Biologists recognize Pavlovian conditioning as a mechanism by which individuals can adaptively modify their social and nonsocial behavior quickly to relevant features of the natural environment. This commentary supports Domjan et al.'s point that psychologists could gain important insights by broadening the range of species and behaviors they study and by continuing to adopt a functional perspective to investigate Pavlovian conditioning and other forms of learning.

Aldo Leopold was a pragmatist in the vernacular sense of the word. Bryan G. Norton claims that Leopold was also heavily influenced by American Pragmatism, a formal school of philosophy. As evidence, Norton offers Leopold's misquotation of a definition of right (as truth) by political economist, A.T. Hadley, who was an admirer of the philosophy of William James. A search of Leopold's digitised literary remains reveals no other evidence that Leopold was directly influenced by any actual American Pragmatist or (...) by Pragmatism (although he may have been indirectly influenced by Pragmatism early in his career). A 1923 reference, by Leopold, to Hadley and Hadley's putative definition of truth, cited by Norton, is dripping with irony. Leopold, as he matured philosophically, regarded a profound cultural shift from anthropocentric dominionism and consumerism to an evolutionary-ecological worldview and an associated non-anthropocentric 'land ethic' to be necessary for successful and sustainable conservation. Hadley espoused a brutal form of Social Darwinism and his philosophy, as expressed in the book of Hadley's that Norton cites, is politically reactionary, militaristic and unconcerned with conservation. Leopold's mature philosophy and Hadley's – far from consonant, as Norton claims – are diametrically opposed. (shrink)

As a conservation policy advocate and practitioner, Leopold was a pragmatist (in the vernacular sense of the word). He was not, however, a member of the school of philosophy known as American Pragmatism, nor was his environmental philosophy informed by any members of that school. Leopold's environmental philosophy was radically non-anthropocentric; he was an intellectual revolutionary and aspired to transform social values and institutions.

Numerous labor-management issues possess ethical dimensions and pose ethical questions. In this article, the authors discuss four labor-management issues that present important contemporary problems: union organizing, labor-management negotiations, employee involvement programs, and union obligations of fair representation. In the authors view, labor and management too often view their ethical obligations as beginning and ending at the law''s boundaries. Contemporary business realities suggest that cooperative and enlightened modes of interaction between labor and management seem appropriate.

The past forty years or so have witnessed a renaissance in the philosophy of religion. New tools (modal logic, probability theory, and so on) and new historical research have prompted many thinkers to take a fresh look at old topics (God’s existence, the problem of evil, faith and reason, and the like). Moreover, sophisticated examinations of contentious new issues, such as the problem of religious diversity or the role of emotions and other non-evidential factors in shaping rationally held religious beliefs, (...) have also emerged. Addressing the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarly literature, Philosophy of Religion is a new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Philosophy. Edited by a leading scholar, it is a four-volume collection which brings together key examples of the most important recent work, together with carefully selected historical pieces needed to understand them. Volume I focuses on concepts of the divine while Volume II explores arguments for and against the existence of a divine reality, with special attention to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and the case for naturalism. Volume III and the first part of Volume IV are devoted to broadly epistemic issues: the cognitive value of religious experience; the proper role of evidence in the formation of religious belief; the nature of justified religious belief; and pragmatic arguments for religious belief. The remainder of Volume IV introduces some of the best recent work on religious diversity, tolerance, and the public role of religion in a pluralistic society. The Philosophy of Religion is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource. Available now at a special introductory price. This price is applicable until 3 months after publication. For more information, please contact us ( [email protected] ). (shrink)

This functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study investigated high and low suggestible people responding to two visual hallucination suggestions with and without a hypnotic induction. Participants in the study were asked to see color while looking at a grey image, and to see shades of grey while looking at a color image. High suggestible participants reported successful alterations in color perception in both tasks, both in and out of hypnosis, and showed a small benefit if hypnosis was induced. Low suggestible people (...) could not perform the tasks successfully with or without the hypnotic induction. The fMRI results supported the self report data, and changes in brain activity were found in a number of visual areas. The results indicate that a hypnotic induction, although having the potential to enhance the ability of high suggestible people, is not necessary for the effective alteration of color perception by suggestion. (shrink)

