Affective Responses, Normative Requirements, and Ethical-Aesthetic Interaction

According to what Robert Stecker dubs the “ethical-aesthetic interaction” thesis, the ethical defects of a literary work can diminish its aesthetic value. Both the thesis and the only prominent argumentative strategy employed to support it the affective response argument have been hotly debated; however, Stecker has recently argued that the failure of the ARA does not undermine the thesis, since the argument “fails to indentify the main reason [the thesis] holds, when it in fact does.” I critically examine Stecker’s objection to the familiar versions of the affective response argument and the line of support for ethical-aesthetic interaction he proposes to install in their place. I conclude that neither is compelling; however, an important insight can be salvaged from his positive proposal, and I argue that the insight does, in fact, point toward a novel defense of the thesis.

The End of the Supersensory World’s Mythology: Marx’s Ontological Revolution and Its Contemporary Significance

The whole of Western metaphysics, particularly Platonism, sets up a partition between the sensory world and the supersensory world, laying the foundation for the mythology of the supersensory world. After Descartes set contemporary metaphysics on its course, Feuerbach became the first to attack the essence of the supersensory world on an ontological level and to transfer the criticism of theology to that of metaphysics in general. While in the final analysis Feuerbach’s criticism fails, Marx’s revolution appeals to the ontological notion of “sensory activity” or “objective activity” (i.e., practice), the core of which rests in piercing and overturning the fundamental framework of contemporary metaphysics—“the immanence of consciousness.” It is this ontological revolution which reveals the camouflage of the supersensory world’s mythology (i.e., ideology) and which simultaneously establishes a solid foundation for the critical analysis of the latter. Marx’s “science of history” is based on this foundation and develops from it.     

Withdrawal Aversion and the Equivalence Test

If a doctor is trying to decide whether or not to provide a medical treatment, does it matter ethically whether that treatment has already been started? Health professionals sometimes find it harder to stop a treatment (withdraw) than to refrain from starting the treatment (withhold). But does that feeling correspond to an ethical difference? In this article, we defend equivalence—the view that withholding and withdrawal of treatment are ethically equivalent when all other factors are equal. We argue that preference for withholding over withdrawal could represent a form of cognitive bias—withdrawal aversion. Nevertheless, we consider whether there could be circumstances in which there is a moral difference. We identify four examples of conditional nonequivalence. Finally, we reflect on the moral significance of diverging intuitions and the implications for policy. We propose a set of practical strategies for helping to reduce bias in end-of-life decision making, including the equivalence test.     

同情在亚当·斯密伦理思想中的作用

亚当.斯密是18世纪的著名道德哲学家和西方古典经济学的奠基人。同情在亚当.斯密的伦理思想体系中具有多种意义。同情不仅是亚当.斯密建构和评价其道德情操的工具,而且成为其经济伦理的认识论基础。斯密的同情论为我们把握"亚当.斯密问题"提供了一个独特的视角。     

Duties Owed in Serving Students: The Importance of Teaching Moral Reasoning and Theories of Ethical Leadership in Educating Business Students

This article concerns the importance of teaching moral reasoning and ethical leadership to all undergraduate students and in particular makes the case that students in business especially need familiarity with these capacities and theories given the complex world in which they will find themselves. The corollary to this analysis is the claim that content on moral reasoning and ethical leadership be mandatory for all business majors and that all degrees require course material on these subjects.

Self-Perceived Competence as a Mediator Between Maternal Feedback and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

Self-report, other-report, clinical interview, and behavioral observations of evaluative maternal feedback (e.g., positive feedback, criticism), adolescent depressive symptoms, and self-perceived competence were obtained from 72 adolescents and their mothers. Most path analyses supported the hypothesis that adolescent self-perceived competence completely mediates the relation between negative maternal feedback and adolescent depressive symptoms, even after controlling for prior levels of depression. Consistent with Cole's competency-based model of depression (D. A. Cole, 1990), these results suggest that high levels of negative maternal feedback (coupled with low levels of positive feedback) are associated with adolescent negative self-perceptions, which in turn place adolescents at risk for depressive symptoms.     

Parent-Child Interactions in Relation to Critical and Emotionally Overinvolved Expressed Emotion (EE): Is EE a Proxy for Behavior?

Expressed emotion measures, encompassing dimensions of criticism (CRIT), and emotional overinvolvement (EOI) are increasingly being used to assess the parent-child relationship in child clinical populations, despite the lack of studies assessing their validity. We examined the correspondence between CRIT, EOI, and parent-child interactions as observed by neutral coders in a sample of 252 clinic-referred children and adolescents, ages 7-17 years. We found support for the validity of the CRIT code, with high critical parents showing more antagonism, negativity, disgust, harshness, and less responsiveness, compared to parents who scored in the low or borderline ranges. In contrast, none of the observed behaviors were found to correspond with parental EOI, suggesting either that this construct lacks validity with juvenile samples or that behaviors that correspond to EOI are difficult to observe. We conclude that high parental CRIT can be used as an index of problematic parent-child interactions.     

The effect of evolving resource synergy beliefs on the intentions–behavior discrepancy in ethical consumption

Consumers are less likely to buy ethical products than their stated intentions in marketplace polls, due at least in part to the distinct temporal frames guiding their poll responses versus actual purchase decisions. We propose that as consumers' beliefs about the synergy between the resources a firm devotes to their ethical and functional attributes evolve, as part of the broader ethical marketing/corporate social responsibility movement, from negative to positive, this discrepancy between intentions and behavior is likely to disappear. Two studies provide support for this basic contention, implicating the importance consumers ascribe to a brand's ethical attribute as the driver of the temporal frame- and resource synergy beliefs-based differences in their preference for that brand.     

Animals,humans and x-men: Human uniqueness and the meaning of personhood

Research in animal intelligence suggests to some that humans are different only in degree from animals, possibly eroding the traditional theological doctrine of the imago dei. In this paper, several critical boundary areas between humans and animals are examined for scientific evidence about human distinctiveness. These include communication and language capacity, cultural creativity, spirituality, and ethical capacity. Chimpanzee language studies and research in Neanderthal mentality are examined as the closest known natural approximations to human communication and intelligence. The implications of the findings are explored in relation to human culture, ethics, and spirituality in a context consistent with evolutionary continuity. Aspects of human uniqueness are apparent, can be fruitfully encompassed in the idea of personhood, and are coherent with Trinitarian theology's anthropological focus.     

One Play Cannot be Known to Win or Lose a Game: a Fallibilist Account of Game

This paper discusses what it means to be a good sport. It offers an account of sportsmanship rooted in the proper understanding of the limited role each participant plays during a specific sporting contest. It aims at showing that, from a fallibilist perspective, although it may perhaps be logically possible for a single play to win or lose a sporting event, it makes epistemologically no sense to single out a particular game action, moment or decision as the crucial one which determined victory or defeat. Our view, we shall argue, is consistent with the empirical nature of sporting activities. Since there can be no such a thing as a perfect game, and because no single known human mind is in a position to know with any degree of certainty how each act of game-playing relates to the outcome of a whole game, it makes almost no sense to assign whole-game success or failure to single acts of brilliance or failure.