No way around cross-cultural and cross-linguistic epistemology.

Phillips and colleagues claim that the capacity to ascribe knowledge is a "basic" capacity, but most studies reporting linguistic data reviewed by Phillips et al. were conducted in English with American participants - one of more than 6,500 languages currently spoken. We highlight the importance of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research when one is theorizing about fundamental human representational capacities.

For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures.

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one's actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one's actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.

Do we really externalize or objectivize moral demands?

Stanford's goal is to explain the uniquely human tendency to externalize or objectify "distinctively moral" demands, norms, and obligations. I maintain that there is no clear phenomenon to explain. Stanford's account of which norms are distinctively moral relies on Turiel's problematic work. Stanford's justification of the claim that we "objectify" moral demands ignores recent studies indicating that often we do not.

Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment.

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.

Why there might not be an evolutionary explanation for psychological altruism.

The existence of psychological altruism is hotly debated in the psychological and philosophical literature. In this paper I argue that even if psychological altruism does exist in some (or all) human groups, there may be no purely evolutionary explanation for existence of psychological altruism.

Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies.

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement.

The pretense debate.

In a number of publications, Alan Leslie and colleagues have developed a theory of the psychological mechanisms underlying pretense. This theory maintains that pretense is an early manifestation of "theory of mind" or "mindreading" - the capacity to attribute mental states to oneself and others. Nichols and Stich proposed an alternative theory of pretense on which pretense in young children does not require mindreading. Rather, they argued, young children have a behavioral understanding of pretense. In a lengthy critique, Friedman and Leslie made a persuasive case that the Nichols and Stich theory cannot account for the early emergence of children's capacity to engage in joint pretense and recognize pretense in others. In this paper, we set out a new "pretense game" theory of pretense that avoids the problems raised by Friedman and Leslie, and does not require that children who engage in joint pretense must have a theory of mind. We go on to argue that our pretense game theory can explain many of the facts about pretense that go unexplained in Leslie's theory. The central shortcoming of Leslie's theory is that it attempts to explain the production and recognition of pretense behavior by positing the existence of an innate concept, without explaining how this concept enables those who have it to recognize or produce pretense behavior.

You can't have it both ways: what is the relation between morality and fairness?

Baumard and colleagues put forward a new hypothesis about the nature and evolution of fairness. In this commentary, we discuss the relation between morality and their views about fairness.

Should the study of Homo sapiens be part of cognitive science?

Beller, Bender, and Medin argue that a reconciliation between anthropology and cognitive science seems unlikely. We disagree. In our view, Beller et al.'s view of the scope of what anthropology can offer cognitive science is too narrow. In focusing on anthropology's role in elucidating cultural particulars, they downplay the fact that anthropology can reveal both variation and universals in human cognition, and is in a unique position to do so relative to the other subfields of cognitive science. Indeed, without cross-cultural research, the universality of any aspect of human cognition cannot truly be established. Therefore, if the goal of cognitive science is to understand the cognitive capacities of our species as a whole, then it cannot do without anthropology. We briefly review a growing body of anthropological work aimed at answering questions about human cognition and offer suggestions for future work.

Prevalence, distribution, and diversity of Listeria monocytogenes in retail environments, focusing on small establishments and establishments with a history of failed inspections.

Despite growing concerns about cross-contamination of ready-to-eat foods with Listeria monocytogenes, our knowledge about the ecology and transmission of L. monocytogenes in retail establishments has remained limited. We conducted a cross-sectional study to characterize the prevalence, distribution, and subtype diversity of L. monocytogenes in 120 New York State retail deli establishments that were hypothesized to present an increased risk for environmental L. monocytogenes contamination (i.e., small establishments and establishments with a history of failed New York State Agriculture and Markets inspections). Analysis of these data along with previously reported data for 121 predominantly larger retail establishments in New York State identified establishment size, geographic location, and inspection history as significant predictors of L. monocytogenes presence and prevalence. The odds of an establishment being L. monocytogenes positive were approximately twice as high for large establishments, establishments located in New York City, or establishments with poor inspection history (as compared with establishments without these attributes), even though correlation between location and inspection history complicated interpretation of results. Within an establishment, L. monocytogenes was significantly more prevalent on nonfood contact surfaces than on food contact surfaces; prevalence was particularly high for floors and in floor drains, sinks, the dairy case, and milk crates. L. monocytogenes subtype diversity differed between sites, with lineage I isolates significantly associated with nonfood contact surfaces and lineage II isolates significantly associated with food contact surfaces. Isolates belonging to the same ribotype were often found dispersed across multiple sites within an operation.

