How are Christians to live in such difficult times? Unique of all people, Christians are called to embrace a hopeful outlook on life. "Mere Hope" offers the core, Christ-centered perspective that all Christians share, and that Christians alone have to offer to a world filled with frustrations, pain, and disappointment. For those in darkness, dispair, and discouragement, for those in the midst of trials, suffering, and injustice, mere hope lives. The spirit of the age of cynicism. When our leaders, our (...) families, and our friends let us down at every turn, this ins't surprising. But we need another perspective; we need hope. Rather than reflecting resigned despair or distracted indifference, author Jason Duesing argues, our lives ought to be shaped by the gospel of Jesus -- a gospel of hope. (shrink)

In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives. We review the challenges to studying human extinction risks and, by way of example, estimate the cost effectiveness of preventing extinction-level asteroid impacts.

This chapter focuses on Ayn Rand's characteristic approach to metaphysical concepts and principles. It first concerns the axioms of existence and identity, their respective concepts, and then their validation and cognitive roles. The chapter also considers Rand's view of entities and causation. Next, it describes consciousness, and its dependence on existence (i.e., the primacy of existence). The chapter then discusses Rand's view of free will (a fundamental feature of human consciousness) and the related distinction Rand draws between metaphysically given and (...) man‐made facts. Just as free will is a case of causality, so too is it a case of identity. Rand's endorsement of self‐created character and free will is not an endorsement of the existentialist positions that human nature or identity is contrary to or negated by choice. The chapter concludes by describing the relationship between the primacy of existence and Rand's conception of objectivity. (shrink)

The Chacoan road system is an understudied aspect of a very unique culture in New Mexico. The extensive roads present important evidence to the social structure of the Chaco people. A few theories have been presented about the reason for the roads, such as economic, administrative and religion. This paper argues that the roads were used for military purposes, because the roads provided quick access to all satellite townships in the region.

Dialectic, as commonly approached, is not an analytic study, as the notion is defined in the paper. Where it is analytically approached, the result is pragmatic in nature, as well as syntactic and semantic. This paper lays the foundations of a purely formal analysis of conversations. This study is accordingly called "Conversation Theory". The key notions of "conversation", "dialogue", "conversation game", "rules of response", "epistemic community" and "channel of informations" are defined precisely, and an analysis of how these notions fit (...) together is given. Particular attention is given to distinguishing conversation theory from standard logic. The paper concludes by analysing a few sample conversation-games, indicating areas needing further research, by pointing out the simplification inherent in the sample games. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease Ontology (...) (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Taste metaphors provide a rich vocabulary for describing emotional experience, potentially serving as an adaptive mechanism for conveying abstract emotional concepts using concrete verbal references to our shared experience. We theorized that the popularity of these expressions results from the close association with hedonic valence shared by these two domains of experience. To explore the possibility that this affective quality underlies the semantic similarity of these domains, we used a behavioral “odd-one-out” task in an online (...) sample of 1059 participants in order to examine the semantic similarity of concepts related to emotion, taste, and color, another rich source of sensory metaphors. We found that the semantic similarity of emotion and taste concepts was greater than that of emotion and color concepts. Importantly, the similarity of taste and emotion concepts was strongly related to their similarity in hedonic valence, a relationship which was also significantly greater than that present between color and emotion. These results suggest that the common core of valence between taste and emotion concepts allows us to bridge the conceptual divide between our shared sensory environment and our internal emotional experience. (shrink)

Virtues, broadly understood as stable and robust dispositions for certain responses across morally relevant situations, have been a growing topic of interest in psychology. A central topic of discussion has been whether studies showing that situations can strongly influence our responses provide evidence against the existence of virtues (as a kind of stable and robust disposition). In this review, we examine reasons for thinking that the prevailing methods for examining situational influences are limited in their ability to test dispositional stability (...) and robustness; or, then, whether virtues exist. We make the case that these limitations can be addressed by aggregating repeated, cross-situational assessments of environmental, psychological and physiological variables within everyday life—a form of assessment often called ecological momentary assessment (EMA, or experience sampling). We, then, examine how advances in smartphone application (app) technology, and their mass adoption, make these mobile devices an unprecedented vehicle for EMA and, thus, the psychological study of virtue. We, additionally, examine how smartphones might be used for virtue development by promoting changes in thought and behavior within daily life; a technique often called ecological momentary intervention (EMI). While EMA/I have become widely employed since the 1980s for the purposes of understanding and promoting change amongst clinical populations, few EMA/I studies have been devoted to understanding or promoting virtues within non-clinical populations. Further, most EMA/I studies have relied on journaling, PDAs, phone calls and/or text messaging systems. We explore how smartphone app technology provides a means of making EMA a more robust psychological method, EMI a more robust way of promoting positive change, and, as a result, opens up new possibilities for studying and promoting virtues. (shrink)

