views of the American health care system, contributing to a reluctance to participate in biomedical research and a suspicion of the medical system. This essay examines public discourses surrounding President Clinton’s attempt to restore African Americans’ trust by apologizing for the TSE. Through a narrative reading, we illustrate the failure of this text as an attempt to reconcile the United States Public Health Service and the African American public. We conclude by (...) noting the limitations of rhetoric when equal prominence is not given to policy proposals in national apologies. (shrink)

A modified Remember/Know paradigm was used to investigate reported subjective awareness during retrieval. Levels of processing was manipulated at study. Word pairs were presented during test trials, and participants were instructed to respond “remember” if they recollected one of the two words, “know” if the word was familiar in the absence of recollection, or “new” if they judged both words to be new. Participants were then required to indicate which of the 2 words was old . With the standard RK (...) proportions, deeper processing at study increased remember proportions and decreased know proportions, but this dissociation was not shown with the 2AFC proportion correct measure which instead demonstrated robust LOP effects for both remember and know trials, suggesting that the know proportion measure severely distorts the nature of LOP effects on familiarity. (shrink)

The present study used eye tracking methodology to examine rereading benefits for spatially transformed text. Eye movements were monitored while participants read the same target word twice, in two different low-constraint sentence frames. The congruency of perceptual processing was manipulated by either applying the same type of transformation to the word during the first and second presentations , or employing two different types of transformations across the two presentations of the word . Perceptual specificity effects were demonstrated such that fixation (...) times for the second presentation of the target word were shorter for the congruent condition compared to the incongruent condition. Moreover, we demonstrated an additional perceptually non-specific effect such that second reading fixation times were shorter for the incongruent condition relative to a baseline condition that employed a normal typography during the first presentation and a transformation during the second presentation. Both of these effects were similar in magnitude for high and low frequency words, and both effects persisted across a 1 week lag between the first and second readings. We discuss the present findings in the context of the distinction between conscious and unconscious memory, and the distinction between perceptually versus conceptually driven processing. (shrink)

The past several decades of research has produced many important insights into prevalence and correlates of academic dishonesty. While these studies have offered important contributions to our understanding of such cheating, we are in need of research that allows us to hear what students have to say about it. This paper begins to fill the relative void of student voices by presenting results from individual interviews with a sample of adolescents who acknowledge cheating despite believing that is wrong to do (...) so. Specifically, the present investigation uses a multi‐case research design to explore the phenomenon of belief–behaviour incongruity, as it relates to academic dishonesty, among a demographically and academically diverse group of high school students. Four distinct cases of BBI are presented, each representing a complex configuration of psychological, social, cultural and situational factors: unable, under‐interested, under pressure and unrepentant. Educational implications and suggestion for further research are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundWhen conducting research with Indigenous populations consent should be sought from both individual participants and the local community. We aimed to search and summarise the literature about methods for seeking consent for research with Indigenous populations.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted for articles that describe or evaluate the process of seeking informed consent for research with Indigenous participants. Guidelines for ethical research and for seeking consent with Indigenous people are also included in our review.ResultsOf 1447 articles found 1391 were excluded (...) ; 56 were relevant and included. Articles were categorised into original research that evaluated the consent process or publications detailing the process of seeking consent and guidelines for ethical research. Guidelines were categorised into international ; national and state/regional/local guidelines. In five studies based in Australia, Canada and The United States of America the consent process with Indigenous people was objectively evaluated. In 13 other studies interpreters, voice recording, videos, pictures, flipcharts and “plain language” forms were used to assist in seeking consent but these processes were not evaluated. Some Indigenous organisations provide examples of community-designed resources for seeking consent and describe methods of community engagement, but none are evaluated. International, national and local ethical guidelines stress the importance of upholding Indigenous values but fail to specify methods for engaging communities or obtaining individual consent. In the ‘Grey literature’ concerns about the consent process are identified but no solutions are offered.ConclusionConsultation with Indigenous communities is needed to determine how consent should be sought from the community and the individual, and how to evaluate this process. (shrink)

Using a policy-capturing approach with a broad student sample we examine how individuals’ economic, social and environmental values influence their propensity to engage in a broad range of sustainability-related corporate actions. We employ a multi-dimensional sustainability framework of corporate actions and account for both the positive and negative impacts associated with corporate activity—termed strength and concern actions, respectively. Strong economic values were found to increase the propensity for concern actions and the willingness to work in controversial industries. Individuals with balanced (...) values were as likely as those with strong economic values to pursue positive economic outcomes, but without the same downside potential for concern actions. We also found significant gender effects, with females being less likely to engage in concern actions and more supportive of social and environmental strength actions. (shrink)

An important debate in the reasoning literature concerns the extent to which inference processes are domain-free or domain-specific. Typically, evidence in support of the domain-specific position comprises the facilitation observed when abstract reasoning tasks are set in realistic context. Three experiments are reported here in which the sources of facilitation were investigated for contextualised versions of Raven's Progressive Matrices (Richardson, 1991) and non-verbal analogies from the AH4 test (Richardson & Webster, 1996). Experiment 1 confirmed that the facilitation observed for the (...) contextualised matrices was in part due to extraneous aspects of commentaries originally intended to activate domainspecific processes. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that the remainder of the facilitation for the matrices, and all of the facilitation for the analogies, could be explained by visual salience: Converting the item elements into realistic objects had enabled them and their transitions to be identified more easily. Hence, performance at simplified abstract items was as good as, or better than, at contextualised items. It is concluded that facilitation effects cannot be interpreted as showing that domain-specific processes constitute a self-contained system separate from domain-free processes. In turn, this means that domain-free processes cannot be dismissed as being unimportant for reasoning. (shrink)

For nearly two decades, the process of reviewing the ethical merit of research involving human subjects has been based on the application of principles initially described in the U.S. National Commission's Belmont Report, and later articulated more fully by Beauchamp and Childress in their Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Recently, the use of ethical principles for deliberating about moral problems in medicine and research, referred to in the pejorative sense as “principlism”, has come under scrutiny. In this paper we argue that (...) these principles can provide a foundation for the source of ethical appraisal of human research, but are not themselves wholly adequate for this purpose. Therefore, we further propose that principles should be understood as heuristics that can be “specified” as described by DeGrazia , and that the principle‐based approach should be supplemented by formally incorporating “sensitivity to context” into the evaluation of clinical trials. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that psychological time is a fundamental, inherent quality of consciousness that provides continuity and sequence to mental events—enabling memory. And, since memory is consciousness, psychological time enables the individual intentionality of consciousness. Levinas , on the other hand, argues that an individual’s past, in the most original sense, is the past of other. The irreducible alterity of one’s past sets the stage for the other who co-determines the meaning of the past. This paper is about the (...) exploration cultural memory within the context of a Caucasian doctoral student entering into an African-American community during an internship, who finds that cultural memories are remarkably more complicated than the propositional description of historic events. The paper further explores how cultural memory is not a record of “what happened” but a sociolinguistic creative meaning making process. Histories can be contested. Memory, on the other hand, never adheres to the strict true or false dichotomy. Memory is like searching for the Divine, it cannot be found, only revealed in mysterious and small details. Memory, is the intruding of the infinite, creating as an effect the idea of a finite , they are not “representations” of the past nor are they a kind of mnemonic system of subjectivism to mediate all of consciousness. (shrink)