bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Psychiatry between Psyche and Brain
Authors: Fuchs Thomas
Published: October 2021

Since its development around 1800, psychiatry has been moving between the poles of the sciences and the humanities, being directed toward subjective experience on the one hand and toward the neural substrate on the other hand. Today, this dualism seems to be overcome by a naturalism which identifies subjective experience with neural processes—according to the slogan “mental disorders are brain diseases.” Psychiatry thus tends to isolate mental illnesses from the patients’ social relationships and to neglect subjectivity and intersubjectivity in their explanation. What should be searched for instead is a paradigm that can establish psychiatry as a relational medicine in an encompassing sense: as a science and practice of biological, psychological and social relations, and their disorders. Within such a paradigm, the brain may be grasped and researched as the central “relational organ” without reductionist implications.
He Never Mattered
Authors: Curry Tommy J.
Published: October 2021

This chapter argues that Black Lives Matter (BLM) has engaged in an exploitative political strategy that has capitalized on selling Black male suffering to white liberals. This strategy has deliberately marginalized Black males suffering from greater police killings, as well as ignored the various forms of sexual violence and rape experienced by Black men and boys in their encounters with police. Despite the disproportionate rate of police killings affecting Black men and boys, intersectionality scholars and BLM activists ignore the specific and targeting of Black males in the United States as a primary intellectual and political concern. This chapter concludes that intersectional invisibility’s reliance on recognition fails to account for Black male sexual victimization and the lethal targeting of Black males within America.
Sentencing Leniency for Black Offenders
Authors: Yost Benjamin S.
Published: October 2021

In response to the racial disparities that plague the American criminal justice system, the Movement for Black Lives calls for an end to policing and punishment “as we know them.” But refusing to punish violent offenses leaves unprotected those most vulnerable to crime, and outright abolition thus appears to undermine black rights and liberties. The author calls this the decarceration dilemma. After discussing Tommie Shelby and Christopher Lewis’s attempts to resolve the dilemma, the author offers his own, which employs a procedural rather than a substantive solution. He leans on the principle of expanded asymmetry (EA), which holds that it is better to underpunish than overpunish. After defending EA, the author notes that it obtains only under conditions of uncertainty. He then shows that because virtually all trials of black offenders meet the uncertainty condition, sentencing authorities are obliged to treat black offenders leniently. This chapter concludes by noting the advantages of the proceduralist approach.
Sky’s the Limit
Authors: Shafiei Keyvan
Published: October 2021

In this chapter, the author defends the claim that utopias can, and should, inform attempts to craft and effectuate successful programs of radical change. Specifically, it is argued that social and political organizing, even in response to seemingly intractable issues like systemic racial injustice, must ultimately be grounded in realistic utopian visions. This concept is borrowed from Erik Olin Wright and refined to argue that realistic utopias highlight the human potential for radical change and force us to recognize that the boundaries of what is possible are structurally contestable. The author conjoins this analysis with Elizabeth Anderson’s recent discussion of social movements as experiments in morality. For Anderson, social movements extend moral critique beyond the domain of mere theory by offering unique experiments in living morally. Along these lines, the chapter argues that the Movement for Black Lives offers a valuable case study in how we can experiment with realistic utopias.
Instructional Practices and Strategies
Authors: Easterbrooks Susan R.
Published: October 2021

This chapter provides teachers with concrete suggestions for creating and implementing language instruction in classrooms of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. It examines good instructional practices, which suggest that language good language instruction should have an evidence base, be accessible, be meaningful and applicable, be intentional and explicit, and move from guided to self-monitored. From this perspective, it revisits the multiple pathways to language instruction, provides step-by-step instructions for introducing the concept of language separation, describes conversation and play-based learning, discusses the use of technology, and reviews evidence-based practices. Readers are challenged to apply the information through discussion questions.
Daughters of 1919
Authors: Lipscomb Benjamin J.B.
Published: October 2021

This chapter traces not only commonalities in the generational experience of Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Iris Murdoch, but also differences in their educations, upbringings, and relationships to organized religion. They were all children of the post-Armistice baby boom, growing up in a world profoundly shaped by the Great War, a “morbid age” preoccupied with worries about the decline and fall of Western civilization. And they all belonged to the first generation to benefit from enhanced professional opportunities and legal protections for women. The chapter recounts, among other stories, Anscombe’s intense, dramatic conversion to Catholicism, which alarmed her parents; Foot’s (Bosanquet’s) rebellion against her patrician upbringing, leading to her decision to attend Oxford; Murdoch’s idyllic childhood and “Spartan” but beloved boarding school; and Midgley’s (Scrutton’s) more relaxed school experience and early fascination with all manner of small, wild creatures.
The Somerville Senior Common Room
Authors: Lipscomb Benjamin J.B.
Published: October 2021

