How would you feel about your husband, wife, or partner masturbating using pornography or erotica? For many, this would be a betrayal – a kind of cheating. I explore whether monogamous relationships should forbid solo masturbation using erotica and pornography, considering two possible objections: (1) the objection that such activity is a kind of infidelity; (2) the objection that such activity involves attitudes, usually attitudes towards women that are incompatible with an equal, loving relationship. I argue (...) that the use of erotic material in solo masturbation should not count as cheating. Solo use of pornography differs significantly from interpersonal sexual activity. Thus, unlike causal interpersonal sex, it does not undermine the role of sex within the relationship. Additionally, freedom to explore sexual fantasy through masturbation is an important element of sexual autonomy. Objection (2) holds against some but not all erotic material. Sexual enjoyment of pornography that depicts, or is produced by, suffering or degradation involves a way of seeing others that has implications for the user’s relationships with others, particularly sexual relationships. However, not all erotic material involves objectionable attitudes towards others. Thus partners should allow moderate use of some types of erotica in solo-masturbation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

ABSTRACTEmotional distractors can impair perception of subsequently presented targets, a phenomenon called emotion-induced blindness. Do emotional distractors lose their power to disrupt perception when appearing with increased frequency, perhaps due to desensitisation or enhanced recruitment of proactive control? Non-emotional tasks, such as the Stroop, have revealed that high frequency distractors or conflict lead to reduced interference, and distractor frequency appears to modulate attentional capture by emotional distractors in spatial attention tasks. But emotion-induced blindness is thought to reflect perceptual competition (...) between targets and emotional distractors, and it is unclear whether high frequency emotional stimuli cause less disruption at this relatively early stage of processing. In four experiments, participants searched streams of images for a rotated target image. A negative or neutral distractor appeared before the target, and their relative frequency was manipulated. Across all exper... (shrink)

This article illustrates how racial capitalism can enhance understandings of data, capital, and inequality through an in-depth study of digital platforms used for intervening in gender-based violence. Specifically, we examine an emergent sociotechnical strategy that uses software platforms and artificial intelligence chatbots to offer users emergency assistance, education, and a means to report and build evidence against perpetrators. Our analysis details how two reporting apps construct data to support institutionally legible narratives of violence, highlighting overlooked racialised dimensions of the data (...) capital generated through their use. We draw attention to how they reinforce property relations built on extraction and ownership, capital accumulation that reinforces benefits derived through data property relations and ownership, and the commodification of diversity and inclusion. Recognising these patterns are not unique to anti-violence apps, we reflect on how this example aids in understanding how racial capitalism becomes a constitutive element of digital platforms, which more generally extract information from users, rely on complex financial partnerships, and often sustain problematic relationships with the criminal legal system. We conclude with a discussion of how racial capitalism can advance scholarship at the intersections of data and power. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially of the machine learning (ML) variety, is used by health care organizations to assist with a number of tasks, including diagnosing patients and optimizing operational workflows. AI products already proliferate the health care market, with usage increasing as the technology matures. Although AI may potentially revolutionize health care, the use of AI in health settings also leads to risks ranging from violating patient privacy to implementing a biased algorithm. This chapter begins with a (...) broad overview of health care AI and how it is currently used. We then adopt a “lifecycle” approach to discussing issues with health care AI. We start by discussing the legal and ethical issues pertaining to how data to build AI are gathered in health care settings, focusing on privacy. Next, we turn to issues in algorithm development, especially algorithmic bias. We then discuss AI deployment to treat patients, focusing on informed consent. Finally, we will discuss existing oversight mechanisms for health AI in the United States: liability and regulation. (shrink)

This article analyses the ‘live’ virtual human in ABBA Voyage, the long-awaited concert reunion of the Swedish pop group ABBA, via Vilém Flusser’s concept of the digital apparition. It first argues for these virtual performers (dubbed ‘ABBA-tars’) to be understood as externalized computational codes which shift the grounds of ownership over and consent to the use of one’s likeness. They are also key to disproportionate and as yet unaccountable power held by technology companies. Secondly, ABBA Voyage’s presentation of ABBA as (...) their past selves places time in a capitalism of immateriality profiting from the protean temporality of bodies. This temporal discombobulation thwarts finitude and confounds time in meanings of life, death and growth. The article thus addresses urgent confrontations between actual and virtual humans placed in the same physical environment, and paves the way for thinking about how we are going to deal and live with their virtuality. (shrink)

