The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between mindful parenting, cognitive parental awareness, and adolescents’ subjective well-being. The study included 101 families consisting of a mother, a father, and an adolescent child aged 10 to 17, with a total of 69 female adolescents and 32 male adolescents. A general data questionnaire, mindful parenting questionnaire, and cognitive parental awareness questionnaire were administered to parents while adolescents completed a general data questionnaire, loneliness scale, life and family satisfaction scales, and (...) general self-esteem scale. The results showed that male adolescents were more satisfied with life and had higher self-esteem than female adolescents. Measures of parenting were significantly related between mothers and fathers. The results also suggest that mindful parenting and cognitive parental awareness are significant correlates to the subjective well-being of adolescents when it comes to fathers, but not to mothers. Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je ispitati povezanost između usredotočene svjesnosti u roditeljstvu, kognitivne roditeljske svjesnosti i subjektivne dobrobiti adolescenata. U istraživanju je sudjelovala 101 obitelj koju su činili majka, otac i dijete adolescentne dobi, u rasponu od 10 do 17 godina, i to 69 adolescentica i 32 adolescenta. Primijenjeni su upitnici općih podataka za adolescente i roditelje, upitnik usredotočene svjesnosti u roditeljstvu i upitnik kognitivne roditeljske svjesnosti, dok su adolescenti ispunili skale usamljenosti, zadovoljstva životom i obitelji te općeg samopoštovanja. Rezultati su pokazali da su adolescenti zadovoljniji životom i iskazuju više samopoštovanje u odnosu na adolescentice. Također, utvrđena je značajna povezanost između majki i očeva u većini mjera roditeljstva. Rezultati upućuju na zaključak da su usredotočena svjesnost u roditeljstvu i kognitivna roditeljska svjesnost značajni korelati subjektivne dobrobiti adolescenata kada je riječ o očevima, no ne i majkama. (shrink)

Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je ispitati povezanost između usredotočene svjesnosti u roditeljstvu, kognitivne roditeljske svjesnosti i subjektivne dobrobiti adolescenata. U istraživanju je sudjelovala 101 obitelj koju su činili majka, otac i dijete adolescentne dobi, u rasponu od 10 do 17 godina, i to 69 adolescentica i 32 adolescenta. Primijenjeni su upitnici općih podataka za adolescente i roditelje, upitnik usredotočene svjesnosti u roditeljstvu i upitnik kognitivne roditeljske svjesnosti, dok su adolescenti ispunili skale usamljenosti, zadovoljstva životom i obitelji te općeg samopoštovanja. Rezultati (...) su pokazali da su adolescenti zadovoljniji životom i iskazuju više samopoštovanje u odnosu na adolescentice. Također, utvrđena je značajna povezanost između majki i očeva u većini mjera roditeljstva. Rezultati upućuju na zaključak da su usredotočena svjesnost u roditeljstvu i kognitivna roditeljska svjesnost značajni korelati subjektivne dobrobiti adolescenata kada je riječ o očevima, no ne i majkama. (shrink)

This book examines the tension inherent in the waging of ethical war, and argues that war and its relationship to ethics need to be rethought fundamentally.

Maya Zehfuss critiques constructivist theories of international relations (currently considered to be at the cutting edge of the discipline) and finds them wanting and even politically dangerous. Zehfuss uses Germany's first shift toward using its military abroad after the end of the Cold War to illustrate why constructivism does not work and how it leads to particular analytical outcomes and forecloses others. She argues that scholars are limiting their abilities to act responsibly in international relations by looking towards constructivism as (...) the future. (shrink)