This chapter follows the rebellious patrician Philippa Foot, through her years as a tutorial fellow at Somerville, chronicling her philosophical apprenticeship to Anscombe, her work with Oxfam, her separation from her husband, and her contributions to the task of rethinking mid-century ethics. Foot was a dedicated and overworked teacher; her afternoons spent talking with Anscombe gave her a much needed impetus to develop her own philosophical thoughts. Through Anscombe, Foot became a disciple of both Wittgenstein and Thomas Aquinas. She eventually took up Anscombe’s critique of Hare, in a drastically different style. Foot wrote two influential essays, “Moral Thoughts” and “Moral Beliefs,” arguing against Hare’s moral theory, using examples drawn from Hare’s own territory—linguistic analysis. They were clever, careful, in some ways conventional Oxford moral philosophy, and immediately popular. While Foot would eventually repudiate some of these arguments, her contribution to the retrieval of Aristotelian ethics was decisive.
Introduction
Authors: Colgan Jeff D.
Published: October 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the book’s central arguments. Scholars usually think of a hegemon as establishing an international order after a major power war, which lasts roughly until the next big war. This chapter shows how flawed and incomplete that understanding is. It argues instead that changes in order are common in peacetime; a hegemon does not always want those changes; and nonstate actors like private firms or international organizations can play crucial roles. Further, it argues that there is no single international order, but rather a collection of subsystems. It illustrates and applies these arguments to global oil politics over the last century. For instance, it shows how the idea of “energy security” is confused and misleading. Political leaders often muddle the linkages between the security and political economy dimensions of oil.
Using Subsystems beyond Oil
Authors: Colgan Jeff D.
Published: October 2021

Chapter 6 moves beyond oil. It starts by showing how the subsystems framework lends itself to a particular method or approach to research. That method encourages analysts to really get to know the empirics of their subject before jumping to causal analysis. The chapter then addresses some additional theoretical questions not covered in chapter 2. For example, it identifies the standards of quality by which we can assess competing subsystems analyses from different analysts, and considers how changes at the subsystem level aggregate up to affect an ordering theme at the systemic level (e.g., the liberal order). The goal is to show how scholars can apply the subsystems framework in an analytically fertile way.
Climate Change
Authors: Colgan Jeff D.
Published: October 2021

Chapter 7 uses the subsystems theory and method developed in previous chapters to understand climate politics. To date, there is only a weak international order for climate. Still, the chapter identifies four emerging subsystems for climate politics, associated with: emissions reductions; climate-related capital; negative-emissions technologies; and the climate-trade nexus. This chapter then goes beyond analysis to prescribe and make recommendations for policymakers. It advocates using a “climate club” of countries committed to reducing emissions internally and using trade measures to penalize those outside the climate club.
The Evil Creator
Authors: Litwa M. David
Published: October 2021

This book examines the origins of the evil creator idea chiefly in light of early Christian biblical interpretation. It is divided into two main parts. In Part I, the focus is on the interpretation of a variety of alternative Christian groups (e.g., “Phibionite,” “Sethian,” “Ophite”). First, the pre-Christian Egyptian assimilation of the Jewish god to the evil deity Seth-Typhon is studied to understand its reapplication by alternative Christians to the Judeo-catholic creator. Second, an alternative Christian reception of John 8:44 (understood to refer to the devil’s father) is shown to implicate the Judeo-catholic creator in murdering Christ. Part II focuses on Marcionite Christian biblical interpretations. It begins with Marcionite interpretations of the creator’s character in Jewish scripture(Chapter 3), analyzes the reception of 2 Corinthians 4:4 (in which “the god of this world” blinds people, Chapter 4), examines Christ’s so-called destruction of the Law (Eph 2:15) and the Lawgiver (Chapters 5–6), and shows how Christ finally succumbs to the curse of the Law (Gal 3:13) inflicted by the creator (Chapter 7). A concluding chapter sums up the findings and shows how still today many readers of the Bible conclude that the creator is evil.
Destroyer of the Law I
Authors: Litwa M. David
Published: October 2021

This chapter examines the Marcionite reception of Ephesians 2:15 (Christ “destroyed the Law of commandments by [his] teachings”). If Christ destroyed the Law by his teachings, the Law could not be good. Paul called the Law “good” in the sense of “just” (Rom 7:12), but for Marcion the creator’s justice was only a cover for his savagery. From Marcion’s perspective, the Law revealed sin and thus enslaved people to the creator. Christ came to abolish the entirety of this Law to free humanity from slavery to the creator. Since Christ came as destroyer of the creator’s Law, he proved that the Law was evil, yet if the Law was evil, so was the divine Lawgiver.
Conclusion
Authors: Litwa M. David
Published: October 2021

