Are Our Genes Important for Cooperation?

Social cooperation is a state in which people work together on a shared activity from which they both benefit, and the success of each person is dependent on everyone doing their part. Imagine, for example, a basketball game in which all team members make a shared effort and cooperate to win the game. To study this kind of social cooperation in the lab, we used rats. We created a special maze in which two rats must coordinate their behavior as a pair, moving together through the sections of the maze. Using this maze, we found that a rat’s genes are more important than its environment in determining its level of social cooperation.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the main arguments in the book. It outlines eight problematic commitments that cause fault lines in the foundations of research ethics and that are rejected in subsequent chapters. It then shows how a conception of the common good connects research to the ability of key social institutions to safeguard the basic interests of community members. The resulting view grounds an imperative to promote research of a certain kind, while requiring that those efforts be organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects its various contributors’ moral claim to be treated as free and equal. A framework for assessing and managing risk is proposed that can reconcile these goals and it is argued that connecting research to larger requirements of a just social order expands the issues and actors that fall under the purview of the field while providing a more coherent and unified foundation for domestic and international research.

The Common Good and the Egalitarian Research Imperative

This chapter distinguishes two conceptions of the common good and argues that reluctance to embrace a research imperative grounded in the corporate conception of the common good is sound. In contrast, it is argued that the basic or generic interest conception of the common good grounds an imperative with two requirements: to carry out research that produces the information necessary to enable a community’s basic social systems to efficiently and equitably advance the basic interests of its members and to ensure that this activity is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects the moral claim of its constituent members to be treated as free and equal. A central claim of this chapter is that an imperative to improve the capacity of social institutions to secure the interests of community members can be reconciled with fundamental moral respect for the status of the individuals who make such progress possible.

For the Common Good

The foundations of research ethics are riven with fault lines emanating from a fear that if research is too closely connected to weighty social purposes an imperative to advance the common good through research will justify abrogating the rights and welfare of study participants. The result is an impoverished conception of the nature of research, an incomplete focus on actors who bear important moral responsibilities, and a system of ethics and oversight highly attuned to the dangers of research but largely silent about threats of ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable medical practices and health systems. In For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics, Alex John London defends a conception of the common good that grounds a moral imperative with two requirements. The first is to promote research that generates the information necessary to enable key social institutions to effectively, efficiently, and equitably safeguard the basic interests of individuals. The second is to ensure that research is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects its various contributors’ moral claims to be treated as free and equal. Connecting research to the goals of a just social order grounds a framework for assessing and managing research risk that reconciles these requirements and justifies key oversight practices in non-paternalistic terms. Reconceiving research ethics as resolving coordination problems and providing credible assurance that these requirements are being met expands the issues and actors that fall within the purview of the field and provides the foundation for a more unified and coherent approach to domestic and international research.

Neural computations in children’s third-party interventions are modulated by their parents’ moral values

One means by which humans maintain social cooperation is through intervention in third-party transgressions, a behaviour observable from the early years of development. While it has been argued that pre-school age children’s intervention behaviour is driven by normative understandings, there is scepticism regarding this claim. There is also little consensus regarding the underlying mechanisms and motives that initially drive intervention behaviours in pre-school children. To elucidate the neural computations of moral norm violation associated with young children’s intervention into third-party transgression, forty-seven preschoolers (average age 53.92 months) participated in a study comprising of electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements, a live interaction experiment, and a parent survey about moral values. This study provides data indicating that early implicit evaluations, rather than late deliberative processes, are implicated in a child’s spontaneous intervention into third-party harm. Moreover, our findings suggest that parents’ values about justice influence their children’s early neural responses to third-party harm and their overt costly intervention behaviour.

Regionalismos e Cooperação em Saúde: a experiência da Unasul | Regionalism and Health Cooperation: the Unasur experience

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a Unasul-saúde visando compreender suas características, seu legado e os elementos que a diferenciam de outras experiências regionais de cooperação no âmbito da saúde. A partir de uma pesquisa qualitativa, nosso trabalho evidencia que, no marco do regionalismo pós-liberal, a Unasul aprofundou a cooperação política e social e adotou uma perspectiva baseada na promoção do desenvolvimento, da autonomia e da soberania regional. Apesar de diversas limitações, este enfoque permitiu que a Unasul-saúde fosse além das experiências prévias para se tornar o exemplo de cooperação e diplomacia da saúde mais avançado a nível regional.Palavras-chave: Regionalismos, saúde, Unasul. ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to analyze the Unasur-health in order to understand its characteristics, its legacy and the elements that differentiate it from other regional experiences of cooperation in health. Based on qualitative research, our work shows that, within the framework of post-liberal regionalism, Unasur has deepened political and social cooperation and adopted a perspective based on the promotion of development, autonomy, and regional sovereignty. Despite several limitations, this approach allowed Unasur-health to go beyond previous experiences to become the most advanced example of health cooperation and diplomacy at the regional level.Keywords: regionalism, health, Unasul. Recebido em: 20 abr. 2021 | Aceito em: 22 set. 2021.

Memory Laws as a Misuse of Legislation

Memory laws are often accused of enforcing an inaccurate, manipulative or populist view of history. Some are also said to violate fundamental rights, in particular the right to free speech. These accusations are not entirely unjustified. Yet, a discussion of memory legislation that concentrates on these faults might be missing its mark. The main problem with memory legislation is not necessarily with the merits of any particular law. Rather, the determination of historical facts is not the kind of matter that should be entrusted to the legislator in the first place. The role of legislation is to make social cooperation possible despite substantial disagreement, but only when such social cooperation is indeed required. Disputes about historical facts, I argue, are not a coordination problem that requires a legislative solution. Still less can they justify legal coercion.

Law and the Invisible Hand

A contemporary interpretation of Adam Smith's work on jurisprudence, revealing Smith's belief that progress emerges from cooperation and a commitment to justice. In Smith's theory, the tension between self–interest and the interests of others is mediated by law, so that the common interest of the community can be promoted. Moreover, Smith informs us that successful societies do at least three things well. They promote the common interest, advance justice through the rule of law, and they facilitate our natural desire to truck, barter, and exchange. In this process, law functions as an invisible force that holds society together and keeps it operating smoothly and productively. Law enhances social cooperation, facilitates trade, and extends the market. In these ways, law functions like Adams Smith's invisible hand, guiding and facilitating the progress of humankind.

Komunikasi Dalam Kehidupan Beragama Melalui BISINDO

Living in a social and religious life, you will find very rapid differences in communication between Deaf and Hearing Friends. So that each individual must respect and respect each other. In this way, religious harmony will be realized. Listeners can learn BISINDO so they can communicate with Deaf Friends. Listening friends can learn starting from the easiest, namely recognizing letters and numbers. Because through letters and numbers can provide symbols that are very useful in communication. Communication is a basic human activity. There is not an individual who will not be involved in communication. In this relationship in communication, it is in the form of tolerance and information between religious communities which are the core elements of limited religious harmony within the internal environment of a religion. Meanwhile, horizontal relationships, or patterns of human relations with each other or humans with surrounding communities of different cultures, races, religions, be it in the form of social cooperation or individual patterns with individuals to build a stronger sense of brotherhood. A society with a social and religious life definitely needs communication. Even though the communication occurred between Listening Friends and Deaf Friends. All activities that occur in religious life cannot be separated from the communication from the communicator to the communicant. A deaf friend who uses BISINDO as a communicant has the right to know what information he gets from other people. In a diverse life, Teman Deaf also has the right to receive religious teachings that he believes in.

Social Cooperation as a Driver for a Social and Solidarity Focused Approach to the Circular Economy

The circular economy (CE) is currently a very widespread paradigm aimed at addressing the climate crisis. However, its notions seem often to be only focused on technical, industrial and economic growth-centric goals, without practically addressing social problems such as inequality and social exclusion. In this context, type B social cooperation (SC-B) emerges in the Italian context as a type of organisation explicitly aiming at addressing social issues. It has historically fulfilled this mandate by pioneering, among others, “circular” processes in the field of waste management. In doing so, it has consolidated a high level of organizational and management capacity, which has made it an exemplary model capable of innovating the CE discourse and including marginalized people while delivering high-quality environmental services. Through evidence gathered integrating different methods and sources (interviews with social cooperatives, literature review, case study research on filed actions), this paper aims to offer a reading of SC-B as a driver for promoting a social turn of CE and local development. Moving beyond waste management and towards waste reuse, SC-B could play an active role in creating local and regional waste transformation and upcycling chains, capable of creating new employment and inclusion opportunities as well as reducing environmental impacts by processing wastes directly in the territory, shortening their treatment chain.