bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Integrating Geoarchaeology with Archaeology for Interdisciplinary Understanding of Societal–Environmental Relations
Authors: Butzer Karl W.
Published: February 2016

Despite an early growth of interest in archaeological problems by the science community, systematic application of earth science in a major field project during the 1920s was not directly followed up. But by 1960 environmental archaeology had become a focus of problem formulation, experimentation, and innovation, thanks to excavations led by both Classical and Anthropological archaeologists. Adequate professional training did not follow, given disciplinary hurdles and funding traps, so that geoarchaeology remained a multidisciplinary goal rather than an interdisciplinary commitment. This chapter lays out how the methods of geoarchaeology can be applied to retrieving pragmatic rather than deductive data on environmental history, which can contribute to understanding global and regional problems of degradation. This offers an avenue to monitoring human impacts and environmental change, critical for understanding landscape histories, as well as for contemporary or future issues of sustainability in coupled human–environmental systems.
Applied Perspectives on Pre-Columbian Maya Water Management Systems
Authors: Isendahl Christian , Scarborough Vernon L. , Gunn Joel D. , Dunning Nicholas P. , Fedick Scott L. , Iannone Gyles , Lucero Lisa J.
Published: February 2016

Water security is a fundamental global challenge for humanity. Suggesting that scholars, water management engineers, and policy-makers draw from a wide range of examples, this chapter argues that knowledge gained from archaeological research provides unique insights into the long-term function and efficacy of water management systems. This chapter presents six cases of water management systems in the pre-Columbian Maya lowlands, from the Yalahau, Puuc-Nohkakab, Petén Karst Plateau, and Belize River Valley subregions, that demonstrate significant variation; a product of the interplay between social, political, and economic factors and hydrological regimes. The analysis suggests four insights relevant for current water security concerns: (1) water management systems are characterized by a diversity of solutions, (2) water scarcity promotes increased management investments that result in long-term vulnerability, (3) water abundance does not require complex management systems but increases the risk for mismanagement, and (4) institutional and technological diversity provide flexibility and greater security.
Introduction
Authors: Doumanis Nicholas
Published: February 2016

This chapter argues the case for the unity of early twentieth-century European history, while at the same time identifying the absence of conceptual frameworks and general explanations for that unity. Specifically, the 1914–45 era was an age of political experimentation and social engineering, when empires were replaced by nation states, and when political violence was becoming a normative feature of governance. It proved to be an exceptionally violent age, claiming tens of millions of lives. In such conditions, Europeans were transformed ontologically, as the vast majority of people were nationalized and politicized. Although experiences of this tumultuous era varied across Europe, and while it featured many significant progressive developments, the era was defined by war and violence, and it threatened to create a very different Europe to that which did emerge after the Second World War.
Discipline, Terror, and the State
Authors: Hagenloh Paul
Published: February 2016

Violence was key to state administration and politics in interwar Europe, particularly in the major authoritarian regimes on the Continent: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Soviet Union. Yet the nature and level of violence varied substantially among these three regimes, as did the importance of violence in daily policing operations and in people’s lived experiences. This chapter examines the role of violence in state administration in these three dictatorships between 1919 and 1939, focusing on surveillance, political policing, and mass repression. Each regime utilized violence in highly different ways, and it is difficult to speak of a single model of interwar authoritarianism. All three are similar, however, within a broader context of modern European state practices and especially military practices: each promoted a particular vision of social transformation that made sense only in the broader field of military conquest and the framing experiences of two totalizing global wars.
European Integration, Human Rights, and Romantic Internationalism
Authors: Duranti Marco
Published: February 2016

This chapter offers a critical perspective on the historiography of European integration and human rights by tracing the interplay of romantic and technocratic forms of internationalism over the first half of the twentieth century. From the Hague peace conferences to the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), new systems of international law and organization were conceived as backward looking as much as modernizing. While technocratic internationalists shared a liberal faith in progress, reason, and science, romantic internationalists looked back nostalgically to an idealized deeper past as a basis for new transnational imagined communities that would overcome the evils of the modern age. For conservative romantics such as Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Winston Churchill, a united Europe could only emerge through the recovery of the mythical unity of an older Christian European civilization from which they believed international human rights norms derived.
Beyond Hadrian’s Wall
Authors: Hunter Fraser
Published: February 2016