The conclusion sums up the work and makes several key points. First, Marcionites—among other early Christian groups—had biblical reasons for believing that the creator of this world was evil. Their interpretations did not all focus on Jewish scripture. Christian scripture—mainly Johannine and Pauline writings—were major foci. So-called gnostic and Marcionite Christians did not “split” the Jewish deity into a good and evil being. Some Gentile Christians may have never viewed the Judean god as universal or good in the first place. In fact, these Christians could not have viewed the creator as good given that he plotted against, killed, and cursed the Christian savior on the cross. The book closes by tracing the convergence of ancient and modern biblical interpretation regarding the evil creator. The idea of the evil creator persists because Jewish and Christian scriptures still foster the idea even in radically different settings and times.
The All-Consuming Nation
Authors: Lytle Mark H.
Published: October 2021

In some ways, The All-Consuming Nation is an autobiography of the baby boom generation since it highlights the consumer culture and rising environmental consciousness that have been central to that generation’s lived experience. This focus should appeal to a wide audience of regular readers. Those who are sensitive to such current issues as wealth inequality, climate change, and the environmental consequences of mass consumerism will also find the book as a way to see how the United States reached its contemporary crisis points, as well as possible ways to curb current excesses. The book alternates chapters on the evolving consumer economy with chapters on environmental critiques of mass consumerism. It considers the technologies that have fueled consumption, strategies such as planned obsolescence that sustain consumption, and the shift in retailing from brick and mortar to online shopping. Environmental critics have viewed every shift in patterns of increasing consumption as ultimately unsustainable. Finally, the book should serve as text for post–World War II surveys in American history, environmental history, as well as business and marketing courses.
Diversities, Silence, and Open Conflict
Authors: Chinnici Joseph P.
Published: October 2021

From 1940 to 1962, political and theological debates indicate that contemporary disagreements in the Church predate the Council. The geopolitical polices of the papacy influence various phases of development: (1) During the War, the clerical elite conduct a debate over Catholic cooperation in non-Catholic life. (2) From 1948 to 1955, international “containment” policies parallel the numerous allegations of heresy touching the views of Father Leonard Feeney, the social argument of Father James Keller, and the asceticism of Father John Hugo. John Courtney Murray’s studies on the American political proposition are silenced. (3) These largely private disagreements between “Right” and “Left” elements in the Church—represented by National Review, Fides Publishing, and others—experience a “cultural opening” and move into the public forum as the struggle against communism begins to lose its resonance. (4) Six months before the Council, political and theological disagreements express themselves in open and virulent juxtaposition.
The First Session
Authors: Chinnici Joseph P.
Published: October 2021

Heterogenous, individualistic, and disorganized, American bishops traveled to Rome for the first session of the Council where they experienced an international Church, a sense of collegiality, a democratic assembly, and a growing adoption of the ecumenical and pastoral purpose of the Council. The first days were spend organizing weekly meetings and committees. Media outlets arose that would have a lasting impact on conciliar deliberations. Confronted with the power dynamics in the Church, the bishops began to manifest an initial opposition to control by Apostolic Delegate Vagnozzi and the Roman curia. Myer and Ritter emerged as leaders. Debates on the liturgy, the Sources of Revelation, and the Church led many bishops to move gradually toward a knowledge of the interrelationships between adaptation to the modern pluralistic society, worship, contemporary scripture scholarship, and a vision of the Church open to the world. A direction for the Council’s future developed.
Interim Periods and Debates on the Church and Liturgy
Authors: Chinnici Joseph P.
Published: October 2021

Before and during the second session of the Council, American bishops took a collegial turn toward the revisioning of Catholic identity. In parallel with grass-roots commitments to the civil rights movement, the language of “human dignity, equality, mutual respect, the breaking down of social barriers” crossed over into religious speech patterns. Experiences of internationality as the bishops traveled back and forth to Rome and experiences of collegiality as they gathered in a voluntary meeting in Chicago furthered the acceptance of new pathways in Church and liturgy. Despite strong opposition from within their ranks and from the Roman curia, the leadership of Meyer, Dearden, Wright, Ritter, Shehan, and Hallinan, and the influence of the prominent theologians McManus, Diekmann, Ahern, and Coyle, led to an alliance with the Council’s majority favoring reform. An entrance into a new “politics of history” governed by participative processes, inculturation, lay ascendancy, and democratic discord developed.
Building Bridges to the World, 1963–1965
Authors: Chinnici Joseph P.
Published: October 2021

