In the present study we investigated the stability and malleability of cadets’ definitions of success (mastery and performance goal orientations) contextualized within a certain motivational climate (mastery and performance climates). Based on data from three military academies, the results revealed that cadets’ goal orientations and their perceptions of the motivational climate remained relatively stable throughout the two years of study across three time-points. We also found that a mastery climate predicted individual mastery orientation, and that a performance climate predicted individual (...) performance orientation. These findings contribute to achievement goal theory by clarifying the importance of considering goal orientation contextualized within a certain motivational climate over time. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Die „family sentiments“ sind nichts Ursprüngliches, sondern entfalten sich erst beim Vorhandensein bestimmter ökonomischer Tatbestände. Sie können deshalb auch nicht als Erklärung für den Ursprung der Familie dienen. Die jeweils herrschenden Auffassungen über die Grundlagen der Verwandtschaft sind ganz verschieden ; jedenfalls bildet diese nicht etwa selbst die Grundlage der gesellschaftlichen Organisation, sondern das umgekehrte Verhältnis trifft zu. Die juristische Verwandtschaft beruht häufig nicht auf Blutszusammengehörigkeit, und die Nomenklatur der Unterscheidung der Grade der Verwandtschaft gewinnt erst in der patriarchalischen Familie (...) ihre volle Bedeutung. Die Gefühle zwischen den Familienmitgliedern können nicht als naturgegeben gelten, denn sonst müssten sie auch bei den Tieren Vorkommen. Der Zusammenhalt zwischen den Mitgliedern einer Gruppe, der bei Tieren beobachtet wird, beruht nicht auf gefühlsmässiger Bindung, sondern auf ökonomischen Faktoren. Die Bindung der Mutter an die Kinder findet sich gewiss auch bei vielen Tieren, aber was wir Mutterliebe nennen, ist etwas anderes, denn jene Bindung bezieht sich bei dem Muttertier unterschiedslos auch auf fremde Junge. Besonders wichtig für die Beurteilung des Charakters der „family sentiments“ ist die Differenzierung der Gefühle zwischen den Mitgliedern einer Gruppe, wenn die ökonomische Grundlage sich ändert, sowie die Anpassung der Gefühle an neue Funktionen. Weitere Beispiele für die Abhängigkeit der „family sentiments“ von ökonomischen Tatbeständen bieten die Erklärung ihrer Verschiedenheit in der englischen und französischen Familie oder die Folgen der industriellen Revolution. Mit dem Sieg der liberalistischen Wirtschaft ändert sich die ganze psychologische Basis für die „family sentiments“, alle gefühlsmässigen Beziehungen werden individualistisch. Die schwere Krise, in die das kapitalistische System geraten ist, greift auch tief in die Familienbeziehungen ein. Jedoch werden die bisher in der Familie aufbewahrten menschlichen Gefühle sich in einer besser organisierten Gesellschaft besser entfalten können.Les „family sentiments“ ne se développèrent qu’en rapport à certains faits économiques. Ils ne sauraient donc servir à expliquer l’origine de la famille. Les conceptions quant à la base de la parenté (en particulier sur la naissance des enfants) qui dominent dans les différentes phases du développement de l’humanité sont très distinctes l’une de l’autre. La base de l’organisation sociale est formée par d’autres éléments que les „family sentiments“. La parenté reconnue ne repose souvent pas sur la parenté du sang. Les noms désignant les degrés de la parenté gagnent leur signification actuelle avec l’apparition dans l’histoire de la famille patriarcale. — Les sentiments entre les différents membres de la famille ne sauraient être considérés comme des données naturelles, car si tel était le cas, on trouverait ces mêmes sentiments également chez les animaux. Les liens entre membres d'un groupe, observés aussi bien chez les animaux que chez les hommes ont pour base des facteurs d'ordre matériel. Le sentiment qui lie la mère à sa progéniture se trouve, il est vrai, chez de nombreux animaux, mais ce n'est point ce que nous appelons aujourd'hui l'amour maternel. Ce lien de la femelle se rencontre aussi bien à l'égard de la progéniture des autres animaux que pour la sienne. Pour être à même de bien juger le caractère des „family sentiments“, il importe surtout d'observer l’adaptation de ces sentiments à de nouvelles exigences, c’est-à-dire comment les sentiments entre membres d'un groupe subissent un changement quand la base économique se trouve modifiée. B. donne d'autres exemples pour la dépendance des „family sentiments“ de facteurs économiques, dans son exposé sur la différence des sentiments dans la famille française et anglaise, tout en décrivant les suites de la révolution industrielle. Avec la victoire du libéralisme économique, la base psychologique pour les „family sentiments“ se transforme entièrement : tous les sentiments revêtent un caractère individualiste. La grande crise dans laquelle le système actuel de l’économie est entré, influence sensiblement les relations psychiques. Les sentiments qui, jusqu'à présent, étaient restreints dans le cadre de la famille, se développeront dans une société mieux organisée que celle de notre époque. (shrink)

