My Epistemology

A comprehensive catalogue of my ever changing epistemology

Metaphysics
Schopenhauer and Kant best express my metaphysics

Free Will
Metaphysical position loosely inspired by Actual Idealism

Within the context of a decision being made the decision is an exogenous variable, so there is free will

Ethics
Systems ethics

FA
Research into FA suggests that there may be some correlation to specific personality factors, in particular, the Big Five personality traits. From a general view, one would expect someone who is more symmetrical (usually meaning greater attractiveness), to be high on agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness, and low on neuroticism.

This is not actually supported

One of the most consistent findings reported is that low FA is positively associated with measures of extraversion, suggesting that more symmetrical people tend to be more extraverted than less symmetrical individuals, particularly when specifying to symmetry within the face. A correlation has also been reported between FA and human social dominance. However, research is proving less consistent with other personality factors, with some finding some weak correlations between low FA and conscientiousness and openness to experience, and others finding no significant differences between those with high or low FA.

Antisocial behaviours
Some studies suggest a link between FA and aggression, but the evidence is mixed. In humans, criminal offenders show greater FA than nonoffenders. However, other studies report that human males with higher FA show less physical aggression and less anger. Females show no association between FA and physical aggression, but some research has suggested that older female adolescents with higher facial FA are less hostile. The type of aggression being studied may account for the mixed evidence that is seen here. For example, one study found that females with higher FA demonstrated higher levels of reactive aggression in response to high levels of provocation, whereas high FA males showed more reactive aggression under low levels of provocation.

Research is also mixed in other animals. In Japanese scorpionflies (Panorpa nipponensis and Panorpa ochraceopennis), FA differences between members of the same sex competing for food determines the outcome of interspecific contests and aggression better than body size or ownership of food. Furthermore, cannibalistic laying hens (Gallus gallus domesticus) demonstrate more asymmetry than normal hens. However, this link between FA and aggression in hens is questionable, as victimised hens also showed greater asymmetry. Furthermore, when prenatally injecting hen eggs with excess serotonin (5-HT), the hens later exhibited more FA at 18 weeks of age, but displayed less aggressive behaviours. It is suggested that the stress introduced during early embryonic stages via certain factors (such as excess serotonin) may create developmental instability, causing phenotypic and behavioural variations (such as increased or decreased aggression).

Minor Physical Anomalies

 * Moffitt writes, "Minor physical anomalies, which are thought to be observable markers for hidden anomalies in neural development, have been found at elevated rates among violent offenders and subjects with antisocial personality traits." Neural development in the fetus may also be affected by maternal drug abuse, poor prenatal nutrition, or prenatal/postnatal exposure to toxic agents. Minor physical anomalies (MPAs) are features such as low-seated ears, furrowed tongue, and adherent ear lobes.  Evidence supporting the link between minor physical anomalies and antisocial behavior shows that the link only exists when adverse environmental factors are present.

Sociosexuality
Individuals who are sociosexually unrestricted tend to score higher on openness to experience, and be more extraverted, less agreeable, lower on honesty-humility, more erotophilic, more impulsive, more likely to take risks, more likely to have an avoidant attachment style, less likely to have a secure attachment style, and score higher on the Dark Triad traits (i.e. narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy). Higher masculinity and eveningness in women is related to unrestricted sociosexuality. High self-monitoring is also associated with unrestricted sociosexuality, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Individuals with an intrinsic religious orientation (i.e., religion as an end) tend to be sociosexually restricted, while those with an extrinsic religious orientation (i.e., religion as a means to achieve non-religious goals) tend to be unrestricted.

Unrestricted women report engaging in more social interactions with men on a daily basis than restricted women. However, unrestricted individuals rate their interactions with their best friends (non-romantic) as lower in quality (i.e., as less pleasant and satisfying) than restricted individuals.

Hormones
Individuals who are partnered typically have lower testosterone levels than individuals who are single. However, this was found to apply solely to individuals who have a restricted sociosexuality. Partnered, unrestricted men and women's testosterone levels are more similar to the levels of single men and women.

Implications
Possessing an unrestricted sociosexuality seems to increase the likelihood of having a son by 12-19% in American samples. This may be explained by the generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis, which states that parents who possess any heritable trait that increases males' reproductive success above females' will have more sons, and will have more daughters if they possess traits that increase females' reproductive success above males'. Since unrestricted sociosexuality increases the reproductive fitness of sons more than daughters (as males have the potential to have more offspring through casual sex), unrestricted parents have a higher-than-expected offspring sex ratio (more sons).

History

 * afroasiatic urheimat is located in Ethiopia

Politics
Democratic peace theory

Sangha democracy

Though the democratic peace theory was not rigorously or scientifically studied until the 1960s, the basic principles of the concept had been argued as early as the 18th century in the works of philosopher Immanuel Kant and political theorist Thomas Paine. Kant foreshadowed the theory in his essay Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch written in 1795, although he thought that a world with only constitutional republics was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace. Kant's theory was that a majority of the people would never vote to go to war, unless in self-defense. Therefore, if all nations were republics, it would end war, because there would be no aggressors. In earlier but less cited works, Thomas Paine made similar or stronger claims about the peaceful nature of republics. Paine wrote in "Common Sense" in 1776: "The Republics of Europe are all (and we may say always) in peace." Paine argued that kings would go to war out of pride in situations where republics would not. French historian and social scientist Alexis de Tocqueville also argued, in Democracy in America (1835&#x2013;1840), that democratic nations were less likely to wage war.