The third and fourth conciliar sessions emphasized the call to create bridges to all men and women. The American bishops cross-stitched the theological common thread of human dignity with developments in the civil rights movement. Experiencing great opposition from factions within the conciliar assembly (Coetus Internationalis Patrum), they congealed in defense of religious freedom. Final adoption of Dignitatis Humane Personae both resolved the historic problem of Church teaching on Church and state and also highlighted the theological issue of development of doctrine. This new ecumenical and pastoral “cultural system of belief” repositioned internal adversarial markers of Catholic identity in relationship to Protestants, Jews, world religions, and non-believers. A new style of worship, teaching authority, and social cooperation emerged. Implementing structures of the post-conciliar Church in the United States witnessed to both a continuing commitment to this adaptation to modernity and the difficulties it would engender.
Causation with a Human Face
Authors: Woodward James
Published: October 2021

Causation with a Human Face integrates normative work about causal reasoning coming out of philosophy, computer science, and other disciplines—work that specifies how people ought to reason causally—with descriptive research from psychology concerning how people in fact reason about causal relationships. It argues that each line of inquiry can beneficially inform the other. Normative ideas can suggest interesting experiments, and descriptive results can suggest normative ideas that are worthy of exploration. Among the normative ideas discussed are proposals about the role of invariant or stable relationships in successful causal reasoning and the notion of proportionality, which has to do with the extent to which causes and effects are specified at the appropriate “grain.” These normative ideas are reflected in the causal judgments that people actually make as a descriptive matter. The overall framework makes use of an interventionist treatment of causation, but many of the normative ideas and much of the empirical research explored will be of interest independently of this framework. The book also discusses the common philosophical practice of appealing to “intuitions” or “judgments about cases” in support of philosophical theses. Properly understood, these are not different in principle from results from psychological studies of causal cognition and hence can serve as a useful source of information. However, there are a number of important questions about both the normative and descriptive sides of causal cognition that cannot be successfully addressed by an intuition-based methodology, so that philosophers need to move beyond reliance on this.
Justice and Humaneness in a Naturalist Cosmos
Authors: Jiang Tao
Published: October 2021

This chapter reveals that Laozi completely jettisoned the idea of a Heaven that cares about human affairs and is actively involved in managing the human world. Instead, Heaven becomes indifferent to human affairs. Furthermore, in the Laozi Heaven would be eclipsed by the Dao as the origin of the cosmos encompassing the natural as well as the human world. The twin development of the idea of a detached Heaven and the subordination of Heaven to the Dao signified a naturalist turn during late fourth century bce, supported by recently excavated texts. Such a development would open up new conceptual spaces for subsequent moral-political deliberations. Laozi appropriated the Mohist idea of impartiality of Heaven but did so under a naturalist cosmos, making justice and impartiality a natural feature of the cosmos and rejecting humaneness as a heavenly attribute. Furthermore, he repudiated the universalism in both the Confucian and the Mohist projects.
Scientific Epistemology
Authors: Kornblith Hilary
Published: October 2021

This book provides an introduction to a scientifically informed approach to epistemological questions. Theories of knowledge are often motivated by the need to respond to skepticism. The skeptic presents an argument which seems to show that knowledge is impossible, and a theory of knowledge is called upon to show, contrary to the skeptic, how knowledge is indeed possible. Traditional epistemologies, however, do not draw on the sciences in providing their response to skepticism. The approach taken here, however, shows how an epistemology which is informed by the sciences offers an especially illuminating understanding of the nature of knowledge and what makes it possible. Along the way, a distinctive methodology for philosophy is defended, as is an approach to understanding how inference is conducive to knowledge which highlights various structural similarities between the workings of our perceptual systems and native inferential mechanisms. A perspective on the human capacity to reflect on our beliefs is defended which highlights its importance in cooperative problem-solving.
Overcoming Market Power in Online Video Platforms
Authors: Noam Eli M.
Published: October 2021

The chapter proposes an ‘open video system’ to deal with digital dominance in the online streaming video sector. TV, in its third generation, is becoming online-based and, due to the fundamental technology and economics of the medium, controlled by a few global platforms. The extent is shown by market concentration numbers developed in the chapter. How to deal with this problem? Instead of following the breakup or public utility models, the chapter advocates the enablement of information intermediaries that would act on behalf of consumers. Platforms would need to provide such intermediaries with access to those elements in which they hold significant media market power. Such access would be given by way of an applications program interface (API), priced under a most-favoured nation arrangement, and administered through industry self-regulation. The intermediaries could create bundles of services, including independent algorithms. Given that much of media content will flow by way of the large platforms, their accessibility and interoperation will help in keeping the future media system open, diverse, competitive, and innovative, without the heavy interventions of alternative approaches.
Accelerating Adoption of a Digital Intermediary Tax
Authors: Brogi Elda , Maria Carlini Roberta
Published: October 2021

The role of the digital platforms as intermediaries to the news has deeply changed the media environment. The chapter focuses on the economic threats to media pluralism, related to the concentration of the market and the disruption of the news media industry, resulting from the digital platforms’ business model; and argues for the role of fiscal policy in redistributing part of the tech dividend and in supporting media plurality. The policy proposal is a digital tax designed to support news media viability and media pluralism. The need for a reform of international corporate tax rules to tackle tax avoidance in the digital economy has been largely debated at OECD and at EU level, with different proposals of a digital tax; less attention has been given to the use of the revenues raised by such a tax. We argue that earmarking part of the digital tax’s revenue to sustain professional journalism is a way to finance a public good that, in the new digital environment, risks being undersupplied. Public media policies should be carefully designed to guarantee fair, objective and non-discriminatory distribution of the resources, to avoid media being captured by political interests. The search for resources to fund the post-Covid economic crisis in most of the EU countries could act as an accelerator of the adoption of a digital tax; to use part of its revenue to support media pluralism may be a structural way to counteract the ‘infodemic’.
Responding to Disinformation
Authors: Marsden Chris , Brown Ian , Veale Michael
Published: October 2021

This chapter elaborates on challenges and emerging best practices for state regulation of electoral disinformation throughout the electoral cycle. It is based on research for three studies during 2018–2020: into election cybersecurity for the Commonwealth; on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to regulate disinformation for the European Parliament; and for UNESCO, the United Nations body responsible for education. The research covers more than half the world’s nations, and substantially more than half that population, and in 2019 the two largest democratic elections in history: India’s general election and the European Parliamentary elections. Regulating digital dominance in electoral disinformation presents specific challenges in three very distinctive fields: election law, media law, and mass communications regulation, and targeted online advertising, including data protection law. Implementing best practices against electoral disinformation will require action by EMBs, data protection agencies, communications and media regulators, parliamentary authorities, and ministries of justice and equivalent Neither effective implementation, nor a disinterested assessment of best practice, can be guaranteed. Electoral laws are—like much history—written by the winners, often immediately after their victory. Legal frameworks need to be updated as a response to disinformation challenges discovered during electoral processes, as well as encompassing international best practice. Our ten recommendations for policymakers take account of these imperatives and uncertainties.
Slaves, Subjects, Citizens
Authors: Lee Daniel
Published: October 2021

This chapter aims to extract Bodin’s ‘pure’ concept of political subjecthood, detached from neighbouring concepts with which subjecthood has historically overlapped – patriarchy, slavery, vassalage. The asymmetrical obligatory bond of imperium tying subjects to their sovereigns is irreducibly distinctive. One can legally be subject to a sovereign, without also being its child in patria potestate, its slave in dominio, its vassal in capite, or any other bondsman: such a ‘free subject’ is ‘citizen’. Bodin, however, observed that the earliest political societies – especially Assyria under the Biblical hunter-king Nimrod – blended together these concepts, rendering subjecthood indistinguishable from slavery. Only gradually, with the invention of law as a technique of sovereignty, could sovereigns isolate subjecthood. As with all obligatory bonds, however, even subjecthood can be dissolved. Citizenship can be lost as easily as it can be acquired. One element, however, is conspicuously absent in Bodin’s analysis of citizenship – territory.
Brain–Computer and Brain-to-Brain Interfaces for Communication
Authors: Glannon Walter
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores how a brain–computer interface (BCI) could allow some patients with locked-in syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or in the minimally conscious state to reliably communicate with others. BCI-mediated communication may enable these patients to clearly express their wishes when they cannot communicate because of motor impairment. Depending on their cognitive capacity for reasoning and decision-making, some patients could use a BCI to express their wishes about life-sustaining treatment and meet criteria of informed consent. Patients who could use a BCI to communicate could decide for themselves whether they want to continue or discontinue artificial nutrition and hydration, ventilation, or other life-sustaining interventions and act in their own best interests. The chapter also discusses how brain-to-brain interfaces may enable communication between brains and minds in a social network of collaborative problem-solving in visuomotor and cognitive tasks.
Mental and Neural Causation in Brain–Computer and Brain-to-Brain Interfaces
Authors: Glannon Walter
Published: October 2021

This chapter discusses how there is both mental and neural causation in brain–computer interface (BCI)-mediated movement and communication. The claim that BCI users can activate and transmit brain signals to the computer by their mental acts is not just part of a folk-psychological explanation but an accurate neuropsychological account of how people operate these systems. The process that extends from the user’s intention to move a prosthetic arm or select letters from a computer writing tablet to the performance of these actions cannot be explained entirely in neural terms because it involves factors inside and outside the brain. Brain–mind–machine interaction is shaped by user–trainer interaction. Combined with neural, mechanical, and social factors, mental acts also have a causal role when two or more people use brain-to-brain interfaces (BBIs) to execute collaborative visuomotor and cognitive tasks. Successful use of BCIs and BBIs shows that mental acts are not epiphenomenal and cannot be causally excluded from explaining how a person can use these systems to regain or augment different types of agency.
Striking Printers
Authors: Finkelstein David
Published: October 2021