BackgroundThe past 10 years have witnessed a significant growth in sharing of health data for secondary uses. Alongside this there has been growing interest in the public acceptability of data sharing and data linkage practices. Public acceptance is recognised as crucial for ensuring the legitimacy of current practices and systems of governance. Given the growing international interest in this area this systematic review and thematic synthesis represents a timely review of current evidence. It highlights the key factors influencing public responses (...) as well as important areas for further research.MethodsThis paper reports a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies examining public attitudes towards the sharing or linkage of health data for research purposes. Twenty-five studies were included in the review. The included studies were conducted primarily in the UK and North America, with one study set in Japan, another in Sweden and one in multiple countries. The included studies were conducted between 1999 and 2013. The qualitative methods represented in the studies included focus groups, interviews, deliberative events, dialogue workshops and asynchronous online interviews.ResultsKey themes identified across the corpus of studies related to the conditions necessary for public support/acceptability, areas of public concern and implications for future research. The results identify a growing body of evidence pointing towards widespread general—though conditional—support for data linkage and data sharing for research purposes. Whilst a variety of concerns were raised in cases where participants perceived there to be actual or potential public benefits from research and had trust in the individuals or organisations conducting and/or overseeing data linkage/sharing, they were generally supportive. The studies also find current low levels of awareness about existing practices and uses of data.ConclusionsWhilst the results indicate widespread public support for data sharing and linkage for research purposes, a range of concerns exist. In order to ensure public support for future research uses of data greater awareness raising combined with opportunities for public engagement and deliberation are needed. This will be essential for ensuring the legitimacy of future health informatics research and avoiding further public controversy. (shrink)

During the early twentieth century, the Bermuda Biological Station for Research functioned as a multipurpose scientific site. Jointly founded by New York University, Harvard University, and the Bermuda Natural History Society, the BBSR created opportunities for a mostly US-based set of practitioners to study animal biology in the field. I argue that mixed gender field stations like the BBSR supported professional advancement in science, while also operating as important places for women and men to experiment with the social and (...) cultural work of identity formation, courtship and marriage, and social critique. Between 1903 and 1930, the BBSR functioned as a laboratory of domesticity, a temporary scientific household in British Bermuda where women and men interacted with established colonial ideologies about science, sex difference, and racial hierarchy in their public and private accounts of doing biology and socializing in the field. Viewing field stations as generative of multiple forms of labor offers a corrective to narratives within the history of biology, in which scientific practices are considered to be the principal forms of output produced by practitioners in the field. Understanding how women and men at the BBSR engaged with the politics of gender and race from the periphery of U.S. networks of biology suggests that we might view field stations as shaping not only academic science but also domestic life and fields as disparate as fiction and the law. (shrink)

With the introduction of new information communication technologies, employers are increasingly engaging in social media screening, also known as cybervetting, as part of their hiring process. Our research, using an online survey with 482 participants, investigates young people’s concerns with their publicly available social media data being used in the context of job hiring. Grounded in stakeholder theory, we analyze the relationship between young people’s concerns with social media screening and their gender, job seeking status, privacy (...) concerns, and social media use. We find that young people are generally not comfortable with social media screening. A key finding of this research is that concern for privacy for public information on social media cannot be fully explained by some “traditional” variables in privacy research. The research extends stakeholder theory to identify how social media data ethics should be inextricably linked to organizational practices. The findings have theoretical implications for a rich conceptualization of stakeholders in an age of social media and practical implications for organizations engaging in cybervetting. (shrink)

The article addresses the contributions psychoanalytic theory, particularly its concepts of transference and counter-transference, can make to our understanding of reflexivity in intercultural education (IE). After the introduction, the article is organized into three parts. The first part is a psychoanalytic discussion that focuses on the concepts of transference and counter-transference. The second part elaborates on the concepts of transference and counter-transference by presenting examples through existing studies in the fields of multicultural and IE and psychoanalysis to illuminate what it (...) would mean to psychoanalytically understand aspects of intercultural relations and reflexivity. In the third section, while contending that this article does not exclude other forms of reflexivity or delimit the danger of uncritically accepting the potentials for reflexivity, it offers the implications drawn from the discussions in the first and second sections by concluding that psychoanalysis is an area of inquiry that forces us to question how unconscious forces affect our interaction with students, the curriculum, and the meaning we give to teaching and learning experiences. The article concludes that reflexivity in IE can benefit from considering the effects of transference and counter-transference. (shrink)

Music training is associated with enhanced executive function but little is known about the extent to which harmonic aspects of musical training are associated with components of executive function. In the current study, an array of cognitive tests associated with one or more components of executive function, was administered to young adult musicians and non-musicians. To investigate how harmonic aspects of musical training relate to executive function, a test of the ability to compose a four-part harmony was (...) developed and administered to musicians. We tested the working hypothesis that musicians would outperform non-musicians on measures of executive function, and that among musicians, the ability to harmonize would correlate positively with measures of executive function. Results indicate that musicians outperformed non-musicians on the Tower of London task, a measure of planning and problem-solving. Group differences were not detected on tasks more selective for inhibitory control, conflict resolution, or working memory. Among musicians, scores on the harmony assessment were positively correlated with performance of the Tower of London task. Taken together, the current results support a strong relationship between musicianship and planning and problem solving abilities, and indicate that the ability to harmonize is associated with components of executive function contributing to planning and problem solving. (shrink)

