Risky World Research Articles

Editorial. Guns, Germs and Climate: Food Security and Food Systems in a Risky World

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Presenting a structural model of the relationship between perfectionism and life expectancy with the mediating role of moral intelligence and spiritual intelligence in the administrators of Islamic Azad University of Mazandaran province

Background and purpose: Today, in today's dynamic and risky world, in order to consolidate their survival, organizations must oblige their managers and employees to comply with ethical principles and acquire moral intelligence; Therefore, the purpose of this research was to present a structural model of the relationship between perfectionism and life expectancy with the mediating role of spiritual intelligence in the administrators of the Islamic Azad University of Mazandaran province. Methodology: In terms of purpose, this research was applied, and in terms of method, it was part of structural studies. Its statistical population consisted of all managers and deputy heads of units, heads and deputy heads of faculties, and heads of departments of Islamic Azad Universities of Mazandaran province, numbering 542 people. Based on Cochran's formula, 225 people were selected as a statistical sample using stratified random sampling. Asadpour's Perfectionism Questionnaire (2017), Schneider et al.'s Life Expectancy Questionnaire (1991), and King's Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire (2008) were used to collect data. Univariate regression tests and structural equations were used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that the direct paths by the variables of perfectionism and spiritual intelligence have a direct and significant effect on life expectancy, and also, regarding the indirect path, the effect of perfectionism with the mediation of spiritual intelligence on life expectancy was confirmed. Conclusion: Considering the role of spiritual intelligence on life expectancy, it is necessary to plan in organizations to improve spiritual intelligence and identify and teach the destructive and adverse effects of perfectionism.

Perceived Risk of Chinese Outbound Tourists in the Risky World

ABSTRACT The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine-Russian conflict have posed a huge threat to international tourists. Adopting protection motivation theory, this study investigated how mainland Chinese outbound tourists perceived three significant travel risks, namely, natural disasters, infectious diseases, and social instability. Confronted with travel risks, Chinese outbound tourists are very likely to change their travel plans. Notably, infectious diseases and social instability are the main concerns. A comparison of workers and non-workers, students perceived a higher magnitude of threat and response efficacy. Assistance from the Chinese government can significantly enhance tourists’ confidence to travel abroad. Implications are provided accordingly.

Феноменологические аспекты исследования концепта «культурный статус»

The subject of this research is the concept of "cultural status", the actualization of which in scientific and philosophical discourse indicates the increasing role of culture in the modern world and the need to comprehend the position of the subject of cultural creativity, its importance in the organization of socio–cultural space. The authors use the phenomenological approach as the most heuristic in the conditions of social transformation, allowing to consider the object in a naturally formed context, to apply methods and techniques corresponding to research intentions. The work is based on the comparison of the concept of "cultural status" with the concept of "social status", widely used in sociological science. The conceptual provisions of P. Bourdieu's sociological theory, as well as the guiding theses of the activity approach in the study of culture, allowed the authors to conclude that social status reflects a person's place in the social hierarchy, position in the space of social relations, and cultural includes a much wider range of parameters rooted in people's daily lives, diverse experience of connections and relationships, gaining value value; cultural status characterizes the position of its bearer in the space-time continuum and the context of values, norms, relationships, the ontological position of the subject of cultural creativity, determined by the measure of activity to create a cultural order, which correlates with the social and carries a life-creating potential. The authors identify the components that influence the formation of cultural status: spatial and temporal parameters, the specifics of values, the role of the subject. The emphasis on the active, active beginning of the subject of cultural creativity, whose status position presupposes choice, decision and responsibility, allows for a productive search for mechanisms to optimize the life of a person and society in a risky world. The novelty of the study consists in clarifying the semantic the structure of the concept of "cultural status," the study of discursive fields that influence its formation in the conditions of modern social dynamics. The phenomenological approach allows us to master the discursive space in movement from life to rational, capable of becoming a reliable tool in the formation of sociocultural space as an integrity necessary for the harmonious existence of man and society.

