Manipulated Agents

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred R. Mele
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Historical Difference

Thought experiments featuring manipulated agents and designed agents have played a significant role in the literature on moral responsibility. What can we learn from thought experiments of this kind about the nature of moral responsibility? That is this book’s primary question. An important lesson lies at the core of its answer: Moral responsibility for actions has a historical dimension of a certain kind. A pair of agents whose current nonhistorical properties are very similar and who perform deeds of the same kind may nevertheless be such that one is morally responsible for the deed whereas the other is not, and what makes the difference is a difference in how they came to be as they are at that time—that is, a historical difference. Imagine that each of these agents attempts to assassinate someone. Depending on the details of the cases, it may be that one of these agents is morally responsible for the attempt whereas the other is not, because one of them was manipulated in a certain way into being in the psychological state that issues in the behavior whereas the other agent came to be in that state under his own steam. A variety of thought experiments are considered. They include stories about agents whose value systems are radically altered by manipulators, vignettes featuring agents who are built from scratch, and scenarios in which agents magically come into being with full psychological profiles.

scholarly journals Sustainable Consumer Behavior in Purchasing, Using and Disposing of Clothes

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8333
Author(s):  
Mirella Soyer ◽  
Koen Dittrich
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Evaluation ◽  
Sustainable Practices ◽  
Usage Phase ◽  
The Core

In this study we investigate how consumers in The Netherlands can be persuaded to adopt sustainable practices when purchasing, using and disposing of clothes. This study investigates the attitude-behavior gap for the sustainable choices for purchase, use and disposing of clothes. For each consumption phase we ran a two-step multiple regression. The findings showed that the importance of the factors vary in the three consumption phases. For purchasing and disposal decisions, the core motivator social motivation predicts sustainable practices best, while it has no role in the usage phase. The factor ability appeared to have a significant role in the disposal phase, but not in the other phases. Finally, the trigger appears to lower the consumers’ ability in the purchasing phase, while it enhances the core motivator social evaluation in the disposal phase.

scholarly journals Natural Science and Supernatural Thought Experiments

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 389
Author(s):  
James Robert Brown
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theological Thought

Religious notions have long played a role in epistemology. Theological thought experiments, in particular, have been effective in a wide range of situations in the sciences. Some of these are merely picturesque, others have been heuristically important, and still others, as I will argue, have played a role that could be called essential. I will illustrate the difference between heuristic and essential with two examples. One of these stems from the Newton–Leibniz debate over the nature of space and time; the other is a thought experiment of my own constructed with the aim of making a case for a more liberal view of evidence in mathematics.

scholarly journals „Quo Vadis, Aida?“ in the Context of Prosthetic Memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4(17)) ◽  
pp. 207-224
Author(s):  
Lamija Milišić
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Current Perspective ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Quo Vadis ◽  
Epistemological Uncertainty

The research for this paper was initially prompted by the insights of Alison Landsberg (Prosthetic Memory, 2004) on the development of prosthetic memory, namely the phenomenon of personally experienced content through the mass media – and the idea to apply the same insights to the film "Quo Vadis, Aida" (2020) directed by Jasmila Žbanić, because of the relevance of its topic on the Srebrenica genocide in 1995 for modern society. This paper analyzes the difference between collective and prosthetic memory, affective engagement concerning the process of identification in acquiring historical knowledge and prosthetic memory, and the elements of the film that encourage epistemological uncertainty and therefore potentially develop historical awareness and responsibility. Given the example of the film "Quo Vadis, Aida?", this paper aims to show the potential of mass media in developing prosthetic memory, which consequently brings to thinking about the other from the current perspective, thus encouraging moral responsibility and critical thinking.

