Towards effective treatment of eating disorders: nothing is as practical as a good theory

There is much room for improvement in the treatment of eating disorders, anorexia nervosa in particular. It is argued that for more effective treatment a radical change in thinking and doing is needed. First, the wide-spread multicausal model of eating disorders must be abandoned and replaced by (a) fundamental strategic research into the most parsimonious explanation of eating disorders and (b) interventions solely directed on the specific maintaining mechanisms. Second, evidence-based working is needed in mental health care. In daily practice, two of three psychotherapists do not treat their eating disordered patients with the best treatment available, i.e. cognitive behaviour therapy. The Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport tried to improve the care for eating disorder patients by the nomination of several specialist hospital units. These units are, however, not selected for their treatment quality or the use of evidence-based treatment protocols. It is argued that this ministerial operation will not increase the supply of effective treatment. The Minister obviously should have done two other things to improve the amount and quality of treatment supply for eating disorders: First, she better could invest in a broad array of workshops, training and supervision programs in cognitive behaviour therapy for all psychotherapists working with eating disorders. Second, since nothing is so practical as a good theory, the facilitation of research into parsimonious models of the relevant mechanisms as well as the experimental tests of interventions on these mechanisms would have been a promising move to effective treatment.     

The theory of justice from a hermeneutic perspective

In this article, I argue that Gadamer's hermeneutics of historical tradition does not imply a conservative stance on ethical and political issues. My essay seeks to show that Gadamer's philosophy leaves ample room for normative criticism, objectivity, and theories of justice at odds with conventional common sense. I critically examine Walzer's Spheres of Justice, reading it as an attempt to obtain a normative account of justice based on a hermeneutical framework of interpretation. I make several criticisms of Walzer's method and results, which I use to develop my own critical model for interpreting, criticizing, and revising traditional understandings, and common sense meanings. My conclusion is that we need to extend Gadamer's philosophy, in order to identify the ways that established traditions of understanding and common sense can result from, or produce, inconsistency, irrationality, hermeneutical incoherence, and meaningless deprivations or suffering. This essay thus seeks to develop an influential continental philosophy in a direction that makes fruitful contact with Anglo-American theories of justice, and normativity.     

Why we are so good at catching cheaters

Data that appear to exhibit a 'cheater detection' effect on performance in the Wason Selection task are widely interpreted as implying that deontic reasoning is effected by a domain specific, cognitive module. The 'cheater detection module' is said to offer a clear example of an effect of evolutionary selection on human cognitive architecture. This interpretation depends critically on assuming that deontic conditionals and their indicative controls are identical in structure; hence that the asymmetries in S's performance must be effects of content variables. I argue that this assumption is untrue and that structural features of deontic conditionals predict the 'cheater detection' data without assumptions about either the architecture or the history of cognition. According to this analysis, the putative cheater detection effect on the Wason task is actually a materials artifact.     

Good education,the good teacher,and a practical art of living a good life: a Catholic perspective

What is good education? We value education for reasons connected to the good provided by education in society. This good is connected to be the pedagogical aim of education. This article distinguishes five criteria for good education based on the concept of ‘Bildung’.

Next, these five criteria are used to develop the idea of the good teacher. The rationale behind the analysis is that the good teacher should be able to realise what we consider to be good education. There are different traditions of religiously affiliated schools in the world. This article gives insight into the idea of the good teacher in two documents of the Catholic Congregation of Education on the lay teacher. Finally, the article focuses on the formation of a practical art of living a good life. Again, the five characteristics of good education structure the analysis of this type of educational formation.     

Disability as a test of justice in a globalising world

This paper shows how most modern theories of justice could require or at least condone international aid aimed at alleviating the ill effects of disability. Seen from the general viewpoint of liberal egalitarianism, this is moderately encouraging, since according to the creed people in bad positions should be aided, and disability tends to put people in such positions. The actual responses of many theories, including John Rawls's famous view of justice, remain, however, unclear. Communitarian, liberal egalitarian, and luck egalitarian thinkers alike have to consider their attitude towards cosmopolitan ideals before they can extend their theories across national borders. The only view of justice that automatically rejects the obligation of international aid based on disability is libertarianism. This is significant for two reasons. Libertarianism is arguably the economic doctrine of globalisation; and its moral appeal to voluntary charity draws attention to the foundations of voluntary corporate social responsibility. Is the latter a prompt for greater or lesser social and political responsibility in global matters?     

Event justice perceptions and employees' reactions: perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator

Building on 2 paradigms in organizational justice research and on fairness heuristic theory, the author argues that employees' perceptions about the fairness of social entities (their supervisor and their organization) moderate the relationship between their perceptions about the fairness of specific events and their reactions. A survey of 265 supervisor-employee pairs in 4 companies was conducted to test this argument. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that when employees perceived their organization to be generally fair, this perception moderated the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their reactions to the organization (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). In addition, employees' perceptions of the fairness of their supervisor were found to moderate the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their supervisor-directed responses (trust in managers and supervisor-directed citizenship behavior) and their organization-directed responses. The results suggest that employee attitudes and behavior can be better understood when both event justice perceptions and social entity justice perceptions are considered together.     

The feels good theory of pleasure

Most philosophers since Sidgwick have thought that the various forms of pleasure differ so radically that one cannot find a common, distinctive feeling among them. This is known as the heterogeneity problem. To get around this problem, the motivational theory of pleasure suggests that what makes an experience one of pleasure is our reaction to it, not something internal to the experience. I argue that the motivational theory is wrong, and not only wrong, but backwards. The heterogeneity problem is the principal source of motivation for this, otherwise, highly counterintuitive theory. I intend to show that the heterogeneity problem is not a genuine problem and that a more straightforward theory of pleasure is forthcoming. I argue that the various experiences that we call “pleasures” all feel good.