If you are successful in controlling yourself in the car, then you must have in some way used a representation of your context, i.e., driving your car, to choose an appropriate action over the more habitual, but inappropriate one. To…
Prof Frances Stewart Professor emeritus of development economics, University of Oxford, and ex-president, Development Studies Association We urge the government to take three steps: first, to generously finance vaccine distribution in low-income countries and support distribution in ways that strengthen…
The flexibility of human behavior Scientists came to recognize cognitive control as its own class of function that links knowledge and action partly because of observations made of patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex. Early case reports were puzzling…
We are thrilled that David Badre will be blogging about their new book On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done (Princeton, 2020). You can find everything in one place here (as it becomes available). Related Posts
Opponents of immunity passports point out (correctly) that we do not know for certain the degree to which natural infection or vaccination reduces risk of transmission. However, it is a grave moral issue – verging on wilful ignorance – that…
One very simple way to prioritise fairness in the second phase would allocate vaccines using a lottery procedure. This would ensure equal access to all individuals not included in Phase One, without prioritising any particular group over any other. This…
“Seeing himself gradually consumed by the anxiety of not having a son, the king mounted his horse and just left for the dense forest alone. Not even the priests and brahmins of the palace knew where he had gone. In…
“I am not as pleased by sacrifice or charity as I am by observance of complete fasting on Ekadasi. One should therefore fast on Ekadasi to the best of one’s ability on this day of Lord Hari. “O lion among…
So we come to the end of our first plague year feeling like we’ve been hit by a truck, even if we’ve just been inside for most of the year doomscrolling and watching Netflix. We’re the lucky ones. By the…
I learned this first-hand. In 1989, I was one of the earliest British students to participate in the scheme, which had begun two years earlier. Confusingly, I spent my autumn term in the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In an instant,…
Nevertheless, she points out, the insistence that inequality undermines democratic societies has been amply vindicated. As divergences in wealth and circumstance deepened, and the welfare state became a minimalist safety net, faith in the social contract eroded and identity politics…
I would feel uncomfortable marking Liz Truss’s homework in public like this, except that she was never really trying to understand Foucault. In fact, on the right, it is a badge of honour not to understand or care about these…
These experiences have provoked something of an existential crisis in me. I still feel an optimistic outlook is, fundamentally, the only way to keep going – otherwise what’s the point? How can I find a comfortable and balanced place in…
“Parvata Muni replied, ‘During the light fortnight of the month of Margashirsha there occurs an Ekadasi called Mokshada. If you observe this sacred Ekadasi strictly, fasting fully, and transfer the merit you obtain to your suffering father, he will be…