The Gnostic World is an outstanding guide to Gnosticism, designed as a collection of critical studies by experts to both widen and deepen study in Gnostic movements and strands of speculation as a discrete "World" of human socio-spiritual life from the distant past until today. An international team of contributors examines these manifestations in a variety of contexts, from the ancient pre-Christian to the contemporary. The volume considers the intersection of Gnosticism with Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Indic practices and beliefs, (...) and also with such new religious movements as Theosophy, Scientology, Western Sufism, and the Nation of Islam. This illustrated handbook will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and researchers of Gnostic doctrine and history. (shrink)

Philosophers often suggest that their theories of free will are supported by our phenomenology. Just as their theories conflict, their descriptions of the phenomenology of free will often conflict as well. We suggest that this should motivate an effort to study the phenomenology of free will in a more systematic way that goes beyond merely the introspective reports of the philosophers themselves. After presenting three disputes about the phenomenology of free will, we survey the (limited) psychological research on the experiences (...) relevant to the philosophical debates and then describe some pilot studies of our own with the aim of encouraging further research. The data seem to support compatibilist descriptions of the phenomenology more than libertarian descriptions. We conclude that the burden is on libertarians to find empirical support for their more demanding metaphysical theories with their more controversial phenomenological claims. (shrink)

The relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior at work has remained elusive. In fact, inconsistent results in observed magnitudes and direction led Hood et al. (The psychology of religion: An empirical approach, 1996 ) to describe the relationship between religiosity and ethics as “something of a roller coaster ride.” Weaver and Agle (Acad Manage Rev 27(1):77–97, 2002 ) utilizing social structural versions of symbolic interactionism theory reasoned that we should not expect religion to affect ethical outcomes for all religious individuals; (...) rather, such a relationship likely depends on specific religious attitudes including religious motivation orientation (intrinsic RMO vs. extrinsic RMO), perceived sacred qualities of work (job sanctification), and views of God (VOG, loving vs. punishing). We examined the effects of these three religious attitudes on participants’ judgments of 29 ethically questionable vignettes. Consistent with symbolic interactionism theory, intrinsic RMO and having a loving view of God were both negatively related to endorsing ethically questionable vignettes, whereas extrinsic RMO was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. Unexpectedly, job sanctification was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic RMO moderated this relationship such that sanctifying one’s job was related to ethical judgments only for those who were: (a) low in intrinsic RMO or (b) high in extrinsic RMO. We reasoned based on symbolic interactionism theory that intrinsically motivated participants, in contrast to extrinsically motivated participants, may have utilized their religious beliefs as a guiding framework in making ethical judgments. (shrink)

Amidst the return of military personnel from post-9/11 conflicts, a construct describing the readjustment challenges of some has received increasing attention: moral injury. This term has been variably defined with mental health professionals more recently conceiving of it as a transgression of moral beliefs and expectations that are witnessed, perpetrated, or allowed by the individual. To the extent that morality is a system of conceptualizing right and wrong, individuals’ moral systems are in large measure developmentally and socially derived and interpreted. (...) Thus, in seeking to provide care and aid in reintegration for combat veterans, it is necessary to consider communities that have contributed to an individual’s formation and that might have participated in the interpretation of his/her suffering. This can take many forms, but given that morality is often complexly intertwined with issues of religion, faith, and spirituality for many individuals, and recognizing that much of the current focus on moral injury is emanating out of healthcare contexts, we devote particular attention to how chaplains might be more intentionally engaged in healthcare systems such as the Veterans Health Administration to provide non-judgmental, person-centered, culturally-relevant care rooted in communities of practice to veterans with moral injury. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein have done a service to the field by raising the fundamental issue of how the political process distorts well-intentioned efforts at behavioral public policy. We connect this argument to broader research on government failure, particularly public choice theory in economics. We further suggest ways that behavioral research can help identify and mitigate such failures.