Throughout the developing world, it is a well-documented fact that women farmers tend to get lower yields than their male counterparts. Typically this is attributed to disproportionate access to high-quality inputs and labor, with some even arguing there could be a skills-gap stemming from unbalanced access to training and education. This article examines the gender-based yield gap in the context of Zambian maize producers. In addition to the usual drivers, we argue that Zambia’s patriarchal and multi-tiered land distribution system could (...) disfavor women with respect to accessing quality soils. We are uniquely able to control for soil characteristics using farm data from a sample of 1573 fields with accompanying soil analysis. We find an expected difference in yields, but no evidence of a gap in unobserved characteristics, like skill, after controlling for access to inputs, especially quality soil, suggesting women are indeed disproportionately disadvantaged. We discuss how our findings could be used to develop self-targeting policy interventions that could empower women and would be consistent with the government’s stated equity goals. (shrink)

John H. Evans’s views on the multiple roles of healthcare ethics consultants are based on his claim that bioethics is a “distinct profession” that has a “system of abstract knowledge.” This response to Professor Evans disputes both of his claims. It is argued that clinical ethicists are consultants but not professionals. Their roles as consultants require more than one abstract form of knowledge (principlism). Instead, clinical ethicists rely upon a variety of ethical perspectives and other skills to help resolve conflicts (...) and facilitate healthcare decisions and policy making, whether it is in clinical, research, policy, or organizational contexts. The credibility and effectiveness of clinical ethicists depend upon their knowledge of ethics, their practical experience, and personal abilities, not one form of abstract knowledge. (shrink)

In this study of Baraka's transformation of white avant-grade poetics into a unique black poetics, Harris argues that Baraka's work can be best understood in the context of a jazz aesthetic. Baraka, he says, has taken white avant-garde and postmodernist poetic modes and political ideas, and through a formal and social process of transformation typical of jazz revision, transformed them into a black poetics and metaphysics. Harris describes the failure of the postmodernists to provide suitable aesthetic and social solutions for (...) ethnic and political problems. Baraka set as his models jazzmen like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, who attempted to destroy white music so that a new black music could be born. To "jazzify" his poetry, he adapted a "fast rap" of scatting, "songification" and other oral and performance techniques. Harris concludes a discussion of Baraka's influence on black literature. ISBN 0-8262-0483-X: $20.00. (shrink)

The introduction offers a brief account of the history and nature of philosophy of religion with particular attention to the complex developments of the past 400 years. Diverse aims of and approaches to philosophy of religion are distinguished, and suggestions are offered for the future.

Stace and others maintain that mystical consciousness reveals the identity of selves and, therefore, provides a justification for altruism. Zaehner argues that some types of mystical consciousness apparently reveal the identity of such opposites as good and evil, and Danto holds that mystical consciousness involves a transcendence of all distinctions, including moral distinctions. Thus, for both Zaehner and Danto mysticism undercuts morality. The author attempts to show that these positions are defective and suggests that there are no important epistemic or (...) logical connections between mystical consciousness and morality. (shrink)

The claim that glycogen contains protein was first made exactly 100 years ago and has been the subject of contention ever since. It has now been established that rabbit‐muscle glycogen contains a covalently bound protein of Mr 37,000, present in equimolar proportion to glycogen. The protein, named glycogenin, is joined to muscle glycogen via a novel linkage involving the hydroxyl group of tyrosine, a fact of possible significance in the light of insulin's message being transmitted by tyrosine phosphorylation. The protein (...) is seen as the biogenetic precursor of glycogen. Its existence suggests an additional mode of regulation of glycogen metabolism since the amount, turnover and cellular location of glycogenin will influence the corresponding parameters for glycogen. A protein “primer” is suggested for the biogenesis of storage polysaccharides in general. (shrink)

Quantum theoretical developments in physical science challenge the foundational assumptions of both realist and constructivist social paradigms. Furthermore, when quantum metaphysics is coupled with biological, neuro-scientific discoveries that the brain regenerates and reprograms itself throughout life in response to environmental challenges and the force of attention and will, the result is a different picture of human nature and the social behavior that is possible, ethical, and scientifically plausible than that suggested by either social realists or constructivists. This article explores the (...) frontier of recent developments in the physical and biological sciences and considers how these findings might allow for a new foundation for social theory. (shrink)

In the writings of the New Left are several images and a moral intensity which unwittingly have as their foundation various New England Puritan traditions.