In the past 50 years, ethical concerns concerning human experimentation have arisen with the advancement of new medical research and technology. While the benefits of human experimentation are well known in the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, and medicine, the conditions of human subject research have been persistently controversial. This book discusses ethical perspectives, emerging developments and global challenged of patient rights. Topics include effective medical informed consent; rights to health and dental care; the ethics of HIV screening targeted (...) to the seriously mentally ill; and problems in ethics for medical publication. (shrink)

In this moment of rising nationalism worldwide, governments, civil society groups, transnational companies, and web users all complain of increasing regional fragmentation online. While prior work in this area has primarily focused on issues of government censorship and regulatory compliance, we use an inductive and qualitative approach to examine targeted blocking by corporate entities of entire regions motivated by concerns about fraud, abuse, and theft. Through participant-observation at relevant events and intensive interviews with experts, we document the quest by (...) professionals tasked with preserving online security to use new machine-learning based techniques to develop a “fairer” system to determine patterns of “good” and “bad” usage. However, we argue that without understanding the systematic social and political conditions that produce differential behaviors online, these systems may continue to embed unequal treatments, and troublingly may further disguise such discrimination behind more complex and less transparent automated assessment. In order to support this claim, we analyze how current forms of regional blocking incentivize users in blocked regions to behave in ways that are commonly flagged as problematic by dominant security and identification systems. To realize truly global, non-Eurocentric cybersecurity techniques would mean incorporating the ecosystems of service utilization developed by marginalized users rather than reasserting norms of an imagined user that casts aberrations as suspect. (shrink)

This study empirically investigates the dismissal of U.S. CEOs following negative media coverage of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. Extending related literature on the media, ESG, and CEO dismissal, I develop a theoretical framework that considers the media as an influential third party that forms and reflects public opinion about ESG issues. In this role, the media reduces information asymmetry by providing cues on their relative salience and prompting corporate directors to attribute firm-level ESG issues to the CEO, regardless (...) of their involvement in the misconduct. Findings confirm this framework and particularly suggest that coverage of issues in prominent media sources is more likely to result in CEO dismissal. Further, companies that have made public commitments to ESG oversight and those with stronger monitoring are more likely to dismiss the CEO following negative coverage of ESG issues. Overall, this study builds an understanding of how contemporary boards approach the uncertain CEO dismissal decision amidst media coverage of ESG- related misconduct and reflects a shifting norm towards ESG integration at the board-level. (shrink)

This article is an analysis of rumors about Internet scamming told by Internet café users in the West African capital city of Accra, Ghana. Rumors provided accounts of how the Internet can be effectively operated by young Ghanaians to realize ‘‘big gains’’ through foreign connections. Yet these accounts were contradicted by the less promising direct experiences users had at the computer interface. Rumors amplified evidence of wildly successful as well as especially harmful encounters with the Internet. Rather than simply (...) transferring information, through the telling of rumors, Internet users reclaimed a social stability that was disrupted by the presence of the Internet. These stories cast young Ghanaian Internet users as both good and effective in relation to the Internet. The study of accounts as they relate to the activities accounted for is an established area of interest in social theory. By considering how rumors function as accounts and how such interpretations of the technology are propagated among users, this analysis contributes to a broader understanding of user agency. (shrink)

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the advent of widespread pet ownership was accompanied by claims of heightened animal abilities. Psychical researchers investigated many of these claims, including animal telepathy and ghostly apparitions. By the beginning of the twentieth century, news of horses and dogs with the ability to read and calculate fascinated the French public and scientists alike. Amidst questions about the justification of animal cruelty in laboratory experiments, wonder animals came to represent some extraordinary possibilities (...) associated with their kind. Psychologists speculated on the feats of wonder animals. They considered the possibility that these animals shared consciousness and intelligence with humans, and that—if confirmed—their alleged amazing abilities could lead to a new understanding of cognition for all animals. This article focuses on the few years during which claims of wonder animals occupied a significant place in French psychology and psychical research. It argues that as explanations involving deception or unconscious cues gained increased acceptance, the interest in wonder animals soon led to a backlash in comparative psychology that had repercussions for all animals, particularly those used in experimentation, in that it contributed to the decline of research addressing cognitive abilities in non-human species. (shrink)