The brain is an ever‐changing organ that encodes memories and directs behavior. Neuroanatomical studies have revealed structural plasticity of neural architecture, and advances in gene expression technology and epigenetics have demonstrated new mechanisms underlying the brain's dynamic nature. Stressful experiences challenge the plasticity of the brain, and prolonged exposure to environmental stress redefines the normative transcriptional profile of both neurons and glia, and can lead to the onset of mental illness. A more thorough understanding of normal and abnormal gene expression (...) is needed to define the diseased brain and improve current treatments for psychiatric disorders. The efforts to describe gene expression networks have been bolstered by microarray and RNA‐sequencing technologies. The heterogeneity of neural cell populations and their unique microenvironments, coupled with broad ranging interconnectivity, makes resolving this complexity exceedingly challenging and requires the combined efforts of single cell and systems level expression profiling to identify targets for therapeutic intervention. (shrink)

In De interpretatione 9, Aristotle argues against the fatalist view that if statements about future contingent singular events (e.g. ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ ‘There will not be a sea battle tomorrow’) are already true or false, then the events to which those statements refer will necessarily occur or necessarily not occur. Scholars have generally held that, to refute this argument, Aristotle allows that future contingent statements are exempt from either the principle of bivalence, or the law of (...) excluded middle. This paper offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s refutation of fatalism. According to this interpretation, each member of a pair of contradictory future contingent statements, in virtue of expressing modal necessity, is simply false. (shrink)

Background: Genomic analysis may reveal both primary and secondary findings with direct relevance to the health of probands’ biological relatives. Researchers question their obligations to return findings not only to participants but also to family members. Given the social value of privacy protection, should researchers offer a proband’s results to family members, including after the proband’s death? Methods: Preferences were elicited using interviews and a survey. Respondents included probands from two pancreatic cancer research resources, plus biological and nonbiological family members. (...) Hypothetical scenarios based on actual research findings from the two cancer research resources were presented; participants were asked return of results preferences and justifications. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed; survey data were analyzed descriptively. Results: Fifty-one individuals (17 probands, 21 biological relatives, 13 spouses/partners) were interviewed. Subsequently, a mailed survey was returned by 464 probands, 1,040 biological family members, and 399 spouses/partners. This analysis highlights the interviews, augmented by survey findings. Probands and family members attribute great predictive power and lifesaving potential to genomic information. A majority hold that a proband’s genomic results relevant to family members’ health ought to be offered. While informants endorse each individual’s choice whether to learn results, most express a strong moral responsibility to know and to share, particularly with the younger generation. Most have few concerns about sharing genetic information within the family; rather, their concerns focus on the health consequences of not sharing. Conclusions: Although additional studies in diverse populations are needed, policies governing return of genomic results should consider how families understand genomic data, how they value confidentiality within the family, and whether they endorse an ethics of sharing. A focus on respect for individual privacy—without attention to how the broad social and cultural context shapes preferences within families—cannot be the sole foundation of policy. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

Many philosophers maintain that an adequate metaphysical theory of social groups (e.g., baseball teams, rock bands, committees, and courts) will be one that is capable of accommodating social groups that may exist despite having no members. In this paper, I examine cases that motivate this position, cases where a social group seems to persist at some time despite having no members at that time. My aim here is twofold. First, I aim to show that we may accept that these motivating (...) cases are indeed possible without accepting that some social groups may exist despite having no members; second, I aim to show that the acceptance of the possibility of memberless social groups comes at a steep, theoretical cost. In particular, I will argue that the acceptance of memberless social groups comes at the cost of effectively preventing them from being the kinds of things that may interact with the material world. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 4, Page 415-436, November 2022. Recent debates over ideal theory have reinvigorated interest in the question of anarchy. Would a perfectly just society need—or even permit—a state? Ideal anarchists such as Jason Brennan, G.A. Cohen, Christopher Freiman, and Jacob Levy argue that strict compliance with justice obviates the need for a state. Ideal statists such as David Estlund, Gregory Kavka, and John Rawls think that coercive political institutions serve indispensable functions even in (...) ideal conditions. This paper defends ideal anarchism. Our argument begins by describing a camping trip inspired by Cohen that illustrates why an anarchist form of cooperation is more intrinsically desirable than the statist alternative. After detailing Rawls's ideal theory and Estlund's “nonconcessive” moral theory, we argue—contrary to Rawls, Estlund, and Kavka—that large-scale societies without moral imperfection do not need a state. (shrink)

Abstract Theories of personal well-being are typically developed so that they render verdicts on (a) how well-off a person is at a moment, (b) how well-off a person is over an interval of time, and (c) how good a whole life is for the person who lives it. Conative theories of welfare posit welfare-atoms that consist, e.g., in episodes of desire-satisfaction, aim-achievement, or values-realisation. Most extant conative theories are additive: they compute well-being over time - up to and including the (...) value of a whole life - by adding up the values of these welfare atoms. Here, it is shown that such atomistic, additive conative theories do not always generate plausible verdicts on (b) and (c) above. They imply that lives featuring incoherent plans and rapidly changing projects go surprisingly well for those who lived them. Holistic theories of well-being are often thought to provide a solution to problems like these. However, one of the best-known versions of welfare holism within the conative family, Rawls? rational life-preferentism, is based on the problematic assumption that there is one ideal life plan for each person. This paper presents a new form of paradigm-resemblance based conative holism that does not make this assumption and that explains the limits of additivity. (shrink)