Increasingly, US-sponsored research is carried out in developing countries, but how US Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) approach the challenges they then face is unclear.METHODS: I conducted in-depth interviews of about 2 hours each, with 46 IRB chairs, directors, administrators and members. I contacted the leadership of 60 IRBs in the United States (US) (every fourth one in the list of the top 240 institutions by National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding), and interviewed IRB leaders from 34 (55%).RESULTS: US IRBs face (...) ethical and logistical challenges in interpreting and applying principles and regulations in developing countries, given economic and health disparities, and limited contextual knowledge. These IRBs perceive wide variations in developing world IRBs/RECs' quality, resources and training; and health systems in some countries may have long-standing practices of corruption. These US IRBs often know little of local contexts, regulations and standards of care, and struggle with understandings of other cultures' differing views of autonomy, and risks and benefits of daily life. US IRBs thus face difficult decisions, including how to interpret principles, how much to pay subjects and how much sustainability to require from researchers. IRB responses and solutions include trying to maintain higher standards for developing world research, obtain cultural expertise, build IRB infrastructure abroad, communicate with foreign IRBs, and ‘negotiate’ for maximum benefits for participants and fearing ‘worst-case scenarios’.CONCLUSIONS: US and foreign IRBs confront a series of tensions and dilemmas in reviewing developing world research. These data have important implications for increased education of IRBs/RECs and researchers in the US and abroad, and for research and practice. (shrink)

This bibliography constitutes the most extensive compilation of references on Nathaniel Branden yet published.

A standard objection to act utilitarian theories is that they are not helpful in deciding what it is morally permissible for us to do when we actually have to make a choice between alternatives. That is, such theories are worthless as decision procedures. A standard reply to this objection is that act utilitarian theories can be evaluated solely as theories about right-making characteristics and, when so evaluated, their inadequacy as decision procedures is irrelevant. Even if somewhat unappealing, this is an (...) effective reply to the standard objection. (shrink)

Reply to a commentary by Felicitas Holzer and Ignacio Mastroleoon “Models of Consent to Return of Incidental Findings in Genomic Research.”.

The following sketches a constellation of views constituting the implicit philosophy of violence that one finds in much of the Western world. While I believe that much of this philosophy is deeply flawed, I shall, in a sense, be setting forth the case for violence because any hope of a nonviolent and peaceful world order must begin with a deeper understanding of violence and its attractiveness. After exploring various arguments for violence, I conclude that once we probe beneath the surface, (...) it is clear that most of those who deplore violence do not oppose all violence, only that of which they disapprove, and that social manipulation backed by violence in the end seems to most people to be justified. (shrink)

The Hooks et al. review of microbiota-gut-brain literature provides a constructive criticism of the general approaches encompassing MGB research. This commentary extends their review by: highlighting capabilities of advanced systems-biology “-omics” techniques for microbiome research and recommending that combining these high-resolution techniques with intervention-based experimental design may be the path forward for future MGB research.