On current and future carbon prices in a risky world

We analyse the optimal paths of abatement and carbon prices under a variety of economic, temperature and damage risks. Carbon prices grow in line with economic growth, but with convex damages and temperature-dependent risks of climatic tipping points grow more quickly and with gradual resolution of uncertainty grow more slowly. With temperature-dependent economic damage tipping points carbon prices are higher, but when the tipping point occurs, the price jumps downward. With a temperature cap the efficient carbon price rises at the risk-adjusted interest rate. Allowing for damages as well as a cap leads to a higher carbon price which grows more slowly. But as temperature and cumulative emissions approach their caps, the carbon price is ramped up ever more. Policy makers should expect a rising path of carbon prices.

TEACHING CHILDREN TO ASK QUESTIONS AS A BASIS FOR DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING

The life of a modern person and society takes place in an extremely complex, unstable, and risky world. To be successful in it, a person must have adaptability and flexibility of thinking and action. Under these conditions, critical thinking becomes an attribute of a modern person. Accordingly, there is a social need to develop this style of thinking. Experts say that critical thinking originates from the child's tendency to formulate questions about the world, nature, and the existential aspects of human life. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to theoretically substantiate and experimentally verify the effectiveness of various methods and techniques for teaching preschoolers the ability to ask questions and lay the foundations for the development of critical thinking. For this, preschool teachers and parents (148 people in total) were offered a number of techniques that allowed them to outline the nature of their questions and determine the level of formation of the preschoolers’ ability to ask questions.

Editors’ Note. Introduction to the Symposium on ‘Preparedness in an Uncertain and Risky World’

Editors’ Note. Introduction to the Symposium on ‘Preparedness in an Uncertain and Risky World’

Promethean struggle: Shelley, Keats, and Norwid in search of rescue in the risky world

The myth of Prometheus sacrificing his freedom to give men authority over a powerful element of nature despite the will of the gods has, in modern times, inspired authors of different languages who kept transforming it according to their views. Both Western and Polish poets of Romanticism favoured the Promethean idea. In their Promethean – or Messianic – visions Mickiewicz and Słowacki emphasized the importance of armed or spiritual struggle for Polandʼs independence against Tsarist Russia, while English language poets praised the individualʼs rebellion in the face of the oppressive society. Cyprian Norwidʼs interpretation of the myth combined the individual and the collective. He saw Prometheus as a craftsman whose gift, fire – ʻteacher of all artsʼ - is a tool for ultimate salvation through Beauty incorporated in mas terpieces. Norwidʼs philosophy is profoundly rooted in Christian soteriology. According to the poet, the revival of both his nation and of the individual is possible only through arduous work, through creative effort understood as cooperation with Christ the saviour in the attainment of salvation leading to both individual and national resurrection.

Flourishing in a Risky World

Abstract The reviewer discusses how Kathleen Touchstone’s book, Freedom, Eudaemonia, and Risk, raises the big question of why a person would rationally choose to risk their life, as well as prompting readers to think deeply about other issues including the natural rights of children, the point at which human life begins, the virtue of parenting, rules of thumb for charitable giving, and the bequest motive in risking death. He considers that Touchstone makes an important contribution in explaining the role that a person’s concept of identity plays in principled risk-taking and by emphasizing that life is not riskless.

On current and future carbon prices in a risky world

We analyse optimal abatement and carbon pricing strategies under a variety of economic, temperature and damage risks. Economic growth, convex damages and temperature-dependent risks of climatic tipping points lead to higher growth rates, but gradual resolution of uncertainty lowers them. For temperature-dependent economic damage tipping points, carbon prices are higher, but when the tipping point occurs, the price jumps downward. With only a temperature cap the carbon price rises at the risk-adjusted interest rate. Adding damages leads to a higher carbon price that grows more slowly. But as temperature and cumulative emissions get closer to their caps, the carbon price is ramped up ever more. Policy makers should commit to a rising path of carbon prices.