In the 1870s, print trade unions joined an international effort to fight for a ‘nine-hour’ or ‘short-time’ working day. Several key print trade labour strikes followed in the wake of this. This chapter focuses on six compositor and printer labour strikes in London, Toronto, Edinburgh, and Dublin that took place during the 1870s, linked to the nine-hour working day movement. Though some were deemed failures at the time (and in four cases cataclysmic in terms of trade organization effectiveness), several resulted in key social and organizational changes in relevant regions, some intended, others not, and ultimately are important moments in Victorian labour history.
A Primer of Life Histories
Authors: Hutchings Jeffrey A.
Published: October 2021

Life histories describe how genotypes schedule their reproductive effort throughout life in response to factors that affect their survival and fecundity. Life histories are solutions that selection has produced to solve the problem of how to persist in a given environment. These solutions differ tremendously within and among species. Some organisms mature within months of attaining life, others within decades; some produce few, large offspring as opposed to numerous, small offspring; some reproduce many times throughout their lives while others die after reproducing just once. The exponential pace of life-history research provides an opportune time to engage and re-engage new generations of students and researchers on the fundamentals and applications of life-history theory. Chapters 1 through 4 describe the fundamentals of life-history theory. Chapters 5 through 8 focus on the evolution of life-history traits. Chapters 9 and 10 summarize how life-history theory and prediction has been applied within the contexts of conservation and sustainable exploitation. This primer offers an effective means of rendering the topic accessible to readers from a broad range of academic experience and research expertise.
Genetic Variation and Phenotypic Plasticity
Authors: Hutchings Jeffrey A.
Published: October 2021

The genotype is that part of the genetic make-up of an organism causally responsible, to greater or lesser degrees, for the phenotype. The underlying genetic basis of a trait depends on genetic architecture; phenotypic differences can be caused by many genes, each having a small effect, and/or few genes each having a large effect. Some traits are influenced by groups of many genes linked together on the same chromosome and inherited as single units or supergenes. A particular type of genetic variation (additive genetic variance) determines trait heritability, i.e. the similarity in trait phenotype between parents and offspring. Trait heritability and genetic trade-offs influence the response of traits to natural and human-induced selection. A key point is that genes rarely act in isolation of one another, rendering it challenging to reliably predict evolutionary responses to selection. Thereafter, following a section on how the environment can affect the phenotypically plastic expression of traits, the chapter explores genotype-by-environment interactions, using reaction norms. These are visually heuristic and intuitively tractable depictions of how a trait varies with an environmental factor or with another trait. Reaction norms have long been used to study phenotypic plasticity. Today, they are increasingly seen as an invaluable tool for examining genetic differences in how individuals and populations respond to environmental change.
Applications
Authors: Hutchings Jeffrey A.
Published: October 2021

By affecting age-specific survival and fecundity, human-induced disturbances affect life history. This has potential to affect rmax with negative consequences for species viability and persistence. Several types of assessments are used to classify vulnerability to extinction, exploitation, and climate change. When information on rmax is unavailable, vulnerability assessments often rely on life-history correlates of rmax. These have included generation time, age at maturity, maximum size, longevity, fecundity, natural mortality, and individual growth rate. Empirical research indicates that links with rmax are strong for some traits, such as age at maturity and body size, but weak for others, such as fecundity. In addition to assessments of declining species, efforts have been made to identify life-history correlates of the rate and uncertainty in species recovery. Persistence and stability can be strengthened by the magnitude of life-history variation. The greater the variability in life history within and among, the greater the resistance and resilience of populations and species.
Plato on Regret, Akrasia, and the Tyrannical Soul
Authors: Warren James
Published: October 2021

Plato associates metameleia with ‘akratic’ (un-self-controlled) agents and, in Republic 9, with tyrannical characters. How does his notion of metameleia relate to different accounts of the nature of virtue found in different dialogues? For example, in the Protagoras Socrates associates regret with the retrospective recognition that the agent has been misled by appearances and has failed to select the greatest good. But this does not occur because of akrasia. Is the tyrannical soul of Republic 9 subject to internal conflict and, if so, of what sort? The chapter also considers Proclus’ commentary on Republic 10 as a later ancient interpretation of the Platonic position.
A brief evolutionary account of medical care
Authors: Benedetti Fabrizio
Published: October 2021

In this chapter, medical care is approached from an evolutionary perspective, starting from simple forms of defence behaviours to social grooming in non-human primates. Social grooming in apes and early hominids was likely to pave the road to altruistic behaviour. Whereas the very early forms of altruism and medical care in a social group relied on the involvement of many members of the group, in the course of evolution a single individual started taking care of the sick: the shaman. It is important to look at the doctor–patient relationship from an evolutionary perspective because it acts as a reminder that this unique social interaction can be studied using a neuroscientific and evolutionary approach.
The traditional concept of placebo
Authors: Benedetti Fabrizio
Published: October 2021

In this chapter, the history of medicine is basically described as the history of placebos, as most medical interventions were nothing but placebos; that is, inert. Over the centuries, doctors started using sham treatments to see whether the clinical improvement was attributable to the patients’ imagination and/or spontaneous remissions. Today placebos are widely used in clinical research to validate the efficacy of a therapy. Besides this clinical research approach, doctors and nurses use placebos to please and placate anxious patients. The placebo effect is a good example of how a mental activity may affect several physiological functions; thus, it is an excellent model for studying the mind–body interactions. The nocebo effect, which is opposite to the placebo effect, is another good model for understanding mind–body interactions.
Clinical–ethical implications and applications
Authors: Benedetti Fabrizio
Published: October 2021

In this chapter it is pointed out how the recent advances in placebo research can stimulate the development of new clinical trial designs for the validation of new treatments. One of the main implications of the recent advances in placebo research is the possibility of inducing drug-like effects without drugs, thus opening up the potential of reducing drug intake. As social stimuli may activate the same biochemical and receptor pathways on which drugs act, several cognitive and affective factors can modulate the action of drugs. The new scientific advances in placebo research need to be considered and analysed in more detail from an ethical perspective, as they raise a number of questions that need to be discussed in depth, including the use of placebos by quackery.
Physical and cognitive performance
Authors: Benedetti Fabrizio
Published: October 2021

This chapter is aimed at exploring the placebo effect beyond the healing context, specifically performance. In spite of the fact that very different experimental conditions have been investigated, all available data indicate athletes’ expectations as important elements of physical performance. Although there is compelling evidence that physical performance in sport activities is boosted by placebos, the underlying mechanisms are only partially known. The use of placebo procedures in sport competition poses some important ethical questions about doping. Nocebo effects have been found to counteract good physical performance, and indeed they can interfere with training programmes. The study of oxygen shortage has provided important information on the role of placebo in hypoxia at high altitude. In fact, oxygen can be considered in the same way as a drug, such that placebo oxygen has been found to produce physiological changes that are similar to those of real oxygen.
Dimensions and Pillars of Human Flourishing
Authors: Briggs Andrew , Reiss Michael J.
Published: October 2021

Interest in human flourishing has been growing in recent years in academic, policy, and popular circles. What is it that makes a human life a flourishing life? Both scientific insight—including from such social sciences as psychology and sociology—and spiritual wisdom can help answer this question. The concept of human flourishing provides a valuable framework within which to consider the importance of satisfying people’s yearnings for material goods, successful relationships and the hope that we can achieve and experience things that give us a sense of something greater than ourselves—the transcendent. The transcendent is not discerned only within religion; for many, the arts, nature, wilderness, and a consideration of our place in the Universe are all instances of routes towards an appreciation of something beyond. At the same time, we discuss aspects of transcendence that are opened up by a religious or spiritual outlook on life.
The Relational Dimension
Authors: Briggs Andrew , Reiss Michael J.
Published: October 2021

The damaging consequences of solitary confinement in prison indicate the importance of relationships for human flourishing. Loneliness affects a high proportion of people, especially as they get older. The health consequences of loneliness can be severe. Our early relationships within our family and with others are crucial for our well-being. There are many species where the parents effectively abandon their offspring early in life but humans don’t normally do that. As a species we produce few offspring and parents can invest in them heavily. We are a social species. At the same time, the more people we know, the more difficult it becomes to maintain social relationships with them. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people. Helping is at the heart of most positive relationships. Human relationships need not be restricted to other humans.
Truth
Authors: Briggs Andrew , Reiss Michael J.
Published: October 2021

It is not easy to ascertain what is true, whether we are talking about science, religion or everyday life. Issues raised by such films as The Truman Show and The Matrix and Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument have similarities with one of the foundational arguments in Western philosophy: Plato’s Cave. There are a number of ways of interpreting Plato’s Cave but what any of us thinks is true may not turn out to be so. Every field of knowledge aspires to articulate the truth and how this is done depends on the field, so that there are different approaches to discerning the truth in mathematics, the natural sciences, the social sciences, moral philosophy, and religion. Postmodernism is widely held to be an attack on truth but can be seen more positively as a way of critiquing the ways in which those in power control what is generally accepted to be true.
A Time of Transition
Authors: Waterfield Robin
Published: October 2021

