Teaching Peace in a Time of War

It is difficult to distinguish a time of war from a time of peace in America, because the Bush administration prosecutes its war on terrorism with an ongoing supporting economy. "Teaching Peace" means analyzing realistically the vested interests in perpetuating a state of war.     

Time for Change

Metaphysical theories of change incorporate substantive commitments to theories of persistence. The two most prominent classes of such theories are endurantism and perdurantism. Defenders of endurancestyle accounts of change, such as Klein, Hinchliff, and Oderberg, do so through appeal to a priori intuitions about change. We argue that this methodology is understandable but mistaken—an adequate metaphysics of change must accommodate all experiences of change, not merely intuitions about a limited variety of cases. Once we examine additional experiences of change, particularly those in (special) relativistic circumstances, it becomes clear that only a perdurance account of change is adequate.     

Family and Couples Therapy in a Time of War

SUMMARY

In this article the issue of professional responsibility of couples and family therapists is raised with regard to the war in the Persian Gulf. Implications are discussed for families and couples coping with the stress of war and its aftermath.     

Climate Change is Unjust War: Geoengineering and the Rising Tides of War

Climate change is undeniably a global problem, but the situation is especially dire for countries whose territory is comprised entirely or primarily of low‐lying land. While geoengineering might offer an opportunity to protect these states, international consensus on the particulars of any geoengineering proposal seems unlikely. To consider the moral complexities created by unilateral deployment of geoengineering technologies, we turn to a moral convention with a rich history of assessing interference in the sovereign affairs of foreign states: the just war tradition. We argue that the just war framework demonstrates that, for these nations, geoengineering offers a justified form of self‐defense from an unwarranted, albeit unintentional, aggression. This startling result places our own carbon‐emitting activities in a stark new light: in perpetrating climate change, we are, in fact, waging war on the most vulnerable.     

Prayer Beliefs and Change in Life Satisfaction Over Time

A considerable number of studies have focused on the relationship between prayer, health, and well-being. But the influence of some types of prayer (e.g., petitionary prayer) has received more attention than others. The purpose of this study is to examine an overlooked aspect of prayer: trust-based prayer beliefs. People with this orientation believe that God knows that best way to answer a prayer and He selects the best time to provide an answer. Three main findings emerge from data that were provided by a nationwide longitudinal survey of older people reveals. First, the results reveal that Conservative Protestants are more likely to endorse trust-based prayer beliefs. Second, the findings suggest that these prayer beliefs tend to be reinforced through prayer groups and informal support from fellow church members. Third, the data indicate that stronger trust-based prayer beliefs are associated with a greater sense of life satisfaction over time.     

Holocaust Survival Stories: Change Over Time

Those Holocaust survivors who have found it impossible to discuss their experiences often face a bleak old age (Krystal, 1990). Some of those who have reached an audience, however, have been changed by the experience of writing. This paper analyzes the differences between those writers whose stories remain static, like Jerzy Kosinski, and others like Elie Wiesel, Gerda Weissmann Klein, and Aharon Appelfeld, whose accounts have become more complex as they aged.     

Belief Change in Branching Time: AGM-consistency and Iterated Revision

We study belief change in the branching-time structures introduced in Bonanno (Artif Intell 171:144–160, 2007). First, we identify a property of branching-time frames that is equivalent (when the set of states is finite) to AGM-consistency, which is defined as follows. A frame is AGM-consistent if the partial belief revision function associated with an arbitrary state-instant pair and an arbitrary model based on that frame can be extended to a full belief revision function that satisfies the AGM postulates. Second, we provide a set of modal axioms that characterize the class of AGM-consistent frames within the modal logic introduced in Bonanno (Artif Intell 171:144–160, 2007). Third, we introduce a generalization of AGM belief revision functions that allows a clear statement of principles of iterated belief revision and discuss iterated revision both semantically and syntactically.     

Change management: Time for a change!

We discuss some core issues in the field of change management. We use these topics to identify some mindsets that dominate the practice of change management, and argue that these should be replaced by some alternatives. The alternatives are drawn largely from operations management and sociotechnical thinking. We characterize existing approaches as partial, and speculate that this may be one of the reasons why so many change initiatives are ineffective at meeting their goals. We identify some of the reasons why existing mindsets are sustained. We also point to some ways forward, focusing on changes in the mindsets and language we use. We speculate that these would improve the effectiveness of change initiatives.     

The Effects of Anticipated Informational and Normative Influence on Perceptions of Hypothetical Opinion Change

Two experiments addressed the role of anticipated informational or normative influence on perceptions of hypothetical opinion change in the context of either an intellective or judgmental task. The findings from Experiment 1 indicate that informational and normative influence processes are perceived as being differentially effective in changing people's opinions about a judgmental task but not about an intellective task. Experiment 2 explores some possible causes of these findings.     

