Group-based reasons for action

This article endorses a familiar, albeit controversial, argument for the existence of group-based reasons for action, but then rejects two doctrines which other advocates of such reasons usually accept. One such doctrine is the willingness requirement, which says that a group-based reason exists only if (sufficient) other members of the group in question are willing to cooperate. Thus the paper argues that there is sometimes a reason, which derives from the rationality of some group action, to play one's part unilaterally in that group action. This seems implausible only because we tend wrongly to accept a second doctrine, monism about the unit of agency. Monism claims that, for any given deliberative problem, there is only one unit of agency to which reasons attach. If we are monists who believe in group-based reasons, the willingness requirement will seem necessary in order to avoid recklessness. We should reject monism, and if we do so we can recognise genuine conflict between individual-based and group-based reasons, and in doing so we can explain, without endorsing the willingness requirement, why we should not act recklessly.     

浙江省新型农村合作医疗制度的实践与思考

浙江省农村合作医疗始于20世纪60年代,发展道路曲折,但对解决农民看病问题发挥过巨大的作用.浙江省新型农村合作医疗试点工作于2003年8月启动,新型农村合作医疗具有政府支持力度大、筹资机制较完善、突出大病统筹等与传统合作医疗不同的新特点.但也应该看到,新型农村合作医疗是一项复杂的社会系统工程,实践中会面临许多困难和问题.在建立此项制度的过程中,应加强宣传教育,转变观念,建立相关的法规和制度,完善筹资机制,配套抓好城乡医药卫生体制改革,以保证合作医疗制度的健康发展.     

Infant transfer behavior in humans: A note on the exploitation of young

Human infant transfers filmed in West New Guinea and stored in the archives of Max-Planck Geselschaft are formally described and analyzed relative to reports of similar behavior from nonhuman primates in laboratory and field studies. Motor patterns directed from one individual to another were discriminated and grouped into five categories of behavior ordered according to their relative likelihoods of “damaging aggression” [Fagen, American Naturalist, 115:858–869, 1980]. Transfers generally occurred between two females of different reproductive conditions. Most interactions were directed from the holder of the infant to the infant, demonstrating that the infant is the recipient of most nondamaging as well as potentially damaging behavior. While transfers are characterized by “aggressive restraint,” the least damaging behavior is most likely to precede a transfer and may function to prolong the relative duration of infant holding. Behavior with a relatively high likelihood of damage to the infant by the infant holder is as likely to occur before as after transfer, suggesting that infant transfer behavior in this human society reflects competitive interactions among adult females.     

Responsible engineering: Gilbane Gold revisited

This paper addresses several concerns in teaching engineering ethics. First, there is the problem of finding space within already crowded engineering curricula for meaningful discussions of ethical dimensions in engineering. Some engineering programs may offer entire courses on engineering ethics; however, most do not at present and may not in the foreseeable future. A promising possibility is to weave ethics into already existing courses using case studies, but most current case studies are not well integrated with engineering technical analysis. There is a danger that case studies will be viewed by both instructors and students as departures from “business as usual”—interesting perhaps, but not essentially connected with “real” engineering. We offer a case study, inspired by the National Society of Professional Engineer’s popular video Gilbane Gold, that can be used to make the connection. It requires students to engage in technical analysis, but in a context that makes apparent the ethical responsibility of engineers. Further, the case we present marks a significant departure from more typical cases that primarily focus on wrongdoing and its prevention. We concentrate more positively on what responsible engineering requires. There is a need for more such cases, regardless of whether they are to be used in standard engineering courses or in separate courses in engineering ethics. This article is the product of the NSF/Bovay Endowment “Workshop to Develop Numerical Problems Associated With Ethics Cases for use in Required Undergraduate Engineering Courses” (NSF Grant DUE-9455141) held at Texas A&M University in August 1995. For further information about this project, contact Michael J. Rabins, Director of the Ethics and Professionalism Program in the Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Additional case studies from this workshop are available on the Internet site http://ethics.tamu.edu. The writing of this article was supported in part by “Engineering Ethics: Good Works” (NSF/EVS Grant SBR-930257). Michael Pritchard teaches ethics and is co-author of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases (1995) with C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins (Wadsworth, Belmont CA). Mark Holtzapple teaches chemical engineering and is author of Foundations of Engineering (McGraw-Hill) which includes an ethics chapter suitable for freshman engineering students.     

