Validity of the sex-role egalitarianism scale: Discriminating egalitarianism from feminism

To explore and to clarify the discriminant validity of the sex role egalitarianism construct, the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale (SRES) was administered in conjunction with the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and eight personality trait measures to 108 individuals. Results indicated a hypothesized curvilinear relationship between scores on the SRES and the AWS. When personality traits were individually regressed on SRES and AWS, SRES scores uniquely accounted for variance in achievement locus of control, and AWS scores uniquely accounted for variance in need for autonomy and need for succorance. Findings were supportive of the viability of sex role egalitarianism as an attitudinal dimension having meaning beyond that of a traditional — feminist dimension.     

In defence of global egalitarianism

This essay argues that David Miller's criticisms of global egalitarianism do not undermine the view where it is stated in one of its stronger, luck egalitarian forms. The claim that global egalitarianism cannot specify a metric of justice which is broad enough to exclude spurious claims for redistribution, but precise enough to appropriately value different kinds of advantage, implicitly assumes that cultural understandings are the only legitimate way of identifying what counts as advantage. But that is an assumption always or almost always rejected by global egalitarianism. The claim that global egalitarianism demands either too little redistribution, leaving the unborn and dissenters burdened with their societies' imprudent choices, or too much redistribution, creating perverse incentives by punishing prudent decisions, only presents a problem for global luck egalitarianism on the assumption that nations can legitimately inherit assets from earlier generations – again, an assumption very much at odds with global egalitarian assumptions.     

Luck egalitarianism and non-overlapping generations

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co-existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non-overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling-down objection.     

Formulating physicalism: Two suggestions

Two ways are considered of formulating a version of retentive physicalism, the view that in some important sense everything is physical, even though there do exist properties, e.g. higher-level scientific ones, which cannot be type-identified with physical properties. The first way makes use of disjunction, but is rejected on the grounds that the results yield claims that are either false or insufficiently materialist. The second way, realisation physicalism, appeals to the correlative notions of a functional property and its realisation, and states, roughly, that any actual property whatsoever is either itself a physical property or else is, ultimately, realised by instances of physical properties. Realisation physicalism is distinctive since it makes no claims of identity whatsoever, and involves no appeal to the dubious concept of supervenience. After an attempt to formulate realisation physicalism more precisely, I explore a way in which, in principle, we could obtain evidence of its truth.     

Formulating Emergence

Emergence is intuitively characterized as dependent novelty. Yet, besides this intuition, several formulations of it were elaborated in the last decades. In this article, after having distinguished between two different varieties of emergence (a weak and a strong one), I aim at providing two formulation schemes for emergence. This could help to explain what emergence is and to clarify and unify the suggested formulations. The general idea behind my schemes is that emergence is partial and qualified dependence of the emergent entities on their emergence bases. After having examined several formulations of emergences and presented my schemes, I shall analyse two interesting consequences of the acceptance of the latter: the in principle compatibility between weak and strong emergence and the idea that micro‐physicalism, i.e., the main competitor of emergentism, may actually come in different degrees of strength, more or less in contrast with emergentism. Eventually, I shall briefly compare my formulation schemes with some other relevantly similar proposals.     

Formulating deflationism

I here argue for a particular formulation of truth-deflationism, namely, the propositionally quantified formula, (Q) “For all p, ${\langle \text{p}\rangle}$ is true iff p”. The main argument consists of an enumeration of the other (five) possible formulations and criticisms thereof. Notably, Horwich’s Minimal Theory is found objectionable in that it cannot be accepted by finite beings. Other formulations err in not providing non-questionbegging, sufficiently direct derivations of the T-schema instances. I end by defending (Q) against various objections. In particular, I argue that certain circularity charges rest on mistaken assumptions about logic that lead to Carroll’s regress. I show how the propositional quantifier can be seen as on a par with first-order quantifiers and so equally acceptable to use. While the proposed parallelism between these quantifiers is controversial in general, deflationists have special reasons to affirm it. I further argue that the main three types of approach the truth-paradoxes are open to an adherent of (Q), and that the derivation of general facts about truth can be explained on its basis.     

Sex role egalitarianism and marital violence

This study explores the link between sex role egalitarianism and marital violence using a sample of men enrolled in either substance abuse treatment programs (N=71) or in anger management programs (N=44). It was found that men in both treatment programs had very similar levels of egalitarianism and violence in their relationships. Using the combined sample, it was found that having attitudes approving of marital violence and using “severe” violence accounted for a significant portion of the variance in sex role egalitarianism, whereas use of “minor” violence did not account for significant variance in egalitarianism. These results suggest that sex role egalitarianism may be a meaningful indicator for spouse abuse.     

Formulating Moral Objectivity

Objective moral facts are supposed to be independent from us, but it has proven difficult to provide a clear account of this independence condition. Objective moral facts cannot be overly independent of us, as even an objective morality would depend, in important respects, on features of us. The challenge is to respect these moral mind-dependencies without inappropriately counting too many moral facts as objective. In this paper, I delineate and evaluate several different versions of the independence condition in moral objectivity. I raise problems for these ways of formulating moral objectivity and then develop a better account of moral objectivity, one that avoids the pitfalls of other proposals.     