‘Irresistible Impulse’ and Moral Responsibility

1977 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 99-134
Author(s):  
Susan Khin Zaw
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Moral Appraisal ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Difference

Should the insane and the mentally ill be held morally responsible for their actions? To answer ‘No’ to this question is to classify the mentally abnormal as not fully human: and indeed legal tradition has generally oscillated between assimilating the insane to brutes and assimilating them to children below the age of discretion, neither of these two categories being accountable in law for what they do. In what respect relevant to moral responsibility were the insane held to resemble brutes and children? In the case of brutes, the answer seems to have been that the doings of the insane appeared to lack whatever it is that marks out human actions as distinctively human. What the insane did could not be thought of as issuing from deliberation, or as capable of having issued from deliberation, but seemed rather to be the result of the unbridled operation of nature — if a diseased nature. The natural comparison with insane killings seemed to be, for example, the killing of birds by cats. This distinction between animal doings and human actions does not depend on Cartesian views about the workings of animals; the operation of nature need not be thought of as mechanical. The thought is simply that where there is no room for deliberation there is no room for moral appraisal. Children, on the other hand, though capable of distinctively human action — i.e. of deliberating about what they do — were held not to be capable of the relevant kind of deliberation: for they were held ‘not to know the difference between right and wrong’.

Effects of Core Material on Extrudability of Cu/Pure Al, Cu/Al3003 Clad Composites by Indirect Extrusion

2005 ◽  
Vol 475-479 ◽  
pp. 967-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taek Kyun Jung ◽  
Hyouk Chon Kwon ◽  
Sung Chul Lim ◽  
Young Sup Lee ◽  
Mok Soon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Diffusion Layer ◽  
Bonding Strength ◽  
Pure Aluminum ◽  
Extrusion Ratio ◽  
The Other ◽  
Core Material ◽  
Diffusion Layer Thickness ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Sheath Material

We investigated about the effects of core material(Pure Al, Al3003) on extrudability such as the maximum extrusion ratio and the bonding strength of Copper Clad Aluminum(CCA) by indirect extrusion. As a results of this experiment, the maximum extrusion ratio of Cu/Al3003 was 38, which was larger than 21.39 of Cu/Al(Cu/pure Al). It was because that the difference of flow stress between copper as the sheath material and Al3003 as the core material was smaller than that of between copper and pure aluminum under the same extrusion temperature of 623K. The bonding strength gradually increased when the extrusion ratio increased, on the other hand, the bonding strength of Cu/Al3003 was higher than that of Cu/Al under same extrusion conditions. The diffusion layer thickness that affected bonding strength was not affected by the kind of core material, but it gradually increased when the extrusion ratio increased. It was thought that Cu/Al3003 had a more intimate diffusion layer than Cu/Al had because the extrusion pressure of Cu/Al3003 was higher than that of Cu/Al under the same extrusion conditions.

Actually and in fact in American English: a data-based analysis

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sun-Young Oh
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Core Meaning

Actually and in fact have been generally regarded as interchangeable without leading to any significant differences in the meaning of the containing utterances: as a result, no serious attempt has been made to discover potential differences between the two. The present study focuses on the differences as well as the similarities between actually and in fact in their distribution and use in spoken and written American English. Based upon an analysis of tokens from the Switchboard Corpus and the Brown Corpus, I propose that `unexpectedness’ is the core meaning shared by actually and in fact, and that the difference between the two lies in the typical association of each with one or the other way of signalling ‘unexpectedness’. The study also shows that in real discourse contexts, actually and in fact develop a number of different uses that are more or less remote from this core meaning.

scholarly journals Molecular Regions Controlling the Activity of Cng Channels

2001 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Möttig ◽  
Jana Kusch ◽  
Thomas Zimmer ◽  
Annette Scholle ◽  
Klaus Benndorf
Keyword(s):  
Energy Difference ◽  
Core Region ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Retinal Photoreceptors ◽  
Channel Opening ◽  
Main Portion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Α Subunits

The α subunits of CNG channels of retinal photoreceptors (rod) and olfactory neurons (olf) are proteins that consist of a cytoplasmic NH2 terminus, a transmembrane core region (including the segments S1–S6), and a cytoplasmic COOH terminus. The COOH terminus contains a cyclic nucleotide monophosphate binding domain NBD) that is linked by the C-linker (CL) to the core region. The binding of cyclic nucleotides to the NBD promotes channel opening by an allosteric mechanism. We examined why the sensitivity to cGMP is 22 times higher in olf than in rod by constructing chimeric channels and determining the [cGMP] causing half maximum channel activity (EC50). The characteristic difference in the EC50 value between rod and olf was introduced by the NH2 terminus and the core-CL region, whereas the NBD showed a paradoxical effect. The difference of the free energy difference Δ(ΔG) was determined for each of these three regions with all possible combinations of the other two regions. For rod regions with respect to corresponding olf regions, the open channel conformation was destabilized by the NH2 terminus (Δ(ΔG) = −1.0 to −2.0 RT) and the core-CL region (Δ(ΔG) = −2.0 to −2.9 RT), whereas it was stabilized by the NBD (Δ(ΔG) = 0.3 to 1.1 RT). The NH2 terminus deletion mutants of rod and olf differed by Δ(ΔG) of only 0.9 RT, whereas the wild-type channels differed by the much larger value of 3.1 RT. The results show that in rod and olf, the NH2 terminus, the core-CL region, and the NBD differ by characteristic Δ(ΔG) values that do not depend on the specific composition of the other two regions and that the NH2 terminus generates the main portion of Δ(ΔG) between the wild-type channels.

‘Irresistible Impulse’ and Moral Responsibility

1977 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 99-134
Author(s):  
Susan Khin Zaw
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Moral Appraisal ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Difference

Should the insane and the mentally ill be held morally responsible for their actions? To answer ‘No’ to this question is to classify the mentally abnormal as not fully human: and indeed legal tradition has generally oscillated between assimilating the insane to brutes and assimilating them to children below the age of discretion, neither of these two categories being accountable in law for what they do. In what respect relevant to moral responsibility were the insane held to resemble brutes and children? In the case of brutes, the answer seems to have been that the doings of the insane appeared to lack whatever it is that marks out human actions as distinctively human. What the insane did could not be thought of as issuing from deliberation, or as capable of having issued from deliberation, but seemed rather to be the result of the unbridled operation of nature — if a diseased nature. The natural comparison with insane killings seemed to be, for example, the killing of birds by cats. This distinction between animal doings and human actions does not depend on Cartesian views about the workings of animals; the operation of nature need not be thought of as mechanical. The thought is simply that where there is no room for deliberation there is no room for moral appraisal. Children, on the other hand, though capable of distinctively human action — i.e. of deliberating about what they do — were held not to be capable of the relevant kind of deliberation: for they were held ‘not to know the difference between right and wrong’.

The Failure to Control and the Failure to Prevent, Repress and Submit: The Structure of Superior Responsibility under Article 28 icc Statute

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuya Yokohama
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Core ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Superior Responsibility ◽  
The Relationship

In Article 28 of the statute of the International Criminal Court (icc), there appear to be two kinds of omission, namely, a failure to control on the one hand, and a failure to prevent, repress and submit on the other. However, the relationship between both omissions remains unclear so far. This is a controversial topic not only in the scholarly debate but also in the recent jurisprudence of the icc. The core question is whether both omissions need to be proved separately (twofold-failures approach), or whether only the proof of the latter omission could suffice for the superior to be held responsible (single-failure approach). These two approaches could lead to different conclusions as to several aspects of superior responsibility: the ‘number’ of omissions that must be proved and the requirement of causality, for example. This article addresses the difference between these two approaches and demonstrates which approach should be adopted.

Chinese Thinking on the Future of International Relations: Realism as the Ti, Rationalism as the Yong?

2009 ◽  
Vol 197 ◽  
pp. 87-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lynch
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Analytical Techniques ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
English School ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Intellectual Elites

AbstractChina's evidently unstoppable “rise” energizes PRC political and intellectual elites to think seriously about the future of international relations. How will (and should) China's international roles change in the forthcoming decades? How should its leaders put the country's rapidly-increasing power to use? Foreign China specialists have tended to use an overly-streamlined “resisting” the West versus “co-operating” with it (or even simpler “optimistic” versus “pessimistic”) scale to address such questions, partly reflecting the divide between Realism and Neoliberalism in American international relations theory. By 2002, a near-consensus had developed (though never shared universally) that China had become an increasingly co-operative power since the mid-1990s and would continue to pursue the policy prescriptions of Neoliberal international relations theory. But using more nuanced “English school” analytical techniques – and examining the writings of Chinese elites themselves, aimed solely at Chinese audiences – this article discovers an unmistakably cynical Realism to be still at the core of Chinese thinking on the international future. Even elites who appear sincere in their promotion of co-operation firmly reject “solidarism” among the world's leading states and insist upon upholding the difference between China and all others. Many demand – and foresee – China using its future power to pursue world objectives that would depart in significant respects from those of the other leading states and non-state actors.

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