Anscombe,Zygotes, and Coming‐to‐be

In some quarters, it is held that Anscombe proved that a zygote is not a human being on the basis of an argument involving the possibility of identical twins, but there is surprisingly little agreement on what her argument is supposed to be. I criticize several extant interpretations, both as interpretations of Anscombe and as self‐standing arguments, and offer a different understanding of her conclusion on which the non‐specificity of creation processes and their goals is at issue.     

Taking Confucian Thought Seriously for Contemporary Society: Rejoinder to Lauren Pfister,Ronnie Littlejohn,and Li Chenyang

This rejoinder focuses on a few points of disagreement that I have with Li Chenyang, Ronnie Littlejohn, and Lauren Pfister regarding their critical comments on my book Reconstructionist Confucianism. In response to Pfister’s concerns, I point out that my book attempts to base on classical, rather than other, Confucian sources in order to reconstruct the Confucian virtue-based, ritual-guided, and family-oriented view of life for contemporary society. In appreciating Littlejohn’s suggestion on Confucian environmentalism, I contend that a kind of Grand View Garden as we find in the Dream of Red Mansion would be a typical Confucian garden, manifesting the Confucian ideal of a family-oriented way of life that holds in harmonious relations with the rest of nature under the direction of the cosmic principles. Finally, I offer detailed replies to Li’s series of challenges to my view on li 禮, arguing for the essential constitutive nature of the Confucian rituals.     

Responses to Allen,Appiah, and Lawson

In my Responses, I take up the various definitional and justificatory challenges that Anita Allen, Anthony Appiah and Bill Lawson raise to my defense of affirmative action and I try to build bridges and remove the apparent disagreements between our views. In the process, I have found a way to replace race-based affirmative action with a non-race-based program which retains all the benefits that a race-based program can provide and secures additional benefits as well.     

Intention, Context, and Safe Sex: Australian Adolescents' Responses to AIDS

This study examined the applicability to condom use of Ajzen and Madden's (1986) theory of planned behavior by examining the predictors of intention to use a condom and actual condom use in a specific sexual situation. In a sample of 144 sexually active heterosexual males and females, limited support was found for the model. Intentions to use a condom immediately before a particular sexual encounter, and those assessed some time prior to this encounter were found to have direct and positive effects on condom use. In addition, perceptions of the disadvantages of condoms (a measure of attitudes to condoms in general) had direct negative effects on condom use and, together with perceptions of the advantage of condoms, also had indirect effects on condom use via prior intention. A number of the postulated predictors of safe sexual practice related neither to intentions nor behavior. The contextual variables of sexual arousal, condom availability, and degree of communication with a sexual partner all influenced condom use. Discussion centered on first, differences in the predictive ability of the model when compared to other studies of planned behavior, and second, the factors limiting the relationship between intention and behavior when the behavior in question is not under complete, volitional control.     

Alexithymia,Gender, and Responses to Depressive Symptoms

Sex Roles - Difficulty in labeling and communicating emotions (commonly known as alexithymia) may play a role in how women and men respond to a depressed mood. In the current study, we hypothesized...     

Responses to interpersonal transgressions in families: forgivingness, forgivability, and relationship-specific effects

Social relations analyses examined the relative importance of forgivingness (disposition to forgive others), forgivability (tendency to obtain forgiveness from others), and relationship effects in determining family members' transgression-related interpersonal motivations (TRIMs) and their perceptions of others' TRIMs toward them (PTRIMs). In 2 studies, the individual and dyadic predictors of these components and their relative importance differed by family role (father, mother, or early adolescent child). Dispositional tendencies accounted for the most variance in father and child forgiveness, whereas mothers' TRIMs and PTRIMs were more strongly determined by relationship and partner effects. Personality correlates of forgivingness and forgivability were moderated by family role. The findings point to the need to embed the study of forgiveness in more complex psychosocial contexts. The theoretical, methodological, and applied implications of this conclusion are discussed.