Travelers’ Bi-Attribute Decision Making on the Risky Mode Choice with Flow-Dependent Salience Theory

The purpose of this paper is to provide new insights into travelers’ bi-attribute (travel time and travel cost) risky mode choice behavior with one risky option (i.e., the highway) and one non-risky option (i.e., the transit) from the long-term planning perspective. In the classical Wardropian User Equilibrium principle, travelers make their choice decisions only based on the mean travel times, which might be an unrealistic behavioral assumption. In this paper, an alternative approach is proposed to partially remedy this unrealistic behavioral assumption with flow-dependent salience theory, based on which we study travelers’ context-dependent bi-attribute mode choice behavior, focusing on the effect of travelers’ salience characteristic. Travelers’ attention is drawn to the bi-attribute salient travel utility, and then the objective probability of each state for the risky world is distorted in favor of this bi-attribute salient travel utility. A long-term bi-attribute salient user equilibrium will be achieved when no traveler can improve their bi-attribute salient travel utility by unilaterally changing the choice decisions. Conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the bi-attribute salient user equilibrium are presented, and based on the equilibrium results, we analyze travelers’ risk attitudes in this bi-attribute risky choice problem. Finally, numerical examples are conducted to examine the sensitivity of equilibrium solutions to the input parameters, which are cost difference and salience bias.

On Current and Future Carbon Prices in a Risky World

On Current and Future Carbon Prices in a Risky World

Sustainability in a Risky World

We view sustainability as a requirement that welfare should not be expected to decline over time. We impose this requirement as a prior constraint on the consumption-savings-investment problem, and study its implications for saving, risky investment, and the social discount rate. The constraint does not distort portfolio choice, but it imposes an upper bound on the sustainable time preference rate and on the sustainable consumption-wealth ratio, which we show must lie between the riskless rate and the expected return on optimally invested wealth.

Sustainability in a Risky World

We view sustainability as a requirement that welfare should not be expected to decline over time. We impose this requirement as a prior constraint on the consumption-savings-investment problem, and study its implications for saving, risky investment, and the social discount rate. The constraint does not distort portfolio choice, but it imposes an upper bound on the sustainable time preference rate and on the sustainable consumption-wealth ratio, which we show must lie between the riskless rate and the expected return on optimally invested wealth.

Knowledge management in the field of risk management in a corporate environment, Iran’s oil industry

Organizations in almost every industry and country are reminded, all too frequently, that they operate in a risky world. In this scientific paper, the extent of employees’ training effects on financial and human resource risks is investigated. For this purpose, one of the well-known courses - Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) in the gas processing company Fajr Jam was studied and its return on investments (ROI) was measured to determine the key indicators and the actual effectiveness of them that can also affect the risk. All GD&T training courses are considered as integrated and modular. In addition, since calculating the qualitative effects of each training course and converting it into financial impacts is one of the most complex and even impossible parts of ROI, quantitative effects were first calculated in order to identify the least visible effect of training on financial results. Thereby, it is possible to prove that, at least, these courses have a positive impact on the overall productivity of the organization. Then the qualitative effects, that are always the most important and influential role of training were defined. In this research, interviews with experts in this field were used to determine the key indicators that are the basis for calculation ROI and to receive information. At first stage all aspects of the study were considered and then the assessment form of training ROI was compiled according to indicators. The results of this study we reahed, using a paired questionnaire that examines all the various factors in the achievements, which are evaluated to determine the effect of training in this process by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and Expert Choice software. In this research, all GD&T courses were studied for a year and a half. Finally, ROI was 829 %. This circumstance shows that the economic investments in this training course were reasonable and within 5 years, the organization returned 8.29 times of its investments.

Morality, Uncertainty

Abstract Non-Consequentialist moral theories posit the existence of moral constraints: prohibitions on performing particular kinds of wrongful acts, regardless of the good those acts could produce. Many have argued that such theories cannot give satisfactory verdicts about what we morally ought to do when there is some probability that we will violate a moral constraint. In this article, I defend Non-Consequentialist theories from this critique. Using a general choice-theoretic framework, I identify various types of Non-Consequentialism that have otherwise been conflated in the debate. I then prove a number of formal possibility and impossibility results establishing which types of Non-Consequentialism can—and which cannot—give us adequate guidance through through a risky world.

