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This article surveys the variety of ways in which a directed acyclic graph (DAG) can be used to represent a problem of probabilistic causality. For each of these ways, we describe the relevant formal or informal semantics governing that representation. It is suggested that the cleanest such representation is that embodied in an augmented DAG, which contains nodes for non-stochastic intervention indicators in addition to the usual nodes for domain variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounting, agricultural and financial interests have played a role in the treatment and extinction of many animals throughout the world. This article focuses on the framing and moral loading of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, beginning during the colonial settlement of Tasmania and the related commercial sheep operations through to post the federation of the Australian colonies. In doing so, we reflect on the extinction of the thylacine and the role of financial interests that promoted, or profited from, bounties by using moralisation and framing. Moralisation brings within the moral sphere an activity or object that was considered outside it, thus making behaviours related to such activity or object subject to moral evaluation, praise and blame. Contrasting frames for the thylacine within the agricultural industry are used to chart the thylacine's demoralisation and eventual re-moralisation that occurred, particularly after its extinction, into a symbol of ecological hope. As such, this article offers a narrative of the changing conditions for which the commercial and colonial activities, including policy and resourcing, intertwined with the ultimate extinction of the thylacine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is conceptually motivated to show how instrumental rationality is reflected in the military domain. Instrumental rationality refers to the adoption of suitable means to achieve particular ends. However, this conception was criticised by the Frankfurt School for focusing on means rather than on ends. Based on this critique, I present specific categories of instrumental rationality in the military domain. I will argue that instrumental rationality, or at least its faulty application, is reflected in means-centred thinking whereby the means justify the ends. This approach may create specific categories in the military domain: means justify the ends just because they are available, and they can also expand the ends. The means-centred approach may be expanded from subordinating ends to means to focusing on the objects to be attacked, thus developing an objects-centred approach that may also develop into a focus on the direct outcome of the operation of means, thus becoming a tool of legitimation. A similar legitimising impact is produced by the process of moralisation implicit in the focus on means. Finally, a means-centred approach may be translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means, and can thereby be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlement. « Ces compétences... devaient être utilisées simplement parce qu'elles étaient là »: La rationalité instrumentale dans le domaine militaire [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys the variety of ways in which a directed acyclic graph (DAG) can be used to represent a problem of probabilistic causality. For each of these ways, we describe the relevant formal or informal semantics governing that representation. It is suggested that the cleanest such representation is that embodied in an augmented DAG, which contains nodes for non-stochastic intervention indicators in addition to the usual nodes for domain variables.

This paper interrogates qualitative data regarding the changing experiences of mental health service and welfare state interventions for those who self-identify as experiencing long-term mental distress. We focus on austerity-related reforms in the English welfare and mental health policy architecture to explore the socio-cultural and material bases of benefit claims-making in relation to long-term illness and incapacity. Recent neoliberal social policy reforms contest the ontological status of mental distress, in effect recasting distress as a 'moral' status. This tendency is reinforced via three primary dynamics in contemporary mental health and welfare policy: the delegitimisation of sick role status in relation to mental distress; the foregrounding of individual responsibility and concomitant re-orientation of services towards self-help; and an increasing punitive conditionality. These intersecting processes represent an institutionalisation of 'blame' in various policy contexts (Scambler in Sociol Health Illn 31(3): 441–455, 2009; Sociol Rev Monogr 66(4):766–782, 2018), the moral stigmatisation of mental distress and escalating experiences of oppression for mental health service users and welfare recipients. Shifting conceptions of distress are thereby entwined with transformations in social policy regimes and political economies. Presenting distress as a personal failure legitimates austerity-related restrictions on benefit and service entitlements as part of a wider project of neoliberal welfare state transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that utilitarian endorsements have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that utilitarian endorsements have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours.

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