HUMANITY IN THE WORLD OF LIFE

Abstract. The position and role of humanity in the world of life is examined in the light of the ontological structure of life itself. This problem is approached by considering the possible units of life representing various modes of life phenomena. I argue that the only meaningful unit of life without interposing some special external conditions is "global life" framed in a star-planet system. Any other possible unit of life exhibited by various kinds of individuals is conditional in the sense that it would leave out an essential part as "co-life." The relationship between human being and the global life should be understood in this general scheme of individual and global life. It is emphasized, however, that human being occupies a unique position in global life in the sense that humanity can promote either a cancerous situation or a healthy higher-order enhancement of the global life.     

Political Ideology Outdoes Personal Experience in Predicting Support for Gender Equality

Indices of gender equality provide an inconsistent picture of current gender inequality in countries with relatively high equality. We examined women's and men's subjectively perceived gender inequality and their support for gender equality in the general population and in politicians, respectively, in three countries with relatively high gender equality: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (total N = 1,612). In both women's and men's perceptions, women were treated more unequally than men. However, the inequality that women perceived was larger than the inequality men perceived. Additionally, women reported they personally experience less inequality than women as a group (person-group discrepancy). Finally, women's and men's left/liberal (vs. right/conservative) political ideology turned out to be a relatively more powerful predictor of support for gender equality than perceived personal and societal inequality. We discuss reasons for why political ideology emerged as the strongest predictor of equality support and sketch out implications for policy efforts toward promoting gender equality.     

So you think you are an ally? Effects of (in)congruence between men's self-perceptions and women's perceptions of men's values and allyship on women's inclusion and vitality

As public consciousness of sexism is increasing in the workplace (e.g., #MeToo movement), labelling oneself as an ally (e.g., UN HeforShe campaign) is becoming more socially desirable for men. However, do women agree with such men in their assessments of being allies? Importantly, how does women's agreement (or not) with men's self-assessments of allyship affect women's inclusion-relevant outcomes? Using a multi-informant design and data from 101 men–women colleague pairs, this study considered men's self-perceptions and women's other-reports of men's key allyship-relevant characteristics—justice, moral courage, civility and allyship. Polynomial regression and response surface analyses revealed differential impacts of (in)congruence between men's and women's perceptions on women's sense of inclusion and vitality. Simply, when women perceived men as higher (or the same) in justice, moral courage and civility than men reported themselves, it positively predicted women's outcomes. This suggests that humble self-presentation by men on characteristics that are parallel to allyship (but not allyship) may be ideal. Yet, both under- and overestimation by men on allyship itself predicted poorer outcomes for women, suggesting that the ideal is for men to have an accurate assessment of their own strengths and weaknesses as an ally.     

Ethics,AIDS, and community responsibility

In the discussion of the responsibilities of society to the HIV infected and uninfected, a serious question seems to have been left out of the picture: To what extent are people who are not infected, have no special relationship to the infected and have no professional responsibilities for the care of AIDS patients under an obligation to come to the aid of people with the HIV? In this paper, I shall examine our responsibilities, as members of society, for the welfare of others to whom we may or may not have a special relationship. I shall argue that those responsibilities flow from the conditions that structure our transactions with others; conditions that make such transactions possible.     

Introduction and overview: Global information ethics

This is an introduction to a set of papers on Computer Ethics from the conference ETHICOMP95. Taken as a whole, the collection of papers provides arguments and concepts to launch a new development in computer ethics: ‘Global Information Ethics’. A rationale for globalization is provided, as well as some early efforts which move in that direction. ETHICOMP95, an international conference on Computer Ethics, was held 28–30 March 1995 at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Co-directors were Terrell Ward Bynum and Simon Rogerson.     

A note on the investigation of local and global identifiability

In general, nonlinear models such as those commonly employed for the analysis of covariance structures, are not globally identifiable. Any investigation of local identifiability must either yield a mapping of identifiability onto the entire parameter space, which will rarely be feasible in any applications of interest, or confine itself to the neighbourhood of such points of special interest as the maximum likelihood point.The author would like to thank J. Jack McArdle and Colin Fraser for their comments on this paper.     

COVID-19, precarity and loneliness

In this paper I discuss Jungian psychological work of the trauma and loss experienced in reaction to COVID-19 with a man who represents a clinical composite. The issues of precarity, a concept used by the philosopher Judith Butler, are combined with the notions of lack and absence of French psychoanalyst André Green. The psychological and societal situation of precarity aroused the man’s childhood issues that were long repressed. The loneliness, isolation and death from COVID-19 mirrored his personal and the collective responses to the disaster from this global pandemic. He felt on the edge of collapse as what he knew of his world crashed and he found himself unable to cope. The subsequent Jungian work taking place through the virtual computer screen was taxing and restorative simultaneously for both analyst and analysand.     

Group Intervention for Adolescent Anxiety and Depression: Outcomes of a Randomized Trial with Adolescents in Kenya

Youth mental health interventions in low-resource communities may benefit from including empirically supported elements, using stigma-free content, and using trained lay-providers. We developed and evaluated such an intervention, targeting adolescent depression and anxiety in Kenya, where mental health care is limited by social stigma and a paucity of providers. Kenyan adolescents (N = 51, ages 14–17, 60.78% female) from a school in an urban slum in Nairobi with self-reported moderate-to-severe symptoms of depression or anxiety were randomized to the 4-week “Shamiri” (“thrive”) group intervention or a study skills control intervention of equal duration. The Shamiri intervention included growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation exercises. The content was delivered by recent high school graduates (ages 17–21, 60% male) trained as lay-providers. Participants met in school once-a-week in groups of 9–12 youths (average group size 10). Compared to the study-skills control, Shamiri produced greater reductions in adolescent depression symptoms (p = .038; d = .32) and anxiety symptoms (p = .039; d = .54) from baseline to 4-week follow-up, and greater improvements in academic performance (p = .034; d = .32) from the school-term before versus after the intervention. There were no effects on overall social support or perceived control, but the Shamiri group showed larger increases in perceived social support from friends (p = .028, d = .71). This appears to be the first report that a brief, lay-provider delivered, community-based intervention may reduce internalizing symptoms and improve academic outcomes in high-symptom adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa. Larger replications with extended follow-ups will help gauge the strength and durability of these effects.     

A comprehensive measure of attitudes and behaviour: Development of the Support for Gender Equality among Men Scale

In this article, we develop and validate the 16-item Support for Gender Equality among Men Scale across four studies. Drawing on exploratory (Study 1, n = 322) and confirmatory (Study 2, n = 358; Study 4, n = 192) factor analysis, we determine a two-factor structure: public and domestic support for gender equality. In Study 3 (n = 146) and Study 4, we validate the scale by establishing its relationship with, among others, several prominent measures of sexism, a behavioural measure, and social desirability. The scale fills a psychometric gap in the literature: To date, no validated measure of support for gender equality, measuring both attitudes and behavioural intentions and focusing specifically on men, exists. Considering the recent increase in interest in men as allies of the feminist movement the scale functions as a useful tool to explore the topic in depth in future research.