Children's trust in informants in risky decisions

When adapting to a risky world, decision makers must be capable of grasping the probabilistic nature of the environment. Developmental research on the ontogeny of the ability to use probabilities thus far has used different paradigms and revealed inconsistent findings. Merging two paradigms (choices based on probabilistic inferences; trust-in-informants decisions), we tested whether procedural differences are responsible for the inconsistent findings. 6-, 9-, and 22-year-olds (N = 108) learned the relative accuracy of three informants in a labelling task commonly used in trust-in-informants research. Informants differed with regard to their validity (rates of being correct = 0.17; 0.34; 0.83). Subsequently, participants were presented with an information board typically used in research on probabilistic-inference choices. Prior to choosing between two options, they were allowed to inspect informants’ predictions regarding choice outcomes. After choices, participants indicated which informant they would trust in other domains (e.g., biology, arts). A large contrast effect between trust decisions and choices indicates that the utilization of probabilities develops more slowly in probabilistic-inference choices than in trust decisions: 6-year-olds and a portion of 9-year-olds did not rely on the predictions of the high validity informant in their choices even though they trusted the informant in other domains. In adults, that pattern was reversed. We discuss our findings while considering the possibility that structural differences of the paradigms may impose different constraints on cognitive processing.

AI and the Illusion of Human-Algorithm Complementarity

Machine learning has proven powerful in some narrow contexts but is now being applied across any and every possible domain. The justification of this extension is greater control and efficiency, a safer and less risky world. This bright promise, however, rests on an illusion of human-algorithm complementarity. The direction of AI applications is not toward complementarity with humans’ abilities but with their devaluation and displacement. In submitting ourselves to machine judgment, we are undermining our own and depriving ourselves of skills, ways of learning, and means to face unforeseen events and conflicts. The world is not thereby safer, it is more fragile.

Taking Responsibility for Negligence and Non-negligence

Negligence reminds us that we often do and cause things unawares, occasionally with grave results. Given the lack of foresight and intention, some authors argue that people should not be judged culpable for negligence. This paper offers a contrasting view. It argues that gaining control (over our agency, over a risky world) is itself a fundamental responsibility, with both collective and individual elements. The paper underlines both sides, focussing on how they relate as we ascribe responsibility or culpability. Following the introduction, Section 2 (“Culpability and Control: The Negligence Sceptics”) argues that conscious awareness is neither necessary nor sufficient for control. Control is not a property of deliberate choice, so much as a practical achievement. Section 3 (“Non-negligence as a Shared Task”) stresses the collective aspects of non-negligence: creating knowledge about risks, structuring environments to guard against them, and developing standards of care. Failings in the collective task, rather than lack of individual control, mean it can often be unfair to pin culpability on a single individual. Section 4 (“Culpability for Negligence Revisited”) suggests that a basic duty of a responsible person is to acknowledge the ways in which we may do more or less than we mean to, often in ways that create risks. It then sketches an approach to culpability as part of a collective exercise: as we take responsibility for standards of care, and for our own and others’ agency.

Simmel’s Sense of Adventure: Death and Old Age in Philosophy, Art, and Everyday Life

Among Georg Simmel’s many characterizations of modernity is his claim that the current moment might be pictured as a kind of adventure. That is, the modern era seems be a leap out of the everyday customs and habitual patterns of previous periods of history and into a risky world that seems enticing, exciting, unprecedented, and unknown. This essay considers his counter-intuitive illustration of this thesis in his later philosophical and aesthetic writings, especially his last work The View of Life (1918) and the monograph Rembrandt (1916). Rather than reduce modern experience to an effect of a person’s biographical milieu or cultural context as in history or sociology, Simmel develops a metaphysical and aesthetic meditation on the multiple meanings of dying and everyday life understood as inward adventures for the individual.