Does it matter whether friends,parents, or peers drink walk? Identifying which normative influences predict young pedestrian’s decisions to walk while intoxicated

Drink walking, that is walking in a public place while intoxicated, is associated with increased risk of injury and fatality. Young people and males are especially prone to engaging in this behaviour, yet little is known about the factors associated with individual’s decisions to drink walk. The present research explores the role of different normative influences (friendship group norm, parent group norm, university peer group norm) and perceived risk, within an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework, in predicting young people’s self-reported drink walking intentions. One hundred and eighteen young people (aged 17–25 years) completed a survey including sociodemographic measures and extended TPB measures related to drink walking. Overall the extended TPB explained 72.8% of the variance in young people’s intentions to drink walk in the next six months with attitude, perceived behavioural control, friendship group norm, and gender (male) emerging as significant predictors. Males, as compared with females, had higher intentions to drink walk and lower perceptions of risk regarding drink walking. Together, these findings provide a clearer indication of the salient normative influences and gender differences in young pedestrian’s decisions to walk while intoxicated. Such findings can be used to inform future interventions designed to reduce injuries and fatalities associated with drink walking.     

CRITICAL REALISM REDUX: A RESPONSE TO JOSH REEVES

This article combines an appreciation of several themes in Josh Reeves's Against Methodology in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology while arguing in favor of critical realism. The author holds that critical realism manages to combine the objective truth reached through inference and especially cognitive acts of judgment as well as the various, contingent historical contexts that also define where science is practiced. Reeves advocates a historical perspective, but this article claims that in order for critical realism to be credible, a philosophical perspective must be maintained.     

德性伦理论要

德性伦理强调以人类自身的内在品质作为人的一切生活的出发点,这不仅使德性伦理在人类伦理思想的起源处规避着人类伦理生活的方向,而且在现代人类遭遇道德困境的形势下,又指示着人类伦理生活所应该采取的态度。德性伦理最终的理论指向便是将成就德性与明其规范统一起来,从而真正实现人自身的价值。在现代社会价值多元化的背景下,对传统德性伦理资源的挖掘,显得尤为重要。无论是亚里士多德的德性传统,还是原始儒家的德性传统,都可以为现代伦理理论的建设提供丰富的智性资源。     

Contrast,inference and scientific realism

The thesis of underdetermination presents a major obstacle to the epistemological claims of scientific realism. That thesis is regularly assumed in the philosophy of science, but is puzzlingly at odds with the actual history of science, in which empirically adequate theories are thin on the ground. We propose to advance a case for scientific realism which concentrates on the process of scientific reasoning rather than its theoretical products. Developing an account of causal–explanatory inference will make it easier to resist the thesis of underdetermination. For, if we are not restricted to inference to the best explanation only at the level of major theories, we will be able to acknowledge that there is a structure in data sets which imposes serious constraints on possible theoretical alternatives. We describe how Differential Inference, a form of inference based on contrastive explanation, can be used in order to generate causal hypotheses. We then go on to consider how experimental manipulation of differences can be used to achieve Difference Closure, thereby confirming claims of causal efficacy and also eliminating possible confounds. The model of Differential Inference outlined here shows at least one way in which it is possible to ‘reason from the phenomena’.     

On the distinction between the concept of God and conceptions of God

The starting-point is the distinction between concept and conception. Our conceptions of gold, for instance, are the different understandings we get when we hear the word ‘gold’ whereas the concept of gold consists in the scientific determination of what gold is. It depends on the context whether it is more reasonable to claim a concept or to look for fitting conceptions. By arguing against metaphysical realism and for non-metaphysical realism, I will elaborate on some philosophical reasons for dealing with conceptions instead of concepts of God, and secondly, I will discuss how such conceptions should be critically assessed. This article is an amended and enlarged version of a paper delivered at the conference on The Concept of God, arranged by the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion in Oxford, Great Britain, September 11–13, 2007.     

MARTIN LUTHER'S EXPERIENTIAL THEOLOGY AS A MODEL FOR FAITH-SCIENCE RELATIONSHIPS

The approach of experiential realism could indicate where science and faith deal with the same reality, where science questions faith assumptions, and where faith goes beyond the mandate and method of science. Although prescientific, Martin Luther's theology is the classical prototype of an experiential theology. We experience God's creative power in all of reality. We discern its regularities through observation and reason. So faith opens up all the space needed by science. However, experienced reality is highly ambiguous. It obscures God's intentions. God's intentions are revealed in the proclamation of the gospel: God is unconditionally for us and with us and not against us. This proclamation is a promise, appropriated in faith, and geared to a vision of what ought to become. It is based on the interpretation of a catastrophe—the cross of Christ—as God's pivotal redemptive act in human history. It goes beyond the mandate and method of science, yet it is capable of giving the latter a sense of purpose, criteria of acceptability, and authority to act in the interests of humanity and the earth. Theology challenges science to acknowledge the necessity of a transcendent frame of reference and moral accountability. Scientific insight challenges theology to reconceptualize its assumptions on God, creation, and eschatology to integrate best science.     

The self in analysis

This paper develops a theoretical and clinical approach to the self which is non-essentialist and post-modem. Briefly, it offers a framework for theorizing Self based on hermeneutics and psychological constructivism. It then develops a critique of the essentialist Jungian theory of Self in which the Self is frequently described as a human subject with views, intentions and desires of its own. With this is background, a post-modern Jungian framework for Self is advanced, with a brief clinical account of the self in analysis.     

医学伦理学与生命伦理学的联系与区别

医学伦理学和生命伦理学有共同的哲学伦理学和医学的学科基因。二者都遵守共同的伦理原理和原则,但是它们实施原理原则的方法和路径却有区别。医学伦理学构建了常态下的医德原则和规范体系。在经常的医疗卫生活动中医务人员会"以义导利"。当医务人员的选择面临价值冲突时,会按照伦理学原则提出的价值顺位安排医疗卫生行为的优先顺位。生命伦理学面对的常常是高科技带来的道德冲突,没有现成的价值顺位可以套用。在生命伦理学的许多具体案例中,人们只能通过协商讨论来寻求方案,达成共识。二者都是哲学伦理学和医学的子集,两者之间有交集,但是侧重不同。     

An Argument For Metaphysical Realism

This paper presents an argument for metaphysical realism, understood as the claim that the world has structure that would exist even if our cognitive activities never did. The argument is based on the existence of a structured world at a time when it was still possible that we would never evolve. But the interpretation of its premises introduces subtleties: whether, for example, these premises are to be understood as assertions about the world or about our evidence, internally or externally, via assertibility conditions or truth conditions – and what sorts of beings are included in the `we' upon whose cognitions the antirealist supposes the structure of the world to depend. I argue that antirealism can provide no defensible, fully articulated interpretation of the premises that either shows them not to be true or defeats the reasoning. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Postmodernism and the parody of argument

Argument, in any full sense of the word, needs resources and assumptions that postmodernism does not provide. Postmodernism is not a phenomenon that emerged after modernism, as it were, to replace it; postmodernism is just an ultimate expression of the nihilistic tendencies of modernism, tendencies which were present from its beginning and have continued to the present. A radical critique of modernism undercuts postmodernism as well and clears the way for a revival of realist foundations for argument and rhetoric.