In the psychological literature, love is often seen as a construct inseparable from that of close, interpersonal relationships. As a result, it has been often assumed that the same motivational factors underlie both phenomena. This often leads researchers to propose that love does not exist in itself—that it is an emotion which stems solely from a need for attachment, fulfillment of reproductive aims, or for social exchange. The popular cultural imagination, however, perceives love as a unique, mysterious, altruistic, ever-lasting bond (...) between two people—a vision of love which is at odds with its supposed psychological origins. We propose that an ideal of love and its enactment in our culture is a result of two intertwining factors. Within the last few centuries, interpersonal relationships and love have replaced religion as islands of existential comfort. Toward this end, lovers project illusory meaning on their partners. The laborious and turbulent process of withdrawing these projections can lead to what many thinkers think “love” is: bestowal of value on another, and consequent respect for, and care for that person, unmotivated by one's own needs, within the context of a real relationship. (shrink)

In 2007 a social scientist and a designer created a spatial installation to communicate social science research about the regulation of emerging science and technology. The rationale behind the experiment was to improve scientific knowledge production by making the researcher sensitive to new forms of reactions and objections. Based on an account of the conceptual background to the installation and the way it was designed, the paper discusses the nature of the engagement enacted through the experiment. It is argued that (...) experimentation is a crucial way of making social science about science communication and engagement more robust. (shrink)

Given Descartes’ metaphysical and natural-philosophic commitments, it is very difficult to theorize the pregnant human being as a human being under his system. Specifically, given (1) Descartes’ account of generation, (2) his commitment to mechanistic explanations where bodies are concerned, (3) his reliance on a subtle individuating principle for human (and animal) bodies, and (4) his metaphysics of human beings, which include minds, bodies, and mind-body unions, there is no available human substance or entity which may clearly be the subject (...) of pregnancy. The incompatibility of any of the three options found in (4) with (1), (2), or (3), together with other undesirable consequences should any be selected, results in what I call the pregnancy problem. The pregnancy problem (henceforth, PP) is a previously unconsidered problem for the Cartesian philosophy. Given PP, commitment(s) (1), (2), (3) or (4), or a combination of these, would have to be revised for Descartes’ system to avoid a variety of tensions; alternately, counterintuitive consequences may have to be accepted. Ironically, given Descartes’ interest in generation and medicine more generally, the Cartesian framework struggles to accommodate pregnancy in human beings. This may have implications for the systematicity and sex-neutrality of dualist metaphysics in general. (shrink)

Responsible sustainable consumer behavior involves a complex pattern of environmental and social issues, in line with the view of sustainability as a construct with both environmental and social pillar. So far, environmental dimension was far more researched than social dimension. In this article, we investigate the antecedents of both environmentally and socially RSCB and willingness to behave in environmentally/socially responsible way. We include measures of concern, perceived consumer control/effectiveness, personal/social norms and ethical ideologies/obligation to better explain and extend the traditional (...) theory of planned behavior. Additionally, we test the impact of information availability about environmental or social impact on RSCB. Our findings on a representative sample of 426 respondents show that in general, antecedents of environmentally and socially responsible sustainable consumption are similar in their effect on consumer behavior, with personal norms, concern and ethical ideologies having the strongest impact on RSCB. When comparing both types of behavior, socially responsible behavior is more influenced by perceived behavioral control and possibly social norms than environmentally responsible behavior, while information availability plays its role for both behaviors. Sustainable responsible consumption can be achieved by embracing both dimensions of sustainability and consumers need to have a sense for both social and environmental issues. The complexity and struggles between doing what is good for environment and society could be the reason why consumers have difficulties achieving sustainable responsible consumption. (shrink)

