The Structure of Max Weber's Ethic of Responsibility

Max Weber's distinction in "Politics as a Vocation" between the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility is best understood as a distinction between mutually exclusive ethical worldviews. Interpretations that correlate the two ethics with Weber's distinction between value-rational social action and instrumental-rational social action are misleading since Weber assumes that both types of rational social action are present in both ethics. The ethic of conviction recognizes a given hierarchy of values as the context for moral endeavor. The ethic of responsibility acknowledges value obligations, but assumes the absence of any given hierarchy of values and the inevitability of value conflict as the context for moral endeavor. When interpreted in the context of his multilayered understanding of value conflict, Weber's ethic of responsibility emerges as a coherent ethical perspective.     

Confucian Cosmopolitanism

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are keenly aware of and often deeply engaged with more global or cosmopolitan approaches to their respective fields; nevertheless, theories of cosmopolitanism remain exceedingly controversial and arise exclusively from Western philosophical sources. Recently, Martha Nussbaum presented a contemporary Western liberal cosmopolitan theory and sought to integrate it with a call for multicultural education. In this essay, I describe, analyze, and criticize Nussbaum's conception of cosmopolitanism and argue that it does not sit comfortably with her laudable advocacy of multicultural education. I then draw upon resources within the Confucian tradition to sketch two alternative conceptions of cosmopolitanism, which I argue are both more powerful than what Nussbaum proposes and better support the kind of multicultural education she so eloquently advocates.     

又有一项生物学信条受到挑战

生物学上的一条新发现———终末分化的神经细胞和心肌细胞具有分裂增殖的能力，向传统理论提出了挑战。指出了真理受一定时代和范围的限制，具有相对性，我们不能超越客观事实去片面追求完善的真理，又要敢于在新技术手段的支持下，提出新观点，勇于向传统观念挑战     

Basic value orientations and moral foundations: Convergent or discriminant constructs?

This study examined the structural and genetic links between value orientations, based on the theory of basic values, and moral concerns, based on moral foundations theory. We hypothesized both structural and genetic convergence of Conservation (versus openness to change) with Binding foundations and of Self-transcendence (versus self-enhancement) with Individualizing foundations. We analyzed self- and informant ratings from 924 participants with extended multitrait-multirater modeling and ran twin model analyses on self-ratings from 555 twin pairs. For Conservation and Binding foundations, we found partial convergence across different rater perspectives and a substantial genetic overlap, but also distinct genetic factors. Self-transcendence and Individualizing foundations were found to be structurally divergent, but genetically linked. We discuss the conceptual and measurement-related implications of the findings.     

Moral perfectionism and moral values,virtues, and judgments: A preliminary investigation

Moral perfectionism has a long tradition in philosophical inquiry, but so far has been ignored in psychological research. This article presents a first psychological investigation of moral perfectionism exploring its relationships with moral values, virtues, and judgments. In three studies, 539 university students responded to items of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al., 1990) adapted to measure personal moral standards (PMS) and concern over moral mistakes (CMM) and completed measures of moral values, virtues, and forgiveness, gratitude, and wrong behavior judgments. When partial correlations were computed controlling for the overlap between PMS and CMM, PMS showed positive correlations with moral values, virtues, reciprocal helping, forgiveness, and condemnation of wrong behaviors. In contrast, CMM showed a positive correlation only with indebtedness and a negative correlation with self-reliance. The present findings, while preliminary, suggest that moral perfectionism is a personality characteristic that may help explain individual differences in moral values, virtues, and judgments.     

Moral sentiment predicts desire for Scottish independence

Scottish independence has been a topic of considerable political debate for some time, with the 2014 referendum concerning whether Scotland should remain a part of the United Kingdom testament to this fact. Numerous economic and political factors have been noted as determinants of the referendum vote. However, the role of psychological factors as a predictor of the desire for independence has not been well explored despite much work demonstrating the importance of specific traits and values on a range of socio-political attitudes. In the current study, using a sample of Scottish adults (n = 271), we sought to examine how two core constructs capturing moral sentiment – binding (reflecting concern for group cohesion and norms) and individualizing (reflecting concern over individual rights) – predicted the desire for independence during the build-up to the referendum. Results indicated that lower binding and higher individualizing predicted a desire for independence, with evidence for mediation via Scottish identification. These findings are consistent with the notion that the Scottish independence movement can be viewed as a broadly left-wing phenomenon. More generally, these results provide novel evidence in a charged political debate that moral sentiments concerning how individual and group life should be structured play a significant role in explaining individual differences in political sentiment.     

Education and training in the context of European construction

The construction of Europe now also contains cultural and educational dimensions. These are in fact the best ways of securing Europe to the reality of the lives of our youth; they also provide an important equilibrium in our European creation. Without a European culture, without respect for the cultural heritage of Europe, there can be no united Europe.     

Child temperament predicts maternal socialization values

The longitudinal study examined whether and how children’s temperament traits in particular but also their age, sex as well as maternal education and age predict maternal socialization values. The sample was drawn from the IDEFICS study and included 567 mothers from Estonia whose children were 2–9 years old at Time 0 and 4–11 years old at Time 1. The findings showed that children’s temperament at Time 0 predicted maternal socialization values at Time 1, but not vice versa. Mothers who perceived their child to be more imaginative at Time 0 considered self-maximization socialization values more important and social conformity-related values less important at Time 1. Child’s conscientiousness and extraversion were linked positively to social conformity-related socialization values. Older mothers and those with higher level of education put more emphasis on self-maximization socialization values. Children’s age and sex were not related to socialization values.     

Basic Human Values and Their Contexts: A Multilevel Analysis of Support for the Use of Armed Drones in the United States,United Kingdom,and Turkey

Armed drones are now a key component of military strategy; however, little empirical research has explored the phenomenon in terms of psychological processes. Previous research has emphasized the importance of basic human values for structuring understandings of and opinions towards foreign policy issues. Using a social representations approach, we used a multilevel modeling approach to explore the link between values and support for the use of armed drones in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey. In line with our predictions, high priority of self-transcendence values negatively predicted, and high priority of conservation values positively predicted, support for armed drones. Furthermore, given our theoretical framework, we specified that values should be conceptualized as prioritized or devalued within a particular context, and when values were specified as country-level, as well as individual predictors, this led to an increase in model fit. These findings are discussed in light of a developing line of research on meta-representations and their consequences for political opinion, and directions for future research are advanced.