Cornelius of Pakistan: Catholic chief justice of a Muslim state

This essay is a study of the philosophy of state craft of Pakistan's most eminent Chief Justice — A.R. Cornelius, whose tenure on the Supreme Court was from 1951 to 1968. The analysis is based on a remarkable friendship between Cornelius and the author which started in 1960 when the author was an advisor to the Government of Pakistan. It continued with a series of letters from Cornelius through 1970. These sources are augmented by analysis of hundreds of court decisions, speeches and articles by Cornelius. Cornelius developed a profound admiration for Islam which deepened towards the end of his life. He died in 1991 at the age of 88. As a self‐described ‘Neo‐Thomist’ he synthesized Christian and Islamic values through the medium of natural law. This synthesis is a case study in the compatibility of Islam and Christianity developed not on theological grounds but within the context of jurisprudence. It negates the contention that Islam and the West are necessarily at odds and that their interaction will result in a ‘clash of civilizations’. This essay is an adaptation of the first chapter of the author's Chief Justice Cornelius of Pakistan: an analysis with letters and speeches (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1999). It appears here with permission of the publisher. The text of Cornelius’ letters and speeches and the memorial lecture referred to as ‘Appendix’ and ‘Letter to the Author’ in notes 2, 32, 40, 47, 60, 65, 66, 75, 84, 91, 122, 135, 139 are included in that volume.     

Executive Cognitive Functioning and Risk for Substance Abuse

Individuals with a substance use disorder (SUD) exhibit deficits in executive cognitive functioning (ECF). ECF is involved in the regulation of goal-directed behavior and includes abilities such as attentional control, strategic goal planning, organization, and cognitive flexibility. The prefrontal cortex is believed to be the primary cortical substrate that subserves ECF. Children deemed at high risk for drug abuse because they have parents with SUD similarly demonstrate cognitive limitations suggesting an ECF deficit. High-risk children, as a group, also exhibit deviations in temperament, an attenuated amplitude of the P300 event-related potential, and heightened aggressivity compared with control groups. These latter characteristics are associated with low ECF capacity and are believed to reflect dysfunction within the prefrontal cortex. It is hypothesized that deviations on these traits form a core disorder of affective, cognitive, and behavioral dysregulation that serves as a general vulnerability factor for SUD.     

The Price of Non-reductive Moral Realism

Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism.     

Life Circumstances and Personal Resources as Predictors of the Ten-Year Course of Depression

A 10-year naturalistic study of 313 patients who entered treatment for unipolar depression and a community comparison group of 284 nondepressed adults was conducted. We compared life stressors, social resources, personal resources, and coping among patients who were remitted (N = 76), partially remitted (N = 146), or nonremitted (N = 91). Compared with the controls and the remitted patients, the partially remitted and nonremitted patients consistently experienced more life stressors and fewer social resources, were less easygoing, and relied more on avoidance coping. A less easygoing disposition, fewer close relationships, and more reliance on avoidance coping were associated with higher odds of experiencing a course of partial remission or nonremission. In addition, more depressive symptoms and medical conditions predicted nonremission.     

A Review of the TFA Counseling System: From Theory Construction to Application

The purpose of this article is to provide counseling practitioners and researchers with an integrative review of the TFA (thinking-feeling-acting) counseling system, Tracing the 12-year evolution of the model from theory construction and instrument development to practical application provides in one place a comprehensive synthesis of published work on the TFA system. The theoretical principle guiding the model was the systematic combination of the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains of human functioning. The Hutchins Behavior Inventory (HBI) was developed to assess the interaction of thoughts, feelings, and actions that led to applications of the TFA system in counseling and related areas.     

Fear of criticism in washers,checkers and phobics

Fear of criticism in patients who manifested specific phobias, washing rituals and checking rituals was investigated. Six items from the Fear Survey Schedule measuring degree of anxiety to criticism were selected for this purpose. Results indicated that both washers and checkers showed more sensitivity to criticism than did phobics, while washers and checkers did not differ significantly. The implications of these findings for treatment are discussed.     

The ambiguous-cue problem: The effects of reduced similarity between trials and the schedule of reinforcement

In a series of seven experiments pigeons were trained on the two-choice ambiguous-cue problem that contains PA and NA trials. On PA trials choice of P (the positive stimulus) was reinforced and choice of A (the so-called ambiguous stimulus) was not reinforced; on NA trials choice of A was reinforced and choice of N (the negative stimulus) was not reinforced. When the two types of trials were distinguished by only the presence of P or N and each trial was terminated by one response, subjects quickly attained high levels of performance on NA trials but showed only chance levels of performance on PA trials. PA performance was markedly improved when a variety of additional stimuli distinguished the two types of trials and when a variety of schedules of intermittent reinforcement were employed; these manipulations had little effect on NA performance.