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Migrant diversity and team performance in a highly-skilled labour market
Get PDFFrom a theoretical point of view, the link between workplace diversity and performance in a high-skilled
context is ambiguous. Likewise, empirical research at the firm or plant level finds inconclusive and contextspecific results. Using a detailed database that covers all matches played by Italian Serie A teams (firms)
over a 10-season period, our results reveal a substantial and robust negative effect of fractionalization on
performance, whereas no effect is found for polarization. This article also highlights how the negative effect
of fractionalization depends on the nature of the tasks to be completed, the wealth of the teams and the level
of workers’ experience. This work reveals some myopia in hiring practices and suggests that firms should
make better decisions in choosing the optimal mix of workers
Conversation piece
Get PDFAt around the same time as the places, practices and objects of sociability began to flourish, British portraitists started to offer a new mode of portraiture expressive of this culture. After a tentative start in the 1720s, the ‘conversation piece’ took off around 1730, thanks to artists such as William Hogarth, Gawen Hamilton, and Charles Philips. Portrayal of the sitters at full length allowed amplification of the physical gestures and interactions of sociability. Their reduced scale also meant that accompanying objects and settings could be represented in detail, facilitating the portrayal of tea parties, assemblies and card games
Death penalty politics: the fragility of abolition in Asia and the Pacific
Get PDFDespite a steady increase worldwide in the number of states that have abolished the death penalty, capital punishment remainsa troubling presence in the international order. In Europe and Latin America, abolition dominates. However, the world’s leading powers in terms of economics and population include the retentionist states of China, India, Japan and the United States of America (USA). It seems there is no linear path to abolition, and its achievement is indeterminate. Yet, in international human rights law, death penalty abolition is a powerful norm embraced by half the countries across the world.This special collection of articles on the death penalty and the politics of abolition in Asia and the Pacific is published to coincide with the centenary of one of the world’s earliest statutory abolitions, in the Australian state of Queensland, in August 1922. Scholars of the death penalty, its practice and its abolition were invited to participate ina symposium in May 2021 hosted in Melbourne by Eleos Justice at Monash University and the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. They were joined by lawyers and abolition advocates, including some who had worked on death row cases
Hybrids in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals
Get PDFIn the last section of Book 2 of the Generation of Animals, Aristotle discusses hybrid animals. Two conclusions, representing opposing viewpoints, have been drawn from this material. The first is that Aristotle’s acceptance of this phenomena means that he is not committed to species fixity; that is, fertile hybrids allow for the advent of new kinds of animal. The second denies this and posits that since in an instance of hybrid generation form is lost, it is a contamination of form by matter. These two alternatives clash in their understanding of Aristotle’s theory of the roles of the sexes in generation. Those who think that hybridization can result in the creation of a new form must believe that half of the form comes from the female parent. The contamination view, in contrast, has it that the female animal contributes nothing but recalcitrant materials.
This paper will argue that when the key passages on hybrids in the GA are analysed, although neither view is entirely correct, the second one is closer to the mark. Here, as is also evident more generally in the Aristotelian corpus, it is clear that hybrids are monstrosities without any forms. Thus, it is not the case that they show any softening on species fixity. However, this doesn’t mean that hybrids represent a situation in which ‘only the raw feminine matter remains’. Indeed, the phenomenon displays that shaping powers come from both sides, which is detailed in Aristotle’s account of hereditary resemblance later on in the GA. However, it is correct to view hybridization as a loss of form. The paper will show how this ‘theory of hybrids’ illuminates two aspects of Aristotle’s broader theory in the GA. First of all, it makes clear the connection between his theory of generation and his metaphysical commitment to the eternity of forms. It also shows how his account of the way in which individual animals contribute to hereditary resemblance is gendered, with the female exerting more influence on external bodily appearances than the male
Debunking what?
No full textIn this chapter, I approach the topic of debunking arguments in ethics by focusing on two thoughts. The first thought is that while norms of truth and desirability often go together, that is not always the case. The second thought is that no one likes to be made a fool of. This chapter describes how these two thoughts, when suitably combined, help to explain both the interest of debunking arguments in ethics, and also the widely shared response that such arguments will tend to be at best partly or locally successful.
Book synopsis: Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in evolutionary debunking arguments directed against certain types of belief, particularly moral and religious beliefs. According to those arguments, the evolutionary origins of the cognitive mechanisms that produce the targeted beliefs render these beliefs epistemically unjustified. The reason is that natural selection cares for reproduction and survival rather than truth, and false beliefs can in principle be as evolutionarily advantageous as true beliefs. The present volume brings together fourteen essays that examine evolutionary debunking arguments not only in ethics and philosophy of religion, but also in philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The essays move forward research on those arguments by shedding fresh light on old problems and proposing new lines of inquiry. The book will appeal to scholars and graduate students interested in the possible skeptical implications of evolutionary theory in any of the above domains
Language barriers in the criminal justice system
Get PDFThis report is part of the series Language barriers in the criminal justice system from the Institute
for Crime & Justice Policy Research, Birkbeck, Victim Support, and the Centre for Justice Innovation, funded by
The Bell Foundation. The series was produced following a wide-ranging research project exploring
the impact of language barriers on individuals’ experiences of the criminal justice system, whether
as victims, witnesses, suspects, defendants, or people with convictions. The series aims to strengthen
the evidence base around the impact of language barriers as well as provide practical tools to allow
practitioners to improve their practice in working with individuals who speak English as a second
or additional language
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