The value problem in epistemology is rooted in a commonsense intuition to the effect that knowledge is more valuable than true belief. Call this the “guiding intuition.” The guiding intuition generates a problem in light of two additional considerations. The first is that knowledge is (roughly) justified or warranted true belief.[1] The second is that on certain popular accounts of justification or warrant (e.g. reliabilism), its value is apparently instrumental to and hence derivative from the value of true belief.[2] But (...) if knowledge is justified true belief and the value of justification is derivative from that of true belief, how is it that knowledge is more valuable than true belief? (shrink)

The ‘community principle’ is crucial to G. A. Cohen’s argument for socialism, because it is the best independent argument he has adduced for his strongly egalitarian conclusions. Cohen argues that even small differences in wealth ought to be prohibited because they bring us out of community with one another. In this paper, I show that his underlying premises lead to some repugnant conclusions, and thus should be rejected. If Cohen is right that even small differences in wealth can upset community, (...) then, by the very psychological mechanisms he identifies, we should think that other differences, such as differences in religion, conceptions of the good, race, or taste, should also upset community. Cohen is thus caught in a trap: the more strongly egalitarian his community principle is, the more it not only prohibits differences of wealth, but diversity of any kind, including the forms of diversity we should celebrate rather than reject. (shrink)

We systematically examined the content of the websites of 46 agencies that buy and sell human eggs to understand how they market themselves to both donors and recipients. We found that these websites use marketing techniques that obscure the realities of egg donation, presenting egg donation as a mutually beneficial and fulfilling experience. Sites emphasize egg donors' emotional fulfillment and address recipients' anxieties by stressing the ability to find the perfect “fit” or “match”, suiting recipients’“preferences”/“desires”, and even designing/customizing a child. (...) Agencies attempt to create a sense of connection between the recipients and donors by reporting donors' personal characteristics — e.g., interests/hobbies, traits, mood/temperament, and self-reported childhood behavior/memories. Sites present donors as caring/generous and smart/successful/beautiful. These data, the first to examine several key aspects of egg donation agency websites, reveal critical aspects of how these companies communicate to prospective donors and recipients, raising several ethical concerns. Websites frame information in ways that may bias consumers, making emotional appeals that may distract from appropriate risk/benefit assessments and obscure the ethical challenges of egg donation. These data highlight needs for improved practices, adherence to guidelines, and consideration of enhanced guidelines or policy. (shrink)

We first argue that there are cases of “blameless non-belief.” That is, some people—through no fault of their own—fail to enter into a conscious relationship with God. But if so, then it would be unjust of God to make certain particular goods depend upon one having a conscious relationship with God. So, given that God is just, then despite what some theists believe, a relationship with God cannot be a necessary condition for the attainment of these goods; there might, e.g., (...) be atheists in heaven, even assuming that theism is true. This implies that religion is a far less important component of people’s lives than many might think. (shrink)

In Religious but Not Religious, Jungian analyst Jason E. Smith explores the idea, expressed by C. G. Jung, that the religious sense is a natural and vital function of the human psyche. We suffer from its lack.

Energy efficiency and energy security are emerging concerns in climate change policy. But. there is little acknowledgment of energy justice issues. Marginalised and vulnerable communities may be disproportionately exposed to both climate change impacts (e.g. heat, flooding) and costs associated with energy transitions related to climate change mitigation and adaptation (e.g. particulate exposure from biofuel combustion). Climate change is producing energy-related impacts such as increased cooling costs. In some cases it threatens energy security. Higher electricity costs associated with ‘climate proofing’ (...) energy network infrastructure may exacerbate ‘fuel poverty’ - itself a form of injustice. In this paper we critically review the literature about multiple interrelations between energy policy, justice and climate change. We identify key issues, illuminate knowledge gaps, and synthesise findings to develop a conceptual model. We chart a research agenda and highlight policy implications. (shrink)

In the Twentieth Century, Logic and Philosophy of Language are two of the few areas of philosophy in which philosophers made indisputable progress. For example, even now many of the foremost living ethicists present their theories as somewhat more explicit versions of the ideas of Kant, Mill, or Aristotle. In contrast, it would be patently absurd for a contemporary philosopher of language or logician to think of herself as working in the shadow of any figure who died before the Twentieth (...) Century began. Advances in these disciplines make even the most unaccomplished of its practitioners vastly more sophisticated than Kant. There were previous periods in which the problems of language and logic were studied extensively (e.g. the medieval period). But from the perspective of the progress made in the last 120 years, previous work is at most a source of interesting data or occasional insight. All systematic theorizing about content that meets contemporary standards of rigor has been done subsequently. (shrink)