Common Arguments for the Moral Acceptability of Eating Meat: A Discussion for Students

This paper is a teaching tool which instructors of animal ethics may assign to students to help them evaluate those students’ most frequent arguments for the moral acceptability of eating meat. Specifically, the paper examines (and finds inadequate) the arguments that eating meat is morally acceptable because it is (1) historically widespread, (2) necessary, and (3) natural. The aim of discussing these arguments is to pave the way for a more fruitful and focused discussion of the canonical texts of the animal ethics literature

Biological Explanations of Social Inequalities

Inequalities of social goods between gender, racial, or other groups call out for explanation. Such inequalities might be explained by socialization and discrimination. But historically some have attributed these inequalities to biological differences between social groups. Such explanations are highly controversial: on the one hand, they have a very troubling racist and sexist history, but on the other hand, they are empirical claims, and so it seems inappropriate to rule them out a priori. I propose that the appropriate epistemic attitude toward biological explanations of social inequalities is a general but defeasible skepticism. I then turn to the appropriate moral attitude, arguing that when such explanations are inadequately supported, they are offensive.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175553/1/papq12427.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175553/2/papq12427_am.pd

Antecedents of Product Placement Effectiveness Across Cultures

Purpose -- The research contributes to the marketing literature by developing and testing a conceptual model to examine the effects of product placement across a country low in assertiveness and performance orientation (the United Kingdom) and a country high in assertiveness and performance orientation (Hong Kong). Design/methodology/approach -- A content analysis of brand appearances in high grossing films within the UK and HK was conducted followed by a 2x2 between-subjects experiment (n=572). Findings -- The results indicate participants exposed to prominent placements have a less positive brand attitude and lower purchase intention towards the placed brand. Likewise, respondents exposed to a less well-known placed brand tend to have a less positive brand attitude and lower purchase intention towards the placed brand. There is evidence of interaction effects with cultural dimensions such as assertiveness and performance orientation within the UK and HK. Practical implications -- The results suggest that product placements can be optimized through tailored campaigns targeted at markets with known cultural characteristics. With advances in digital technology such practices are becoming more frequent and more feasible. Originality/value -- This is one of the first studies to explore the effect of culture on perceptions of product placement and the first study to empirically examine the role of prominence and brand awareness, and their interactions with GLOBE values on the effectiveness of product placement

Consumer Adoption of Pro-poor Service Innovations in Subsistence Marketplaces

Despite some extant research on innovation adoption in subsistence marketplace contexts, little is known about subsistence consumers and how they evaluate so-called pro-poor innovations. This research identified six existing, empirically tested, and well-cited innovation adoption models and collected data on them within a subsistence context. Extending existing research, data was collected across two separate and distinct pro-poor services targeted at the subsistence segment, and structural models were compared based on mediating relationships. This research contributes to the subsistence marketplace literature by providing guidance about how antecedents within these models affect subsistence consumers’ evaluations of pro-poor service innovations in this increasingly important context. The research provides novel practical and theoretical insights through the development of new, testable hypotheses in the area and explores the effect of service type and geographic area (urban versus rural)

The global and regional impacts of climate change under Representative Concentration Pathway forcings and Shared Socioeconomic Pathway socioeconomic scenarios

This paper presents an evaluation of the global and regional consequences of climate change for heat extremes, water resources, river and coastal flooding, droughts, agriculture and energy use. It presents change in hazard and resource base under different rates of climate change (Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP), and socio-economic impacts are estimated for each combination of RCP and Shared Socioeconomic Pathway. Uncertainty in the regional pattern of climate change is characterised by CMIP5 climate model projections. The analysis adopts a novel approach using relationships between level of warming and impact to rapidly estimate impacts under any climate forcing. The projections provided here can be used to inform assessments of the implications of climate change. At the global scale all the consequences of climate change considered here are adverse, with large increases under the highest rates of warming. Under the highest forcing the global average annual chance of a major heatwave increases from 5% now to 97% in 2100, the average proportion of time in drought increases from 7% to 27%, and the average chance of the current 50-year flood increases from 2% to 7%. The socio-economic impacts of these climate changes are determined by socio-economic scenario. There is variability in impact across regions, reflecting variability in projected changes in precipitation and temperature. The range in the estimated impacts can be large, due to uncertainty in future emissions and future socio-economic conditions and scientific uncertainty in how climate changes in response to future emissions. For the temperature-based indicators, the largest source of scientific uncertainty is in the estimated magnitude of equilibrium climate sensitivity, but for the indicators determined by precipitation the largest source is in the estimated spatial and seasonal pattern of changes in precipitation. By 2100 the range across socio-economic scenario is often greater than the range across the forcing levels

Quantifying overheating risk in English schools: A spatially coherent climate risk assessment

Climate adaptation decision making can be informed by a quantification of current and future climate risk. This is important for understanding which populations and/or infrastructures are most at risk in order to prioritise adaptation action. When assessing the risk of overheating in buildings, many studies use advanced building models to comprehensively represent the vulnerability of the building to overheating, but often use a limited representation of the meteorological (hazard) information which does not vary realistically in space. An alternative approach for quantifying risk is to use a spatial risk assessment framework which combines information about hazard, exposure and vulnerability to estimate risk in a spatially consistent way, allowing for risk to be compared across different locations. Here we present a novel application of an open-source CLIMADA-based spatial risk assessment framework to an ensemble of climate projections to assess overheating risk in ∼20,000 schools in England. In doing so, we demonstrate an approach for bringing together the advantages of open-source spatial risk assessment frameworks, data science techniques, and physics-based building models to assess climate risk in a spatially consistent way, allowing for the prioritisation of adaptation action in this vulnerable young population. Specifically, we assess the expected number of days each school overheats (internal operative temperature exceeds a high threshold) in a school-year based on three global warming levels (recent past, 2 °C and 4 °C warmer than pre-industrial). Our results indicate an increase in this risk in future warmer climates, with the relative frequency of overheating at internal temperatures in excess of 35 °C increasing more than at 26 °C. Indeed, this novel demonstration of the approach indicates that the most at-risk schools could experience up to 15 school days of internal temperature in excess of 35 °C in an average year if the climate warms to 2 °C above pre-industrial. Finally, we demonstrate how the spatial consistency in the output risk could enable the prioritisation of high risk schools for adaptation action