Why Should I Respect You? A Critique and a Suggestion for the Justification of Mutual Respect in Contractualism

Contractualism is a normative theory which characterizes principles of right in terms of the idea of mutual respect. In this theory, mutual respect is regarded as having deliberative priority over other values. This essay aims to examine how contractualists can provide a satisfactory justification for prioritizing mutual respect. I will argue that the “value of mutual respect argument,” which is a justification commonly adopted by contractualists, is inadequate because an unconditional priority of mutual respect cannot be grounded on the desirability of a relationship of mutual respect. Then, I will suggest that a “consistency argument” can provide a better justification of why the idea of mutual respect should have priority. Mutual respect is of special importance, not because it is highly desirable, but rather because it is required by an a priori guiding principle of consistency. Individuals become inconsistent if they ask others to respect them as reason-assessing individuals, while at the same time refusing to respect others in the same way.     

The International Student: Female Circumcision Issues

The authors describe the process and practice of female circumcision, the impact it may have on circumcised female international college students, and some counseling strategies for the college counselor.     

Peer review: Selecting the best science

The major challenge facing today’s biomedical researchers is the increasing competition for available funds. The competitive review process, through which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards grants, is built upon review by a committee of expert scientists. The NIH is firmly committed to ensuring that its peer review system is fair and objective. Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., is Deputy Director for Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health. This paper is based on a presentation at a workshop, “Advances in Peer Review Research”, American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting, Baltimore, MD, February 9, 1996.     

Junzi living in liberal democracy: What role could Confucianism play in political liberalism?

It has been widely argued that East Asian governments should be permitted to promote Confucian values. Recently, Zhuoyao Li rejected this view and advocates that East Asian governments should be neutral to all cultures and religions, including Confucianism. Nevertheless, Li believes that Confucianism does not loses its significance in a political liberal state because Confucians can still propose laws and policies, so long as their proposals are justified by public reason. In this paper, I argue that Li misunderstands the true significance of Confucianism in his model. Under the constraint of public reason, Confucians can hardly give any novel input in public deliberation. Rather, I believe that the contribution of Confucianism is to educate citizens to become fully just in the private sphere. Citizens may learn to be unjust if injustices are common in the private sphere. However, a political liberal state would be criticized as being overly invasive if it directly regulates the private sphere. Hence, I propose a division of educational labour between political liberalism and Confucianism in the public and private sphere. Finally, I use the Confucian workplace as an example to show how rituals in the workplace can enhance citizens’ sense of justice in the private sphere.     

Aggression during sexual encounters between hormone-treated gonadectomized pigs in the presence or absence of boar pheromones

Aggressive and sexual behaviour was studied in 5-min paired encounters between castrated prepubertal boars (N = 14) and normal (N = 2) or bulbectomized (N = 2) oestrogen-treated ovariectomized gilts. The boars were made sexually active by treatment with 17β-oestradiol + 5α-dihydrotestosterone. Half of the boars were sprayed on the snout with a solution containing a mixture of the boar pheromones 3α-androstenol and 5α-androstenone immediately before testing, and the remainder were treated with the vehicle solution. Aggression was almost always initiated by the gilts, and neither bulbectomy nor pheromone treatment of the boars reduced its occurrence. The results suggest that the display of aggression by gilts towards boars of similar body size is unlikely to be suppressed by the steroidal pheromones present in boar saliva.     

The interaction of payoff structure and regulatory focus in classification

This report brings together research on motivation and learning by exploring how fit of regulatory focus affects people's ability to acquire new categories. Perceptual categories were learned by people with a promotion focus (a situationally determined sensitivity to gains) or a prevention focus (a sensitivity to losses). Classification performance was closest to optimal (as determined by models fit to individual subjects' data) when the regulatory focus matched the structure of the payoffs for the categories. Promotion-focus subjects performed best when the payoffs consisted of all gains. Prevention-focus subjects performed best when the payoffs consisted of all losses.     

Increasing implicit self-esteem through classical conditioning

Implicit self-esteem is the automatic, nonconscious aspect of self-esteem. This study demonstrated that implicit self-esteem can be increased using a computer game that repeatedly pairs self-relevant information with smiling faces. These findings, which are consistent with principles of classical conditioning, establish the associative and interpersonal nature of implicit self-esteem and demonstrate the potential benefit of applying basic learning principles in this domain.     

Genetic moderation of sensitivity to positive and negative affect in marriage

Hypothesizing that genetic factors partially govern sensitivity to interpersonal cues, we examined whether a polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) in the serotonin transporter gene would moderate spouses' sensitivity to positive and negative partner affect. Before and after marital discussions, participants from 76 couples (total n = 150) reported their affective states. Spouses carrying the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR were more responsive to their partner's preinteraction positive affect and anxiety/nervousness, compared with spouses with two long alleles. These data support the contention that the serotonin system influences affective responses to social stimuli. In contrast to the view that the 5-HTTLPR primarily affects response to adverse experiences, these results suggest that this polymorphism moderates sensitivity to positive as well as negative affect.