Animal moral psychologies

Observations of animals engaging in apparently moral behavior have led academics and the public alike to ask whether morality is shared between humans and other animals. Some philosophers explicitly argue that morality is unique to humans, because moral agency requires capacities that are only demonstrated in our species. Other philosophers argue that some animals can participate in morality because they possess these capacities in a rudimentary form. Scientists have also joined the discussion, and their views are just as varied as the philosophers’. Some research programs examine whether animals countenance specific human norms, such as fairness. Other research programs investigate the cognitive and affective capacities thought to be necessary for morality. There are two sets of concerns that can be raised by these debates. They sometimes suffer from there being no agreed upon theory of morality and no clear account of whether there is a demarcation between moral and social behavior; that is, they lack a proper philosophical foundation. They also sometimes suffer from there being disagreement about the psychological capacities evident in animals. Of these two sets of concerns—the nature of the moral and the scope of psychological capacities—we aim to take on only the second. In this chapter we defend the claim that animals have three sets of capacities that, on some views, are taken as necessary and foundational for moral judgment and action. These are capacities of care, capacities of autonomy, and normative capacities. Care, we argue, is widely found among social animals. Autonomy and normativity are more recent topics of empirical investigation, so while there is less evidence of these capacities at this point in our developing scientific knowledge, the current data is strongly suggestive

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AS A FUNCTION OF INTRINSIC MOTIVATION AND DISTRACTION DURING STUDY

Self-determination can be characterized as one’s own effort to perform a task without any external force. Distraction by cell phones, social media or television during online course work, study time, or in the workplace can negatively impact performance and attention. The aim of the current study was to explore the relationship between students’ intrinsic motivations, their tendency to study with distractions present, and their overall academic success. Participants consisted of 215 undergraduate students in online psychology courses. Participants completed the Needs Assessment Questionnaire, and gave self-reports about their usage of their cell phone, social media, and television during study. The students’ final percent in their course served as the dependent variable. The hypotheses were that “Overall Percent in Class” would be (1) lower among participants who reported more distractions while studying; (2) lower among participants who were higher in the need for affiliation and who study with distractions present; and (3) higher among participants who were higher in the needs for autonomy and achievement, and who had lower distraction scores. A multivariate analysis of variance failed to support these hypotheses, but significant main effects and interactions were found among several variables

Dignified Animals: How Non-Kantian is Nussbaum\u27s Conception of Dignity?

Martha Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is integral to her capabilities approach. She argues that dignity is rooted in the flourishing and striving of animals. Her view is distinct from Kant’s, as Kant claims that persons have dignity in virtue of their rational nature. Though Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is important to her approach, its exact content and its relation to her thought is not clearly stated in her work, and I will attempt to provide an overview of Nussbaum’s conception of dignity. Also I will compare and contrast Nussbaum’s dignity with Kant’s (and contemporary Kantians’). Nussbaum provides four reasons for why her approach is superior to the Kantian split between rationality and animality, all of which I will examine. Finally, I will look at three areas of Nussbaum’s theory which require further exploration

Justice, Environment and Virtue in Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach: An attempt to reconcile a capabilities-based account of justice with the concerns of the environmental movement through the application of virtue theory

Martha Nussbaum has produced a compelling account of how we might do justice to non-human animals, but in doing so she seems to have committed us to a project of ‘policing nature’, which appears to be at odds with many of the ethical commitments of the contemporary environmental movement. Intervening to make the circumstances of wild animals more conducive to their flourishing may be in accordance with the principles of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, but it is at odds with the concerns of environmentalists who wish to ensure the functioning of ecosystems and the survival of species as an ethical imperative. Superficially, at least, it appears that one cannot endorse the capabilities approach and simultaneously be an environmentalist. In this thesis, I attempt to reconcile these two positions through appeal to the exercise of the virtues. While many of the premises of the capabilities approach and of the environmentalist accounts of ethics that I discuss are mutually exclusive, I suggest that an environmental virtue ethic, such as that described by Ronald Sandler, can justify many of the ethical stances that the environmentalist wishes us to adopt. In particular, characteristics of the virtue of humility can inform the agent as to why extending justice to wild animals is not a warranted course of action. I also apply virtue ethical considerations to the issues of species extinction and ecosystem destruction, areas in which the capabilities approach seems to offer little guidance. Thus, I propose augmenting our capabilities-based account of justice with an environmentally conscious appeal to the virtues in order to produce more consistent moral guidance with regard to the non-human world

Contracts to Communities: A Processual Model of Organizational Virtue

In the face of systemic challenges to corporate legitimacy, scholars and managers alike have been rethinking traditional answers to the question: What does it take to be a good company? We approach this question in two novel ways. We offer a normative answer, grounded in virtue ethics, by introducing a threefold typology of organizational forms. The moral goodness of each form depends on the congruence between its purpose and virtues. But we also offer a positive answer in the form of a processual model which traces corporate goodness to its empirical antecedents and consequences. The model defies a view of organizations as innately good or evil, but rather portrays virtue as the sediment of a value infusion process. We predict that if managers succeed in establishing in their organizations the kind of virtues necessary to support collective moral agency, they can expect to reap gains like enhanced effectiveness and legitimacy. However, when they neglect their moral responsibilities, the result will likely be organizational demise.Stakeholder theory;Corporate performance;Business ethics;Normative theorizing;Organizational goodness;Virtue ethics;Positive theorizing

Smart Events and Primed Agents

We describe a new organization for virtual human responses to dynamically occurring events. In our approach behavioral responses are enumerated in the representation of the event itself. These Smart Events inform an agent of plausible actions to undertake. We additionally introduce the notion of agent priming, which is based on psychological concepts and further restricts and simplifies action choice. Priming facilitates multi-dimensional agents and in combination with Smart Events results in reasonable, contextual action selection without requiring complex reasoning engines or decision trees. This scheme burdens events with possible behavioral outcomes, reducing agent computation to evaluation of a case expression and (possibly) a probabilistic choice. We demonstrate this approach in a small group scenario of agents reacting to a fire emergency

Rethinking context : Realisation, instantiation and individuation in Systemic Functional Linguistics

In spite of decades of research developing a model of language and context, there is little consensus in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) about how context should be modelled and how language and context are related. In this paper, we review recent work in SFL which focuses on modelling register as a resource – reconceiving field as a resource for construing phenomena, tenor as a resource for negotiating social relations, and mode as a resource for composing texture. This work has a number of implications for SFL’s conception of realisation (as strata of abstraction), instantiation (as a cline of generalisation), and individuation (as a scale of belonging). For realisation it bears critically on the issue of whether or not to adopt a stratified model of context (as register and genre) and the relationship between extrinsic functionality (field, tenor, and mode) and intrinsic functionality (ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions). For instantiation, it bears critically on our modelling of principles for coupling (co-selecting and arranging choices within and across languages and related modalities of communication) – for example mass, presence, and association. And for individuation, it bears critically on the perspectives of allocation (i.e. how access to meanings and their uptake is distributed across communities) and affiliation (i.e. how meanings are used to collaborate and struggle, within and between social groups). Our basic aim in this paper is to suggest a model for improving traction as far as SFL work on language in context is concerned, fully embracing a multimodal perspective on language and related modalities of communication as resources for meaning

Socialisation and the Security Function : Defining a Positive Role for Security in the Socialisation of New Employees

The role of security has evolved beyond a guard standing at a post. Although such activities are still vital, more proactive measures are required to combat increasing incidents of internal theft, workplace violence and fraud. However, the development of pro-active security activities cannot occur in a vacuum, therefore the Security Function must look to other organisational activities for support Socialisation has an important role in assisting individuals to familiarise themselves with their new environment, and develop an understanding of their role within an organisation. Failing to socialise an employee effectively may negatively impact upon individual behaviour, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. This behaviour can then be manifested in incidents of theft, sabotage, workplace violence and absenteeism. The aim of this study is to provide security practitioners with a theoretical framework that assists in identifying a role for the Security Function in the socialisation of new employees. The framework model includes how the Security Function can positively and pro-actively impact upon the likelihood of criminal and unethical behaviour, and facilitate a security conscious and ethical culture. The successful completion of the framework was based upon addressing the study\u27s primary research question - Can the Security Function impact upon the socialisation of new employees entering an organisation? Four subsidiary research questions were defined to ensure this objective was achieved. The research process focused on applying both a structured interview and a Likert test to examine security and human resource managers attitude toward these subsidiary questions, and their associated concepts of socialisation, culture and motivation. The results of the testing process indicated a support for the subsidiary research questions. Furthermore, the study outcomes demonstrated that the socialisation process docs have a significant impact upon the activities of the Security Function, and its ability to manage employee behaviour and promote a security conscious and ethical work environment. In addition, the study results indicated that the socialisation process and subsequent behaviour of new employees are impacted upon by a number of cultural and motivational concepts. An understanding of how these concepts effect the socialisation of new employees enabled selected concept components to be applied to the model. This process ultimately culminated in the development of n comprehensive socialisation and security framework. The socialisation and security framework provides a sufficiently large knowledge base with which to initiate a role for the Security Function in the socialisation process. The application of the framework, whilst considering contextual issues, should result in a positive impact on employee behaviour and the fostering of an ethical work environment