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented millions of people with extraordinary challenges that are associated with significant amounts of stress. Emotion regulation is crucial during this crisis as people seek to mitigate the stress and uncertainty of the present moment. In this study, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 297 adults from the United States on their levels of perceived stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their level of engagement of different emotion (...) regulation strategies during the pandemic. We performed multiple linear regression analyses to assess which regulation strategies were associated with individual differences in perceived stress. Among all emotion regulation strategies, psychological distancing, which involves thinking about stressful circumstances in an objective, impartial way, was uniquely associated with reductions in perceived stress due to COVID-19 across individuals. This effect was not moderated by age, gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or trait-related difficulty in regulating emotion. Conversely, situation modification was associated with significantly greater perceived stress overall. These results suggest the broad applicability and utility of psychological distancing during pandemic-related social distancing as part of an adaptive emotion regulation toolkit and motivate the investigation of interventions involving psychological distancing in this context. (shrink)

Studies of collegiate sexuality have not examined infidelity. Using in-depth peer interviews with college students, our article investigates the meanings and practices of “monogamy” and “cheating” for college women. College women use ideas about age, class, and gender to construct collegiate sexuality as a kind of “monogamy lite” exempt from the “rules” of adult sexuality. Many have cheated themselves. Simultaneously, they define “real” relationships as exclusive and condemn “cheaters” as bad people. We employ an intersectional analysis to analyze (...) these discrepancies, arguing that the multiple meanings women use reconcile contradictions between expectations for women’s sexuality and expectations about collegiate behavior, allowing women to sustain a commitment to relationships while also participating in collegiate sexual culture. Moreover, by providing a socially legible, gender-appropriate way to end unwanted relationships, these meanings allow women to use cheating to solve dilemmas in their intimate lives. In this case, college women use middle-class ideas about the transition to adulthood to resist gendered imperatives. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can (...) be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

This paper explores an increasingly prevalent element of board-level commitment to sustainability. We propose a theoretical framework under which the existence and associated actions of board-level sustainability committees are motivated by shared value creation, where the interests of a diverse group of stakeholders are satisfied and sufficient profit is achieved. Using hand-collected data, we find that sustainability committees are heterogeneous in focus and vary in their effectiveness. Specifically, we disaggregate the sustainability committee construct based on stakeholder group focus and find (...) that associations between sustainability committees and performance outcomes are stronger when committees focused on a specific stakeholder group are paired with relevant performance outcomes. We generally find that sustainability committees are effective at impacting relevant strengths, but do not mitigate relevant concerns. These results are consistent with the shared value framework, where committees both generate value by pursuing sustainability-related opportunities and protect value by monitoring, but not necessarily mitigating sustainability-related risks. Univariate tests suggest that effective committees are also larger, more independent, and meet more frequently. Finally, we propose a new method to classify industries based on their sensitivity to certain stakeholder groups and find that the effectiveness of committees focused on specific stakeholders is more pronounced in industries that are sensitive to these stakeholders. (shrink)

The comorbidity of chronic pain and opioid addiction is a serious problem that has been growing with the practice of prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Neuroimaging research has shown that chronic pain and opioid dependence both affect brain structure and function, but this is the first study to evaluate the neurophysiological alterations in patients with comorbid chronic pain and addiction. Eighteen participants with chronic low back pain and opioid addiction were compared with eighteen age- and sex-matched (...) healthy individuals in a pain-induction fMRI task. Unified structural equation modeling (SEM) with Lagrange multiplier (LM) testing yielded a network model of pain processing for patient and control groups based on 19 a priori defined regions. Tests of differences between groups on specific regression parameters were determined on a path-by-path basis using z-tests corrected for the number of comparisons. Patients with the chronic pain and addiction comorbidity had increased connection strengths; many of these connections were interhemispheric and spanned regions involved in sensory, affective, and cognitive processes. The affected regions included those that are commonly altered in chronic pain or addiction alone, indicating that this comorbidity manifests with neurological symptoms of both disorders. Understanding the neural mechanisms involved in the comorbidity is crucial to finding a comprehensive treatment, rather than treating the symptoms individually. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFear of positive evaluation is experiencing dread during real or potential praise. FPE is associated with social anxiety, but its relation to depressive symptoms is unclear. Anhedonia is a core symptom of depression related to symptoms of anxiety in cross-sectional research. The current study investigated the indirect effect of FPE on depressive symptoms via anhedonia over time. One-hundred ninety-six participants completed three waves of questionnaires over a total timespan of approximately four months via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, including measures of (...) FPE, depressive symptoms, and anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia. Findings indicated that anticipatory anhedonia at Time 2 mediated the relationship between FPE at Time 1 and depressive symptoms at Time 3. Consummatory anhedonia, however, did not. Each model was contextualised by accounting for prospective covarying relationships, such as depressive symptoms predicting the same symptoms at later waves. The constellation of findings is c... (shrink)

Some individuals devalue positivity previously associated with negativity (Winer & Salem, 2016). Positive emotions (e.g. happiness) may be seen as threatening and result in active avoidance of futu...

Objective: Symptom improvement is often examined as an indicator of a good outcome of accessing mental health services. However, there is little evidence of whether symptom improvement is associated with other indicators of a good outcome, such as a mutual agreement to end treatment. The aim of this study was to examine whether young people accessing mental health services who meaningfully improved were more likely to mutually agree to end treatment.Methods: Multilevel multinomial regression analysis controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, (...) and referral source was conducted on N = 8,995 episodes of care [Female = 5,469, 61%; meanAge = 13.66 years] using anonymised administrative data from young people's mental health services.Results: Compared to young people with no change in mental health difficulties, those showing positive meaningful changes in mental health difficulties were less likely to have case closure due to non-mutual agreement. Similarly, they were less likely to transfer or end treatment for other reasons than by case closure due to mutual agreement.Conclusion: The findings suggest that young people accessing mental health services whose symptoms meaningfully improve are more likely to mutually agree to end treatment, adding to the evidence that symptom improvement may be appropriate to examine as an indicator of a good outcome of accessing mental health services. (shrink)

Current treatments for chronic pain have limited benefit. We describe a resilience intervention for individuals with chronic pain which is based on a model of viewing chronic pain as dysregulated homeostasis and which seeks to restore homeostatic self-regulation using strategies exemplified by survivors of extreme environments. The intervention is expected to have broad effects on well-being and positive emotional health, to improve cognitive functions, and to reduce pain symptoms thus helping to transform the suffering of pain into self-growth. A (...) total of 88 Veterans completed the pre-assessment and were randomly assigned to either the treatment intervention or control. Fifty-eight Veterans completed pre- and post-testing. The intervention covered resilience strengths organized into four modules: engagement, social relatedness, transformation of pain and building a good life. A broad set of standardized, well validated measures were used to assess three domains of functioning: health and well-being, symptoms, and cognitive functions. Two-way Analysis of Variance was used to detect group and time differences. Broadly, results indicated significant intervention and time effects across multiple domains: Pain decreased in present severity [F = 5.02, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.08], total pain over six domains [F = 14.52, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.21], and pain interference [F = 6.82, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.11]; Affect improved in pain-related negative affect [F = 7.44, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], fear [F = 7.70, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], and distress [F = 10.87, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.16]; Well-being increased in pain mobility [F = 5.45, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09], vitality [F = 4.54, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.07], and emotional well-being [F = 5.53, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09] Mental health symptoms and the cognitive functioning domain did not reveal significant effects. This resilience intervention based on homeostatic self-regulation and survival strategies of survivors of extreme external environments may provide additional sociopsychobiological tools for treating individuals with chronic pain that may extend beyond treating pain symptoms to improving emotional well-being and self-growth.Clinical Trial Registration: Registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. (shrink)

School liking is an important factor in student engagement, well-being, and academic achievement, but it is also potentially influenced by factors external to the individual, such as school culture, teacher support, and approaches to discipline. The present study employed a survey methodology to investigate the associations between school liking and disliking, teacher and school connectedness, and experiences of exclusionary discipline from the perspective of students themselves. Participants included 1,002 students from three secondary schools serving disadvantaged communities. Results indicated clear differences (...) between students who like and dislike school in terms of their preferred school activities and school disciplinary history, with students who disliked school experiencing overall lower school connectedness. Moreover, students who disliked school experienced less positive relationships with their teachers, and this was even more pronounced for students who had been previously suspended. The findings reveal key differences between students who do and do not like school, differences that may be masked by typical research approaches. This research indicates the need for more nuanced, student-informed approaches to inclusive school reform. (shrink)

This Article discusses BLAs as tools of global labor migration governance, with a specific focus on gender. Drawing on our global database of 582 bilateral labor migration agreements, we investigate the extent to which these governing instruments connect and align with relevant international normative frameworks, in particular the extent to which they represent gains, gaps or gaffs in terms of gender equality and the human and labor rights protection of women migrants. In the context of the Global Compact (...) for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which stresses a gender-responsive approach to migration governance as one of its guiding principles, we ask: Do the BLAs which are increasingly being used as instruments to govern labor migration contribute toward sustainable gender equality, decent work and reduced inequalities for women and gender-diverse migrants? (shrink)

Contract cheating – outsourcing student assignments for a fee – presents a growing threat to the integrity of higher education. As contract cheating is based on students purchasing assignments that are original, traditional plagiarism detection tools remain insufficient to detect contract cheating. Part of the problem is that proving contract cheating is difficult. As a result, instructors may find it hard to prosecute students. To help address the problem, this conceptual paper builds upon extant scholarship on (...) contract cheating and argues that a novel evidence-based approach is needed. Such an approach should allow instructors to detect and prosecute cases of contract cheating effectively and efficiently. The paper then presents an outline of such an approach and calls it the “Doping Test” approach as it mimics some aspects of doping testing in professional sport. (shrink)

Recent research has suggested that both the Honesty-Humility dimension, psychopathic traits and cheating attitudes are important predictors of academic dishonesty. The present study examined: a) the incremental role of triarchic psychopathic traits in academic cheating over the Honesty-Humility dimension; b) the incremental role of cheating attitudes over personality; c) the mediating role of cheating attitudes in the relationship between different psychopathic components and academic cheating. Two-hundred-and-ninty-seven students (59% female, 23 years on average) completed several questionnaires: (...) the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), The HEXACO-PI-R Honesty-Humility scale, Attitudes Toward Cheating Scale, and the Academic Cheating Behaviours Scale. As expected, triarchic psychopathy added incremental variance in explaining academic cheating, after controlling for Honesty-Humility. Cheating attitudes explained additional 24% after controlling for personality traits. Meanness lead to more lenient attitudes toward cheating, which lead to more academic cheating behaviours. On the other hand, the effects of boldness and disinhibition were not mediated by attitudes towards cheating. Overall, the results suggest that the psychopathic traits display the effects on the academic cheating via several different mechanisms. The findings have both important theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

We investigate the question of whether (and if so why) creating or distributing deepfake pornography of someone without their consent is inherently objectionable. We argue that nonconsensually distributing deepfake pornography of a living person on the internet is inherently pro tanto wrong in virtue of the fact that nonconsensually distributing intentionally non-veridical representations about someone violates their right that their social identity not be tampered with, a right which is grounded in their interest in being able to exercise autonomy (...) over their social relations with others. We go on to suggest that nonconsensual deepfakes are especially worrisome in connection with this right because they have a high degree of phenomenal immediacy, a property which corresponds inversely to the ease with which a representation can be doubted. We then suggest that nonconsensually creating and privately consuming deepfake pornography is worrisome but may not be inherently pro tanto wrong. Finally, we discuss the special issue of whether nonconsensually distributing deepfake pornography of a deceased person is inherently objectionable. We argue that the answer depends on how long it has been since the person died. (shrink)

In contrast to [Susan] Sontag, who used the tools of literary criticism to evaluate sexually explicit fiction, I will use the conventions of pornography to interpret a dramatic monologue in which an expected sexual encounter fails to take place. In analyzing Rossetti’s “Jenny,” I will employ an interpretive model based on the work of [Steven] Marcus, [Susan] Griffin, and [Andrea] Dworkin. Despite different assumptions about sexuality—Marcus is a Freudian, Griffin believes in a mystical eros residing in the psyche and waiting (...) to be rediscovered, Dworkin regards heterosexuality as a construct for subjugating women and masking men’s homoerotic drive—they share several ideas applicable to “Jenny.” Although pornography features, and indeed perpetuates, various kinds of masculine power, especially the powers of money, class, and culture, it purports to be ahistorical in order to obscure its status as ideology. It depicts male sexuality as fear-laden aggression resulting in very little pleasure; thus it is not liberating on either a political or a personal basis. Pornography does not include “others.” Women are present only to be silenced, objectified, treated as screens on which a man projects his fantasies. Marcus, Griffin, and Dworkin are all concerned with what Suleiman calls “the representational or fantasmatic content” of pornography and “the political implications of that content.” The risks of emphasizing the representational—most especially, the denigration of language and style that result from Dworkin’s approach—can, as Suleiman says, be mitigated by careful attention to a particular text .In Rossetti’s poem, a young man attempts to purchase a night’s pleasure with a London prostitute named Jenny. After she thwarts his plans by falling asleep, he spends the night meditating about her beauty, speculating about her past, present, and future, and thinking about the causes of prostitution. Although Rossetti’s subject matter is consistent with the etymological definition of pornography as “writing about prostitutes,” he avoids the explicit depiction of sexual activity which has been the common element in most modern accounts of the genre. Indeed, the only physical contact between the narrator and Jenny occurs at daybreak when he places coins in her hair and gives her a parting kiss. Robin Sheets is associate professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. She has written on Thackeray, George Eliot, and other Victorian writers and is coauthor of The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and American, 1837-1883. (shrink)

This paper has two major goals: First, I argue that Catharine MacKinnon’s and Andrea Dworkin’s anti-pornography activism was an act of public reason and their arguments public reasons arguments. Thus, MacKinnon’s argument that pornography is best understood as a practice of sex discrimination is a public reason argument—and so can be defended as grounded in liberal political principles. Political liberalism, as I defend it, can support MacKinnon’s approach to pornography as embodied in a civil rights ordinance. By way of contrast, (...) I will take up another feminist position on pornography, Drucilla Cornell’s, that differs from, and in fact is quite critical of, the MacKinnon/Dworkin anti-pornography position. My primary aim here is to show that Cornell’s arguments fail—as they stand—as public reason arguments, and thus further highlight the crucial aspects of MacKinnon’s feminist approach that are compatible with public reason, and so with liberal political principles. This is not to say that one could not provide a public reason argument for a position like Cornell’s. However, as she offers it, her position is not compatible with the norms of public reason. Second, I show why the obscenity route to the regulation of pornographic material—the traditional liberal approach—is actually antithetical to the version of political liberalism I am interested in defending. The conclusion of these arguments is that contrary to the mainstream view, liberalism is hospitable to the arguments of MacKinnon and Dworkin, and so as liberals we have not only good reason to take their arguments very seriously, but even stronger their arguments flow from fundamental liberal political values. (shrink)

It has seemed to some compelling that construing imagining in relation to fictional events as imagining being aware of those events provides a good explanation of our emotional responses to them. Call this ‘the argument from affective response’. Versions of this argument have been advanced by Kendall Walton and Jerrold Levinson. A more localised version of it, with respect to pornography, is that construing imagining in relation to events represented in pornography as imagining being aware of them provides a (...) good explanation of subsequent arousal. Compelling as this may seem, I argue that it is false. I start by making some distinctions between different kinds of imagining de se, and then focus on the claim that there is a connection between emotional engagement with fiction and implicitly imagining de se, making it more precise in the light of various plausible considerations. I then turn to the case of pornography, examining and rejecting three possible arguments for a necessary connection between imagining, from the inside, being aware of represented events, and being aroused by them. Since versions of these arguments might equally be applied to affective response to fiction more generally, I take it that I have thereby gone at least part way to undermining the argument from affective response. (shrink)

The article looks again at the English debate over Anglo-Scottish union in the period 1603 to 1607. It reconstructs what marriage meant to contemporaries, as sociocultural practice as well as political model. It argues that Englishmen's attention to their local circumstances -- sui generis since the Henrician reformation -- sank the union project. The debate also promoted a distrust of blood-right kingship that was crucial to its abolition a generation later. The body of the paper is designed as a case (...) study of how to situate 'ideas in context'. It is intended to challenge, by example, key assumptions that inform the dominant model for that project, articulated pre- eminently in Quentin Skinner's work. The conclusion addresses the theoretical dimension explicitly, critiquing Skinner's rationalist model with specific reference to his recent work on conceptions of liberty in seventeenth-century England. (shrink)

This article considers the issue of opacity as a problem for socially consequential mechanisms of classification and ranking, such as spam filters, credit card fraud detection, search engines, news trends, market segmentation and advertising, insurance or loan qualification, and credit scoring. These mechanisms of classification all frequently rely on computational algorithms, and in many cases on machine learning algorithms to do this work. In this article, I draw a distinction between three forms of opacity: opacity as intentional corporate or state (...) secrecy, opacity as technical illiteracy, and an opacity that arises from the characteristics of machine learning algorithms and the scale required to apply them usefully. The analysis in this article gets inside the algorithms themselves. I cite existing literatures in computer science, known industry practices, and do some testing and manipulation of code as a form of lightweight code audit. I argue that recognizing the distinct forms of opacity that may be coming into play in a given application is a key to determining which of a variety of technical and non-technical solutions could help to prevent harm. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop two criticisms of Miranda Fricker’s attempt to offer an interpretation of MacKinnon’s claim that pornography silences women that conceives of the silencing in question as an extreme form of testimonial injustice. The intended contrast is with the speech act theoretical model of silencing familiar from Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby, who appeal to MacKinnon’s claim to argue against the standard liberal line on pornography, which takes a permissive stance to be demanded by a right (...) to freedom of speech. Fricker’s alternative suggestion is that women are the victims of ‘an especially acute form of testimonial injustice’, due to the kind of dehumanizing bad sexual ideology peddled in much pornography. Fricker suggests that both notions of silencing are coherent possibilities, but that ‘the epistemic model describes the more empirically likely possibility, simply because it requires less erosion of women’s human status before the silencing effect kicks in’. I question the truth of this advertised advantage of Fricker’s epistemic account of silencing, but also its relevance to philosophical debates about pornography and silencing. Second, I raise a concern about theorizing about sexual refusal as a kind of testimony, as Fricker does. (shrink)

This collection of eleven new essays contains the latest developments in analytic feminist philosophy on the topic of pornography. While honoring early feminist work on the subject, it aims to go beyond speech act analyses of pornography and to reshape the philosophical discourse that surrounds pornography. A rich feminist literature on pornography has emerged since the 1980s, with Rae Langton's speech act theoretic analysis dominating specifically Anglo-American feminist philosophy on pornography. Despite the predominance of this literature, there remain considerable (...) disagreements and precious little agreement on many key issues: What is pornography? Does pornography constitute women's subordination and silencing? Does it objectify women in harmful ways? Is pornography authoritative enough to enact women's subordination? Is speech act theory the best way to approach pornography? Given the deep divergences over these questions, the first goal of this collection is to take stock of extant debates in order to clarify key feminist conceptual and political commitments regarding pornography. This volume further aims to go beyond the prevalent speech-acts approach to pornography, and to highlight novel issues in feminist pornography-debates, including the aesthetics of pornography, trans* identities and racialization in pornography, and putatively feminist pornography. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Erotic Art and Pornographic PicturesJerrold LevinsonOnly in primitive art, with its urgent need to evoke the sources of fertility, are the phallus and the vulva emphasized, as it were innocently. By ancient Greek and Roman times there already existed the special category of the pornographic—graphic art or writing supposed, like a harlot, or porne, to sexually stimulate.1IAS REGARDS PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS of the opposition between the erotic and the (...) pornographic, there are a number of reasonable goals one might have: to preserve as many considered intuitions about the opposition as possible; to present the opposition in a clearer light than it enjoys when casually invoked; to modestly "sharpen" the standard opposition that either accounts for our experience in this domain more fully, or allows us to organize our thinking about the domain more perspicuously. I hope in this paper to make progress toward some of those goals. Though the scope of the erotic/pornographic opposition goes beyond the visual, my focus here will be the opposition as it exists in the visual sphere, and even more narrowly, in the sphere of images. In addition to preserving and clarifying a distinction between erotic art and pornography, I hope also to make an intelligible place for erotica, as something intermediate between the other two.Here, then, are some intuitions on the erotic and the pornographic: [End Page 228]1. the erotic and the pornographic are both concerned with sexual stimulation or arousal.2. while the term "erotic" is neutral or even approving, the term "pornographic" is pejorative or disapproving.3. while "erotic art" is a familiar, if somewhat problematic, notion, "pornographic art" seems an almost oxymoronic one.4. whereas pornography has a paramount aim, namely, the sexual satisfaction of the viewer, erotic art, even if it also aims at sexual satisfaction on some level, includes other aims of significance.5. whereas we appreciate (or relish) erotic art, we consume (or use) pornography. In other words, our interactions with erotic art and pornography are fundamentally different in character, as reflected in the verbs most appropriate to the respective engagements.In what follows I try to accommodate all of those intuitions. As I will need a distinction invoked in the first of them (between sexual stimulation and sexual arousal) let me spell that out before proceeding. By sexual stimulation I will mean the inducing of sexual thoughts, feelings, imaginings, or desires that would generally be regarded as pleasant in themselves. By sexual arousal I mean the physiological state that is prelude and prerequisite to sexual release, involving in the male, at least, some degree of erection. And by sexual release I mean something that I take it needs no spelling out.How to differentiate erotic art from pornography, and from erotica as well, is of course not the only important philosophical question about erotic art. Here are two others: 1) How is the erotic aspect of erotic art compatible with the disinterested or distanced frame of mind that seems required for aesthetic engagement with or appreciation of a work of visual art? 2) How is the degree of eroticness of a work of erotic art related to its artistic value? I will briefly address those two questions toward the end of the paper, but most of my effort will be devoted to the prior question, that of the differentiation of erotic art, erotica, and pornography.IIHow, then, to effect that differentiation in the domain of visual images to which I have restricted my inquiry? One possibility would [End Page 229] concern the specific kind of response aimed at. Thus, erotic art might be said to involve images intended to sexually stimulate, but also to reward artistic interest; erotica to involve images intended to sexually stimulate but not to reward artistic interest; pornography to involve images intended to sexually arouse in the interests of sexual release. Another possibility would be by the character of the sexual representation involved, so that pornography would involve sexually explicit images, erotic art would involve sexually inexplicit images, and erotica images would be intermediate in their explicitness, irrespective of the ends for which the images were fashioned. A third possibility would be by... (shrink)

While there is growing awareness of the existence and activities of Academic Custom Writing websites, which form a small part of the contract cheating industry, how they work remains poorly understood. Very little research has been done on these sites, probably because it has been assumed that it is impossible to see behind their firewalls and password protection. We have found that, with some close scrutiny, it is indeed possible to find some ‘cracks’ in these sites through which (...) we can look to gain insights into the business processes that operate within them. We have reverse engineered the business processes that operate within some of these sites. From this we have also been able to identify three different business models that are supported by these sites. Our analysis supports important findings about how these sites operate that can be used to inform future strategies to detect and deter contract cheating. (shrink)