Britannia’s northern frontier varied considerably over the Roman period, stabilizing only in the early third century. This variation leads to a fascinating archaeological record of the changing Roman military presence and its relation to the local population. This chapter examines the local Iron Age societies, considers military aspects of the invasion, and presents a wider view of life on the frontier. It then turns to the relationship between the indigenous population and Rome over four centuries. Historical sources for conflict indicate an uneasy relationship, but archaeological evidence uncovers other aspects: Roman material culture found varied uses in Iron Age societies, while the long and often difficult relationship had a series of unexpected consequences on both sides.
Britons on the Move
Authors: Ivleva Tatiana
Published: February 2016

This chapter explores the migration patterns of those who were born in the Roman province of Britain and moved to the continental Europe in the late first–third centuries AD using epigraphic and archaeological evidence. Attention is given to the ways ethnic identity might have been projected by the mobile Britons, and the chapter shows how their identities were re-created and reused within the host societies. It shows that the epigraphic evidence consists of a considerable degree of variation in naming origin and that various choices were being made to express descent, although, in general, mobile British individuals still felt themselves to be connected with the province of their birth. Furthermore, the chapter deals with the occurrence of British-made brooches on the Continent and analyses how the contexts in which British brooches appeared reflect the diversity of their meanings and associations which emanated through their usage, considering that brooches are not evidence of the ethnicity of their users and wearers. It argues that the past was an important matter when brooches were put in specific contexts abroad. The desire to forget, reinvent, evoke, or project the past attests to the importance and value of memory in communities who travelled from Roman Britain to the Continent.
Britain, Gaul, and Germany
Authors: Moore Tom
Published: February 2016

Britain’s place in the Roman Empire cannot be seen in isolation. The province’s close links to Gaul and Germany stemmed from earlier interaction in the late Iron Age, and these connections have been seen as highly significant in explaining the changes in burial, dress, and settlement that took place in Britain from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. Exploring evidence from changes in diet, architecture, and burial rites, this chapter will assess the nature and extent of cultural interactions between these provinces. In particular, it will examine whether these links can be used to argue for a ‘Gallicization’ of Britain, rather than a ‘Romanization’. It will question whether such terms are helpful in reconceptualizing the processes of cultural change before and after the Roman Conquest or whether they present their own set of problems for understanding cultural interactions and social change.
Ideas of Childhood in Roman Britain
Authors: Gowland Rebecca
Published: February 2016

Since the 1990s there has been a burgeoning focus on the experience and treatment of children in the ancient world. The majority of studies have utilized historical and iconographic sources more than the archaeological record, resulting in an image of Roman childhood that is dominated by the view from Rome. For Roman Britain, the archaeological context, especially the funerary domain, is a fruitful source of evidence concerning childhood. The bioarchaeological and material evidence from Romano-British cemeteries is reviewed here. Skeletal remains provide valuable evidence relating to the health and care of past children. The integration of the skeletal data with the material evidence from the funerary context can illuminate past perceptions of childhood and the social construction of this earlier part of the life course. Theoretical and methodological developments within archaeology are paving the way for a more complete understanding of Roman childhood.
The Life Course
Authors: Moore Alison
Published: February 2016

Age is more than just a fundamental part of an individual’s personal identity; it is one of the basic building blocks upon which societies are organized. A life-course approach allows us to investigate how age was utilized as an organizational category by identifying the key age stages that were considered socially important and when transitional points were reached that represent a new life phase. This chapter addresses how age identity, as represented in the burial record, can be identified in Roman Britain; it discusses how the evidence for the four visible age stages can be understood and explores the multiplicity of life courses that existed within different regional contexts of the province.
Deviancy in Late Romano-British Burial
Authors: Crerar Belinda
Published: February 2016

Studying the various ways in which Romano-British society disposed of its dead can reveal important information about attitudes towards and the treatment of certain social groups. The particular issue addressed here is, how can we study the treatment of those who contravened acceptable norms of social behaviour? Who were these people and did their behaviour in life affect their burial after death? Certain minority rites are almost invariably put forward as evidence for the treatment of socially stigmatized persons. This chapter aims to assess the evidence for social marginality in Roman Britain through a critique of traditional academic approaches and the evidence commonly used in analysis. Certain shortcomings are identified and a new methodology is proposed that brings us closer to appreciating the role of these minority rites and their implications for understanding the social identity of the persons to whom they were applied.
Clothing and Identity
Authors: Cool H. E. M.
Published: February 2016

This chapter explores the appearance of people in Roman Britain and how this changed depending on the time, the place, and an individual’s particular circumstances. It explains what evidence we have for reconstructing costume and how different identities were created by costume choices. The role of women is a particular focus, both as creators of the cloth and as a group who become increasingly visible in the archaeological record via the development of many new types of finds associated with dress and appearance. An overview of useful sources that will allow the reader to explore the literature more fully is provided.
Identity and the Military Community in Roman Britain
Authors: Haynes Ian
Published: February 2016

