On Responsible Knowledge Making and the Moral Standing of Animals: Questioning What Matters and Why about Animal Minds

One of the long-standing presuppositions of moral theory about animals is that our moral relations with them depend on our sharing some fundamental characteristic or capacity. Daniel Dennett’s influential paper, Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why (1995) is a good example of how philosophers might go on in discussions that takes seriously this kind of reasoning as well as a comment on what responsible knowledge making amounts to in relation to it. In this paper my aim is to question this kind of theorizing and suggest another way that philosophers might approach the animal question. Mind-havers and the moral community There are a number of reasons why the kinds of minds that exist and how we come to know them are important considerations for Daniel Dennett. One of these reasons concerns the moral community.[i] Dennett explains (Kinds of Minds 5-7): Membership in the class of things that have minds provides an all-important guarantee: the guarantee of a certain sort of moral standing. Only mind-havers can care; only mind-havers can mind what happens. If I do something to you that you don’t want me to do, this has moral significance. It matters because it matters to you…it takes no special pleading at all to get most people to agree that something with a mind has interests that matter. That’s why people are so concerned, morally, about the question of what has a mind: any proposed adjustment in the boundary of the class of mind-havers has major ethical significance

Consistency in the strength of laterality in male, but not female, guppies across different behavioural contexts

© 2020 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Laterality, the division of brain functions into separate hemispheres, is widespread across animal taxa. Lateralized individuals exhibit cognitive advantages yet substantial variation in laterality exists, particularly between the sexes. Why variation is maintained is unknown as few studies consider differences in lateralized behaviours between the sexes, and their underlying selection pressures, across different contexts. We investigated if Poecilia reticulata exhibited sex differences in the direction, strength and consistency of lateralization. We assessed the turning preferences of individuals detouring around a barrier to view visual stimuli representative of different behavioural contexts: an artificial object of familiar colour, an opposite sex conspecific and a no stimulus control. While no sex differences were evident in the direction or strength of laterality, consistency in the strength of laterality varied between the sexes. Individuals of both sexes consistently detoured in one direction, but the strength of laterality exhibited by males was more predictable than females across contexts. This suggests that predictability of lateralization across ecologically relevant scenarios represents a key, but previously unexplored, source of variation between the sexes

Economic evaluation of a group-based exercise program for falls prevention among the older community-dwelling population

BACKGROUND: Falls among older people are of growing concern globally. Implementing cost-effective strategies for their prevention is of utmost importance given the ageing population and associated potential for increased costs of fall-related injury over the next decades. The purpose of this study was to undertake a cost-utility analysis and secondary cost-effectiveness analysis from a healthcare system perspective, of a group-based exercise program compared to routine care for falls prevention in an older community-dwelling population. METHODS: A decision analysis using a decision tree model was based on the results of a previously published randomised controlled trial with a community-dwelling population aged over 70. Measures of falls, fall-related injuries and resource use were directly obtained from trial data and supplemented by literature-based utility measures. A sub-group analysis was performed of women only. Cost estimates are reported in 2010 British Pound Sterling (GBP). RESULTS: The ICER of GBP£51,483 per QALY for the base case analysis was well above the accepted cost-effectiveness threshold of GBP£20,000 to £30,000 per QALY, but in a sensitivity analysis with minimised program implementation the incremental cost reached GBP£25,678 per QALY. The ICER value at 95% confidence in the base case analysis was GBP£99,664 per QALY and GBP£50,549 per QALY in the lower cost analysis. Males had a 44% lower injury rate if they fell, compared to females resulting in a more favourable ICER for the women only analysis. For women only the ICER was GBP£22,986 per QALY in the base case and was below the cost-effectiveness threshold for all other variations of program implementation. The ICER value at 95% confidence was GBP£48,212 in the women only base case analysis and GBP£23,645 in the lower cost analysis. The base case incremental cost per fall averted was GBP£652 (GBP£616 for women only). A threshold analysis indicates that this exercise program cannot realistically break even. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that this exercise program is cost-effective for women only. There is no evidence to support its cost-effectiveness in a group of mixed gender unless the costs of program implementation are minimal. Conservative assumptions may have underestimated the true cost-effectiveness of the program

Adult Learning: Towards a Framework of Participation

This thesis explores participation in adult learning and focuses upon three key areas of interest: reasons for participation, the challenges of participation, and the enabling factors relating to participation. The purpose of the research is to expand understanding in order to enhance and improve learning support practice, through a study of a university based, professionally accredited, part-time, Master’s Degree programme in Human Resource Management, which serves as the research setting. The study of participation in adult learning is a well-trodden path, beginning with the seminal work of Cyril Houle in the early 1960s. Since then, researchers have continuously sought to prove, disprove or adapt existing typologies. Research has focused on generating groups of single identified factors, motivational indicators and specific challenges influencing participation in adult learning. Specific models and frameworks related to the enablement of participation are identified as being missing from the participation literature, with reference to enablers existing only within the disparate literature relating to adult learning and its broader contexts and influences. A review of the key literature reveals a lack of a single open framework that considers the reasons for, the challenges to, and the enablers of participation across defined contextual dimensions, for the purposes of understanding the nature of participation. This research presents an original conceptual framework matrix, developed from this existing literature, intended to fill this gap. The matrix affords two key opportunities. Firstly, as a theoretical device by which to organise and review current literature in the field and secondly, as a means to identify, explore and present the dominant factors relating to participation in adult learning. To achieve this the matrix identifies the three key areas of interest: i) the reasons participants have for joining the learning activity; ii) the challenges they have faced in doing so, and finally; iii) the elements and influences that enable them to successfully participate in the learning activity. These areas are reviewed further across four dimensions of the participants’ life world, that of the psychological, the professional, the practical and the personal. Utilising a critical realist ontology and a post-positivist epistemology the conceptual framework matrix is used to structure the research design. The study adopts a linear, mixed methods approach to collecting data using types of thematic analysis (quantitative and qualitative), achieved through the use of an online questionnaire and one-to-one interviews with the target population. Viewed through the lens of the conceptual framework matrix, findings from within the research setting demonstrate that participants chose to engage with the learning activity as a result of a wide range of influencing factors. Reasons for participation were dominated by two of the dimensions, professional and psychological. Challenges to participation were found to be dominated by psychological factors, alongside issues of a restrictive learning environment and difficulties in achieving work life balance. The dominant enablers were people, deriving from all aspects of the participants’ life-world. To aid successful participation in the learning activity under investigation two key recommendations are made to the programme managers and facilitators: i) the facilitation and encouragement of communities of practice and, ii) the development of links between the programme provider and employers.Further to this, this study suggests that, following further research to establish transferability and usability, the matrix has the potential to contribute to wider practice as an open, exploratory framework to be applied to a variety of different learning activities as a means of identifying areas of improvement or change

The Clothes Maketh the Cult

Many people interpret the word 'cult' through specific connotations, including, but not limited to, a community of like-minded people on the edge of civilization, often led by a charismatic leader, with beliefs that are 'other' to societal 'norms'. Cults are often perceived as deviant, regularly incorporating elements of crime, especially physical and sexual violence. The adoption by some cults of a special uniform or dress code has been readily picked up by popular culture and has become a key 'defining' characteristic of the nature of a cult. In this article, we use the semiotic framework of myth, as discussed by Barthes, to demonstrate how cult uniforms become semiotic myths of popular culture. Narratively, the myth of the cult communicates violence, deviance, manipulation, and brainwashing. The myth of on-screen cults has derived itself from a reflexive pop culture foundation. From popular culture inspiring cults to cults inspiring popular culture and back again, society generates its cult myth through three key mechanisms: medicalisation, deviance amplification, and convergence. This means we are at risk of misrepresenting the true nature of cults, creating a definition incongruent with reality. This article traces the history of cults, the expectations of cult behaviour, and the semiotics of uniforms to start the discussion on why society is primed to accept a confusion between nature and the semiotic messaging of "what-goes-without-saying" (Barthes Mythologies 11)

Virtue and Video Games: False Pleasure in the Digital Age

This thesis examines video games as objects of pleasure and assesses the negative claim that certain video games can detract from the good life. It argues against the claim that all video games are 'wastes of time' or that they provide a kind of false pleasure, while recognising the heterogeneous nature of modern video games. To do so, this work focuses on the pleasure derived from these objects. It questions the nature of pleasure itself arguing that while some pleasures are essential for the good life, other pleasures can be detrimental to its pursuit. It argues that certain pleasures that detract from the good life can be considered false pleasures. Drawing on an analysis of the writings of Plato and Aristotle, this work proposes an original taxonomy of false pleasure. The taxonomy proposes four broad categories of false pleasure, they are: false pleasure of belief, false pleasure of experience, false pleasure of negative consequence, and false immoral pleasures. These categories are applied to video games to discover whether certain video games provide false pleasure. It is argued that while some video games in certain circumstances can be considered false pleasures, it does not hold that all video games are false pleasures. This thesis also questions the broader role mass media and technology has on the experience of pleasure in the modern world. It draws upon the writings of the Frankfurt School theorist who provided arguments critical of modern mass culture. I argue that these theorists considered mass media to systematically mislead individuals into making mistakes regarding pleasure and that these mistakes serve a political and social function. It is argued that the Frankfurt School critiques provide useful examples of the political and social function of false pleasure. However, it is shown that the some of their concerns are not new, rather they echo the concerns of Plato and Aristotle and can be accommodated within the proposed taxonomy of false pleasure. This work concludes that the notion of false pleasure is important when considering what makes the good life. However, the argument that all video games are false pleasures does not stand up to philosophical rigour. Moreover, it is shown that some video games, rather than being impediments to the good life, have a beneficial role to play in its pursuit

Implementing a framework for goal setting in community based stroke rehabilitation: a process evaluation

Abstract Background: Goal setting is considered 'best practice' in stroke rehabilitation; however, there is no consensus regarding the key components of goal setting interventions or how they should be optimally delivered in practice. We developed a theory-based goal setting and action planning framework (G-AP) to guide goal setting practice