I start with a vignette that illustrates some of the major themes and characters of the book. In 251 Aratus of Sicyon expelled the current ruler of his native town and brought it into the Achaean Confederacy, despite the fact that Sicyon was not ethnically Achaean, but Dorian. He needed money and he approached the two kings on whom he thought he could count. Antigonus Gonatas of Macedon refused, but Ptolemy II of Egypt gave generously. Antigonus responded by trying to drive a wedge between Aratus and Ptolemy. So we meet three of the major players of the book, the poverty of the Greek states and their reliance on the kings for handouts, and the hostility between Egypt and Macedon. We also meet one of the two great Greek confederacies that formed as a way to stand up to the might of Macedon. I end with a discussion of the difficulty of reconstructing a history of the period, because of the paucity of the sources.
Unexpected Prosperity
Authors: Calvo-Gonzalez Oscar
Published: October 2021

Only a handful of economies have successfully transitioned from middle to high income in recent decades. One such case is Spain. How did it achieve this feat? Despite its relevance to countries that have yet to complete that transition, this question has attracted only limited attention. As a result, Spain’s development into a prosperous society is a success story largely underreported and often misunderstood. This book turns on their head the questions that usually frame the debate about Spain’s economic development. Instead of asking why Spain’s catching up was delayed, this book asks how it happened in the first place. Instead of focusing on how bad institutions undermined economic prospects, as the literature has done, this book explains how growth took place even in the presence of poor institutions. This wider lens opens up new perspectives on Spain’s development path. For example, comparisons are drawn not only with the richest countries but also with those that were in a similar stage of development as Spain. Drawing on a wide range of material, from archival sources to text analytics, the book provides a new account of why reforms were adopted, the role of external and internal factors, as well as that of unintended consequences. The result is an original interpretation of the economic rise of Spain that speaks also to the wider literature on the political economy of reform, the role of industrial and public policy more broadly, and the enduring legacy of political violence and conflict.
Contestability
Authors: Calvo-Gonzalez Oscar
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores a previously under-researched aspect of Spain’s path to prosperity. While much of the existing literature has focused on the high regulatory burdens and limited competition in many domestic markets, the chapter documents how Spain was able to infuse doses of contestability while protecting much of its industry. The example of the car industry, highly protected yet increasingly able to compete in the international market, is one of several examples that are examined in detail. The success of the car industry also provides a practical demonstration of how some distortions that resulted in an allocative inefficiency, such as local content rules, were precisely some of the levers used to bring about a greater market discipline and, as a result, increases in competitiveness. Overall, the chapter provides an illustration of how it is in the detail of both the design and implementation of policies and in their interaction with existing conditions that variation in results are likely to emerge.
Ideas and Aspirations
Authors: Calvo-Gonzalez Oscar
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores how, behind the change in economic policymaking, lies a change in the ideas of the elite. And behind the change in ideas was a relentless scanning of experience outside Spain, especially in Europe. The chapter documents how the technocrats that held increasing power in 1960s Spain consistently sought out new ideas about policymaking from Europe and the United States. They were deliberate policy entrepreneurs. Like their Western European peers, the technocrats considered a responsibility of the state to seek to advance progress for a wide spectrum of society. To pursue this objective, they considered it critical to increase efficiency and put great faith in technological progress. The chapter concludes that what truly stands out of the technocrats is that they were able to implement their practical agenda over a sustained period. There had been previous technocratic efforts to emulate European practices, sometimes from reformers that reached even higher levels of government. A long-term horizon allowed policies to evolve without unnecessary volatility, striking a balance between policy innovation and policy continuity.
Lucking Out
Authors: Calvo-Gonzalez Oscar
Published: October 2021

This chapter discusses the end of the Franco regime and the successful transition to a democratic one. It underscores that the process was an inherently risky one and could have derailed much of the prosperity achieved until then. The chapter argues that given the dictatorial and personalistic nature of Franco’s rule, a legacy of political instability and uncertainty was inevitable. This had negative economic consequences. It was not the economic policy legacy of Francoism but the inevitable legacy of uncertainty that was the biggest drag on economic prosperity in the late 1970s. The economic consequences of Francoism cannot be disentangled from its politics.
An Industry of Social Change
Authors: Rayner Cynthia , Bonnici François
Published: October 2021

Although we may not realize it, the prevailing approach to social change is driven by an industrial mindset that has been two centuries in the making. With this mindset, public, private, and nonprofit sectors exchange large sums of money, expertise, and resources in pursuit of ambitious goals to stave off poverty, disease, and hunger at a global scale. Yet, despite this massive effort, social problems still seem insurmountable. In Chapter 1, the authors consider how this “industrial” approach to social change emerged historically, creating an architecture that is currently used to imagine, fund, and implement social change. This architecture leads to many of the unintended consequences faced today.