This chapter explores various approaches to gender, status, religion, and ethnicity within military communities in Roman Britain. It argues that the rich array of data found in and around the forts and fortresses offers a valuable opportunity to look afresh at how identities were defined and constructed. New approaches to this data have played a valuable role in counterbalancing the traditional focus on the official structures of Roman power, by offering a sense of the diversity of responses to these structures among soldiers and their dependants.
Metals and Metalworking
Authors: Dungworth David
Published: February 2016

Metals were a fundamental part of Roman life, providing a wide range of weapons, coins, implements, and jewellery. In Roman Britain, mining for gold and silver is known to have taken place and the working of these metals is known sporadically, mostly from urban contexts, while lead, tin, copper, and iron was also widely used, either on their own or in combination to form alloys such as bronze or pewter. This chapter explores the archaeological evidence for mining and the distribution and production of metals and metal objects in order to understand the role that metals played in the economy and life of the province.
Medicine
Authors: Baker Patricia
Published: February 2016

The study of ancient medicine has grown in popularity over since the early 1990s in a variety of fields, including ancient texts, epigraphy, osteology, and archaeology. Many of the studies have demonstrated that there were a diversity of medical practices and concepts throughout the Graeco-Roman world. In this chapter it is shown that the evidence for medical practices in the province of Britannia indicates there are likely to have been a combination of indigenous, Roman and, possibly, Gallic conceptions of the body and its care. Hence, through an examination of material culture, inscriptions, and some textual evidence from Vindolanda, it is argued that the term Romano-British medicine is more appropriate than Roman medicine as a means of noting the heterogeneity in healthcare found in the Roman Empire.
Names of Gods
Authors: Zoll Amy
Published: February 2016

The myriad theonyms preserved in inscriptions reflect the diversity of Roman Britain’s inhabitants, but only a limited range of rites—mainly vows and curses—contributed to the epigraphic corpus. These practices were drawn from Roman religious tradition, framing concepts of deity and structuring interactions with the divine. Adherents belonged to different segments of provincial society, but the ‘community of soldiers’ is disproportionately represented. The act of naming has long been viewed as the key to unlocking the origins and identities of provincial deities, but consideration of the larger social, temporal, and geographic context of text-bearing ritual objects is essential for understanding how some members of Britannia’s populace recognized and communicated with their gods.
The Development of Towns
Authors: Rogers Adam
Published: February 2016

This chapter examines urban foundation and development in the Roman period and the issues relating to town origins and purpose in Britain. It focuses on the chartered towns and reviews relating to the three main types of urban settlement—the coloniae, municipia and civitas-capitals—and the practice of settlement categorization. The chapter also contextualizes debate on urban development by discussing aspects of the history of approach to the documentation and interpretation of Roman town foundation in Britain. It discusses the practicalities of town construction and then moves on to emphasizing the need for Roman urban studies to embrace archaeological theory in order to avoid normative assumptions in interpreting urban material and town life. In particular it argues for greater recognition of the relationship between the development of urban spaces, the lived experience within towns, and the existing significance attached to places and landscapes in prehistory.
Introduction
Authors: Mettler Suzanne , Valelly Richard
Published: February 2016

The study of American political development—APD—emerged in the early 1980s as an insurgent movement and has since fed back into the subfield of American politics in far-reaching ways. Rather than outsource historical analysis to historians, APD brings the idea that “history matters” into the center of political analysis and prizes fresh answers to questions that are never taken for granted within APD: what actually happened in the political past, and, equally important, how do our answers to “what happened?” in turn recast how we think about the political present and indeed give us powerful ways to understand what contemporary phenomena are cases of?
Samaritan
Authors: Hjelm Ingrid
Published: February 2016

This chapter offers an introduction to the history of the Samaritans from their origin until the seventh century CE and gives detailed information on the Samaritan Literature in the Roman Period. The Samaritans formed the backbone of central and northern Palestine’s population and shared beliefs and traditions with southern Palestine’s Jewish population. However, their traditions developed differently in Samaritanism’s strong emphasis on a purely Mosaic Yahwism (as in the Five Books of Moses), which did not adopt the teachings of the larger Jewish canon (i.e. the Old Testament). Compared with Jewish and Christian literature, Samaritan literature is quite limited. It consists of the Samaritan Pentateuch, the SamaritanTargum of the Pentateuch in Aramaic, a midrashic compilation called Tibat or Memar Marqe, and the earliest prayer book called the Defter, which contains hymns from the third to fourth century CE. An additional paragraph deals with Samaritan use of biblical literature in inscriptions and artefacts.
Adolescent Resilience: Promoting More Positive Outcomes Among Youth at Risk of Using and Abusing Substances
Authors: Hurd Noelle , Zimmerman Marc
Published: February 2016

Resilience refers to positive adjustment among youth who have been exposed to one or more risk factor(s). In this chapter, we review articles published within the past two decades that have included a focus on resilience processes among adolescents at risk of using substances. The review is organized by the level of promotive factor investigated (individual, family, and community), followed by a review of studies that have focused on exposure to cumulative risk and promotive factors. Prior to reviewing these studies, we provide a brief overview of resilience theory, including key terms and models of resilience. The chapter concludes by addressing the limitations of the research on resilience and adolescent substance use and makes recommendations for future research.
Medical Issues in Adolescent Substance Use: Background and Role of the Primary Care Physician
Authors: Schizer Miriam , Weitzman Elissa R. , Levy Sharon
Published: February 2016

Use of psychoactive substances is both common during adolescence and highly associated with acute and chronic health risks. Routine health care provides an opportunity to provide a range of interventions—from primary prevention to assisting adolescents with substance use disorders in accessing treatment. In particular, primary care offers a unique opportunity to intervene with adolescents who have developed substance use problems but do not meet criteria or are unwilling to enter specific treatment for a substance use disorder, and thus provide a level of service for adolescents who would otherwise likely receive no intervention. This chapter reviews the evidence base for primary care interventions and explores the role for primary care providers.
Therapist Characteristics and Strategies for Enhancing the Therapeutic Alliance and Treatment Outcomes with Adults
Authors: Laska Kevin M. , Nordberg Samuel S.
Published: February 2016

In this chapter we focus on how the therapist affects the effectiveness of psychotherapy. We approach this chapter as two researchers who are also practicing therapists and therefore are aware of common challenges regarding the research–practice gap. Our goals are to discuss specific implications of psychotherapy research and to highlight concrete steps for implementing therapist-focused quality improvement strategies in clinical settings. We begin with a discussion of why therapist variables have been neglected in psychotherapy research and review research evidence of therapist effects. We then discuss characteristics of effective therapists and ways in which individual therapists can improve their practice. Finally, we discuss the growing body of research on routine outcome monitoring (ROM) and the role both therapists and systems of care play in improving outcome.
Therapist Characteristics and Interventions
Authors: Fjermestad Krister , McLeod Bryce D. , Tully Carrie B. , Liber Juliette M.
Published: February 2016

This chapter reviews the empirical literature on factors that might influence the development and maintenance of the alliance and client involvement in youth therapy. Thus, our review of the literature is conducted through the lens of the evidence-based practice movement, which emphasizes the importance of tailoring the delivery of evidence-based treatments to individual clients. We present a conceptual model designed to explain how therapy produces change in youth, focusing on process and outcome through therapeutic interventions hypothesized to strengthen the alliance and maximize client involvement Then we use the model as a framework for reviewing the empirical evidence demonstrating that therapist characteristics, therapeutic interventions, and therapist competence influence the therapist–client alliance and client involvement. The chapter concludes with clinical implications and suggested future research directions.
Prevention as Treatment
Authors: Kumpfer Karol L. , Magalhães Cátia
Published: February 2016

This chapter reviews the application of treatment methods in prevention, with an emphasis on family-based substance abuse, delinquency, and child maltreatment. The goal of prevention is to increase resilience in high-risk children. Considerable overlap exists between evidence-based prevention and treatment interventions, including their etiological and intervention theories, cognitive behavioral change methods and outcome objectives. Also included is the Institute of Medicinespectrum of treatment disorders, a review of prevention and treatment intervention theories, and methods used to design effective family interventions, with an emphasis on family systems, social ecology and resilience theories including the author’s Transactional Framework of Resilience model and the Strengthening Families Program. Lastly, this chapter covers the applications of clinical techniques to improve resilience characteristics and processes and places evidence-based prevention programs methods within this framework and details their similarity to treatment. Digital technology (e.g., DVDs, Web, smart phones, television, etc.) is recommended to reduce intervention costs and “go-to-scale” to have a greater public health impact in promoting resilience in children.
Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment
Authors: Aschieri Filippo , Fantini Francesca , Smith Justin Dean
Published: February 2016

The Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA) paradigm represents a significant shift from the traditional aims and techniques of psychological assessment. C/TA deliberately employs a variety of evidence-based techniques intended to maximize the potential that the process of assessment will result in meaningful therapeutic benefits for clients. The empirical support for the effectiveness of the C/TA approach is promising and demonstrates direct intervention effects on such indicators as self-esteem and symptomatology, as well as improvements in constructs and processes salient to continued psychological care, including the therapeutic alliance, treatment readiness, and distress. C/TA has also been shown to increase participation and retention in subsequent indicated mental health services for populations that traditionally are difficult to engage. This chapter describes the history and evidence-based theory behind C/TA approaches; describes the steps and procedures of the semi-stuctured Therapeutic Assessment model, and presents a thorough discussion of the application of a variety of therapeutic techniques (e.g., circular questioning, scaffolding, psychoeducation, shame modulation, mentalizing) in the context of the C/TA paradigm that increase the likelihood that assessment will result in clinically relevant outcomes. These techniques are applied in a variety of therapy models in psychology but have only recently been explicitly used in the context of psychological assessment for adults, couples, and families with children or adolescents.
Fidelity with Flexibility
Authors: Sanetti Lisa , Collier-Meek Melissa A. , Fallon Lindsay
Published: February 2016

Research has linked the use of evidence-supported treatments to effective, efficient therapeutic outcomes. Questions related to the best way to disseminate and implement evidence-supported treatments in the field has led to discussions about transportability of treatments from controlled to applied settings. Specifically, scholars have focused on issues related to treatment fidelity, acceptability, and adoption versus adaptation of evidence-based treatments in practice. Treatment fidelity, a multidimensional construct, pertains to how extensively a treatment is delivered to a client, and it may be affected by several variables. Although the relationship is complex, treatment fidelity is considered an important moderator of client outcomes. Furthermore, the acceptability of a treatment appears to be of importance. Simply, if a treatment is perceived to be acceptable, it is more likely to be implemented with high levels of fidelity, increasing the chances that successful therapeutic outcomes will result. Nevertheless data indicate that some clinicians are wary of using evidence-supported treatments; their chief concern is feasibility of implementation, which could affect treatment fidelity and acceptability. Thus, there is a debate about whether evidence-supported treatments should be adopted strictly as developed or whether they might be adapted to improve implementation and acceptability. In adaptation of a treatment, relevant clinician variables (e.g., training received, availability of resources) and client factors (e.g., cultural fit) might be considered to promote therapeutic outcomes. This chapter describes how the key to treatment success may be to strike a balance between fidelity and adaptation of evidence-based treatments and fidelity with flexibility.
Client and Therapist Reports
Authors: Holmqvist Rolf
Published: February 2016

Testing efficacy and effectiveness of psychological treatment requires valid and reliable methods for describing change. There are three main issues in rating outcome: First, from what perspective should the ratings be made (client, therapist, society)? Second, what level should the measurement target (concrete behavior or thought, syndrome, or global change)? Third, should outcome be described nomothetically (with standardized instruments) or ideographically? Despite many proposals over the years, there is still no consensus about instruments that make comparisons between studies comparable. Some scales have, however, become standard for specific disorders. Comparisons of ratings by clients and therapists show moderate agreement about presenting problems, perception of the process (e.g., alliance), and outcome. One reason for imperfect agreement may be different formulations and instruments for each participant. Another reason could be that clients and therapists have different perspectives on how to describe problems and therapy activities conceptually. It may be important to distinguish between clients’ and therapists’perceptionsof agreement, for instance about activities in therapy and goals, andactualagreement on specific behaviors and targets. Although agreement may be important, recent theories and studies have emphasized that a mutual therapeutic endeavor can be characterized as an ongoing negotiation between client and therapist. The negotiation in itself may be a potent therapeutic tool. Therapists are encouraged to follow the development of clients’ ratings of both symptoms and alliance continuously during treatment in order to modify the treatment in accordance with the current level of symptoms as well as the clients’ perspective on the therapeutic collaboration.
Mental Health Professionals Working in a Shared Traumatic Reality
Authors: Baum Nehami
Published: February 2016

Professionals working in a shared traumatic reality—that is, in a disaster in their home community—are doubly exposed: both as individuals who experienced the disaster at first hand and as professionals who treat people traumatized by it. This chapter opens with a discussion of the development of the concept of “shared traumatic reality” and a presentation of the five key features of professionals’ double exposure: intrusive anxiety, lapses of empathy, immersion in professional role, role expansion, and changes in place and time of work. It then presents the findings of studies of Israeli mental health professionals who lived and worked near the Gaza border during the 2009 Gaza War. The findings of the quantitative study of 63 professionals, highlight the unique contribution that lapses of empathy made to the professionals’ distress and that their immersion in their professional role made to their personal growth. The qualitative study presents two cases, one of an emergency worker, the other of a clinician in the course of ongoing work, both of whom were confronted with the need to choose between attending to their children or to their clients. The cases convey something of the process by which the choice was made and the professionals’ feelings about their choice afterwards. They suggest that some of the widespread distress reported by professionals working in the wake of communal disasters derives not solely from exposure to their clients’ traumatic experience or even from their primary exposure to the disaster, but from their conflict of roles and loyalties.
Introduction
Authors: Bayor Ronald H.
Published: February 2016

The field of immigration and ethnic history has changed over the years to include previously neglected topics such as gender and race as well as newer immigrant groups. This Handbook introduction lays out the book’s focus and suggests that many new questions in regard to assimilation, nativism, group identity, panethnicity, and ethnic succession, among others, can be asked to help clarify and understand this history. Essay authors from the disciplines of history, political science, sociology, linguistics, and film studies develop fresh models for comprehending contemporary America. For example, relatively new religious groups, new forms of immigrant communication, a resurgent nativism are all evident in present times. Contributors were also requested to propose future research needed and to present their thoughts about where the field seems to be heading.
Structuralism
Authors: Green Elliott D.
Published: February 2016

This article examines the structural origins of developmental politics by focusing on the argument that “bad politicians” are the reason for the problem with politics in developing countries, or that great leaders are responsible for development. Using the word “structuralism” to describe the underlying structures of society that affect developmental politics, it considers the claim that institutions are the cause behind political decisions taken in government. Two different, but related structural causes are analyzed, namely geography and demography. The article concludes by discussing how a more structural view of development makes it possible to peer into the future, especially with respect to population growth, population aging, and urbanization.
Civil Conflict and Development
Authors: Hegre Håvard
Published: February 2016

This article examines the relationship between civil conflict and development. After outlining definitions of conflict and development, it considers a number of explanations of why they are empirically related. The extent to which conflict, such as civil war, is due to development is discussed, along with how conflict affects development. The article then describes the routes through which conflict reduces development, namely destruction, disruption, diversion, and dis-saving. It also considers why development reduces the risk of conflict, paying particular attention to poverty as motivation for conflict, opportunities for violence entrepreneurs, poor state capacity, decreased lootability in diversified economies, higher costs to violence in densely interacting societies, indirect effect through political institutions, and education and the cognitive ability to maintain peaceful relations. The article concludes by assessing future prospects for the conflict–development linkage, as well as the role of development in reducing incidences of armed conflict worldwide.
Cetacean Cognition
Authors: Marino Lori
Published: February 2016

Cetacean cognition at the level of the individual is complex and highly sophisticated and shares a number of characteristics with human and other great ape cognitive features. At the same time, in the social setting, capacities and propensities appear to emerge that are unique to cetaceans. This chapter explores cetacean cognition at the levels of the individual (language, pointing and reference, self-awareness, innovation and imitation, body image, self-recognition, self-imitation, and metacognition) and the social group (social complexity and networking, culture) and concludes that dolphins can only thrive as reflexive thinkers in a natural social group. Dolphins in captivity often suffer from psychological disturbances and abnormalities, poor health, and, ultimately, high mortality rates.
History and Animal Agencies
Authors: Pearson Chris
Published: February 2016

The argument that animals are agents is becoming ever more commonplace and forms part of a wider posthumanist intellectual project that reconsiders the power and role of nonhuman forces in both the past and the present. However, according agency to nonhumans raises significant methodological and theoretical issues. Informed by the approaches of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and others, this chapter offers an overview of the varied ways in which scholars have attributed agency to animals. After considering how animals have historically been denied agency, it explores how animals are agents imbued with a degree of intentionality. It then investigates how animal agents have physically shaped past and present societies and the problematic nonhuman-agency-as-resistance model. This typology is intended to show that animals possess agency, but that claims of animal agency need to be made carefully to better capture the hybrid world we inhabit.
Music and Ethics
Authors: Cox Damian , Levine Michael
Published: February 2016

This essay examines the relationship between music and ethics. Can music have a positive or negative role in our disposition toward, or performance of, right and wrong acts, duties, and virtues? Can it make a difference to us morally? Can musical experience make us better or worse off from a moral point of view? It is argued that although there is no necessary connection between listening to or appreciating music and one’s moral character, the contingent connections are many and various. Kivy’s critique of the character-building force of absolute music is examined and rejected. If music possesses epistemic and behavioral moral force, then it possesses—for some people, some of the time—the power to build moral character. If music enlarges our capacities of emotional empathy (not for everyone, or all music, and not on all occasions), then it has a role to play in building moral character.
Practical Reasons and Environmental Commitment
Authors: Holland Alan
Published: February 2016

The giving of reasons is a way of making sense of what we do, both to ourselves and to others. Three kinds of reason are distinguished: reasons for doing something, reasons to do something, and reasons why we do something. Following a suggestion of Bernard Williams, it is argued that reasons for doing something must key into our actual or potential motivational repertoire. Environmental commitment is a case in point. By inviting us to “regard” land as a community, for example, Aldo Leopold is attempting to promote such commitment by inviting us to share his motivational repertoire. Alternative attempts that appeal to features such as intrinsic value, a caring ethic, and the requirements of human flourishing are briefly discussed but are found wanting. The chapter concludes with a sketch of how environmental commitment might be more effectively keyed into our quest for meaning.
Environmental Hermeneutics and the Meaning of Nature
Authors: Drenthen Martin
Published: February 2016

Environmental hermeneutics is a relatively recent stance within environmental philosophy that built on the insights and theories from philosophical hermeneutics. Philosophical hermeneutics starts with the idea that humans are essentially interpretative beings that seek to understand meaning. Hermeneutics traditionally focuses on the understanding and interpretation of texts; environmental hermeneutics seeks to expand this scope to include environments and landscapes. The starting point is the idea that the world we inhabit is always already interpreted and infused with meanings, and that environments matter to people as normative context that help them make sense of their lives. Environmental hermeneuticists examine the role of interpretation and conflicts of interpretations in human relations with environments and explicate how these are intertwined with notions of environmental identity. This chapter presents and discusses some key thoughts and ideas from philosophical hermeneutics, focusing on Gadamer and Ricoeur and examines how these might bear on environmental philosophy.
Aesthetic Value, Nature, and Environment
Authors: Brady Emily
Published: February 2016

This chapter discusses key issues and questions about aesthetic experience and valuing of natural objects, processes, and phenomena. It begins by exploring the character of environmental, multisensory aesthetic appreciation and then examines the central debate between “scientific cognitivism” and “noncognitivism” in contemporary environmental aesthetics. In assessing this debate and the place of knowledge, imagination, and emotion in aesthetic valuing, it is argued that non-cognitive approaches have the advantage of supporting a critical pluralism that recognizes the variety and breadth of aesthetic engagement with nature. Interactions between aesthetic and ethical values are also discussed, especially with respect to their role in philosophical positions such as “aesthetic preservationism” and the call for developing aesthetic theories that are consistent with environmentalism.
Future Generations in Environmental Ethics
Authors: Nolt John
Published: February 2016

Intergenerational ethics is the study of our responsibilities to future individuals—individuals (human or not) who are not now alive but will be. The term “future” characterizes, not the kind of a thing, but rather the temporal perspective from which it is being described. Future people, as such, therefore differ from us neither intrinsically nor in moral status. Our responsibilities to them are best understood by attempts to see things from their perspective, not from ours. Though intergenerational ethics takes various forms, the credible forms in conjunction with known facts yield two great practical conclusions: we must reduce human population, and we must keep most fossil fuels in the ground. The demandingness of these conclusions is no objection against them, but rather an accurate measure of the moral burdens of our godlike knowledge and power.
Risk and Precaution in Decision Making about Nature
Authors: Aldred Jonathan
Published: February 2016

The normative bases for two fundamentally different approaches to environmental decision making are examined. First, orthodox “risk assessment.” In the conditions of (partial) uncertainty or ignorance prevailing in many environmental decisions, it is argued that CBA and similar forms of risk assessment should not be used in isolation. Second, the precautionary principle. Two conditions—broadly speaking, “uncertainty” and “particular threats”—seem especially relevant to determining the applicability of the precautionary principle. Gardiner’s “Rawlsian Core Precautionary Principle” is examined in detail. It features both conditions; an incommensurabilist interpretation of the latter is adopted. In short, precaution is justified in decision contexts involving both uncertainty and incommensurability. Since both uncertainty and incommensurability are matters of degree, there are intermediate cases to consider. The analysis argues that with “more” uncertainty, “less” incommensurability is required to justify precaution, and vice versa.
The Ethics of Environmental Pollution
Authors: Elliott Kevin
Published: February 2016

Environmental pollution played a central role in launching the environmental movement during the twentieth century. While some environmental ethicists have worried that concerns about pollution reflect a relatively “shallow” form of environmentalism focused on the concerns of the wealthy, pollution is also a significant threat to many disadvantaged groups, citizens of low-income countries, and non-human organisms. Ethical issues arise both in the course of scientific research to identify harmful pollutants and in policy decisions about how to regulate them. New strategies are needed for generating scientific research that adequately reflects the concerns and priorities of the public as a whole rather than the values of polluting industries. Creative policy approaches are also needed so that we can identify harmful pollutants more quickly and avoid generating them in the first place.
Ethical Energy Choices
Authors: Shrader-Frechette Kristin
Published: February 2016

This chapter helps explain why energy ethics has not prevailed, despite thousands of years of energy pollution–caused deaths. Section 1 outlines the harms created by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Section 2 surveys environmental ethicists’ responses to these harms. Because energy harms are so obvious and well established, most environmental ethicists have not spent time arguing against them. Instead, as section 3 explains, most environmental ethics work on energy has been at the level of third-order analyses—responding to those who attempt to justify continued use of dirty energy, often by saying other power sources are unavailable or too expensive. Sections 4 through 8 provide brief third-order ethical analyses of five major second-order ethical excuses for not moving to clean, renewable energy: namely, the readiness, intermittency, expense, regulation, and intention excuses. The final section outlines how future energy-related ethics research is likely to develop. Because other chapters in this volume address climate this one does not do so.
Water Ethics
Authors: Kallhoff Angela
Published: February 2016

Water is a life-sustaining, common good that is particularly endangered by a growing world population and by climate change. This chapter discusses four normative approaches to water ethics in terms of a human right to water, an ecocentric approach to the non-instrumental values of water, water justice, and water cooperation. It argues that water cooperation is the most promising approach to resolving tragic conflicts. In particular, it is informed both by a rights-approach and by an ecocentric approach to water as a common good. Scholars are asked to draw a normative map related to values and interests in nature first—a map that highlights vulnerabilities of natural resources as well as the sources of value of these goods in concrete scenarios. The corresponding ethos is not one-dimensional; instead, it includes the value of integrity as well as approaches to an attitude of care and procedural fairness.
Anthropogenic Mass Extinction
Authors: Bendik-Keymer Jeremy , Haufe Chris
Published: February 2016

We explore the science of mass extinction, link it to industrial civilization, use the concept of the banality of evil to explain the ethical situation, and then explain the various ways in which mass extinction poses further ethical problems within that situation, especially of environmental justice and the loss of value. Overall, humankind risks a profound failure of autonomy, perhaps our greatest achievement. For those who want to take action, we recommend the project of anthroponomy and large-unit/deep-branching conservation.
Ethics and Climate Adaptation
Authors: Heyward Clare
Published: February 2016

In the context of climate policies, adaptation as a response to climate change aims not to prevent environmental impacts but to reduce the effects of the physical changes on key interests. Therefore, it is necessary to consider what kinds of things—what interests—should adaptation seek to protect from the effects of climate change. Any account of justice in adaptation must take a position on what interests adaptation measures should protect. The increasing convention in discourses on adaptation is to assume that protection of basic material interests of individuals is the proper goal of adaptation. Occasionally, it has been mooted that policies to safeguard economic interests can also count as adaptation. This chapter suggests that an interest in secure cultural identity is also relevant and that adaptation policies should take it into account.
Geoengineering
Authors: Gardiner Stephen M.
Published: February 2016

Ethics is highly relevant to grand technological interventions into basic planetary systems on a global scale (roughly, “geoengineering”). Focusing on climate engineering, this chapter identifies a large number of salient concerns (e.g., welfare, rights, justice, political legitimacy) but argues that early policy framings (e.g., emergency, global public good) often marginalize these and so avoid important questions of justification. It also suggests that, since it is widely held that geoengineering has become a serious option mainly because of political inertia, there are important contextual issues, especially around the paradoxical question, “What should we do, ethically speaking, given that we have not done, and will continue not to do, what we should be doing?” Taking such issues seriously helps to explain why some regard geoengineering as ethically troubling and highlights the largely neglected threat of interventions that discriminate against future generations (“parochial geoengineering”). We should take seriously the risk that, far from being simply a welcome new tool for climate action, geoengineering may become yet another manifestation of the underlying problem.
Environmental Conflict
Authors: Schmidtz David
Published: February 2016

A philosopher might presume that principles of justice somehow are more fundamental than principles of conflict resolution. But moral philosophy done well is neither as autonomous as that, nor as naïve. Moral philosophy done well tracks truth about the human condition, which means it tracks truth about what it actually takes in the real world for people to live in peace. Accordingly, the relationship between justice and conflict resolution is an evolving process of mutual specification, anchored to facts about what helps people get along and make progress. If we want to understand what people have reason to expect from each other and to regard as their due, we would do well to start by learning how people avoid and resolve conflict.