The Good, the Bad, and the Necessity of Empathy in Ethics

Although empathy has been implicated in both academia and pop culture as nearly analogous to morality, some philosophers and psychologists have taken issue with this assessment. It has been argued that from an ethical perspective, empathy is biasing, myopic, and perhaps more trouble than it is worth. In this paper, I first address whether empathy is a necessary baseline trait for having some degree of ethical motivation. Based on the differing moral experiences of sociopaths and autistic individuals, as well as empathy’s unique ability to motivationally bridge the gap between self and other, I conclude that empathy is a required trait for the moral agent. Assuming empathy is present in the moral experience, I then delineate the negative and positive effects empathy has on the ethical outcome of actions. Empathy does appear to cause prejudiced biasing and derogation of self-respect, but it also acts as a powerful motivator for other-oriented action and provides ethically valuable information about mind-states. Ultimately, I conclude that empathy cannot be a standalone ethical trait, but when filtered through reason, it can be invaluably useful

The Ethical and Emotional Benefits of Reducing Self-Focus Through Mindfulness

This proposed study was inspired by the concept in Aristotle’s virtue ethics theory that a good life is necessarily an ethical one. The following work intends to expand previous literature on this topic by exploring an accessible potential method through which ethicality (and thus, well-being) can be increased, and also a possible explanation of how this process might occur. Past research has indicated that mindfulness training can increase both prosociality and well-being, and additionally that higher ethicality is connected to higher well-being. Reduced self-focus has been found to mediate these relationships. The proposed 30 day study makes use of a daily mindfulness training app to explore its effects on participants’ ethicality and well-being, and examines whether reduced self-focus mediates these potential relationships. Results are expected to show that that, first, increased mindfulness leads to increased ethical behavior, mediated by reduction in self-focus; and second, that increased mindfulness leads to an increase in well-being, mediated both by increased ethical behavior and by reduction in self-focus. Ultimately, the intention of this study is to find support for the benefits of cultivating a more loving and interconnected world, as well as the means by which to do so

New ages from Sehonghong rock shelter: Implications for the late Pleistocene occupation of highland Lesotho

Sehonghong rock shelter is situated in the eastern Lesotho highlands, a climatically extreme region of southern Africa. The site is one of a handful in southern Africa that preserves human occupations before, during, and after the Last GlacialMaximum(LGM). The site's long and well-preserved sequence makes it relevant to addressing questions of human mobility, subsistence, and technology in relation to broader environmental change. Here we present a Bayesian-modelled radiocarbon chronology for the LGM and terminal Pleistocene occupations at Sehonghong. Our model incorporates previously published radiocarbon dates and new accelerator mass spectrometry ages. We also present archaeological evidence to test the hypothesis that Sehonghong was occupied in a series of punctuated events, and that some of these occupations were more intensive than others. Previous chronological and archaeological data were insufficient for testing these hypotheses. The new dates and archaeological data confirmthat the sitewas occupied intensively in the early LGMand immediately thereafter. The site was otherwise occupied sporadically.We find that greater site occupation density is not always correlated with intensified use of local resources as measured by increased bipolar reduction and fish consumption. The new dates further confirm that Sehonghong contains some of the oldest evidence for systematic freshwater fishing in southern Africa. The availability of fish, a high fat protein source, probably stimulated human occupation, however sporadic, of suchmontane environments during cooler and drier periods. These findings suggest behavioural variability in response to shifting mobility and subsistence strategies. Our brief discussion informs upon huntergatherer occupation of southern Africanmontane environments more broadly and human behavioural variability during the LGM

A Late Holocene community burial area: Evidence of diverse mortuary practices in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Over several decades, human skeletal remains from at least twelve individuals (males, females, children and infants) were recovered from a small area (ca. 10 x 10 m) on the eastern shore of Table Bay, Cape Town, near the mouth of the Diep River where it empties into the sea. Two groups, each comprising four individuals, appear to have been buried in single graves. Unusually for this region, several skeletons were interred with large numbers of ostrich eggshell (OES) beads. In some cases, careful excavation enabled recovery of segments of beadwork. One collective burial held items including an ostrich egg-shell flask, a tortoise carapace bowl, a fragmentary bone point or linkshaft and various lithic artefacts. This group appears to have died together and been buried expediently. A mid-adult woman from this group sustained perimortem blunt-force trauma to her skull, very likely the cause of her death. This case adds to the developing picture of interpersonal violence associated with a period of subsistence intensification among late Holocene foragers. Radiocarbon dates obtained for nine skeletons may overlap but given the uncertainties associated with marine carbon input, we cannot constrain the date range more tightly than 1900-1340 calBP (at 2 sigma). The locale appears to have been used by a community as a burial ground, perhaps regularly for several generations, or on a single catastrophic occasion, or some combination thereof. The evidence documents regional and temporal variation in burial practices among late Holocene foragers of the south-western Cape

Atmospheric CO2 effect on stable carbon isotope composition of terrestrial fossil archives.

The 13C/12C ratio of C3 plant matter is thought to be controlled by the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 and stomatal response to environmental conditions, particularly mean annual precipitation (MAP). The effect of CO2 concentration on 13C/12C ratios is currently debated, yet crucial to reconstructing ancient environments and quantifying the carbon cycle. Here we compare high-resolution ice core measurements of atmospheric CO2 with fossil plant and faunal isotope records. We show the effect of pCO2 during the last deglaciation is stronger for gymnosperms (-1.4 ± 1.2‰) than angiosperms/fauna (-0.5 ± 1.5‰), while the contributions from changing MAP are -0.3 ± 0.6‰ and -0.4 ± 0.4‰, respectively. Previous studies have assumed that plant 13C/12C ratios are mostly determined by MAP, an assumption which is sometimes incorrect in geological time. Atmospheric effects must be taken into account when interpreting terrestrial stable carbon isotopes, with important implications for past environments and climates, and understanding plant responses to climate change

New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human behavioural variability

Abstract: Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, contains a rich archaeological record, with evidence of human occupation from approximately 66,000 years ago until the protohistoric period. Notwithstanding a long history of research at the site, its existing chronology can benefit from revision. Many of the site’s members are currently delimited by only a single conventional radiocarbon date and some of the existing dates were measured on materials now known to be unsuitable for radiocarbon dating. Here we present the results of an ongoing effort to redate key late/terminal Pleistocene sequences in southern Africa. This paper presents a Bayesian-modelled radiocarbon chronology for the late/terminal Pleistocene horizons at Boomplaas. Our model incorporates previously published radiocarbon dates as well as new accelerator mass spectrometry ages. We also present archaeological evidence to examine in greater detail than was previously possible the nature of occupation patterning across the late/terminal Pleistocene and to assess technological change across two of the site’s Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) members. The new dates and archaeological data confirm that the site was occupied in a series of low intensity events in the early LGM and immediately thereafter. The site was occupied intensively in the terminal Pleistocene in line with major changes in palaeoenvironments and sea-level fluctuations. The lithic data show the use of variable technological strategies in contexts of shifting mobility and site occupation patterns. Our discussion informs upon huntergatherer behavioural variability that did not, and should not be expected to, reflect the strategies adopted and adapted by a handful of well-known arid-zone hunter-gatherers in the twentieth-century Kalahari

p3k14c, a synthetic global database of archaeological radiocarbon dates.

Archaeologists increasingly use large radiocarbon databases to model prehistoric human demography (also termed paleo-demography). Numerous independent projects, funded over the past decade, have assembled such databases from multiple regions of the world. These data provide unprecedented potential for comparative research on human population ecology and the evolution of social-ecological systems across the Earth. However, these databases have been developed using different sample selection criteria, which has resulted in interoperability issues for global-scale, comparative paleo-demographic research and integration with paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental data. We present a synthetic, global-scale archaeological radiocarbon database composed of 180,070 radiocarbon dates that have been cleaned according to a standardized sample selection criteria. This database increases the reusability of archaeological radiocarbon data and streamlines quality control assessments for various types of paleo-demographic research. As part of an assessment of data quality, we conduct two analyses of sampling bias in the global database at multiple scales. This database is ideal for paleo-demographic research focused on dates-as-data, bayesian modeling, or summed probability distribution methodologies

Physical and mental effort disrupts the implicit sense of agency

We investigated the effect of effort on implicit agency ascription for actions performed under varying levels of physical effort or cognitive load. People are able to estimate the interval between two events accurately, but they underestimate the interval between their own actions and their outcomes. This effect is known as ‘intentional binding’, and may provide feedback regarding the consequences of our actions. Concurrently with the interval reproduction task, our participants pulled sports resistance bands at high and low resistance levels (Experiments 1 and 2), or performed a working memory task with high and low set-sizes (Experiment 3). Intentional binding was greater under low than high effort. When the effort was task-related (Experiment 1), this effect depended on the individual’s explicit appraisal of exertion, while the effect of effort was evident at the group level when the effort was task-unrelated (physical, Experiment 2; mental, Experiment 3). These findings imply that the process of intentional binding is compromised when cognitive resources are depleted, either through physical or mental strain. We discuss this notion in relation to the integration of direct sensorimotor feedback with signals of agency and other instances of cognitive resource depletion and action control during strain

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist