Moral Agency and Mens Rea

A controversy which my research into the belief-causality postulate has thrown up is that it implies determinism, psychological indeterminacy, doubt on moral agency (i.e. a person’s capability of acting with reference to right and wrong), and the legal doctrine of Mens rea (Guilty Mind) are not in the control of any individual as there is no free-will.

 

Primarily the doctrine of the guilty mind states that a person is legally responsible for what they do as long as they should know what they are doing, and their choices are deliberate (Martin & Law, 2009). Where mens rea is not required, the offence is one of strict liability (i.e. offences that are primarily regulatory aimed at businesses in relation to health and safety, where proof is through the action rather than the intent). This all assumes, of course, that the conscious mind is guiding us.

The law, once again, determines the supposed tangibility of how our perceptions are led into a collective notion of what we otherwise accepted as social-norms and societal realities, even should these be contrary to both neurological findings and philosophical musings. Nevertheless, as prosaic as they may be, these societal norms represent the proverbial wheel that we fear to reinvent, even when the wheel we have been using all these years happens to have four equal straight sides and four right angles.  As such, although scientifically invalid, this presents itself as the courtroom conventions that we must reluctantly accept as the premise for the controlling mind of a business and for use within accident causation models.

However, this acceptance does not negate the premise or relevance of my research, not least in that it potential furthers our understanding of causality, regardless of whether this is the received principle of the law or not.

An example of this is the verisimilitude of how the law would define probability, based more upon arguments adduced on the appearance of truth, in contrast to the scientific definition of probability, based upon a measuring empirical evidence, which is arrived at from inductive reasoning and statistical inference (Hacking, 2006). Both are distinctly valid, but only one would be used as a means of enforcement. 

Andrew Böber MSc CMIOSH FRSPH FRGS

Field Researcher

References:

- Hacking, I. (2006). The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68557-3

- Martin, E.A. (ed).; Law, J. (ed). (2009). Oxford Dictionary of Law. 7th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Reflections of a geographical past...of sorts

Since leaving the world of international conservation and living collections, I get very little front-line experience with fieldwork, more so as most of my own research is focused on a niche of human geography.  Naturally, when I was doing an advisory stint in Further Education I gave guidance on the Duke of Edinburgh activities, but it hardly compares .

Nowadays it is more just the occasional advice to some folk who are taking adventurous holidays to the parts of the world where you could either catch or tropical infection and have a part of your body removed by something sharp, or just have a part of your body removed by someone carrying something sharp as you happened to look at them in the wrong way. Of course, it is always difficult to explain how what the right way is to look at someone carrying something sharp who’s happy to remove bits of other peoples bodies with it, and a person is almost certainly have a better understanding of these random psychotic acts after they have come face-to-face with one or two incidents. Should they retain all their face following these incidents, then I would always recommend that these are the very fieldworkers to listen to careful, so long as you still have you ears and wish to keep them.

In some ways I take solace in no longer having to project manage issues that arise out of civil unrest, sexual assault, geophysical hazard and the array of other themes that make international fieldwork so fraught - not least dealing with the terribly naïve short-sighted tendencies of dreadfully nice well-educated middle-class academics whose unique cognitive defects have made them congenitally unable to understand the concept ‘acceptable risk’, often putting them not so much close to the cliff edge but completely over it. Given that many of the fieldworkers were zoologists, it often seemed inappropriate to put in sufficient control measures given that it would be construe as counterproductive to the process of natural selection. This was one such point they would earnestly approve of, which if anything further demonstrates their complete inability to understand acceptable risk. 

Still, being part of a team delivering a première international sports event, with one of the of the world highest number of outside broadcast operations, and catering to deal with over 500,000 during it, quite aside from the year round construction works, brings its own challenges and demands, but  thankfully none of these require me having to spend six months of the year dealing with variety of fungal infections on my body thanks to humidity and lack of clean clothes. As a colleague pointed out to me recently, whilst fungal infections make great talking points at pool parties and bring one closer to like minded people they make intimate relationships more problematic.

Andrew Böber MSc CMIOSH FRSPH FRGS

Field Researcher

 

Osian Finn Arthur Böber

On the 22 July 2014 around 22:30h my second son was born, Osian Finn Arthur Böber. It is a joy to be a dad doubly so.

Fitness Update...

My plan over last nine months has been attempting to get into good shape. It is only a year and three months until I'm forty and so never have been more serious. Being a father helps make one become painfully aware of their own vices and cultural procrastination.

A false start at Virgin Gym finally led me to Forest Gym in Tilgate Park, upon the recommendation of a few folk within Crawley.

It isn’t that I have an aversion to commercial gyms, but I don't necessarily belief that they encourage a person to fitness. Tending only to be full of only meat-heads (you can spot them for their over developed arms, no shoulders, weak backs and spindly legs), or otherwise populated by preening narcissists whose puffed up self-image and range of hair products are move important to them than their health and fitness. Conversely, I may just be a bitter ageing baldy who has the sort of middle-class education that makes him condescendingly smug, pouring scorn at others lifestyle decisions, albeit entirely sneering at own as well. After all, it would hardly be fair if one wasn't down on oneself as well.

Nonetheless, Forest Gym provides the sort of environment which commercial franchises fail. It provides an identity. Whilst it is a foremost a bodybuilding gym it remains entirely old-fashioned in its feel. A refurbed hut in the middle of a forest. Equipment without brand names. Tepid showers. A staffy dog lacking one eye and the ability to walk. A South African manager, Harold "Big H" Marillier, who is an IFBB pro that has another job of restoring historic military tanks.

It is an extremely supportive environment used by a lot of bodybuilding pro's, which has the advantage of there being people who are able to assist you in correct and effect techniques. You have to bear in mind that bodybuilding techniques has greatly influences all areas of athletics. Nevertheless, it is inspiring and at times worrying. Just the sort of environment I prefer. Some people, both men and women, have trained their bodies to repulsively colossal proportions.

My interest here is the Grecian Ideal, which is wholly divorced from the monsters which are too often associated to contemporary bodybuilding. I am more a realist that, as with my weight loss, this is also something which needs to be progressive for it to be sustainable, and not something rapid which can be lost as fast as it is gained.

I'm presently facing the toughest challenge of nutrition. It's 75% of the battle and whilst I don't have an unhealthy diet neither do I have a selectively healthy one. It would be logically for me to return to a vegetarian diet, albeit one in which every month I have at least four high-quality meat meals. It’s going to tough but then getting older isn’t any easier.

Otherwise, progress is good and muscle is developing. I will get some photos up here to show the progress over the course of a year. Contrast is all important.

But, it is then the particular application of this. I would like to do the Mens Health Survival of the Fitness possibly this year. I’ve been doing some running around the rec ground close to my house, but need to build this up to some decent sort of distances. Typically I do a 30-45min set on a standing bicycle once a week to also build up my cardio and stamina. I’d like to think I could nail something like this before I’m 40, not least as progress means I’ll prob be fitter in my 40s than in pervious decades. There are some runs in Sussex which I am tempting to test the water with. But I like the idea of a run having obstacles within it as well.

High Intensity Training (HIT)

Just to make clear at this juncture the motivations for my training:

1. I am turning 38. The closer I get to that 40 landmark the more serious I know I need to sort out my health for the sort of sailing I want to make thereafter. There are a number of physiological factors – such as from 40-70 you will loose 50% of you flexibility, muscle development, increase fat in arteries etc. – which can be prevented with simple exercise.
2. I am a Chartered Safety & Health Practitioner. I think it is critical point that often too much attention is given to the “safety” and not enough to the “health”. I’m also a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. It would utterly incongruous to be all this and unfit. Therefore a principled philosophical assertion must be that to inspire others to improve their health in simple and practical ways – not only in a gym but in other gym-free lifestyle choices – then I must be as I say. More so.
3. I have committed myself to the Men Health ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in Edinburgh this year. 10km with 10 obstacles. There will be more challenges like this and I’ve been looking at those arranged out on the South Downs. I am twist the arm of my old friend, Mark Habben, at the Zoological Society of London, to coach me up on running. Since his since recovering from cancer he has become a virtual Lance Armstrong.
4. I shall be making a debut return to the rock. Given that I am moving into Sussex soon it puts me right on the door step on my old stomping ground – Harrison Rocks and Stone Farm. For this I need my weight-strength not only to be correct but better than it use to be. I’m a member of the British Mountaineering Council so it’s my duty to climb. Badly.
5. I’m a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. I’m supposed to be spending more time outside, more time training, and less time in an arm-chair. However, am armchair is a lovely oxblood Queen Anne Chesterfield, so it is easy to spend so much time in it.
6. I have a son now. I want to inspire him to be fit, strong and healthy. Who wouldn’t want that?

To achieve all this I took an off-peak membership with Virgin Active a couple of months back, which as a membership package perfectly suits my work lunch breaks.

Routine is:

- 6min walk to the Gym,

- 5mins to change and prep,

- 30mins session – concentrating on 7-9 sets,

- 10 mins to shower and change,

- 6min brisk walk back to the office.

NB: The nice part about the brisk walk is that it functions as an easy warm-up and cool-down.

I’m presently going through a break-in period for at least another two month to build up the my foundation strength, thereafter I’ll be dropping to fewer than five working sets per session with a longer rest period - necessitating 4–7 days of recovery before the next workout.

Naturally, the last week has been manic due to the birth of Elijah so I dropped only to one session per week – but increased the intensity, with surprising results.

The program I am working to in adaption outlined in High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way. Mike Mentzer was an American former IFBB professional bodybuilder, businessman, and author. Having read much of his work it is quick to recognize that he was much more than that. AS contrived as it seems he was also a philosopher and Objectivist.

He was one of those all-round Americans which are increasingly becoming a dying breed, or simply have become increasingly less vocal. Regardless of some minor ideological differences – although largely cultural due to my own cheerless sense of Europeanism engrained within me – it would have been nice to have made contact with Mentzer before his untimely death. Still, it is nice to think that a generation of meat-heads has been fed a philosophical approach to existence rather than just a gym regime.

According to Mentzer, biologists and physiologists since the nineteenth century have known that hypertrophy - that is the biological process by which to increase of the size of muscle cells – is directly related to intensity, not duration, of effort. Most bodybuilding and weightlifting authorities do not take into account the severe nature of the stress imposed by heavy, strenuous resistance exercise carried to a point of positive muscular failure.

For me, the program is working well. I may have moderately slight advantage with my genetic heritage – predominately East Anglian, Cumbrian and Litvak – which has expressed itself with quick muscular development, but the radical stuff won’t show for months. I think it may be good to take photos of these changes so there is a visual record for this.

All going according to plan, then I will towards the end of year I will change from Virgin to Forest Gym – the facility is more in-tune with what I need from a sporting perspective, a training regime and fiscally. Afterall, it will be counterproductive to hold a weekly membership to a gym I will only use once a week. The only thing I will need to do is get a collapsible bike of some sort to use to get from work to there – two fold benefit of my getting a bit of aerobic warm-up and being able to store the bike in my office. However, budgets permitting.