Infosphere to Ethosphere Moral Mediators in the Nonviolent Transformation of Self and World

This paper reviews the complex, overlapping ideas of two prominent Italian philosophers, Lorenzo Magnani and Luciano Floridi, with the aim of facilitating the nonviolent transformation of self and world, and with a focus on information technologies in mediating this process. In Floridi’s information ethics, problems of consistency arise between self-poiesis, anagnorisis, entropy, evil, and the narrative structure of the world. Solutions come from Magnani’s work in distributed morality, moral mediators, moral bubbles and moral disengagement. Finally, two examples of information technology, one ancient and one new, a Socratic narrative and an information processing model of moral cognition, are offered as mediators for the nonviolent transformation of self and world respectively, while avoiding the tragic requirements inherent in Floridi’s proposal

Chance-discovery and chance-curation in online communities

In this paper, we consider chance-curation (the task of eas-ing chance-discovery activities for agents) as far as it concernsinformation sharing in online communities, understood as Vir-tual Cognitive Niches. We claim that Virtual Cognitive Nichesare digitally-encoded collaborative distributions of informa-tion and pieces of knowledge into the environment. The par-ticularity of Virtual Cognitive Niches, as socially biased net-works, is that they provide more ways for agents to interactthan to control the quality of the information they share and re-ceive. We contend that this social bias enables chance-curationstrategies that agents cannot foster in real-life communities. Inparticular, the chance curation strategies that we discuss are:redirecting the attention of agents to the virtual domain, foster-ing an only-docility-based relation with truth, and increasingthe social virtues of fallacies

Exploring Diverse Profiles Of Identity, Risk Taking, And Health Risk In Urban Black Emerging Adult Men

Young adult African-American men face some of the most challenging social and health disparities compared to other age, race, and gender groups. They must endure the stress of emerging adulthood through the intense and clashing demands of race and masculinity politics.  An unaddressed question in the literature is “Do distinct racial-gender identity subgroups of Black emerging adult men experience different patterns of risk taking and health risk?” Drawing on the baseline data of a “Barbershop-Based HIV/STD Risk Reduction for African American Young Men” (Jemmott, Jemmott, Coleman, Stevenson, & Ten Have, 2009; Jemmott, Jemmott, Lanier, Thompson, & Baker, 2017), a cluster-randomized comparison of two risk-reduction interventions (sexual health risk and violence retaliation) with 597 African American men aged 18 to 24, this secondary analysis study was conducted. Using the method of latent profile analysis, the results of this study found (a) four distinct identity profiles of Black men based on three key identity factors (manhood stress, hypermasculinity, and awareness of Black manhood vulnerabilities) representing distinct subgroups of Black men (diffuse, 4.5%; balanced, 62%; strained, 30%; and distressed, 3%); (b) demographic and emotional and protective factor differences among the profiles; and (c) behavioral outcome differences by profile in the health risk categories of violence, substance use, weapon exposure, alcohol use, and sexual health risk.  Findings suggest that the ways that young Black men engage in risk taking occur in complex but discernable patterns. Implications for the study of within-group variations in identity in shaping patterns of risk taking and health risk in emerging adult Black men are discussed

Why Neighborhoods (and How We Study Them) Matter for Adolescent Development

Adolescence is a sensitive developmental period marked by significant changes that unfold across multiple contexts. As a central context of development, neighborhoods capture—in both physical and social space—the stratification of life chances and differential distribution of resources and risks. For some youth, neighborhoods are springboards to opportunities; for others, they are snares that constrain progress and limit the ability to avoid risks. Despite abundant research on “neighborhood effects,” scant attention has been paid to how neighborhoods are a product of social stratification forces that operate simultaneously to affect human development. Neighborhoods in the United States are the manifestation of three intersecting social structural cleavages: race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and geography. Many opportunities are allocated or denied along these three cleavages. To capture these joint processes, we advocate a “neighborhood-centered” approach to study the effects of neighborhoods on adolescent development. Using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we demonstrate the complex ways that these three cleavages shape specific neighborhood contexts and can result in stark differences in well-being. A neighborhood-centered approach demands more rigorous and sensitive theories of place, as well as multidimensional classification and measures. We discuss an agenda to advance the state of theories and research, drawing explicit attention to the stratifying forces that bring about distinct neighborhood types that shape developmental trajectories during adolescence and beyond

The Funambulist Papers, Volume 1

This book is a collection of thirty-five texts from the first series of guest writers’ essays, written specifically for The Funambulist weblog from June 2011 to November 2012. The idea of complementing Lambert’s own texts on his blog with those written by others originated from the idea that having friends communicate with each other about their work could help develop mutual interests and provide a platform to address an audience. Thirty-nine authors of twenty-three nationalities were given the opportunity to write essays about a part of their work that might fit with the blog’s editorial line. Overall, two ‘families’ of texts emerged, collected in two distinct parts in this volume. The first part, The Power of the Line, explores the legal, geographical and historical politics of various places of the world. The second part, Architectural Narratives, approaches architecture in a mix of things that were once called philosophy, literature and art. This dichotomy represents the blog’s editorial line and can be reconciled by the obsession of approaching architecture without care for the limits of a given discipline. This method, rather than adopting the contemporary architect’s syndrome that consists in talking about everything but being an expert in nothing, attempts to consider architecture as something embedded within (geo)political, cultural, social, historical, biological, and dromological mechanisms that widely exceed what is traditionally understood as the limits of its expertise

Practicing Safe Sects

In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?; Readership: All interested in the promotion of peaceful and healthy societies, and anyone concerned with the role of religion in fostering superstition and segregation

Family Risk and Protective Factors and Child Development

This reprint is devoted to understanding the unique and combined effects of family risk and protective factors on child development across multiple dimensions of functioning (e.g., physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, social, and cognitive)

Genetic and environmental pathways from personality risk to antisocial behavior

Antisocial behaviors are a constellation of deviant behaviors that are disruptive and harmful to others. Antisocial behavior increases during adolescence and a number of factors are thought to precipitate this rise, including changes in personality, social and familial factors. This dissertation presents three studies that examine how individual differences in sensation seeking contribute to risk for adolescent antisocial behavior. Study 1 finds that the highest rates of delinquency occur from the concurrence of high sensation seeking, high peer deviance, and low parental monitoring. Moreover, peer deviance partially mediates the effects of sensation seeking and parental monitoring on adolescent delinquency. Study 2 finds that affiliation with deviant peers is associated with higher delinquency after controlling for selection effects using a co-twin-control comparison. There is also evidence for person-environment correlation; adolescents with genetic dispositions toward higher sensation seeking are more likely to report having deviant peers. Moreover, the environmentally-mediated effect of peer deviance on delinquency is moderated by individual differences in sensation seeking. Finally, study 3 examines the role of sensation seeking situated within a multivariate array of behavioral and self-report measures that index individual differences in risk-taking propensities.Psycholog