Why Parfit did not go far enough

Parfit has argued for the revolutionary thesis that personal identity does not matter in ordinary survival, only the R-relation does. “Reconciliationists,” such as Lewis, have tried to stop this revolution, arguing that both personal identity and the R-relation matter. The disagreement has been between those who hold that only the R-relation matters and those who hold that, in addition, personal identity matters. But there is a third option. I argue that Parfit is right that personal identity does not matter but he is wrong that the R-relation matters, and the reconciliationists are wrong to think both matter since neither does.     

"我永远不会去天堂"——亚伯拉罕·林肯的宗教怀疑主义

本文通过亚伯拉罕·林肯的家人、亲属、邻居、朋友及政治伙伴等不同人的回忆和口述,呈现出了林肯个人在生活中和政治生涯中对于宗教信仰所持的怀疑的态度和做法,勾勒出林肯作为一个非宗教信仰者的人生轨迹.     

Resilience to loss in bereaved spouses, bereaved parents, and bereaved gay men

Recent research has indicated that many people faced with highly aversive events suffer only minor, transient disruptions in functioning and retain a capacity for positive affect and experiences. This article reports 2 studies that replicate and extend these findings among bereaved parents, spouses, and caregivers of a chronically ill life partner using a range of self-report and objective measures of adjustment. Resilience was evidenced in half of each bereaved sample when compared with matched, nonbereaved counterparts and 36% of the caregiver sample in a more conservative, repeated-measures ipsative comparison. Resilient individuals were not distinguished by the quality of their relationship with spouse/partner or caregiver burden but were rated more positively and as better adjusted by close friends.     

遵守规范为什么十分困难?——关于规范与失范的理论命题探讨

社会成员既是规范的受益者,也是规范的建设者,遵守、维护社会规范也要支付一定的成本.在人们遵守或者违反规范的行为中,可以发现许多公开的或潜在的某些具有规律性的原则.本文提出了社会规范的命题:规范收益的社会预期、规范相对剥夺感、规范需求不平衡、规范的社会成本、规范使用价值、规范的标示性、规范奖赏与惩处、规范的榜样效应、规范遵守的非理性等十个命题.还提出了社会失范的命题:图方便、插队、失范感染、失范累加、失范的"晕轮"效应、失范的隐匿空间、"稻草人"规范、适度压力、规范变动、规范替代等十个命题.     

Masculinity,status, and subordination: Why working for a gender stereotype violator causes men to lose status

Occupying gender stereotype-incongruent roles can lead individuals to lose status and earn a lower salary. The present research examined whether merely working for a supervisor in a gender-atypical occupational role leads a subordinate to lose status. Two studies found that male subordinates of gender deviants (i.e., a female supervisor in a masculine domain or a male supervisor in a feminine domain) were accorded lower status and were paid less than male subordinates of supervisors in gender-congruent roles (i.e., a female supervisor in a feminine domain or a male supervisor in a masculine domain). However, the status of female subordinates was unaffected by working for a gender atypical supervisor. Moreover, the status loss for male subordinates was mediated by a perceived lack of masculinity. Thus, establishing the male subordinate's masculine credentials eliminated the bias.     

Why men (and women) do and don't rebel: effects of system justification on willingness to protest

Three studies examined the hypothesis that system justification is negatively associated with collective protest against ingroup disadvantage. Effects of uncertainty salience, ingroup identification, and disruptive versus nondisruptive protest were also investigated. In Study 1, college students who were exposed to an uncertainty salience manipulation and who scored higher on system justification were less likely to protest against the governmental bailout of Wall Street. In Study 2, May Day protesters in Greece who were primed with a system-justifying stereotype exhibited less group-based anger and willingness to protest. In Study 3, members of a British teachers union who were primed with a "system-rejecting" mind-set exhibited decreased system justification and increased willingness to protest. The effect of system justification on nondisruptive protest was mediated by group-based anger. Across very different contexts, measures, and methods, the results reveal that, even among political activists, system justification plays a significant role in undermining willingness to protest.     

Why do salmon go upstream in fresh water from oceans: Evolution of the global recycling of nutrients through higher organisms

The quasi‐homogeneous cold water mass lying deeper than 1000 m below sea level serves as a sink for, and hence is rich in, inorganic nutrients, including nitrates and above all phosphates, which, directly or through numerous food chains, have found their way to the ocean bottom. This cold water mass surfaces during the cold season in temperate zones and permanently in arctic/antarctic zones, which could support extremely rich marine life permitted by relatively low temperatures. Such fruits de mer are predated by rich marine faunas of local and migrating mammals and birds. As for the migrating birds, they breed during the short summer in both circumpolar zones of the earth, to bring the newly acquired biomaterial including inorganic matter to their overwintering sites of the temperate/ subtropical region. Through food chains mainly involving birds and insects, the nutrients accumulated in the deep sea waters would thus be brought back to the land, upwards even to the high mountains. A similar role may be attributed to salmonids and their southern hemisphere counterparts.

In the case of woodland birds, an estimate made in Japan indicates that ca. 10 tons per km2 of insects support the total insectivorous bird lives of the area. This figure may approximately be used as an index of the inorganic nutrients to be returned per annum to the soil through bird droppings and corpses. Using the number of salmonids caught during the peak period of the highly exploitative fishery perpetrated by Japanese fishing boats around 1910 near the mouth of Amur River, I estimate possible biomass contribution to the land from the sea by salmon returning to the upstream of the Amur in wilderness (ca. 6000 tons per annum). According to Arsen'ev (1930), a school of salmons swimming upstream became a victim of active predation by mammals and birds in the mountains. Whereas the total length of the main path of the Amur beyond the junction of Shilka and Onon Rivers is ca. 4000 km, the total contribution of biomass (and hence inorganic material) by salmonid fish to land would amount to, using the above index for birds’ annual predation of insects per unit area, an equivalent of 100 m‐wide zone along streams of a total length of at least 60,000 km, a distance which would cover a good part of smaller tributary currents of the Amur.

The coevolution of nutrient recycling through organism's migration throughout the global ecosystem would be difficult to explain by natural selection, because there cannot be competition for improvement with the unique system of global redistribution of nutrient materials. Also the time scale needed to bring about selection would by far exceed the generation time of organisms involved.     

Why wouldn't we cry? Love and loss along a river in decline

Along the upper reaches of the Ganga in the Indian Himalayas, devotees of the river and its Hindu Goddess decry the changes that are effecting the sanctity and continuity of its flow. Concerns include the impacts of development projects such as hydroelectric dams and the implications of climate shifts such as altered precipitation, warming temperatures, and melting glaciers. These forces of change are frequent subjects of commentary for those that fear the river's potential demise. This article draws from ethnographic research from 2008 to 2009 to highlight two of the main emotions cited by river devotees when they speak of its condition: love and loss. The feelings of intimacy are sometimes expressed through talk of identity (pehchaan) and in demands to ensure the river's uninterrupted flow. Expressions of loss are also shared verbally, through discourse, and they are evident in moments when people respond to significant changes in the river's appearance. After addressing discourses of concern for the Ganga, the article closes with the Government of India's decision to cancel the contested dams on the river's upper regions and to declare it an “eco-sensitive zone”. Such measures are important recognitions of emotive linkages with and dependencies on nature.