Smilansky, Arneson, and the asymmetry of desert

Desert plays an important role in most contemporary theories of retributive justice, but an unimportant role in most contemporary theories of distributive justice. Saul Smilansky has recently put forward a defense of this asymmetry. In this study, I argue that it fails. Then, drawing on an argument of Richard Arneson’s, I suggest an alternative consequentialist rationale for the asymmetry. But while this shows that desert cannot be expected to play the same role in distributive justice that it can play in retributive justice, it does not fully vindicate the asymmetry, since desert can still play an important role in the former.     

Humean dispositionalism

Humean metaphysics is characterized by a rejection of necessary connections between distinct existences. Dispositionalists claim that there are basic causal powers. The existence of such properties is widely held to be incompatible with the Humean rejection of necessary connections. In this paper I present a novel theory of causal powers that vindicates the dispositionalist claim that causal powers are basic, without embracing brute necessary connections. The key assumptions of the theory are that there are natural types of causal processes, and that manifestations of powers are identified with certain kinds of causal processes. From these assumptions, the modal features of powers are explained in terms of internal relations between powers themselves and the process-types in which powers are manifested.     

Sport and children’s spirituality: an Australian perspective

The benefits of sport and physical activity are endorsed by a number of professionals as a means of improving children’s health and their sense of well-being, and their unity with the natural world, other people and the Transcendent. For children, sport is a spiritual source of joy and wonder. Using Champagne’s ‘spiritual modes of being’, my recent study of Victorian children demonstrated their heightened sensory awareness, enriched relationships and robust sense of personal identity, arising from active and passive participation in sport. The children in the study seemed to benefit in each of these areas from Australian culture’s high value of sporting participation and achievement.     

Implicit and explicit memory in pregnant women: An analysis of data-driven and conceptually driven processes

A study by Brindle, Brown, Brown, Griffith, and Turner (1991), reported that pregnant women showed impaired implicit memory (as measured by a stem completion task) in the presence of intact explicit memory. The present study was an attempt to replicate and extend this finding by employing a read/generate encoding manipulation across data-driven (word fragment completion and graphemic cued recall) and conceptually driven (semantic cued recall and category generation) tests. A total of 64 women (32 pregnant) were tested on both data-driven and conceptually driven tasks either directly or indirectly. No differences emerged between pregnant subjects and non-pregnant controls across tasks. Subjects experiencing their first pregnancy did report their memory in the previous 2 weeks as being considerably worse than normal.     

Increased conformity to a fellow deviant as a function of prior deviation

A subject was induced to publically report his opinions on a variety of issues. A group of confederates disagreed with the subject; one confederate agreed with him. Thus, the subject deviated from the majority of the group, but received social support from one other individual. Each subject was then paired with one individual from the previous group, and regardless of his pairing, was subjected to a constant amount of conformity pressure from the confederate on a new set of judgments. Deviant subjects conformed more to the confederate who had previously given them social support than they did to a previous majority member. This increased conformity was found in two studies, (1) females judging physical realities and, (2) males reporting their opinions on attitudinal issues. Ratings taken in the second study demonstrated that the deviant subject felt increased liking for and similarity to the confederate who initially provided him with social support, but comparisons between various experimental groups indicated conformity to a confederate was not completely predictable from the subject's liking for that confederate. Instead, conformity was greatest following an experience of deviation from the majority.     

Development of a Cyber/Information Technology Knowledge Test for Military Enlisted Technical Training Qualification

An Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) Review Panel, with expertise in personnel selection, job classification, psychometrics, and cognitive psychology developed recommendations for changes to the military enlistment test battery. One recommendation was to develop and evaluate a test of cyber/information and communications technology literacy to supplement current ASVAB content. This article summarizes a multiphased Cyber Test development process: (a) a review of information/computer technology literacy definitions and measures, (b) development and pilot testing of a cyber knowledge measure, (c) validation of test scores against final school grades (FSGs) for selected technical training courses, (d) development of an operational reporting metric and subgroup norms, and (e) examination of construct validity. Results indicate the Cyber Test has predictive validity versus technical training school grades and incremental validity comparable to the ASVAB technical knowledge tests when used with the ASVAB Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) verbal/math composite as a baseline.