The paper is based on the New Institutional Economic Theory, which emphasizes institutions as a vital component in the creation of wealth and economic growth. It is widely accepted that formal institutions change rapidly through political and legislative decisions. Informal institutions are deeply embedded in customs, tradition and inherited behavioral norms. Thus, change comes at a very slow pace. This research is focused on the business ethics segment of informal institutions.The paper is based on the effects of institutional changes on (...) the position and the slope of demand curve for ethical business behavior. Business people faced with opportunity costs that influenced their behavior. Additional statistical analyses provide evidence of business ethics perception, which is more expressed in the group of managers than in the administration group. Behavior of the middle-aged population differs significantly in comparison to other groups when deciding on ethical dilemmas in real business situations.Cet article s’inspire de la Nouvelle Economie Institutionnelle qui met l’accent sur les institutions en tant que composante fondamentale du processus de création de richesses et de la croissance économique, Il est généralement reconnu que les institutions formelles se modifient rapidement sous l’impulsion de décisions politiques et législatives. Les institutions informelles, quant à elles, sont profondément ancrées dans les coutumes, les traditions, et les normes de comportement héritées d’anciennes générations. Ainsi, dans le cas de ces institutions, le changement est beaucoup plus lent. Cet article met l’accent sur l’éthique des affaires en tant qu’une des composantes des institutions formelles.Une des idées qui sous-tend l’article est l’analyse des effets des changements institutionnels sur la position et la pente de la courbe de demande pour des comportements éthiques dans les affaires. Les hommes d’affaires font face à des coûts d’opportunité qui influencent leur comportement. Des analyses statistiques supplémentaires donnent la preuve de la perception de l’éthique des affaires, perception qui est plus aiguë parmi les managers que parmi les administratifs. Le comportement de la population d’âge intermédiaire diffère de manière significative de celui des autres groupes face à des dilemmes éthiques que suscitent certaines situations concrètes du monde des affaires. (shrink)

On the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world remains marked by violent conflict and the possibility of nuclear war. This seems an apt moment to ask whether the bombings have left a trace in our thinking. This article thus explores how particular articulations of their memory or, alternatively, failures to articulate such a memory, conjure up our world: how they represent and account for violence and how, if at all, they assign specific significance to nuclear (...) weapons. Reading two very different texts, Jacques Derrida’s ‘No Apocalypse, Not Now’ and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows, alongside each other, the article shows how remembering finds itself at the impossible limit between the conceptual and the particular, in the space of politics. It argues that the violence that continues to form an everyday part of our world can only be challenged or even understood by thinking at this limit where no answer can be generated in the abstract and decisions are necessary. (shrink)

Individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 (C19) experienced prejudice and blame for the pandemic. Because people vastly overestimate C19 risks, we examined whether these negative judgements could be partially understood as a form of scapegoating (ie, blaming a group unfairly for an undesirable outcome) and whether political ideology (previously shown to shape risk perceptions in the USA) moderates scapegoating of the unvaccinated. We grounded our analyses in scapegoating literature and risk perception during C19. We obtained support for our speculations through two vignette-based (...) studies conducted in the USA in early 2022. We varied the risk profiles (age, prior infection, comorbidities) and vaccination statuses of vignette characters (eg, vaccinated, vaccinated without recent boosters, unvaccinated, unvaccinated-recovered), while keeping all other information constant. We observed that people hold the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated) more responsible for negative pandemic outcomes and that political ideology moderated these effects: liberals (vs conservatives) were more likely to scapegoat the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated), even when presented with information challenging the culpability of the unvaccinated known at the time of data collection (eg, natural immunity, availability of vaccines, time since last vaccination). These findings support a scapegoating explanation for a specific group-based prejudice that emerged during the C19 pandemic. We encourage medical ethicists to examine the negative consequences of significant C19 risk overestimation among the public. The public needs accurate information about health issues. That may involve combating misinformation that overestimates and underestimates disease risk with similar vigilance to error. (shrink)

McCullough et al 1 confront a challenge that no organisation has fully eradicated: incivility. They emphasise that civility is not merely a matter of common decency and good conduct but also a moral imperative, an aspirational value that should be promoted and modelled by all the members of the institutions and throughout all the stages of practitioners’ careers. In their fusion of ancient wisdom and philosophical classics with their own insights on contemporary workplaces, they forward a defensible case for why (...) civility matters and is worthy of continuous contemplation. Given the clarity and persuasion of their piece, I do not seek to challenge their claims. Instead, I will complement their argument with a perspective highlighting the difficulties of identifying low-level workplace mistreatments and responding to them impartially. While organisations should certainly not skimp on their efforts to promote civility and hold their transgressors accountable, there are nonetheless boundaries to good intentions.2 The unexamined pursuit of civility, if characterised by inconsistent definitions of harm and inappropriate allegations of uncivil acts, runs the risk of fostering its own toxicity spirals. With the hope of contributing to the exchange initiated by McCullough and colleagues, I briefly highlight …. (shrink)

