Beyond Data Collection: Ethical Issues in Minority Research

This article examines ethical concerns surrounding research on minority issues. Specifically, it addresses whether researchers have an obligation to consider (a) the impact that minority research can have on vulnerable populations and (b) their own backgrounds before conducting or assessing minority research for publication. The article argues for such an obligation mainly from a consequentialist perspective and then explores possible strategies for assessing and meeting that obligation. Finally, it explores the possible negative secondary effects of those strategies and censorship concerns.     

Kantian and Consequentialist Ethics: The Gap Can Be Bridged

Richard Hare argues that the fundamental assumptions of Kant's ethical system should have led Kant to utilitarianism, had Kant not confused a norm's generality with its universality, and hence adopted rigorist, deontological norms. Several authors, including Jens Timmermann, have argued contra Hare that the gap between Kantian and utilitarian/consequentialist ethics is fundamental and cannot be bridged. This article shows that Timmermann's claims rely on a systematic failure to separate normative and metaethical aspects of each view, and that Hare's attempt to bridge the gap between Kantian and consequentialist ethics is immune to Timmermann's criticisms. Furthermore, the term “Kantian ethics” is often misleading, and should typically be qualified as either “Kantian rationalism” or “Kantian deontology” in order to avoid confusions of the sort Timmermann falls into.     

Constructing Confidence Intervals for Effect Size Measures of an Indirect Effect

Confidence intervals for an effect size can provide the information about the magnitude of an effect and its precision as well as the binary decision about the existence of an effect. In this study, the performances of five different methods for constructing confidence intervals for ratio effect size measures of an indirect effect were compared in terms of power, coverage rates, Type I error rates, and widths of confidence intervals. The five methods include the percentile bootstrap method, the bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap method, the delta method, the Fieller method, and the Monte Carlo method. The results were discussed with respect to the adequacy of the distributional assumptions and the nature of ratio quantity. The confidence intervals from the five methods showed similar results for samples of more than 500, whereas, for samples of less than 500, the confidence intervals were sufficiently narrow to convey the information about the population effect sizes only when the effect sizes of regression coefficients defining the indirect effect are large.     

Introduction to the guest edited section: world government

In this introduction, I first present the general problematic of the special section. Our world faces several existential challenges (climate change, threat of (nuclear) war, and global injustice) and some would argue (with even more disagreeing) that the only adequate answer to these challenges is setting up a world government. I then introduce the contributions that comprise the scholarly body of the special section: Andri? on global democracy; Hahn on global political reconciliation; Pinheiro Walla on Kant and world government; Miklós &; Tanyi on institutional consequentialism and world governance. Lastly, I briefly describe the practical context in which the idea of the special section has arisen and in which the present contributions have taken shape.     

KORSGAARD'S REJECTION OF CONSEQUENTIALISM

Abstract: In her recent book Self‐Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity, Christine Korsgaard does a wonderful job developing her Kantian account of normativity and the rational necessity of morality. Korsgaard's account of normativity, however, has received its fair share of attention. In this discussion, the focus is on the resulting moral theory and, in particular, on Korsgaard's reason for rejecting consequentialist moral theories. The article suggests that we assume that Korsgaard's vindication of Kantian rationalism is successful and ask whether, nonetheless, her account is consistent with consequentialism. It suggests further that we grant that moral reasons are not based on substantive principles, and that they must instead emerge from the purely formal principles of practical reason. Can consequentialist principles nonetheless emerge from the formal constraints of practical reason? Why can't a consequentialist embrace Korsgaard's account of self‐constitution and normativity?     

Intolerance of sexy peers: intrasexual competition among women

Intrasexual competition among males of different species, including humans, is well documented. Among females, far less is known. Recent nonexperimental studies suggest that women are intolerant of attractive females and use indirect aggression to derogate potential rivals. In Study 1, an experimental design was used to test the evolutionary-based hypothesis that women would be intolerant of sexy women and would censure those who seem to make sex too readily available. Results provide strong empirical support for intrasexual competition among women. Using independent raters, blind to condition, we found that almost all women were rated as reacting negatively ("bitchy") to an attractive female confederate when she was dressed in a sexually provocative manner. In contrast, when she was dressed conservatively, the same confederate was barely noticed by the participants. In Study 2, an experimental design was used to assess whether the sexy female confederate from Study 1 was viewed as a sexual rival by women. Results indicated that as hypothesized, women did not want to introduce her to their boyfriend, allow him to spend time alone with her, or be friends with her. Findings from both studies are discussed in terms of evolutionary theory.     

Rejoinder to Wall

Edmund Wall's criticism of the author's earlier analysis of Hare's consequentialism and Kantian ethics claims that the author overlooked Hare's commitment to preference satisfaction as an “ultimate good.” This rejoinder points out that Hare never uses the phrase in question, nor any equivalent phrase or concept, in presenting his own arguments and refers only to the standard of “universalizability” as ultimate, in contexts that support the author's original argument. Hence Wall has only given us yet another example of how Hare's views can be misunderstood by philosophers who fail to attend to the details of Hare's approach.     

Does cost–benefit analysis or self‐control predict involvement in two forms of aggression?

The main aim of this research was to assess the relative association between physical aggression and (1) self‐control and (2) cost‐benefit assessment, these variables representing the operation of impulsive and reflective processes. Study 1 involved direct and indirect aggression among young Indian men, and Study 2 physical aggression to dating partners among Spanish adolescents. In Study 1, perceived benefits and costs but not self‐control were associated with direct aggression at other men, and the association remained when their close association with indirect aggression was controlled. In Study 2, benefits and self‐control showed significant and independent associations (positive for benefits, negative for self‐control) with physical aggression at other‐sex partners. Although being victimized was also correlated in the same direction with self‐control and benefits, perpetration and being victimized were highly correlated, and there was no association between being victimized and these variables when perpetration was controlled. These results support the theory that reflective (cost‐benefit analyses) processes and impulsive (self‐control) processes operate in parallel in affecting aggression. The finding that male adolescents perceived more costs and fewer benefits from physical aggression to a partner than female adolescents did is consistent with findings indicating greater social disapproval of men hitting women than vice versa, rather than with the view that male violence to women is facilitated by internalized patriarchal values. Aggr. Behav. 36:292–304, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Victim and peer group responses to different forms of aggression among primary school children

Both behaviourist and social learning theory emphasise the importance of the consequences of a behaviour on its subsequent frequency of occurrence [e.g., Bandura, 1973, 1977; Skinner, 1953]. Despite this, very little is known about the types of consequences children receive when they aggress towards other children. The present study employed a wireless microphone and hidden camera to record victim and peer responses to primary school children's physical, verbal, indirect, and relational forms of aggression. The results showed that the most frequent consequences of aggression were victim retaliation or withdrawal, and peer support. In addition, the results showed limited support for the suggestion that sex differences in the use of different types of aggression arise due to differential reinforcement from victims and/or peers. The implications of the results for the development of interventions aimed at reducing aggression are considered along with alternative explanations for sex differences in aggression. Aggr. Behav. 31:00–00, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.