The Soul of Reciprocity Part One: Reciprocity Refused

In this first of a two-part essay, Milbank contends that Intersubjectivity poses itself both as a problem and as a solution only within the regime of representation that has prevailed since Descartes – although it was foreshadowed by post-Scottish scholasticism. The first part, then, is given over to a deconstruction of modern notions of the self in anticipation of the second part, which is a constructive proposal for a recovery of the soul. In the present essay, then, Milbank's intention is to show that we should abandon the attempt to modify the regime of subjectivity with postmodern trans-humanism or else phenomenological intersubjectivity, or else again the neo-Kantian ethics of finitude, and instead attempt to recover the regime of the soul.     

The Soul of Reciprocity Part Two: Reciprocity Granted

In The Soul of Reciprocity Part One: Reciprocity Refused, the case for reciprocity was established in a negative manner. It was shown that its refusal is a crucial aspect of modernity: the result of the interacting influences of modern capitalist economics and an ontotheological outlook that is explicitly modern, not ancient. A disdain for reciprocity thus lies at modernity's very heart. The soul, which, I argued, it allied to reciprocity, was rejected in modernity and the subject was rhetorically advocated in its place. This is true for three crucial instances: Deleuzian transhumanism, Levinasian intersubjectivity and neo-Kantian neo-humanism. All three only re-work the Cartesian and Kantian turn to the subject, which was also a turn away from the soul. The Soul of Reciprocity Part Two: Reciprocity Restored, establishes a positive case for a postmodern retrieval of the premodern soul of reciprocity.     

Effects of social influence in a recognition task of auditory intensity: a temporary shift in criterion.

The effects of responses of another person or a computer occurring prior to the subjects' responses in tasks to recognition model which assumed that subjects shifted their decision criteria temporarily on each trial. A parameter representing the amount of criterion shift reliably estimated sensitivity to social influence. When the social sensitivity parameter was estimated from the data, discriminative ability, defined as d', was unaffected by the presence of social influence. Principal components analyses suggested that social sensitivity and discriminative ability represented essentially orthogonal components of subjects' decision behavior.     

The actions of others as determinants of behavior in social trap situations

Three studies were conducted to determine the effects of observing the behaviors of others upon an individual's actions in a simulated social trap situation. In Experiment 1, it was found that merely having the opportunity to make comparative appraisals of the actions of others led to greater competition for a finite common resource than when subjects were physically isolated from one another. In Experiment 2, false feedback was given to subjects to determine if the actions of others alone were responsible for the deleterious effects of having the opportunity for comparative appraisal; it was found that subjects quickly conformed to the behavior pattern of the interacting others, regardless of whether the false feedback indicated that the other subjects were consuming more or less than no-treatment control subjects. Experiment 3 was conducted to determine the motivation of subjects reacting to the actions of others; differential predictions based upon a competition/relative outcome explanation and upon an information search explanation were made. The data were consistent with the information search explanation.     

Choice as an act of meaning: the case of social class

Social class is one important source of models of agency--normative guidelines for how to be a "good" person. Using choice as a prototypically agentic action, 5 studies test the hypotheses that models of agency prevalent in working-class (WK) contexts reflect a normative preference for similarity to others, whereas models prevalent in middle-class (MD) contexts reflect a preference for difference from others. Focusing on participants' choices, Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants from WK relative to MD contexts more often chose pens that appeared similar to, rather than different from, other pens in the choice set, and more often chose the same images as another participant. Examining participants' responses to others' choices, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that participants from WK relative to MD contexts liked their chosen pens more when a confederate chose similarly and responded more positively when a friend chose the same car in a hypothetical scenario. Finally, Study 5 found that car advertisements targeting WK rather than MD consumers more often emphasized connection to, rather than differentiation from, others, suggesting that models of agency are reflected in pervasive cultural products.     

Accountably Other: Trust,Reciprocity and Exclusion in a Context of Situated Practice

The first part of this paper makes five points: First, the problem of Otherness is different and differently constructed in modern differentiated societies. Therefore, approaches to Otherness based on traditional notions of difference and boundary between societies and systems of shared belief will not suffice; Second, because solidarity can no longer be maintained through boundaries between ingroup and outgroup, social cohesion has to take a different form; Third, to the extent that Otherness is not a condition of demographic, or belief based, exclusion in modern societies, but rather something that happens to people otherwise available to one another in interaction, othering is a processthat occurs over the course of interaction, turn by turn, not a set of beliefs or a state of mind; Fourth, othering may be supported by accounts and narratives, and these may exist before the fact – or be articulated after the fact. But, over the course of an ongoing interaction, beliefs and narratives do not explain what goes wrong with practices; Fifth, practices require reciprocity and trust. Therefore, practices require a morestringent form of morality – not a less stringent form – and moresocial cohesion – not less – than traditional society.The second part of the paper illustrates these five points with an extended analysis of a cross-race interaction in which accounts are invoked, reciprocity breaks down, and participants are rendered as Accountable Others.     

Comment: Reciprocity and the Rise of Populism

Res Publica - It has recently been contended that the rise of populism in the US, culminating in the election of Donald Trump, vindicates liberal political theory, and the liberal political theory...     

Ritualized Exchange: A Consideration of Confucian Reciprocity

In this essay I discuss reciprocity as it unfolds within the context of a Confucian relational ethic. I discuss the relationship between reciprocity and the virtue of shu or ‘sympathetic understanding’ and then go on to argue that the goods that grow out of reciprocal relationships are necessary for Confucian ethics. These include social equilibrium, a rich sense of self-esteem, and reliable expectations concerning the actions of others. Finally, I discuss the difficulties of acting reciprocally in socially disproportional relationships and in those that involve the manifestation of ill will. It is suggested that Confucian ethics provides a viable account of reciprocity that remains relevant for those living in modern contexts.

The rules of ritual propriety value reciprocity,

If I give a gift and nothing is returned,

that is contrary to propriety;

If the thing comes to me, and I give nothing in return,

that is also contrary to propriety.

(Legge, 1885 Legge, J (Trans.). 1885. “Li Ki (Book of rites)”. In Vols. 27–28 of The sacred books of the East, Edited by: Max, Meuller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  [Google Scholar], p. 65)     

Escalating commitment to a relationship: The sexual harassment trap

Divergent perceptions of sexual harassment were explored in a case of a perpetrator's gradual sexual advancements and a target's escalating commitment to their relationship. Participants were 60 male and 60 female undergraduate students from a private midwestern university. Approximately 7% were minority members. Males and females interpreted the male perpetrator's actions differently, particularly when the female target made prior commitments to a friendly relationship. Specifically, males' ratings of sexual harassment decreased when the female target participated in increasingly informal, friendly interactions. Females ratings remained relatively constant despite the target's reactions. Attributions and reactions to the harassment also were influenced. Interestingly, as the target's commitment increased, both males and females reported a lower likelihood that the target would seek help.This study was part of the second author's master's thesis at Drake University. An earlier version of the study was presented at the 6th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, St. Louis, Missouri, April 1991. The authors would like to thank John Binning, Michael Ford, William Klipec, Paula Radefeld, and LaVerne Rogers for their contributions to this research.     

Peak shift revisited: a test of alternative interpretations

In Experiment 1, 2 groups of human subjects were trained to respond to 1 of 2 light intensity stimuli, S2 or S4, and then were tested for generalization with a randomized series of increasing values from S1 to S11. Both groups, including the group trained to respond to dimmer value, showed peak shifts to a brighter more centrally located test stimulus. In Experiment 2, which used line angle stimuli, both the size of the difference between S+ and S- and the range of test stimuli that extended beyond S+ were varied. The larger the S(+)-S- separation and the larger the range, the greater was the peak shift obtained. In Experiment 3, training involved an S- (line angle) surrounded by 2 S+ values with testing symmetrical about the training values and covering either a narrow or a wide range. The wide range produced greater peak shifts in both directions from S-. All 3 experiments support an adaptation-level interpretation of intradimensional discrimination learning and generalization test performance in human subjects. Related work with animals suggests the presence of similar processes.     

Unconscious perception: the need for a paradigm shift

According to Snodgrass, Bernat, and Shevrin (2004), unconscious perception can be demonstrated convincingly only at the objective detection threshold, provided that the conditions of their objective detection/strategic model are met, whereas both the subjective threshold model of Cheesman and Merikle (1984, 1986) and the objective threshold/rapid decay model of Greenwald, Draine, and Abrams (1996) are inconclusive. We argue on theoretical, metatheoretical, and empirical grounds that all three dual-process models, which are based on both conscious and unconscious perception, should be rejected in favor of the single-process conscious perception model.