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their connection both to ethical theory and to concrete moral dilemmas that arise in actual athletic competition. This fourth edition has been updated with new examples, including a discussion of Spygate by the New England Patriots and recent discoveries on the use of performance enhancing drugs by top athletes. Two additional authors, Cesar R. Torres and Peter (...) F. Hager, bring to this edition a discussion of the moral issues involved in youth sports and the ethics of being a fan, as well as a fresh perspective on the theories of broad internalism and the quest for excellence. Furthermore, major criticisms of broad internalism by philosophers William J. Morgan and Scott Kretchmar add a new dimension to the discussion on the moral foundations of winning. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Green’ concerns about nature, the environment or the climate have traditionally been juxtaposed with concerns about economic growth or job creation. Recently, however, a new type of conflict has appeared, in which different green concerns, for instance regarding mitigation of climate change and protection of landscape qualities, seem to collide. These environmental conflicts have so far received little scholarly attention. This article addresses the issue by a study of national and in particular local news media discussion on the construction of (...) wind turbines in Denmark, bringing together research traditions from environmental communication, discourse analysis, and place studies. Analytically, the study employs the notion of topos as the key meaning unit, referring to the premises upon which an argument is based. In addition to the empirical findings, the study points to methodological potential of the concept of topos to integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches within a discourse studie... (shrink)

Written with the general reader in mind, this collection will prove useful by both scholar and student, and will lead the general reader to encounter one of the ...

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their ...

The deadly attacks on a public meeting and on a Jewish citizen in Copenhagen in February 2015 have given rise to a vast amount of public discussion and interpretation of the events themselves, their background, their causes, their significance, and their repercussions. During these discussions, various conceptions of publicness and public space have been articulated. Indeed, one may view the killings as a ‘critical discourse moment’ in which a range of discourses have been employed to help interpret, understand, and deal (...) with what happened. In several of these discourses, conceptions of publicness play a central part. This article sets out to investigate the conceptions of publicness that were articulated in the Danish public spheres following the attacks. The article maps out some of the key different and partly contradictory notions of publicness that the reactions to the killings brought to the fore. The investigation thus focuses on the articulation of normative expectations and ideals of public spheres, on the limitations and restrictions that were acknowledged, and on the main societal problems and national contexts to which publicness was viewed as related. The analysis will cover national newspapers and center on the discursive resources of the media elite in early responses to the attacks, for example in editorials, or comments by writers, academics, debaters, and intellectuals. (shrink)

The nature of measurement is a topic of central concern in the philosophy of science and, indeed, measurement is the essential link between science and mathematics. Professor Ellis's book, originally published in 1966, is the first general exposition of the philosophical and logical principles involved in measurement since N. R. Campbell's Principles of Measurement and Calculation, and P. W. Bridgman's Dimensional Analysis. Professor Ellis writes from an empiricist standpoint. His object is to distinguish and define the basic concepts in measurement, (...) for example: scale, quantity, unit. dimension, number and probability. He discusses the problem of classifying scales of measurement and the special logical problems associated with each kind of scale. A translation of mach's Critique on the Concept of Temperature, which gives his views on the nature of measurement more fully than in any of his other works, is given as an appendix. (shrink)

The threat to the survival of humankind posed by nuclear weapons has been a frightening and essential focus of public debate for the last four decades and must continue to be so if we are to avoid destroying ourselves and the natural world around us. One unfortunate result of preoccupation with the nuclear threat, however, has been a new kind of "respectability" accorded to conventional war. In this radical and cogent argument for pacifism, Robert Holmes asserts that all war--not (...) just nuclear war--has become morally impermissible in the modern world. Addressing a wide audience of informed and concerned readers, he raises dramatic questions about the concepts of "political realism" and nuclear deterrence, makes a number of persuasive suggestions for nonviolent alternatives to war, and presents a rich panorama of thinking about war from St. Augustine to Reinhold Niebuhr and Herman Kahn. Holmes's positions are compellingly presented and will provoke discussion both among convinced pacifists and among those whom he calls "militarists." "Militarists," we realize after reading this book, include the majority of us who live a friendly and peaceful personal life while supporting a system which, if Holmes is correct, guarantees war and risks eventual human extinction. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Contemporary scientific theories assume a primarily micro-deterministic view of nature. This paper explores the question of whether micro-determinism is incompatible with the alleged emergence of properties and laws that some biologists and philosophers assert occurs in various biological systems. I argue that a preferable unified treatment of these emergence claims takes properties, rather than laws, to be the units of emergence. Four distinct conceptions of emergence are explored and three shown to be compatible with micro-determinism. The remaining concept of emergence, (...) direct macro-determination, does not, I argue, meet the general requirement that an adequate scientific explanation provide a coherent mechanism or effective means of determination. (shrink)