Preferences,reasoning errors,and resource egalitarianism

In this paper I aim to examine some problematic implications of the fact that individuals are prone to making systematic reasoning errors, for resource egalitarianism. I begin by disentangling the concepts of preferences, choices and ambitions, which are sometimes used interchangeably by egalitarians. Subsequently, I claim that the most plausible interpretation of resource egalitarianism takes preferences, not choices, as the site of responsibility. This distinction is salient, since preference-sensitive resource egalitarianism is faced with an important objection when applied to situations in which the empirically reasonable assumption that individuals have different degrees of computational abilities is introduced. I first show that this objection can be raised in cases involving individuals who have incomplete information, but that it ultimately fails for such cases since we can appeal to higher order insurance markets in order to mitigate any initial concerns. I further claim, however, that the objection is much more powerful in cases involving individuals who have different reasoning skills, since the appeal to higher order insurance markets is no longer tenable. Consequently, the ideal principle of justice proposed by Dworkin is met with a new feasibility challenge. Finally, I claim that the problem of reasoning errors and various forms of cognitive biases also affect Dworkin’s non-ideal principle of justice, skewing the outputs of the hypothetical insurance mechanism in an unjustifiable manner.     

Relational accommodation in negotiation: Effects of egalitarianism and gender on economic efficiency and relational capital

Highly relational contexts can have costs as well as benefits. Researchers theorize that negotiating dyads in which both parties hold highly relational goals or views of themselves are prone to relational accommodation, a dynamic resulting in inefficient economic outcomes yet high levels of relational capital. Previous research has provided only indirect empirical support for this theory. The present study fills this gap by demonstrating the divergent effects of egalitarianism on economic efficiency and relational capital in negotiation. Dyads engaged in a simulated employment negotiation among strangers within a company that was described as either egalitarian or hierarchical. As hypothesized, dyads assigned to the egalitarian condition reached less efficient economic outcomes yet had higher relational capital than dyads assigned to the hierarchical condition. Negotiations occurring between females resulted in lower joint economic outcomes than negotiations occurring between males. Results are consistent with the theory of relational self-construal in negotiation.     

Why egalitarianism might be good for your health: physiological thriving during stressful intergroup encounters

We compared how evaluations by out-group members and evaluations by in-group members affected participants' stress responses--their neuroendocrine reactivity, cognitive appraisals, and observed anxiety--and how participants' implicit racial bias moderated these responses. Specifically, White participants completed measures of racial bias prior to the experiment. During the experiment, participants performed speech and serial subtraction tasks in front of White or Black interviewers. Several saliva samples were obtained, and they were assayed for catabolic ("breaking down") and anabolic ("building up") hormones. Interviewers' race and participants' racial bias interacted in predicting stress responses. When interviewers were Black, lower racial bias was linked with more salutary stress responses: lower threat appraisals, less anxiety, and increased levels of anabolic hormones. When interviewers were White, no effect was found for threat appraisals or anabolic hormones, and the reverse effect was observed for anxiety. Egalitarianism may have physical and psychological benefits for people living in a diverse society.     

The sex-role egalitarianism scale: A measure of attitudes toward equality between the sexes

Two parallel forms of the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale (SRES) were developed. Each form includes 19 items representing each of five domains of adult living: marital roles, parental roles, employee roles, social-interpersonal-heterosexual roles, and educational roles. To determine the psychometric characteristics of the scales, 367 persons were tested, including police, senior citizens, business undergraduates, and psychology undergraduates. Reliability estimates for domain and total scores ranged from .81 to .97. Correlations between social desirability and SRES scores ranged from –.03 to +.18. Preliminary evidence of validity was derived from the confirmation of two a priori hypotheses: (a) Women scored more egalitarian than men, and psychology students scored more egalitarian than business students; (b) Both student groups scored more egalitarian than senior citizens and police.This research was supported by a Faculty Research and Creative Endeavors Grant from Central Michigan University. A portion of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Detroit, April 1981. The authors wish to thank Ann Carey, Tom Blair, and Larry Dennis for their computer assistance.Copies of the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale may be obtained from Carole A. Beere, Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 48859.     

Sex role egalitarianism as a moderator of gender congruence bias in evaluation

Sex-role egalitarianism, or the degree to which one perceives the gender of an individual to be independent of his/her abilities, rights and opportunities, was tested as a moderator of gender congruence in the evaluation of job applicants. It was hypothesized that scores on a measure of sex role egalitarianism would moderate the evaluation of female or male applicants in masculine-typed, neutral, or feminine-typed occupations. It was expected that the biases against an individual applying for a gender-atypical occupation would be reduced by a high degree of egalitarianism, whereas in neutral occupations, no bias would occur. A sample of 144 undergraduates participated in the study. Results from a sample composed mostly of white undergraduates supported part of this hypothesis with a three-way interaction between gender of applicant, gender type of occupation and sex role egalitarianism. In addition, the characteristics exhibited by the egalitarianism measure used in this investigation provided some interesting insights into the psychometric properties of the construct. Implications of these findings are discussed.