The article combines a criticism of public understanding of science with the sociology of expectations to examine how particular expectations toward scientific progress have performative effects for the construction of publics as citizens of science. By analyzing a particular controversy about gene therapy in Denmark, the article demonstrates how different sets of expectations can be used to discriminate among three different assemblages: the assemblage of consumption, the assemblage of comportment, and the assemblage of heroic action. Each of these assemblages makes (...) medical science, scientific citizenship, politics, patients, doctors, and expectations toward the future emerge in particular ways. By their radically different expectations toward science and their different constructions of what it means to be a scientific citizen, the assemblages construct the objectives of the governance of science in three very different ways. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Hawthorne'€™s contextualist solution to Benacerraf'€™s dilemma. He wants to find a satisfactory epistemology to go with realist ontology, namely with causally inaccessible mathematical and modal entities. I claim that he is unsuccessful. The contextualist theories of knowledge attributions were primarily developed as a response to the skeptical argument based on the deductive closure principle. Hawthorne uses the same strategy in his attempt to solve the epistemologist puzzle facing the proponents of mathematical and modal realism, but (...) this problem is of a different nature than the skeptical one. The contextualist theory of knowledge attributions cannot help us with the question about the nature of mathematical and modal reality and how they can be known. I further argue that Hawthorne'€™s account does not say anything about a priori status of mathematical and modal knowledge. Later, Hawthorne adds to his account an implausible claim that in some contexts a gettierized belief counts as knowledge. (shrink)

The abstract notion of “the feminine”, —in French, le f minin, and in German, das Weibliche —as substantivum neutrum, remains together with its opposite, the masculine, connotative of an inherent disparity. It is meant neither as the biological affiliation of sex, nor as gender, the social response, or echo, of this biological affiliation. Rather, it is the spiritual attitude which is the norm for psychic manifestations in general, and is its subtle psychosomatic background. It is not necessarily connected with the (...) rude biological differentiation of sex, but rather appears as a quality in one or the other form; either as the individual, the social group or forms of activities, etc., without respect to the biological manifestations of the participants. What this paper attempts to demonstrate, is the way in which the above described notion of the feminine, functions in classical Asian cultures and philosophies. In the famous Yijing, for instance, this is seen as the hexagram correlated to the male Qian; in the philosophy of Yin and Yang, as Yin the Earth, in correlation with Yang, the Heaven; which are united in the famous Taiji diagram, a sophisticated development of Chinese Neo-Confucianism. The paper focuses on the Dao de jing, in which Lao Zi gives, as a counterbalance to the existing praxis, priority to the female principle. He remains, however, faithful to the Asian tradition, maintaining that the masculine and the feminine should remain equal, correlative, neither one nor the other vying for dominance. The correlative embrace, “When you know the male yet hold on to. the female” subsists in the mythical past where both principles are joined in androgynous unity. (shrink)

An automated system for monitoring facial expressions could increase the reliability, sensitivity, and precision of the research on the relationship between facial signs and experiences of pain, and it could lead to new insights and diagnostic methods. This commentary examines whether the research on facial expression of pain, as reported by Williams, provides a sufficient basis for machine understanding of pain-associated facial expressions.

This chapter discusses the main types of so-called ’subjective measures of consciousness’ used in current-day science of consciousness. After explaining the key worry about such measures, namely the problem of an ever-present response bias, I discuss the question of whether subjective measures of consciousness are introspective. I show that there is no clear answer to this question, as proponents of subjective measures do not employ a worked-out notion of subjective access. In turn, this makes the problem of response bias less (...) tractable than it might otherwise be. (shrink)

Assessments of quality in healthcare often focus on treatment outcome or patient safety, but rarely acknowledge the importance of patients’ encounters with healthcare personnel. The aim of this study was to gain an improved understanding of negative experiences of healthcare encounters by investigating experiences of the general population. A questionnaire was distributed to a randomly selected sample population of 1484 inhabitants in Stockholm County, Sweden. The material was subjected to conventional content analysis. Seventeen different types of complaint about negative encounters (...) were identified, including unpleasant behavior, not being listened to, inadequate information, and discrimination. Two possible underlying explanations are discussed; structural factors relating to the organization and allocation of healthcare, and individual factors relating to the staff’s attitudes and professional practice. The results indicate that different strands of actions are needed to reduce patients’ negative experiences of encounters in healthcare, depending on the setting as well as on which of the two factors predominates. (shrink)

In Describing Inner Experience, Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel explore the proper limits of scepticism about consciousness and the prospect of a scientific investigation of consciousness. Their debate with each other focuses on the question about whether we can trust people's reports about their inner experiences and on Hurlburt's introspective method, DES. I point out that their discussion leaves unclear the crucial question of the aims and objectives of DES. This makes it difficult genuinely to assess DES's merits and the problems for (...) theorizing that might be created by inaccuracy in the introspective data. I then provide a taxonomy of different introspective methods, depending on different roles played by introspective data and on the kinds of questions that are being asked. I suggest that introspective methods tasked to answer a certain group of questions -- certain philosophical questions about experience -- are more vulnerable to the possibility of introspective error than others. (shrink)

What is the strength of anthropological fieldwork when we want to understand human technologies? In this article we argue that anthropological fieldwork can be understood as a process of gaining insight into different contextualisations in practiced places that will open up new understandings of technologies in use, e.g., technologies as multistable ontologies. The argument builds on an empirical study of robots at a Danish rehabilitation centre. Ethnographic methods combined with anthropological learning processes open up new way for exploring how robots (...) enter into professional practices and change values, social relations and materialities. Though substantial funding has been invested in developing health service robots, few studies have been undertaken that explore human-robot interactions as they play out in everyday practice. We argue that the complex learning processes involve not only so-called end-users but also staff, management, doings and discourse in a complex amalgamation of materials and values. (shrink)

I critically discuss the contextualist approach to essentialism, which was developed as an explanation of the seeming inconstancy of our essentialist intuitions. The problem is supposed to be that we vacillate a great deal in judging what properties an object has essentially from one occasion to another, which obviously undermines the reliability of our essentialist intuitions. Contextualists solve the problem by combining the metaphysical view that objects have essential properties with the semantic thesis that the term “essentially” is a context (...) sensitive expression. Once we are aware of the context shifting, the conflict of intuitions turns out to be onlyapparent. My aim is to show that contextualism is not the answer that a proponent of essentialism should adopt. First, I outline the contextualist strategy and argue by help of an example that our linguistic practice does not seem to support the contextualist claim that “essentially” is a context-sensitive term. Secondly, the contextualist strategy deals only with the vacillation of intuitions in one person, but offers a very unfavorable explanation of the conflict of intuitions among different persons. Thus, contextualists face the challenge of proving the reliability of essentialist intuitions nevertheless. I conclude with David Lewis’s proposal in order to illustrate that the contextualist approach only provides the appearance, but not the real essentialism. (shrink)

Focused on the notion of the threshold of objectivity, my article dissects the empirical mirror-glass of the philosophy of Joseph Melançon. I propose to thrust this emblematic perspective of determinist discourse against the literary turn, acclaimed for its underpinning ambiguous subjectivity – here notably made relevant by Pierre Bourdieu. Both discursive practices complete each other and reject each other in a self-feeding spiral: incessant motivation for a hybrid, vexing study of mutual tensions.