Encountering Dissimilar Views in Deliberation: Political Knowledge,Attitude Strength,and Opinion Change

Conversing with diverse points of view stands as the central tenet of deliberative democracy, yet empirical evidence has suggested mixed outcomes related to perspective change as a result of deliberative encounters. I propose a difference‐driven model that suggests individual predispositions moderate the processing of dissimilar views when changing policy preferences. My analysis is based on a random sample of over 400 voters at a California‐wide deliberative event, where participants discussed proposals for reforming the state politics. I find that encountering more and different arguments transforms policy attitudes. Yet it is more difficult for people to change their minds on issues about which they hold strong beliefs. Some evidence suggests that different psychologies are at play for people who enter deliberation with substantial or weak political knowledge and for those who deliberate while holding strong or moderate prior opinions. Well‐grounded strong opinions are resistant to change, while well‐grounded moderate opinions are persuadable in deliberative groups. Uninformed positions can become entrenched in like‐minded groups, yet they can be adjusted once participants deliberate with dissimilar views, especially opinions that are held strongly without good informational ground. The findings urge deliberative forums that introduce participants to diverse perspectives to foster a considered public opinion.     

The B-Theory of Time and the Notion of Change in the Yijing

This paper engages in a comparative analytic study of the notions of time and change in the Yijing.It analyzes the Yijing's philosophy of time as a version of the B-theory of time,which regards time as having multiple timelines,without any "privileged present." In the Yijing's hexagrams,events and situations are characterized by earlier than,simultaneous with,and later than relationships.Time in the Yijing does not have a unique "present";rather,time is marked by relationships among events and situations.Furthermore,in the Yijing's philosophy of time,change is essential to the existence of time;change is what makes time possible.     

How to Change the Past in One‐Dimensional Time

The possibility of changing the past by means of time‐travel appears to depend on the possibility of distinguishing the past as it is ‘before’ and ‘after’ the time‐travel. So far, all the metaphysical models that have been proposed to account for the possibility of past‐changing time‐travels operate this distinction by conceiving of time as multi‐dimensional, and thus by significantly inflating our metaphysics of time. The aim of this article is to argue that there is an intuitive sense in which past‐changing time‐travels are metaphysically possible also in one‐dimensional time.     

Choices Chance and Change: Luck Egalitarianism Over Time

The family of theories dubbed ‘luck egalitarianism’ represent an attempt to infuse egalitarian thinking with a concern for personal responsibility, arguing that inequalities are just when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, choice, but are unjust when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, luck. In this essay I argue that luck egalitarians should sometimes seek to limit inequalities, even when they have a fully choice-based pedigree (i.e., result only from the choices of agents). I grant that the broad approach is correct but argue that the temporal standpoint from which we judge whether the person can be held responsible, or the extent to which they can be held responsible, should be radically altered. Instead of asking, as Standard (or Static) Luck Egalitarianism seems to, whether or not, or to what extent, a person was responsible for the choice at the time of choosing, and asking the question of responsibility only once, we should ask whether, or to what extent, they are responsible for the choice at the point at which we are seeking to discover whether, or to what extent, the inequality is just, and so the question of responsibility is not settled but constantly under review. Such an approach will differ from Standard Luck Egalitarianism only if responsibility for a choice is not set in stone—if responsibility can weaken then we should not see the boundary between luck and responsibility within a particular action as static. Drawing on Derek Parfit’s illuminating discussions of personal identity, and contemporary literature on moral responsibility, I suggest there are good reasons to think that responsibility can weaken—that we are not necessarily fully responsible for a choice for ever, even if we were fully responsible at the time of choosing. I call the variant of luck egalitarianism that recognises this shift in temporal standpoint and that responsibility can weaken Dynamic Luck Egalitarianism (DLE). In conclusion I offer a preliminary discussion of what kind of policies DLE would support.     

Religious Involvement,Gratitude, and Change in Depressive Symptoms Over Time

Three hypotheses are evaluated in this study. The first predicts that feelings of gratitude will offset (i.e., moderate) the deleterious effects of chronic financial strain on depressive symptoms over time. The second hypothesis specifies that people who go to church more often will be more likely to feel grateful. The third hypothesis predicts that individuals with a strong sense of God-mediated control will also feel more grateful. Data from a nationwide longitudinal study of older adults in the United States (N = 818) provide support for all three hypotheses. The data suggest that the effects of ongoing economic difficulty on depressive symptoms are especially pronounced for older people who are less grateful. But in contrast, persistent financial difficulties fail to exert a statistically significant effect on depressive symptoms over time for older individuals who are especially grateful. The results further reveal that more frequent church attendance and stronger God-mediated control beliefs are associated with positive changes in gratitude over time.