BIO Logical Agents: Norms, Beliefs, Intentions in Defeasible Logic

In this paper we follow the BOID (Belief, Obligation, Intention, Desire) architecture to describe agents and agent types in Defeasible Logic. We argue, in particular, that the introduction of obligations can provide a new reading of the concepts of intention and intentionality. Then we examine the notion of social agent (i.e., an agent where obligations prevail over intentions) and discuss some computational and philosophical issues related to it. We show that the notion of social agent either requires more complex computations or has some philosophical drawbacks.

Volunteer decision making by older people: A test of a revised theory of planned behavior

This study was designed to test the utility of a revised theory of planned behavior in the prediction of intentions to volunteer among older people. Such a perspective allowed for the consideration of a broader range of social and contextual factors than has been examined in previous research on volunteer decision making among older people. The article reports the findings from a study that investigated volunteer intentions and behavior in a random sample of older people aged 65 to 74 years living in an Australian capital city. Results showed that, as predicted by the revised theory of planned behavior, intention to volunteer predicted subsequent reported volunteer behavior. Intention was, in turn, predicted by social norms (both subjective and behavioral), perceived behavioral control, and moral obligation, with the effect of attitude being mediated through moral obligation.

Targeted! Population segmentation, electronic surveillance and governing the unemployed in Australia

Targeting is increasingly used to manage people. It operates by segmenting populations and providing different levels of opportunities and services to these groups. Each group is subject to different levels of surveillance and scrutiny. This article examines the deployment of targeting in Australian social security. Three case studies of targeting are presented in Australia's management of benefit overpayment and fraud, the distribution of employment services and the application of workfare. In conceptualizing surveillance as governance, the analysis examines the rationalities, technologies and practices that make targeting thinkable, practicable and achievable. In the case studies, targeting is variously conceptualized and justified by calculative risk discourses, moral discourses of obligation and notions of welfare dependency Advanced information technologies are also seen as particularly important in giving rise to the capacity to think about and act on population segments.

Young people's beliefs about intergenerational communication - An initial cross-cultural comparison

This article examines young people's perceptions of their conversations with older people (age 65-85) across nine cultures-five Eastern and four Western. Responses from more than 1,000 participants were entered into a cross-national factor analysis, which revealed four initial factors that underlie perceptions of intergenerational conversations. Elder nonaccommodation was when young participants reported that older people negatively stereotyped the young and did not attend to their communication needs. On the other hand, elder accommodation was when older people were perceived as supportive, attentive and generally encouraging to young people. A third factor was respect/obligation and a fourth factor labeled age-irrelevant positivity described a situation where young people felt conversations with much older people were emotionally positive and satisfying, age did not matter: Examining cross-cultural differences, some East versus West differences were observed, as might be expected, on the basis of simplistic accounts of Eastern collectivism versus Western individualism. However the results challenge commonsense notions of the status of old age in Eastern versus Western cultures. On some dimensions, participants from Korea, Japan, People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines appear to have relatively less positive perceptions of their conversations with older people than the Western cultures-the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But there was also evidence of considerable cultural variability, particularly among Eastern cultures-variability that has heretofore all too often been glossed over when global comparisons of East versus West are made. A range of explanations for these cultural differences is explored and implications for older people in these societies are also considered.

The love of a sage or the command of a superior: The natural law doctrines of Leibniz and Pufendorf

The study of natural law theories is presently one of the most fruitful areas of research in the studies of early modern intellectual history, and moral and political theory. Likewise the historical significance of the Enlightenment for the development of modernisation' in many different forms continues to be the subject of controversy. This collection therefore offers a timely opportunity to re-examine both the coherence of the concept of an early Enlightenment', and the specific contribution of natural law theories to its formation. The works of major thinkers such as Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Pufendorf and Thomasius are reassessed, and the appeal and importance of the discourse of natural jurisprudence both to those working inside conventional educational and political structures and to those outside - such as in the Huguenot diaspora - is evaluated. This volume will therefore be of importance to all those readers concerned to study the character of the debates in the period 1650-1750 surrounding moral and political agency, sovereignty and obligation, and the legitimation of religious toleration in the divergent states and patriotic contexts of Europe.

Migration of Husbands, Remittances and Agricultural Production: Impacts when Wives Head Households in Rural Kenya

This paper uses data collected from migrants' wives in the Nyeri district of Kenya. The main objective is to determine whether migration and remittances contribute to the development of agriculture. Our results suggest that most migrants are pushed out of rural areas, belong to the group of low-paid workers in urban areas, send little and irregular remittances to their wives back in rural areas and that these remittances are mainly used for consumption purposes and do not contribute to any significant development in agriculture. Our results also indicate that altruism or social obligation might be the main reason for migrants sending remittances back to their rural wives.

Out of the generosity of your heart: Are we creating active citizens through compulsory volunteer programmes for young people in Australia?

Using governmentality as a theoretical framework, we examine two Australian policy areas where young people are disciplined into becoming good, active citizens. These policies-mutual obligation through the work for the dole programme, and school-based active citizenship programmes similar to American service learning programmes-both mirror volunteer-ope activities, in a social context where volunteers are viewed as good citizens. In this study, we present findings from a qualitative study that addresses the question of whether young people will develop active citizenship through compulsory volunteer-type programmes. The findings show that first, young people are very conscious of the lack of choice involved in these programmes and that this weakened their sense of agency. Second, the programmes failed to develop positive community attitudes and active social behaviours. These results suggest that policies that compel individuals to contribute to society may actually weaken their citizenship identities.

Children and war

Children bear disproportionate consequences of armed conflict. The 21st century continues to see patterns of children enmeshed in international violence between opposing combatant forces, as victims of terrorist warfare, and, perhaps most tragically of all, as victims of civil wars. Innocent children so often are the victims of high-energy wounding from military ordinance. They sustain high-energy tissue damage and massive burns - injuries that are not commonly seen in civilian populations. Children have also been deliberately targeted victims in genocidal civil wars in Africa in the past decade, and hundreds of thousands have been killed and maimed in the context of close-quarter, hand-to-hand assaults of great ferocity. Paediatricians serve as uniformed military surgeons and as civilian doctors in both international and civil wars, and have a significant strategic role to play as advocates for the rights and welfare of children in the context of the evolving 'Laws of War'. One chronic legacy of contemporary warfare is blast injury to children from landmines. Such blasts leave children without feet or lower limbs, with genital injuries, blindness and deafness. This pattern of injury has become one of the post-civil war syndromes encountered by all intensivists and surgeons serving in four of the world's continents. The continued advocacy for the international ban on the manufacture, commerce and military use of antipersonnel landmines is a part of all paediatricians' obligation to promote the ethos of the Laws of War. Post-traumatic stress disorder remains an undertreated legacy of children who have been trapped in the shot and shell of battle as well as those displaced as refugees. An urgent, unfocused and unmet challenge has been the increase in, and plight of, child soldiers themselves. A new class of combatant comprises these children, who also become enmeshed in the triad of anarchic civil war, light-weight weaponry and drug or alcohol addiction. The International Criminal Court has outlawed as a War Crime, the conscription of children under 15 years of age. Nevertheless, there remain more than 300 000 child soldiers active and enmeshed in psychopathic violence as part of both civil and international warfare. The typical profile of a child soldier is of a boy between the ages of 8 and 18 years, bonded into a group of armed peers, almost always an orphan, drug or alcohol addicted, amoral, merciless, illiterate and dangerous. Paediatricians have much to do to protect such war-enmeshed children, irrespective of the accident of their place of birth. Only by such vigorous and maintained advocacy can the world's children be better protected from the scourge of future wars.

Conflicting obligations: Pufendorf, Leibniz and Barbeyrac on civil authority

Barbeyrac's republication of and commentary on Leibniz' attack on Pufendorf's natural-law doctrine is often seen as symptomatic of the failure of all three early moderns to solve a particular moral-philosophical problem: that of the relationship between civil authority and morality. Making use of the first English translation of Barbeyrac's work, this article departs from the usual view by arguing that here we are confronted by three conflicting constructions of civil obligation, arising not from the common intellectual terrain of moral philosophy, but from divergent religious and political cultures. If this approach makes the three constructions less susceptible to theoretical reconciliation, then it opens them to a more revealing historical investigation, in terms of the particular religious and political circumstances in which they arose, and which they were designed to address. The result is that these early modern struggles over the nature of civil obligation confront us again as unfinished historical business.

Effective assertive behavior in the workplace: Responding to unfair criticism

A social rules perspective was employed to identify the elements of socially appropriate responses to unfair criticism in the workplace. Women generally endorsed for themselves response strategies based on stronger obligation and softer rights components, while men endorsed responses based on stronger personal rights expression and weaker obligation components. In support of the utility of a social rules approach to operationalizing context-specific expectations, behavioral responses based on gender and status-specific rules were evaluated as more effective on task, relationship, and self-respect dimensions than were rights-only, rights-plus-empathy, or submissive strategies. Results are discussed in terms of the development of a context-specific model of interpersonal competence and implications for interpersonal skills and assertion training.

Faith and politics: The rhetoric of church-state separation

Criticism of religiously motivated contributions to public policy debate is largely misconceived. It assumes that the mischief which constitutional separation of church and state is supposed to cure is a domination of the state by the church. This presents only one side of the story. Subservience by the church to the slate should also be avoided. The law of a liberal state is legitimate to the extent that it does not conflict with the basic moral values of its citizens. Therefore, an ongoing conversation about basic values is necessary. Allowing churches and individual believers the freedom to make distinctive 'religious' contributions to this conversation is consistent with the separation of church and state. It is an aspect of the liberal democratic state's obligation to listen to all perspectives on difficult moral issues. A close relationship between church and state, on the other hand, has the capacity to impede the conversation.