The question in the background of this article is what kind of epistemology can emerge on the basis of the philosophy of life. To answer this question, the theories of Georg Misch and Josef König have been analysed. Both authors differentiate between the analytic discourse of theoretical approaches to the world and the synthetic discourse of non-theoretical objectifications of life which create a human semantic environment. For Misch, the former is constituted with “discursive” and the later with “evocative” utterances. For (...) König as developed in his work “Sein und Denken”, “determining” and “modifying” predicates oppose each other as cardinally different cognitive and epistemological entities. The article focuses on König′s analysis of the genesis and logics of “determining” and “modifying” predication following the strategy of his book. In conclusion some controversies between Misch′s and König′s conceptions of a language constitution of the world are represented and discussed. (shrink)

The doctorate forms the basis for academic careers and the regeneration of academia, and has increasingly become important for other sectors of society. The latter is reflected in efforts on institutional, national as well as supranational levels to change and adapt the doctoral degree to new expectations. As doctoral education is embedded in research, changes in governance and funding of research further affect the doctorate. The evaluation of the doctoral thesis appears, however, to have remained true to the academic tradition: (...) an examination committee exercising their gatekeeping in a ceremonial setting. This study sets out to explore doctoral examination committees’ evaluation practices. Insights were gained through six focus group interviews with experienced examination committee members at three large research-intensive universities in Sweden. Of particular interest is how the object of evaluation is formed, the nature of the boundary-work conducted, and variations in examination practices related to different and changing conditions for research and doctoral education. Our results show how the object of evaluation emerges through a gradual interpretation of the thesis and defence, becoming more complex and nuanced as the process of evaluation progresses from its initial stages to the final closed discussions of the committee. The finalised object of evaluation, only fully present at the conclusion of the closed meeting and hence transient in nature, encompasses the research contribution, educational achievement, and academic competence of the candidate. Furthermore, the boundary-work conducted in this process often transcends the object of evaluation to include also supervision and the local context for doctoral education and research, and hence contributes to upholding, and potential changing, norms in research fields, educational contexts, and academia at large. This extended boundary-work intensified as problems and inconsistencies were discovered during the evaluation process. The ceremonial staging underscored the gravity of the decision and the extended boundary-work. Despite changing conditions for the doctorate, our findings highlight the importance of the practice of evaluation committees, and the disciplinary communities to which they belong, for upholding and negotiating norms in academia. (shrink)

SAŽETAK: Empiristi su tvrdili da se medicinsko znanje u cjelini može steći na temelju iskustva i da za njegovo formiranje i primjenu nije potrebna nikakva teorija. Ključni dio toga stava sastoji se u odbacivanju istraživanja uzroka bolesti. Medicinsko se znanje sastoji od teorema koji su generalizacije izvedene na temelju iskustva. Ranije analize generalizacija kojima se služi medicina, kao i rasprave o stručnom znanju općenito, pokazuju da je među grčkim liječnicima i filozofima bio prihvaćen stav da ispravne generalizacije koje nekoj djelatnosti (...) jamče status umijeća jesu eksplanatorne generalizacije – takve koje uključuju poznavanje uzroka. U članku istražujem na temelju čega empiristi mogu za neeksplanatorne generalizacije zahtijevati isti status i nastojim pokazati da je njihov argument u osnovi taj da statistički kriterij formulacije takvih generalizacija jamči njihovo podudaranje s događajima koje opisuju, što eksplanatornegeneralizacije ne mogu osigurati.The Empiricists argued that medical knowledge is a matter of experience, and that no theory is required either for its formation or application. The central part of their position was rejecting the possibility of the discovery of causal connections by the use of reason. The theorems that make up medical knowledge are empirical generalizations that do not include the specification of the cause. However, the Greek authors outside Empiricism, both medical and philosophical, made a strong case for the claim that a generalization must be explanatory to be scientific or artistic. In this paper I discuss how non-explanatory generalizations, being statements of frequency of joint occurrences which are statistically accurate, can be taken by the Empiricists as scientific. (shrink)