So Close and Yet So Far: Construal Level Moderates Cultivation Effects

The cultivation effect is well established: The more media we consume, the more our worldviews come to reflect the mediated world. Several advancements have been made in the past decade exploring the processes underlying the effect. Importantly, the judgments are often heuristically based (Shrum, 2001 Shrum, L. J. (2001). Processing strategy moderates the cultivation effect. Human Communication Research, 27, 94–120.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2009 Shrum, L. J. (2009). Media consumption and perceptions of social reality: Effects and underlying processes. In J. Bryant &; M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 50–73). New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]), with relevance of the media information an important moderator of this process. Mental construal level, in which people are considered to be thinking on a relatively concrete (psychologically close, specific) level or a relatively abstract (psychologically distant, general) level, may influence these cognitive processes. The present studies find that mental construal level (concrete or abstract) moderates the classic cultivation effect for first-order judgments. Specifically, concrete construal encourages the cultivation effect with a stronger relationship between media consumption and violence prevalence estimates, but abstract construal reduces the effect. Comparison to a control condition in Experiment 2 indicates that concrete construal may be the default state for cultivation effects. One possible explanation for the effect of construal on cultivation effects is that construal influences relevance of and reliance on media cues in judgment formation.     

Not So Enticing Reasons

A common view of the relation between oughts and reasons is that you ought to do something if and only if that is what you have most reason to do. One challenge to this comes from what Jonathan Dancy calls ‘enticing reasons.’ Dancy argues that enticing reasons never contribute to oughts and that it is false that if the only reasons in play are enticing reasons then you ought to do what you have most reason to do. After explaining how enticing reasons supposedly work and why accepting them may appear attractive, I firstly show why we are not committed to accepting them into our conceptual framework and then argue that no reasons work in the way enticing reasons are claimed to. Thus we should reject the category of enticing reasons entirely.

God So Loved the World

The account of the near sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22, often referred to as the Aqedah, has been profoundly influential, both directly and indirectly, in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theological reflection. This article seeks to explore some Christian insights into the use of the motif of the sacrifice of Isaac, suggesting that its use is fundamental to understanding the theme of Christ’s love in the Gospel of John, in particular the link between love, sacrifice, and unity. With a brief exploration of two artworks by Marc Chagall, The Sacrifice of Isaac and the White Crucifixion, it will also raise questions as to what this might mean for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.     

What's So Bad About Killer Robots?

Robotic warfare has now become a real prospect. One issue that has generated heated debate concerns the development of ‘Killer Robots’. These are weapons that, once programmed, are capable of finding and engaging a target without supervision by a human operator. From a conceptual perspective, the debate on Killer Robots has been rather confused, not least because it is unclear how central elements of these weapons can be defined. Offering a precise take on the relevant conceptual issues, the article contends that Killer Robots are best seen as executors of targeting decisions made by their human programmers. However, from a normative perspective, the execution of targeting decisions by Killer Robots should worry us. The article argues that what is morally bad about Killer Robots is that they replace human agency in warfare with artificial agency, a development which should be resisted. Finally, the article contends that the issue of agency points to a wider problem in just war theory, namely the role of moral rights in our normative reasoning on armed conflict.     

So Suzie Wants to Become a Counselor

In this article, a father speaks to his college-bound daughter about the field of counseling, her intended major. The father, an experienced counselor, discusses significant others in his life who have had and continue to have a strong influence on his philosophy and practice of counseling. The love that exists between the father and daughter provides the reader with understanding of the most important ingredient in effective counseling.     

The Slavery of the Not So Talented

The article sets forth Ronald Dworkin’s efforts to avert the slavery of the talented within his theory of equality, so that they are not forced to work full-time at one type of job, but then criticises Dworkin for failing to apply similar concerns to not so talented workers. It argues that he overlooks the problem of the slavery of the not so talented that results from the tough rules he proposes for dealing with insurance payouts. Finally, it tries to show how this unfairness can be avoided with a better interpretation of the likely outcome of his hypothetical insurance experiment given a better understanding of the motivations of parties operating within that experiment.     

I Ought to Reply,So I Can

Philosophia - I have elsewhere given three arguments for the claim that there can be a reason for a person to perform an action only if this person can perform this action. Henne, Semler, Chituc,...     

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.     

So like still water: A short story

Abstract

The impact of postmodern thought on traditional humanistic psychology is examined, and the conclusion is reached that the effect of the postmodern argument is to undermine the grounding principles for a moral, humane and generative society. However, by revisinoing such concepts as agency and experience in terms of the primacy of relationship, postmodernism urges us to create multiple ways of generating integrative conversation, in a way that is congenial with the deepest hopes of the humanistic tradition.