In: Social Issues
...in trouble for posting this on a public forum! Thanks so much guys~! The Evolution of Religion as a Social Mechanism Religion has proven itself to be a key part of the human experience across the globe. However, much speculation concerning some basic principles of religion have been debated as maladaptive, such as altruism. This has been a puzzle for scientists of many fields. Some evidence in other animals has allowed us a glimpse at what may be the beginnings of religion in the form of ritualistic behavior. Since this is such an important feature within religions of today and especially ancient religions, there is much to be learned from these comparisons. Through these early manifestations, scientists are able to look at the evolutionary process of religion within humans and how Darwinian structure can apply to social concepts. Indeed, the development of religion follows closely the path of all structure development, and in this light, is as much evolution as any other process of change through selection and adaptation. Unfortunately, much of this area of study relies heavily upon philosophical theory with little empirical evidence to support broad if logical claims. Religion in humans can be boiled...
Words: 3624 - Pages: 15
...PETER SINGER ETHICS AND INTUITIONS (Received 25 January 2005; accepted 26 January 2005) ABSTRACT. For millennia, philosophers have speculated about the origins of ethics. Recent research in evolutionary psychology and the neurosciences has shed light on that question. But this research also has normative significance. A standard way of arguing against a normative ethical theory is to show that in some circumstances the theory leads to judgments that are contrary to our common moral intuitions. If, however, these moral intuitions are the biological residue of our evolutionary history, it is not clear why we should regard them as having any normative force. Research in the neurosciences should therefore lead us to reconsider the role of intuitions in normative ethics. KEY WORDS: brain imaging, David Hume, ethics, evolutionary psychology, Henry Sidgwick, Immanuel Kant, intuitions, James Rachels, John Rawls, Jonathan Haidt, Joshua D. Greene, neuroscience, trolley problem, utilitarianism 1. INTRODUCTION In one of his many fine essays, Jim Rachels criticized philosophers who ‘‘shoot from the hip.’’ As he put it: The telephone rings, and a reporter rattles off a few ‘‘facts’’ about something somebody is supposed to have done. Ethical issues are involved – something alarming is said to have taken place – and so the ‘‘ethicist’’ is asked for a comment to be included in the next day’s story, which may be the first report the public will have seen about the events...
Words: 9074 - Pages: 37
...EBJ 16.4 3rd 10/1/05 11:43 am Page 133 133 EUROPEAN BUSINESS JOURNAL The modern roots of strategic management Susan Segal-Horn The term ‘strategy’ is one of the most over-used, and poorly understood, terms in modern business and organisational life. The purpose of this article is to help practising managers understand better what strategy is about, how it has developed in the second half of the twentieth century from much earlier influences and the key contributions made by business schools, academics and consultants to the modern managerial practice of strategy. Strategic management has moved from a rational top-down planning approach, to strategic decision-making as a wider process involving all internal organisational stakeholders to ensure strategies are likely to be effectively implemented in practice. The recent rise of the resource-based approach to strategy helps us understand how two organisations with similar resources may nevertheless develop quite different levels of capability and performance. This article should help managers appreciate why no source of competitive advantage is likely to be sustainable over the longer-term. Introduction Susan Segal-Horn, Professor of International Strategy, Open University Business School This article is based on a revised version of the Introduction to S. Segal-Horn (ed.) The Strategy Reader (2004) 2nd edition, published by Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Address for correspondence:...
Words: 6013 - Pages: 25
...l University of Phoenix Material Personality Theories Matrix THEORY | Psychoanalytic | Neo-Freudian | Trait | Biological | Humanistic |Behavioral/ Social | Cognitive | |School of Thought (List the factors that each school believes influence personality development) |Psychosexual stages: 1.Oral-Focus on mouth and a satisfaction of sucking and biting. 2. Anal-Pleasure of anus and a concern with feces. 3.Phallic-Fear and anxiety of castration from his father because of sexual desires for one’s mother. 4. Latency-Repression of infantile sexuality. 5.Gential-Maturity of sexuality, capable of genuine love. Concepts of Mental structure: 1. Id-Basic impulses, sexual and aggressive. Impulsive and irrational. This is also known as the pleasure principle when one seeks immediate satisfaction regardless of the consciences. 2. Ego-Test reality, seeks safety and survival, rational, and logic. 3. Super-Ego-Ideal and moral, strives for perfection, dictates, incorporative, imposes limitations on satisfactions. Unconscious Conflict: This is when a person may have a fear of certain things and may use other things to describe the fear. Example: If someone was afraid of an animal that they have never been in contact with. This may be a sign of a fear that is revealed as an unconscious conflict with something they know nothing about. |Alfred Adler: Strive for superiority: Born with a sense of inferiority. Striving to overcome these deficiencies of weakness and helplessness...
Words: 6510 - Pages: 27
...Is Childhood Disappearing? 2012 Brendan Dolman Sociology, Unit 3 5/1/2012 Abstract This is a report to look at the social construct of Childhood and whether it is disappearing. This report explores the history of childhood and current socio cultural influences on modern day childhood. Is Childhood disappearing? Introduction I am interested in this subject area because childhood is a social construct which seems to be diminishing from society. This is of particular interest to me because childhood as we know it has only been about for the last century but now it seems that it is once again diminishing from society. I say this because when looking at childhood from 50 years ago and comparing it to childhood today there is a huge difference. Today toys seem to be targeted at children of ages 1-10 years old but not for children above that age (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research). Children seem to be pushed into the spotlight of adult activities such as the fashion and glamour world in the case of beauty pageants (Daily Mail Online 2011). There also seems to be more of a focus on older children playing on computer consoles with violent games which depict realistic and gruesome actions. These computer games also depict real life situations such as the war in Afghanistan and give these older children the opportunity to play as a soldier in this scenario. Content What is childhood? Childhood is not to be confused with being a child, it is a completely different...
Words: 10061 - Pages: 41
...Social Change and Modernity Edited By Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford © 1992 The Regents of the University of California INTRODUCTION Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser Haferkamp is grateful to Angelika Schade for her fruitful comments and her helpful assistance in editing this volume and to Geoff Hunter for translating the first German version of parts of the Introduction; Smelser has profited from the research assistance and critical analyses given by Joppke. 1. Social Change and Modernity Those who organized the conference on which this volume is based—including the editors— decided to use the terms "social change" and "modernity" as the organizing concepts for this project. Because these terms enjoy wide usage in contemporary sociology and are general and inclusive, they seem preferable to more specific terms such as "evolution" "progress," "differentiation," or even "development," many of which evoke more specific mechanisms, processes, and directions of change. Likewise, we have excluded historically specific terms such as "late capitalism" and "industrial society" even though these concepts figure prominently in many of the contributions to this volume. The conference strategy called for a general statement of a metaframework for the study of social change within which a variety of more specific theories could be identified. 2. Theories of Social Change Change is such an evident feature of...
Words: 171529 - Pages: 687
...Psychological Review 2005, Vol. 112, No. 3, 629 – 649 Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association 0033-295X/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.112.3.629 Toward a More Pragmatic Approach to Morality: A Critical Evaluation of Kohlberg’s Model Dennis L. Krebs and Kathy Denton Simon Fraser University In this article, the authors evaluate L. Kohlberg’s (1984) cognitive– developmental approach to morality, find it wanting, and introduce a more pragmatic approach. They review research designed to evaluate Kohlberg’s model, describe how they revised the model to accommodate discrepant findings, and explain why they concluded that it is poorly equipped to account for the ways in which people make moral decisions in their everyday lives. The authors outline in 11 propositions a framework for a new approach that is more attentive to the purposes that people use morality to achieve. People make moral judgments and engage in moral behaviors to induce themselves and others to uphold systems of cooperative exchange that help them achieve their goals and advance their interests. Keywords: moral development, cognitive development, cooperation, moral judgment After two decades of research on Kohlberg’s (1984) cognitive– developmental model of morality, we abandoned it in favor of a more pragmatic approach. In this article, we explain why. We identify problems with Kohlberg’s model, describe revisions aimed at solving them, and offer reasons why a new approach is necessary...
Words: 20773 - Pages: 84
... Contents List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design in Engineering and Architecture: Towards an Integrated Philosophical Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Kroes, Andrew Light, Steven A. Moore, and Pieter E. Vermaas Part I Engineering Design ix 1 Design, Use, and the Physical and Intentional Aspects of Technical Artifacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maarten Franssen Designing is the Construction of Use Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wybo Houkes The Designer Fallacy and Technological Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Don Ihde Technological Design as an Evolutionary Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Philip Brey Deciding on Ethical Issues in Engineering Design . . . . . . . . ....
Words: 165744 - Pages: 663
...ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY Y U K O A O YA M A J A M E S T. M U R P H Y SUSAN HANSON KEY CONCEPTS IN key concepts in economic geography The Key Concepts in Human Geography series is intended to provide a set of companion texts for the core fields of the discipline. To date, students and academics have been relatively poorly served with regards to detailed discussions of the key concepts that geographers use to think about and understand the world. Dictionary entries are usually terse and restricted in their depth of explanation. Student textbooks tend to provide broad overviews of particular topics or the philosophy of Human Geography, but rarely provide a detailed overview of particular concepts, their premises, development over time and empirical use. Research monographs most often focus on particular issues and a limited number of concepts at a very advanced level, so do not offer an expansive and accessible overview of the variety of concepts in use within a subdiscipline. The Key Concepts in Human Geography series seeks to fill this gap, providing detailed description and discussion of the concepts that are at the heart of theoretical and empirical research in contemporary Human Geography. Each book consists of an introductory chapter that outlines the major conceptual developments over time along with approximately twenty-five entries on the core concepts that constitute the theoretical toolkit of geographers working within a specific subdiscipline. Each entry provides...
Words: 94626 - Pages: 379
...understand new developments. Since there is a great heterogeneity of theories and approaches, the task remains a very hard one, mainly because heterogeneity derives from multi-disciplinary diversity. The criterion for selection is to consider the role that theorists confer to the firm. Following this idea, three groups of theories have been discerned: (1) the utilitarian group, in which the corporation is intended as a maximizing ‘black box’ where problems of externalities and social costs emerge; (2) the managerial category, where problems of responsibility are approached from inside the firm (internal perspective); (3) relational theories, or those in which the type of relations between the firm and the environment are at the center of the analysis. The three perspectives allow the reader to understand the most significant differences between the various theories of CSR. The objective is to classify the theories and to draw a map in which group specificities can be made available. This allows scholars to reach a better understanding of corporate–society relations, and enhances developments both in theoretical and empirical terms. Introduction The...
Words: 16348 - Pages: 66
...I: IntroductionIn what follows I shall develop an institutional analysis of modernity with cultural and epistemological overtones. In so doing, I differ substantially from most current discussions, in which these emphases are reversed. What is modernity? As a first approximation, let us simply say the following: "modernity" refers to modes of social life or organisation which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence. This associates modernity with a time period and with an initial geographical location, but for the moment leaves its major characteristics safely stowed away in a black box. Today, in the late twentieth century, it is argued by many, we stand at the opening of a new era, to which the social sciences must respond and which is taking us beyond modernity itself. A dazzling variety of terms has been suggested to refer to this transition, a few of which refer positively to the emergence of a new type of social system (such as the "information society" or the "consumer society") but most of which suggest rather that a -- 2 -- preceding state of affairs is drawing to a close ("post-modernity," "post-modernism," "post-industrial society," "post-capitalism," and so forth). Some of the debates about these matters concentrate mainly upon institutional transformations, particularly those which propose that we are moving from a system based upon the manufacture of material goods to one...
Words: 40503 - Pages: 163
...changes in moral reasoning in adolescents and young adults. Examine the life stages within Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. Illustrate the physical, cognitive, and social aspects of aging. Describe the multiple influences of nature and nurture in human development. 12.3 Adolescence and Young Adulthood Physical Development Cognitive Development Social Development Cognitive Development Social Development Continuity or Change Relationships Ages and Stages of Adulthood 12.5 Nature and Nurture Summary of Multiple Influences on Development CONCEPT LEARNING CHECK 12.5 Nature or Nurture? CONCEPT LEARNING CHECK 12.3 Defining CONCEPT LEARNING CHECK 12.4 Is There a Adolescence “Right Time” for Everything? CRITICAL THINKING APPLICATION 12.4 Adulthood and Aging Physical Development Reproductive Life Life Expectancy...
Words: 34557 - Pages: 139
...principles: the constitutive model of communication as a metamodel and theory as metadiscursive practice. The essay argues that all communication theories are mutually relevant when addressed to a practical lifeworld in which “communication” is already a richly meaningful term. Each tradition of communication theory derives from and appeals rhetorically to certain commonplace beliefs about communication while challenging other beliefs. The complementarities and tensions among traditions generate a theoretical metadiscourse that intersects with and potentially informs the ongoing practical metadiscourse in society. In a tentative scheme of the field, rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical traditions of communication theory are distinguished by characteristic ways of defining communication and problems of communication, metadiscursive vocabularies, and metadiscursive commonplaces that they appeal to and challenge. Topoi for argumentation across traditions are suggested and implications for theoretical work and disciplinary practice in the field are considered. Communication theory is enormously rich in the range of ideas that fall within its nominal scope, and new theoretical work on communication has recently been flourishing.’ Nevertheless, despite the ancient roots and growing profusion of theories about communication, I argue that communication theory as an identifiable field of study does not yet exist.2 Rather...
Words: 19908 - Pages: 80
...INTRODUCTION The plays and prefaces of Bernard Shaw deal with many and diverse themes. At least four, however, concern themselves with evolutionary themes and ideas: Man and Superman, Back to Methusalah, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, and Far-fetched Fables. In Man and Superman, especially the third act, the preface, and The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion, Shaw touches on two main themes: the pursuit of man by woman and the direction of evolution, which Shaw sees as leading towards the development of the mind and brain. In Back to Methusalah, Shaw carries forward his vision of evolution as proceeding in the direction of mental development but introduces a seemingly new idea in the last play of the cycle, the antithesis of mind and body. Shaw's dualism receives its most explicit statement in the last play of the cycle although there may be indications of it in the earlier plays. The mind-body antithesis, however, derives as a philosophical problem from Descartes,1 although the antithesis also appeared in the Manichean and Gnostic heresies, the spirit, or mind, being regarded as good and the body as evil. Although the antithesis of body and mind makes its first open appearance in the Methusalah cycle, it is present, at least as an implicit assumption in Man and Superman. Don Juan continually expresses his longing for the life of contemplation, a life which is to be achieved at the expense of the body. We will deal with the presence of the mind body antithesis...
Words: 49397 - Pages: 198
...body language how to read body language signs and gestures - non-verbal communications - male and female, for work, social, dating, and mating relationships Body Language - technically known as kinesics (pronounced 'kineesicks') - is a significant aspect of modern communications and relationships. Body Language is therefore very relevant to management and leadership, and to all aspects of work and business where communications can be seen and physically observed among people. Body language is also very relevant to relationships outside of work, for example in dating and mating, and in families and parenting. Communication includes listening. In terms of observable body language, non-verbal (non-spoken) signals are being exchanged whether these signals are accompanied by spoken words or not. Body language goes both ways: * Your own body language reveals your feelings and meanings to others. * Other people's body language reveals their feelings and meanings to you. The sending and receiving of body language signals happens on conscious and unconscious levels. (N.B. US and UK-English spellings, e.g., 'ize' and 'ise' are used in this page to allow for different searching preferences. Please feel free to change these according to your local requirements when using these materials.) body language index introduction and basics body language definitions background and history nature or nurture? body language and evolution universal facial expressions reading...
Words: 23412 - Pages: 94