Evaluating the effectiveness of food recalls in retail establishments in New York City.

Information on how promptly food recalls of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated products are disseminated to retailers is not well documented. Store managers were surveyed after recalls were declared to estimate the proportion aware of a recall, to describe the methods by which they learned of the recall, and to ascertain how they would prefer to be notified of recalls in the future. From 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2009, we identified FDA Class I products recalled because of potential contamination with an infectious agent such as Salmonella, which were sold in New York City. After each recall, a sample of retailers who carried the products was contacted, a standardized questionnaire was administered to store managers, and a sample of stores was inspected to determine if the product had been removed. Among nine recalls evaluated, 85 % (range, 12 to 100 % ) of managers were aware of the recall affecting a product at their store. Chain store managers were more aware of recalls than were independent store managers (93 versus 78%, P < 0.0001). More chain store managers first heard about the recall via e-mail as compared with independent store managers (35 versus 4%, P < 0.0001). E-mail notification was preferred by large chain store managers (38 versus 8%, P < 0.0001); on inspection, chain stores were more likely to have removed the item than were independent stores (85 versus 56%, P = 0.0071). Although recall information reaches many stores, faster electronic notifications are not effective at reaching small, independent stores, which may lack computers or fax machines. Alternate means to disseminate recall notifications rapidly are needed for stores without electronic communication capabilities.

Philosophy and WEIRD intuition.

From Plato to the present, philosophers have relied on intuitive judgments as evidence for or against philosophical theories. Most philosophers are WEIRD, highly educated, and male. The literature reviewed in the target article suggests that such people might have intuitions that differ from those of people in other groups. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that they do.

Prevalence and molecular diversity of Listeria monocytogenes in retail establishments.

As our understanding of Listeria monocytogenes transmission in retail and deli operations is limited, we conducted a cross-sectional study of L. monocytogenes contamination patterns in 121 retail establishments, using testing of food and environmental samples and subtype analysis (ribotyping) of L. monocytogenes isolates. Seventy-three (60%) establishments had at least one sample that tested positive for L. monocytogenes; 5 (2.7%) of the 183 food and 151 (13.0%) of the 1,161 environmental samples tested positive for L. monocytogenes, including 125 (16.7%) and 26 (6.3%) of non-food contact and food contact surface samples, respectively. Thirty-two EcoRI ribotypes were identified among the 156 L. monocytogenes isolated. Twenty-seven establishments had two or more L. monocytogenes with the same ribotype within a given establishment, including 9 establishments where isolates from 3 to 5 samples had the same ribotype. In 5 of 7 establishments where follow-up sampling was conducted 8 to 19 months after the initial sampling, isolates with the same ribotype were obtained in both samplings; persistence of a given strain was also confirmed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Our data indicate that (i) L. monocytogenes is regularly found in some retail environments; (ii) L. monocytogenes strains are often widely distributed in retail, indicating cross-contamination and dispersal; (iii) L. monocytogenes can persist in retail environments for more than 1 year; and (iv) a number of L. monocytogenes subtypes isolated at retail are common among human listeriosis cases. We also identified specific contamination patterns in retail establishments, providing critical information for the development of L. monocytogenes control strategies.

Semantics, cross-cultural style.

Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one's intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology (e.g. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291-310.) has shown systematic cognitive differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases (Weinberg, J., Nichols, S., & Stich, S. (2001). Normativity and epistemic intuitions. Philosophical Topics 29(1&2), 429-459.) In light of these findings on cultural differences, an experiment was conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. The experiment indicated that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and the paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference.