Loss Aversion and Foreign Policy Resolve

This article draws upon recent findings from the field of neuroscience to explore how loss aversion affects foreign policy resolve. We theorize that U.S. policy makers are more resolute in pursuing preventive policies that seek to avoid losses than they are in pursuing promotive policies that seek to acquire new gains. To test our theory, we conduct the first large‐n analysis of foreign policy hypotheses derived from the neuroscience of loss aversion using data from 100 cases of U.S.‐initiated Section 301 trade disputes. The results provide strong support for the loss‐aversion‐based theory, revealing that American policy makers are willing to fight harder and hold out longer in trade disputes with preventive objectives than they are in cases with promotive ones. Our study demonstrates that hypotheses derived from neuroscientific findings can be tested using large‐n techniques in study of foreign policy, revealing a new avenue of inquiry within the field.     

The Moralism of Multiculturalism

abstract Moralism is a frequent charge in politics, and especially in relation to the ‘politics of recognition’. In this essay, I identify three types of moralism — undue abstraction, unjustified moralism and impotent moralism — and then discuss each in relation to recent debates over multiculturalism in liberal political theory. Each of these forms of moralism has featured in interesting ways in recent criticisms of the political theory and public policy of multiculturalism. By ‘multiculturalism’ I mean, broadly speaking, the pursuit of group‐differentiated public policies that move beyond the protection of basic individual civil and political rights. Here the charge is not so much that moral judgments have no application in relation to the treatment of cultural and associational minorities, but that the moral claims of defenders of multiculturalism are: (a) appealed to without any sense of the practical realities on the ground (the undue abstraction charge); (b) asserted as if they were self‐evidently true (the unjustified moralism charge); which often results in (c) a stifling of reasoned criticism of the orthodoxy surrounding multiculturalism (thus engendering impotent moralism). I assess these charges in the course of defending the democratic character of the most plausible forms of multicultural accommodation in liberal democratic societies.     

An archaeology of borders: qualitative political theory as a tool in addressing moral distance

Interviews, field observations and other qualitative methods are being increasingly used to inform the construction of arguments in normative political theory. This article works to demonstrate the strong salience of some kinds of qualitative material for cosmopolitan arguments to extend distributive boundaries. The incorporation of interviews and related qualitative material can make the moral claims of excluded others more vivid and possibly more difficult to dismiss by advocates of strong priority to compatriots in distributions. Further, it may help to promote the kind of perspective taking that has been associated with actually motivating a willingness to provide aid by individuals. Illustrative findings are presented from field work conducted for a normative project on global citizenship, including interviews with unauthorized immigrants and the analysis of artefacts left behind on heavily used migrant trails.     

Political Agency,Citizenship, and Non-human Animals

In this essay I challenge the idea that political agency must be central to the concept of citizenship. I consider this question in relation to whether or not domesticated animals can be understood as our fellow citizens. In recent debates on this topic, both proponents and opponents of animal citizenship have taken political agency to be central to this question. I advance two main arguments against this position. First, I argue against the orthodox view that claims political agency is a requirement of citizenship. This position ignores both how citizenship is understood in practice by modern, liberal democracies, as well as the separate functions of citizenship. Further, there are no plausible ways we can consistently extend citizenship to humans regardless of intellectual ability, while denying it to domesticated animals. Nevertheless, I argue that it is important to distinguish two ways in which citizenship is enacted: Citizenship as Membership and Citizenship as Responsible, Political Agent. Domesticated animals should be understood as citizens, despite the fact that they are not responsible, political agents. Second, I challenge the view, put forward by Donaldson and Kymlicka, that animals are capable of certain forms of political agency. I argue that political agency is not crucial to whether, and how, the preferences of these animals matter for political decision-making. The upshot of my argument is that political agency matters much less to debates about the citizenship of non-human animals than both sides of this debate have been inclined to think.     

Virtue Ethics,Social Difference,and the Challenge of an Embodied Politics

Following the revival of virtue theory, some moral theorists have argued that virtue ethics can provide the basis for a radical politics. Such a politics essentially departs from the liberal model of the moral agent as an autonomous reason‐giver. It instead privileges an understanding of the agent as conditioned by her community, and in the case of social oppression and marginalization, communal virtues may become a vehicle for social change. This essay compares political appropriations of virtue theory by Christian theologian Stanley Hauerwas and secular feminist thinkers Lisa Tessman and Margaret Urban Walker. Hauerwas and feminist theorists both embrace a kind of embodied vulnerability as a political virtue, arguing that it enables more genuine social recognition. The virtue feminist critique is more robust than Hauerwas's, however, insofar as it understands mutual recognition to involve acknowledgment of social difference and the concomitant pursuit of justice.     

From Theorizing Radicalization to Surveillance Practices: Muslims in the Cross Hairs of Scrutiny

There are several psychological analyses of the processes of radicalization resulting in terrorism. However, we know little about how those in authority (e.g., the police) conceptualize the psychological dynamics to radicalization. Accordingly, we present a detailed account of an official U.K. counterterrorism intervention, the Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent, designed to enlist frontline professionals in identifying and referring those at risk of radicalization. Specifically, we report data gathered during an observation of this intervention delivered by the police in Scotland. This provides insight into the psychological model of radicalization being disseminated in the United Kingdom, and we evaluate the merits of this model in the light of current psychological theory. First, we consider how this model may overlook certain social dynamics relevant to understanding radicalization. Second, we discuss how this neglect limits consideration of how the surveillance warranted by the official model may lead Muslims to disengage from majority group members. Our analysis points to how political psychology's analysis of social identities and citizenship can inform public policy and practice.     

Adam Smith,Ethicist

This essay argues that Adam Smith's political economy is premised upon a moral anthropology, and that greater attention to Smith from religious ethicists may both improve Smith scholarship and deepen dialogue on economic themes within the field of religious ethics. It does so first by surveying common readings of Smith and noting that engagement of his work within religious ethics and theology tends to rely on misconceptions prevalent in these readings. It then outlines the moral psychology that links Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations and explains the importance of this moral psychology for Smith's ambivalent analysis of commercial society. Reflecting on the case of Smith's work, it concludes by arguing that attention from religious ethicists may also improve contemporary political economic debates, given that they are often premised upon latent assumptions about moral anthropology.     

Grounding Citizenship: Toward a Political Psychology of Public Space

This article considers the political nature of public space and explores its psychological relevance as a natural arena of citizenship. Drawing on literature in social psychology, environmental psychology, and political geography, the article addresses how common understandings of normative behavior in public are often based on particular constructions of place and people‐space relations. In so doing, it shows how such culturally shared “locational” notions are essentially contested in relation to their political significance and ideological orientation within a particular public socio‐spatial context. It is argued that claims for and demands on public space are enshrined in broader struggles over the psychological boundaries of belonging, identity, and civic entitlements which are central to the contentious issue of citizenship. This is illustrated through the analysis of an emblematic struggle over a public space located in the Old Town of Barcelona between 1999 and 2007, triggered by the social appropriation of an undeveloped urban lot. The article pinpoints how considering the material dimension of public space may also enrich existing psychological approaches to citizenship.     

Confronting deep moral disagreement: the President's Council on Bioethics, moral status, and human embryos

The report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, addresses the central ethical, political, and policy issue in human embryonic stem cell research: the moral status of extracorporeal human embryos. The Council members were in sharp disagreement on this issue and essentially failed to adequately engage and respectfully acknowledge each others' deepest moral concerns, despite their stated commitment to do so. This essay provides a detailed critique of the two extreme views on the Council (i.e., embryos have full moral status or they have none at all) and then gives theoretical grounding for our judgment about the intermediate moral status of embryos. It also supplies an account of how to address profound moral disagreements in the public arena, especially by way of constructing a middle ground that deliberately pays sincere respect to the views of those with whom it has deep disagreements.     

Discouraging unethicality versus encouraging ethicality: Unraveling the differential effects of prevention‐ and promotion‐focused ethical leadership

Theory on the impact of ethical leadership has traditionally been based on a deontological approach to morality. Underlying this perspective is the assumption that all leader behaviors that encourage “normatively appropriate conduct” will influence followers in a similar fashion. Put differently, the current consensus seems to suggest that actions that focus on preventing unethical behavior—attending to “the wrong”—will have the same impact as actions that focus on promoting ethical behavior—attending to “the right.” Taking a within‐person approach, we draw upon social exchange theory to challenge this consensus and build theory that suggests a follower's felt trust from their leader will be differentially impacted by prevention‐ versus promotion‐focused ethical leadership. We also explore how these different types of ethical leadership may indirectly, through felt trust, impact citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Finally, we consider how the role of the “moral manager” may interact with the “moral person” by identifying leader moral hypocrisy as an important between‐person moderator of these effects. Given the importance of ethical decision‐making in organizations and the calls for increased ethical leadership, our findings have important implications for both theory and practice.     

‘Everybody's entitled to their own opinion’: ideological dilemmas of liberal individualism and active citizenship

Conversational interview accounts were used to explore everyday understandings of political participation on the part of young white adults in England. Analysis focussed on dilemmatic tensions within respondents' accounts between values of active citizenship and norms of liberal individualism. Respondents could represent community membership as engendering rights to political participation, whilst also arguing that identification with local or national community militates against the formulation of genuine personal attitudes and rational political judgement. Respondents could represent political participation as a civic responsibility, whilst also casting political campaigning as an illegitimate attempt to impose personal opinions on to others. Formal citizenship education did not appear to promote norms of political engagement but rather lent substance to the argument that political decision-making should be based on the rational application of technical knowledge rather than on public opinion or moral principle. In conclusion we question whether everyday understandings of responsible citizenship necessarily entail injunctions to political action. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What we say and what we do: the relationship between real and hypothetical moral choices

Moral ideals are strongly ingrained within society and individuals alike, but actual moral choices are profoundly influenced by tangible rewards and consequences. Across two studies we show that real moral decisions can dramatically contradict moral choices made in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1). However, by systematically enhancing the contextual information available to subjects when addressing a hypothetical moral problem-thereby reducing the opportunity for mental simulation-we were able to incrementally bring subjects' responses in line with their moral behaviour in real situations (Study 2). These results imply that previous work relying mainly on decontextualized hypothetical scenarios may not accurately reflect moral decisions in everyday life. The findings also shed light on contextual factors that can alter how moral decisions are made, such as the salience of a personal gain.     

In Defense of the Jurisdiction Theory of Rights

This essay critically examines three theories of moral rights, theBenefit, the Interest, and the Choice theories. The Interest andChoice theories attempt to explain how rights can be more robustthan seems possible on the Benefit theory. In particular, moralrights are supposed to be resistant to trade-offs to supportprincipled anti-paternalism, to constitute a distinct dimensionof morality, and to provide right holders with a range ofdiscretionary choice. I argue that these and other featuresare better yet provided by a fourth theory of moral rights, theJurisdiction theory.     

The Rhetoric Of Context

This paper presents a critical appraisal of the recent turn in comparative religious ethics to virtue theory; it argues that the specific aspirations of virtue ethicists to make ethics more contextual, interdisciplinary, and practice‐centered has in large measure failed to match the rhetoric. I suggest that the focus on the category of the human and practices associated with self‐formation along with a methodology grounded in “analogical imagination” has actually poeticized the subject matter into highly abstract textual studies on normative voices within traditions, largely in isolation from considerations of socio‐historical context, political and institutional pressures, and the lived ethics of non‐elite moral actors. I conclude with some programmatic suggestions for how the field of comparative religious ethics can move forward.     

Contextual Citizenship in Modern Islamic Thought

This paper examines the concept of citizenship in Egyptian Islamic thought. It focuses on a group of intellectuals referred to as the ‘New Islamists’, who have articulated a kind of Islamic citizenship which would include non-Muslim minorities. In contrast to many Islamists, these thinkers do not advocate reviving the dhimma as a model for the treatment of non-Muslims within an Islamic state. The paper looks at the methods and arguments used for justifying citizenship within the Islamic ideological framework. It compares this conception of citizenship with Western assumptions and shows that there are a number of divergences. However, it also questions the efficacy of simply judging citizenship in Islamic thought through this lens. It asks whether a more constructive question is whether Egyptian Islamists have been able to articulate a conception of citizenship that has evolved ‘contextually’, taking into account Egyptian social, moral, and political culture.     

How Emotional Frames Moralize and Polarize Political Attitudes

Moralized issues, such as abortion and same‐sex marriage, are some of the most polarizing and divisive issues in politics. These topics motivate political engagement but present a barrier to democratic resolution. Yet we know little about how some issues become “moral issues” and others do not. In this article, I argue that exposure to persuasive frames, particularly those eliciting anger and disgust, serves to moralize and polarize public opinion. I test these hypotheses across three experiments on emerging debates over food politics. The results consistently show that persuasive frames increase issue moralization and, in turn, facilitate polarization. A panel analysis demonstrates that the effect of a single exposure lasts at least two weeks. Mediation analyses suggest that feelings of disgust and anger help explain how persuasive frames moralize political attitudes, while anger alone seems to explain the polarizing effects of framing. Overall, the findings provide new insight into framing, emotion, and the development of moral issues.     

Citizenship for children: By soil,by blood,or by paternalism?

Do states have a right to exclude prospective immigrants as they see fit? According to statists the answer is a qualified yes. For these authors, self-determining political communities have a prima facie right to exclude, which can be overridden by the claims of vulnerable groups such as refugees and children born in the state’s territory. However, there is a concern in the literature that statists have not yet developed a theory that can protect children born in the territory from being excluded from the political community. For if the self-determining political community has the right to decide who should form the self in the first place, then that right should count against both newcomers by immigration and newcomers by birth. Or so the concern goes. In this essay, I defend statism against this line of criticism and provide a liberal justification for the inclusion of children born within the state’s borders. My account leads to some surprising implication for citizenship law, as well as immigration arrangements in the area of asylum and unauthorized immigration.     

Toward a cosmopolitan ethos

There has been a rising trend in cosmopolitan moral theory to seriously take into consideration the human's rootedness in, and partiality toward, particular cultures, places, peoples and traditions. This essay suggests that reframing our theorizing on cosmopolitanism from one that primarily addresses an ethico-political set of questions to one that addresses questions related to moral psychology, personal and collective identity formation and the ways in which civilizations and cultural communities cultivate an ethos may assist in the task of generating a rooted form of cosmopolitanism. Conceptualizing cosmopolitanism as an ethos entails a shift from considering our moral obligations to distant others toward a focus on the types of dispositions and character traits necessary to forge a sense of intercultural solidarity. Through an analysis of the ideas of ‘diaspora’, ‘proximity’, ‘partiality' and the ‘foreign’, it will be suggested that through our rootedness in particularity, and our ability to be partial to particular persons and identify with particular cultures, we are capable of fostering a sense of world citizenship that can serve as a foundation upon which we can secure a tenable global ethic for our pluralistic society.     

A Chinese perspective on Kohlberg's theory of moral development

This essay uses the Chinese culture as an example to underline the culturally specific contextual problems regarding Kohlberg's theory of moral development and to point to a new direction for cross-cultural research in this area. The Western view of man as an autonomous being who makes free and rational choices as a moral agent is clearly reflected in Kohlberg's stages of moral development as well as his methodology. The Confucian view of man as an integral part of an orderly universe with an innate moral sense to maintain harmony is quite different. Further, the preferred mode of resolving human conflict in China is reconciliation and collective decision making rather than individual choice, commitment, and responsibility as in the West. In the light of these fundamental differences in the two cultural traditions, an alternative to Kohlberg's theory is suggested.     

Confronting Deep Moral Disagreement: The President's Council on Bioethics,Moral Status,and Human Embryos

The report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, addresses the central ethical, political, and policy issue in human embryonic stem cell research: the moral status of extracorporeal human embryos. The Council members were in sharp disagreement on this issue and essentially failed to adequately engage and respectfully acknowledge each others' deepest moral concerns, despite their stated commitment to do so. This essay provides a detailed critique of the two extreme views on the Council (i.e., embryos have full moral status or they have none at all) and then gives theoretical grounding for our judgment about the intermediate moral status of embryos. It also supplies an account of how to address profound moral disagreements in the public arena, especially by way of constructing a middle ground that deliberately pays sincere respect to the views of those with whom it has deep disagreements.