The resurgence of interest in collective behavior is in large part due to tools recently made available for conducting laboratory experiments on groups, statistical methods for analyzing large data sets reflecting social interactions, the rapid growth of a diverse variety of online self‐organized collectives, and computational modeling methods for understanding both universal and scenario‐specific social patterns. We consider case studies of collective behavior along four attributes: the primary motivation of individuals within the group, kinds of interactions among individuals, typical dynamics (...) that result from these interactions, and characteristic outcomes at the group level. With this framework, we compare the collective patterns of noninteracting decision makers, bee swarms, groups forming paths in physical and abstract spaces, sports teams, cooperation and competition for resource usage, and the spread and extension of innovations in an online community. Some critical issues surrounding collective behavior are then reviewed, including the questions of “Does group behavior always reduce to individual behavior?”“Is ‘group cognition’ possible?” and “What is the value of formal modeling for understanding group behavior?”. (shrink)

Novice designers produced a sequence of sketches while inventing a logo for a novel brand of soft drink. The sketches were scored for the presence of specific objects, their local features and global composition. Self‐assessment scores for each sketch and art critics' scores for the end products were collected. It was investigated whether the design evolves in an essentially random fashion or according to an overall heuristic. The results indicated a macrostructure in the evolution of the design, characterized by two (...) stages. For the majority of participants, the first stage is marked by the introduction and modification of novel objects and their local and global aspects; the second stage is characterized by changes in their global composition. The minority that showed the better designs has a different strategy, in which most global changes were made in the beginning. Although participants did not consciously apply these strategies, their self‐assessment scores reflect the stages of the process. (shrink)

In approaching the question of whether groups of people can have cognitive capacities that are fundamentally different than the cognitive capacities of the individuals within the group, we lay out a Multiple, Interactive Levels of Cognitive Systems (MILCS) framework. The goal of MILCS is to explain the kinds of cognitive processes typically studied by cognitive scientists, such as perception, attention, memory, categorization, decision making, problem solving, and judgment. Rather than focusing on high-level constructs such as modules in an information processing (...) flow diagram or internal representations, MILCS focuses on mechanisms that allow systems to engage in flexible, adaptive behavior. Examples of these mechanisms are network structure-process pairs that: combine data from perception with top-down theories, achieve consistency and consensus through information exchange, selectively attend to information globally assessed as relevant, and develop specialized units from originally homogeneous networks through competition among the units. Two such systems are considered in some detail -- lateral inhibition within a network for selecting from a candidate set the option that is most attractive, and a diffusion process for accumulating evidence to reach a generally rapid and accurate decision. These system descriptions are aptly applied at multiple levels, including within and across people. These systems provide accounts that unify cognitive processes across multiple levels, can be expressed in a common vocabulary provided by network science, are inductively powerful yet appropriately constrained, and are applicable to a large number of superficially diverse cognitive systems. Given that people are typically highly motivated to participate in strong groups, cognitively resourceful people will tend to form groups that effectively employ cognitive systems at higher levels than the individuals. The impressive cognitive capacities of individual people do not eliminate the need to talk about group cognition. Instead, smart people generally form smart groups. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of research practices typical of experimental philosophy. To that end, it presents a review of methodological issues that have proved crucial to the quality of research in the biobehavioral sciences. It discusses various shortcomings in the experimental philosophy literature related to (1) the credibility of self-report questionnaires, (2) the validity and reliability of measurement, (3) the adherence to appropriate procedures for sampling, random assignment, and handling of participants, and (4) the meticulousness of study reporting. It (...) argues that the future standing of experimental philosophy will hinge upon improvements in research methods. (shrink)