Interpersonal relations: Cooperation and competition

Social relations between two persons require that consequences each receives depend at least in part on the responses of the other. Historically, research in several areas has focused on two contingencies, cooperation and competition, in which reinforcement is determined by the responses of both participants. A major research question in social psychology and applied behavior analysis has been: Which contingency is more effective with regard to the quantity or quality of some response? Although this question has not been addressed in the experimental analysis of behavior, this area provides a perspective and method to more fully investigate the relevant controlling variables. Among these are the frequency of opportunities to audit the performances of others, information (or lack of it) provided by social or nonsocial stimuli with regard to reinforcement and performance, degree of face-to-face interaction, types of reinforcement contingencies, and number of participants. A neglected dependent variable is cost effectiveness — amount of behavior maintained by a given reinforcer amount. The larger agenda for the experimental analysis of interpersonal relations includes a variety of forms of reinforcement interdependence that raise issues of basic and applied interest.     

Effect of neurofeedback on hemispheric word recognition

We applied SMR/theta neurofeedback (NF) training at central sites of 20 Israeli children aged 10-12 years, half boys and half girls. Half of the subjects received C3 training and the other half C4 training, consisting of 20 half-hour sessions. We assessed the effects of training on lateralized lexical decision in Hebrew. The lateralized lexical decision test reveals an independent contribution of each hemisphere to word recognition (Barnea, Mooshagian, & Zaidel, 2003). Training increased accuracy and sensitivity. It increased left hemisphere (LH) specialization under some conditions but it did not affect interhemispheric transfer. Training did affect psycholinguistic processing in the two hemispheres, differentially at C3 and C4. Training also increased hemispheric independence. There were surprising sex differences in the effects of training. In boys, C4 training improved LH accuracy, whereas in girls C3 training improved LH accuracy. The results suggest that the lateralized NF protocol activates asymmetric hemispheric control circuits which modify distant hemispheric networks and are organized differently in boys and girls.     

同伴冲突解决的干预训练对小学儿童合作的影响

本研究通过对小学儿童进行为期六周的冲突解决六步法干预训练,探讨培养合作的有效手段和途径.结果表明,实验班被试与控制班被试相比,他们在假想情境中的冲突解决策略水平有了显著提高;问卷调查和对教师的访谈显示,实验班被试能将解决冲突的高水平策略迁移到现实生活中.事实证明,同伴冲突解决六步法能提高小学儿童解决假想情境和实际生活中同伴冲突的策略水平;“六步法”的干预训练是培养儿童合作的行之有效的干预方法.     

Externalities Awareness in Anticommons Dilemmas Decreases Defective Behavior

The present paper explores the effect of the salience of collective consequences of opportunistic behavior in commons and anticommons dilemmas. Making this type of externalities salient was expected to increase the awareness of the conflict between collective and personal interests, especially in the anticommons dilemma. The results of a vignette study (Study 1, N = 100) and a laboratory experiment (Study 2, N = 55) confirmed our hypotheses, revealing more opportunistic behavior in the anticommons than in the commons dilemma when externalities were not made salient, while no significant dilemma effect was obtained when the externalities were made salient. Moreover, the results of Study 2 demonstrated that the dilemma effect on cooperation was mediated by externalities awareness. The positive effects of increments in externalities awareness on cooperation are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

No Place to Hide: When Shame Causes Proselfs to Cooperate

Shame is considered a social emotion with action tendencies that elicit socially beneficial behavior. Yet, unlike other social emotions, prior experimental studies do not indicate that incidental shame boosts prosocial behavior. Based on the affect as information theory, we hypothesize that incidental feelings of shame can increase cooperation, but only for self-interested individuals, and only in a context where shame is relevant with regards to its action tendency. To test this hypothesis, cooperation levels are compared between a simultaneous prisoner's dilemma (where “defect” may result from multiple motives) and a sequential prisoner's dilemma (where “second player defect” is the result of intentional greediness). As hypothesized, shame positively affected proselfs in a sequential prisoner's dilemma. Hence ashamed proselfs become inclined to cooperate when they believe they have no way to hide their greediness, and not necessarily because they want to make up for earlier wrong-doing.     

Hope and world survival

Abstract

Gives an overview and analysis of the role of the Pacific region in the world economy stressing the ongoing shift of growth potential and purchasing power. Japan's surplus is discussed as a tool to stimulate economic growth in the world. Trends in Pacific cooperation are given.