Distinguishing Agent-Relativity from Agent-Neutrality

The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is one of the most important in contemporary moral theory. Yet providing an adequate formal account of it has proven to be difficult. In this article I defend a new formal account of the distinction, one that avoids various problems faced by other accounts. My account is based on an influential account of the distinction developed by McNaughton and Rawling. I argue that their approach is on the right track but that it succumbs to two serious objections. I then show how to formulate a new account that follows the key insights of McNaughton and Rawling's approach yet avoids the two objections.     

Perceived benefits of using an Internet-based interactive career planning system

Making Better Career Decisions (MBCD) is an Internet-based interactive career planning system designed to help deliberating individuals. The present research examined the benefits of a dialogue with MBCD, by analyzing 712 users’ perceptions of its contribution to their career decision-making process, and locating variables associated with these perceptions. A pre-dialogue and a post-dialogue questionnaire were used to collect the users’ perceptions of its benefits and measure the change in the degree of decidedness. Perceived benefit was derived from participants’ ratings of the degree of progress they had made in their career decision-making process, whether they had learned about additional factors to be considered and their career-related preferences, as well as their ratings of the quality of the list of “promising” career alternatives presented to them during their dialogue with MBCD. This composite perceived benefit was found to be positively associated with the users’ decidedness at the completion of the dialogue with MBCD. Users’ satisfaction with the length and variety of their personal “promising alternatives” list was associated with a higher perceived benefit.     

英语语法规则获得与迁移的智力技能研究

选取451名高中生为被试,以强调句型语法为研究内容,采取教师教学、产生式规则和专家思维编制的实验材料,探讨了英语语法规则获得早、中期阶段促进规则获得的手段。在前面实验的基础上,选取298名高中生,以定语从句为研究内容,运用产生式规则、专家思维和练习编制的不同学习材料,采取随机区组设计,探讨了英语语法规则获得后期阶段的智力技能研究。通过研究得到如下结论：在语法规则获得的早中期阶段,产生式样例有助于学生智力技能的获得,同时也有助于所获得技能的迁移;在智力技能获得的后期阶段,专家样例有利于学生形成专家头脑中的图式,有助于学生实现有关智力技能的自动化。     

网络化社会的道德问题及基本伦理规范

网络的出现给人类生活带来巨大变化,就道德领域而言,它在带给人无限憧憬的同时,又使人面对道德主体的责任缺失、道德情感冷漠、不道德行为大量客观存在等问题,这些网络道德问题的出现,使得当前提出网络伦理的基本原则和规范,加强网络伦理的建设成为必要。     

Focusing failures in competitive environments: explaining decision errors in the Monty Hall game,the Acquiring a Company problem,and multiparty ultimatums

This paper offers a unifying conceptual explanation for failures in competitive decision making across three seemingly unrelated tasks: the Monty Hall game (Nalebuff, 1987), the Acquiring a Company problem (Samuelson & Bazerman, 1985), and multiparty ultimatums (Messick, Moore, & Bazerman, 1997). We argue that the failures observed in these three tasks have a common root. Specifically, due to a limited focus of attention, competitive decision makers fail properly to consider all of the information needed to solve the problem correctly. Using protocol analyses, we show that competitive decision makers tend to focus on their own goals, often to the exclusion of the decisions of the other parties, the rules of the game, and the interaction among the parties in light of these rules. In addition, we show that the failure to consider these effects explains common decision failures across all three games. Finally, we suggest that this systematic focusing error in competitive contexts can serve to explain and improve our understanding of many additional, seemingly disparate, competitive decision‐making failures. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Driver fatigue among military truck drivers

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Transport Center is the largest and the most diverse transportation organization in Israel: three times as large as the largest commercial fleet in Israel, and military bases are spread all over the country. It also has the ability to regulate the drivers better: enforcing diet, hours of sleep, and working hours. The drivers are either permanently employed civilians, career service personnel, or mandatory service personnel. This employment status correlates with age, experience, carrier type, and several job characteristics (for example mandatory service drivers typically do not drive at night).The study consisted of a survey of 314 male drivers (30% of the entire base driver population). Despite the different environment, the military drivers display many characteristics and coping-behaviors characteristic of civilian drivers. Our results cast a doubt on the efficacy of enforcing night sleep and prohibiting night drives as an alternative to regulating hours of service. Our findings also reveal that it is insufficient to provide drivers with the time to sleep. One has to ensure that they also get a good quality of sleep. Implications for reducing fatigue in this environment are suggested. We identified the mandatory service drivers (young, less experienced drivers, lower military ranks) as a group of drivers that falls asleep more often and to a greater extent. They are particularly sensitive to sleep deficits and influenced by external events such as aggravation and boredom.It is important to provide drivers with more in-vehicle, accessible countermeasures to counter fatigue since they often do not stop, particularly in short-haul conditions. Since the radio has a high level of usage and acceptance among drivers, it could be exploited as an interactive communications system, as an educational medium, and as an image-enhancing device.     

Thomas Aquinas on Virtuous Warfare

Thomas Aquinas, one of the "founding fathers" of just war theory, offers an account of virtuous warfare in practice. The author argues that Aquinas's approach to warfare, with its emphasis on justice and charity, is helpful in providing a coherent moral account of war to which Christians can subscribe. Particular attention is given to the role of charity, since this virtue is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian soldier. Charity compels him to soldier justly, and by fighting justly, he is elevated by God to friendship with God. Notable features of this approach are its emphasis on the criteria for judging whether a war is just and its relativizing of the criteria for proper combat behavior.     

初中生与父母沟通的障碍及调适

初中生身心发展的种种特殊矛盾和表现使初中生与父母的关系发生了微妙的变化，本文描述了父母与子女沟通的必要性，列举了初中生与父母沟通的障碍，并分别针对父母和初中生给出了调适建议。