International Justice,Human Rights and Neutrality

A number of theorists have tried to resolve the tension between a western-oriented liberal scheme of human rights and an account that accommodates different political systems and constitutional ideals than the liberal one. One important way the tension has been addressed is through a “neutral” or tolerant, notion of human rights, as present in the work of Rawls, Scanlon and Buchanan. In this paper I argue that neutrality cannot by itself explain the difference between rights considered appropriate for liberal states and rights considered to be human rights proper. The central arguments used by neutralist theorists presuppose, rather than justify, this differential treatment. Instead, that difference can be understood only by reference to the purpose of human rights as distinct from the constitutional rights of a liberal state. This requires us to reassess the point and purpose of a theory of international justice, in contrast to justice for a domestic and politically separate society. In the case of a theorist like Rawls, human rights represent guides to the foreign policy of a liberal state, rather than to principles by which all states are expected to abide. That is because of Rawls’ acceptance that no common, authoritative, third-party, institutions capable of imposing duties on all agents uniformly exist or can exist. This also makes his theory inherently conservative about human rights, given that they are simply to act as a guide to which states can be treated as legitimate when it comes to liberal foreign policy: those that possess institutions that can be said to represent a peoples, rather than being imposed through violence. This standard is lower than the ideal set of rights extended to all in a liberal society. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A test of the Dual Filial Piety model

Filial piety is a central concept in Confucianism, containing important ideas about how children should treat their parents. Research over the past two decades has resulted in conflicting findings over whether filial piety is beneficial or harmful to individual development. The Dual Filial Piety model integrates these conflicting findings and suggests neither assessment of filial piety is appropriate. The present study offers empirical evidence in support of the dual model and offers commentary on the role of filial piety in modern Chinese society and directions for future research.     

Mereotopological Connection

The paper outlines a model-theoretic framework for investigating and comparing a variety of mereotopological theories. In the first part we consider different ways of characterizing a mereotopology with respect to (i) the intended interpretation of the connection primitive, and (ii) the composition of the admissible domains of quantification (e.g., whether or not they include boundary elements). The second part extends this study by considering two further dimensions along which different patterns of topological connection can be classified – the strength of the connection and its multiplicity.     

Some Supervaluation-based Consequence Relations

In this paper, we define some consequence relations based on supervaluation semantics for partial models, and we investigate their properties. For our main consequence relation, we show that natural versions of the following fail: upwards and downwards Lowenheim–Skolem, axiomatizability, and compactness. We also consider an alternate version for supervaluation semantics, and show both axiomatizability and compactness for the resulting consequence relation.     

不同性质的汉语高熟悉度隐喻意义加工过程——来自ERP研究的证据

采用ERP技术考察不同性质隐喻加工的时间进程与神经机制。以词对方式呈现词源性隐喻、引发性隐喻、一般字面义,被试进行语义相关判断任务。结果发现:从引发性隐喻、一般字面义到词源性隐喻,N400平均波幅呈阶梯状递减,引发性隐喻和词源性隐喻的P600平均波幅大于一般字面义。对于不同类型词对诱发的N400,大脑左半球没有显著差异,但右半球上引发性隐喻显著大于词源性隐喻和字面义词对。并且右半球P600平均波幅更大,但三种词对间没有显著差异。结果表明:(1)日常熟悉隐喻的理解更符合平行假说但需要更多的认知资源;(2)右半球是否参与以及参与程度与隐喻性质和加工阶段有关。     

A vicious or auspicious cycle: The reciprocal relation between harsh parental discipline and children’s self-regulation

Children’s ability to exercise self-regulation is a key predictor of academic, behavioural, and life outcomes, but the developmental dynamics of children’s self-regulation are not adequately understood. We investigated how children’s self-regulation skills and harsh parental discipline reciprocally predict each other across 12,474 children at ages three, five, and seven in the U.K. (Millennium Cohort Study). Cross-lagged structural equation models indicated that high initial levels of harsh parental discipline predicted lower subsequent self-regulation, which then reciprocally predicted higher levels of harsh parental discipline. Conversely, high initial levels of child self-regulation predicted lower subsequent harsh parental discipline. Implications for policy and interventions are discussed.     

Early pathways to bullying: A prospective longitudinal study examining the influences of theory of mind and social preference on bullying behaviour during the first 3 years of school

Research has focused on the role of theory of mind (ToM) for positive social behaviour, while the association between ToM and negative social behaviours is less well understood. This longitudinal study compares two mediation models examining the role of ToM and peer-rated social preference at ages 5 and 6 for bullying at age 7. Participants were 114 children (58 boys, M_age = 67 months) at entry to primary school (T1). At Time 2 (T2), 106 children and, at Time 3 (T3), 96 children remained. Teacher-rated externalizing problems and children’s language ability were controlled at T1. Poor ToM was found to indirectly predict later bullying via poor social preference, while for boys only, greater earlier ToM directly predicted greater bullying 2 years later. These results suggest that there are different pathways to bullying via ToM and social preference , which has implications for interventions to prevent the development of bullying behaviour.