Human rights without human supremacism*

Early defenders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights invoked species hierarchy: human beings are owed rights because of our discontinuity with and superiority to animals. Subsequent defenders avoided species supremacism, appealing instead to conditions of embodied subjectivity and corporeal vulnerability we share with animals. In the past decade, however, supremacism has returned in work of the new ‘dignitarians’ who argue that human rights are grounded in dignity, and that human dignity requires according humans a higher status than animals. Against the dignitarians, I argue that defending human rights on the backs of animals is philosophically suspect and politically self-defeating.     

Judgments of Monkey’s (Macaca mulatta) Facial Expressions by Humans: Does Housing Condition “Affect” Countenance?

The Psychological Record - The ability to interpret facial expressions of others is one of the more important abilities possessed by humans. However, is it possible for humans to interpret the...     

Static and Phasic Cross-Talk Effects in Discrete Bimanual Reversal Movements

The authors examined the hypothesis that the phasic and the static cross-talk effects found in bimanual movements with different target amplitudes originate at different functional levels of motor control, which implies that the effects can be dissociated experimentally. When the difference between the short and the long amplitudes assigned to the 2 hands of 12 participants was decreased, the static effect disappeared. In contrast, the phasic effect, which can be observed only at short preparation intervals, did not disappear; although it became smaller in absolute terms, in relative terms it did not. In addition, the authors compared the time course of amplitude assimilation with the time course of amplitude variability and examined the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes. The disappearance of the phasic amplitude assimilation at increasing preparation intervals turned out to be delayed relative to the decline of the correlation between amplitudes. That finding suggests that the assimilation of mean amplitudes and the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes are not fully equivalent indicators of intermanual interactions, but may indicate different kinds of inter-limb coupling.     

Book Review

This paper uses an ethnographic study of the Ghost Festival rite performed by a Sri Lankan Theravāda temple in Taipei to illustrate the relationship between religious syncretism and missionary work. It explains how this Chinese ritual has been transformed in a Theravāda setting and made acceptable to Theravāda sentiment, and how it is adopted to advance the agenda of Theravāda missionary. Ghost Festival has had a long history in the Chinese culture and is an important ritual in Chinese Buddhism. However, the Ghost Festival does not exist in Theravāda tradition. The Theravādization of Ghost Festival thus offers interesting insight into the increasing exchange among Buddhists across different traditions in Asia.     

Mothers' Impact on Daughters' Cardiovascular Reactivity in a High‐Threat Context: An Immersive Virtual Environment Study

Applying Attachment Theory, research on confirmation, the Entropy Model of Uncertainty, and the Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat, this investigation examined the role of mothers' communication on adolescents' cardiovascular response to threat. An experimental design allowed for the manipulation of maternal response to daughters experiencing a rapidly approaching wildfire in an immersive virtual environment. Results revealed complexities in the relative benefits of maternal vocalic presence during high‐threat situation, with the mother's history of confirming feedback playing an important role in daughters' cardiovascular response. Implications for knowledge are addressed and methodological possibilities of using immersive virtual environments are noted.     

Introduction: An Emerging Consensus?

This paper is an introduction to a special issue on Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Liberal Democracy. It attempts to describe the state of the debate on issues of multiculturalism and nationalism within liberal-democratic theory. I suggest that there may be an emerging consensus on liberal culturalism – the view that certain group-specific rights or policies aimed at recognizing or accommodating ethnic and national groups are legitimate so long as they operate within certain constraints of liberal justice. I explore the possible reasons for this emerging consensus (including the lack of clear alternatives), and conclude with some suggestions about the likely avenues for future research in this area.     

Chronic Childhood Peer Rejection is Associated with Heightened Neural Responses to Social Exclusion During Adolescence

This functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study examined subjective and neural responses to social exclusion in adolescents (age 12–15) who either had a stable accepted (n?=?27; 14 males) or a chronic rejected (n?=?19; 12 males) status among peers from age 6 to 12. Both groups of adolescents reported similar increases in distress after being excluded in a virtual ball-tossing game (Cyberball), but adolescents with a history of chronic peer rejection showed higher activity in brain regions previously linked to the detection of, and the distress caused by, social exclusion. Specifically, compared with stably accepted adolescents, chronically rejected adolescents displayed: 1) higher activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) during social exclusion and 2) higher activity in the dACC and anterior prefrontal cortex when they were incidentally excluded in a social interaction in which they were overall included. These findings demonstrate that chronic childhood peer rejection is associated with heightened neural responses to social exclusion during adolescence, which has implications for understanding the processes through which peer rejection may lead to adverse effects on mental health over time.