Though we find the ‘triple theory’ of moral cognition, with its emphasis on resource-rational contractualism, to be well argued, we suggest that Levine et al.’s model starts too late in the process. That is, we agree that their proposed abstractions and heuristics can help to develop mutually beneficial arrangements, but effective contracts also require the identification of reliable actors.

We challenge Fleming and Michel’s arguments that aquatic animals do not have conscious vision. Focusing on fish, we suggest – on the basis of what we know about their cognition and evolution – that most fish are likely to have conscious vision, which evolved well before the transition to a largely terrestrial habitat. We end by clarifying the difference between our model-based, learning-driven view of the evolution of animal consciousness and Fleming and Michel’s view.

Blenders are special hyperbolic sets used to produce various robust dynamical phenomena that appear fragile at first glance. We prove that for $C^r$ diffeomorphisms ($r=2,\ldots ,\infty ,\omega $), blenders naturally exist (without perturbation) near non-degenerate heterodimensional cycles of coindex 1, and the existence is determined by arithmetic properties of moduli of topological conjugacy for diffeomorphisms with heterodimensional cycles. In particular, we obtain a dichotomy for the dynamics in any small neighborhood U of a non-degenerate heterodimensional cycle: either there exist infinitely many blenders accumulating on the cycle, forming robust heterodimensional dynamics in most cases, or there are no orbits, other than those constituting the cycle, lying entirely in U.

The contractualist approach to morality holds a great deal of promise. However, it is not clear how it applies to situations in which the idea of negotiation is itself morally abhorrent. In particular, it is not clear how it applies to the thick relationships that exist between friends and family, which form a large part of the moral universe.

We agree with Levine et al. that moral judgments track outcomes that would emerge from a balanced bargaining process. But we challenge the claim that moral cognition must therefore simulate bargaining itself. Like any evolved system that exploits deep regularities without representing them, moral cognition can produce ideal contractualist judgments without mentally representing bargaining scenarios.

Fleming and Michel propose that conscious perception is “slow”, with a delay of 350–450ms. But this claim is premature. Here, we will show that the speed of conscious perception remains unresolved. Examining evidence from vision and language research, we will explore how this fundamental question may ultimately be answered to test the validity of this foundational claim.

Diverse cognitive processes underlying human moral judgment can be understood as resource rational approximations of full bargaining of social contracts. We extend this theory by highlighting delegation to legitimate representatives as another key resource rational strategy. Considering delegation introduces a new set of cognitive mechanisms and heuristics that could be incorporated in a resource rational contractualist theory of morality.

Fleming and Michel’s hypothesis about the origins of consciousness not only faces multiple challenges but also overlooks phenomenal experience—the very phenomenon that needs explaining. Although we are in broad agreement with the authors’ overall perspective, we highlight challenges and suggest that consciousness evolved to attribute subjective value, enabling organisms to care about and act upon what they sense.

Invasive fruit flies have the potential to exert a profound influence on agroecosystems, given their capacity to displace native species and modify host-use dynamics. In northwestern Argentina, Anastrepha fraterculus and Ceratitis capitata are the most significant fruit fly pests. This study synthesised infestation data by A. fraterculus and C. capitata on host plant species in northwestern Argentina, and explored how land use and altitude modulate infestation patterns. The findings demonstrated that A. fraterculus exhibited significantly higher and more variable infestation levels, particularly on native hosts belonging to the families Myrtaceae and Juglandaceae. Infestation levels exhibited significant variation among the landscape units, increasing with altitude. Conversely, C. capitata exhibited lower and more homogeneous infestation levels, with no substantial disparities related to host plant origin or landscape unit, although a notable non-linear relationship with elevation was observed. The findings indicate ecological niche partitioning between the two species and highlight the necessity of integrating host use, environmental gradients, and landscape context into fruit fly management. By integrating biotic and abiotic drivers of infestation across multiple environmental contexts, our systematic study provides a novel, landscape-scale perspective on the ecology of both native and invasive fruit flies, suggesting practical implications for improving pest surveillance and control strategies through habitat-based approaches tailored to species-specific ecology.

The conflict between partiality and impartiality is a fundamental feature of moral cognition. It is also central within the contractualist tradition in moral philosophy. Resource-rational contractualism gives a key role to both partial (e.g., virtual bargaining) and impartial (e.g., universalization) forms of reasoning in its theory. In empirical tests, this makes it flexible, but at the risk of being unfalsifiable.

Schiller’s hunch was correct: spoken drama must overcome history in order to produce the effect of history (when portrayed monumentally) originally had. But the historical drama should not be antiquarian at any price; Shakespeare was correct to let his Romans appear on stage as Englishmen. […] However, one should not measure it according to the highest artistic expectations; we should make out of drama a rhetorical work of art.1

The recent surge of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has prompted urgent questions about the past, present, and future of such initiatives. In this HEQ policy dialogue, Kevin Kumashiro and Michael Olneck take up those questions directly, tracing how contemporary assaults—beginning with criticisms of the 1619 Project, critical race theory, and gender studies—have broadened into a campaign aimed at reshaping curriculum, institutions, and civic understanding. They probe the power of narrative and counter-narrative, asking what stories about democracy, citizenship, and education are being advanced and whether progressive educators and advocates have offered compelling alternatives.

Drawing on historical examples and political theory, their conversation situates today’s moment within longer struggles over who belongs in the American civic imaginary—from early twentieth-century immigrant restrictionism to competing visions of liberty voiced in nineteenth-century abolitionist and Reconstruction debates. Kumashiro and Olneck consider how new social imaginaries are articulated and disseminated, and what educators might do to cultivate aspirations about the kind of society and schools we aim to build.

Michael Olneck is Professor Emeritus in the departments of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Culture Wars in American Education: Past and Present Struggles Over the Symbolic Order, along with numerous articles and book chapters on multiculturalism in American education. Kevin Kumashiro is former dean of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco and cofounder of the national network Education Deans for Justice and Equity; he is the author or editor of ten books on education and justice.

HEQ policy dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. The transcript of this dialogue has been lightly edited for clarity and consistency.

Increased interest in depth of processing (DoP) within instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) research highlights its influence on L2 learning outcomes, especially in vocabulary retention, grammatical accuracy, and overall proficiency. Despite its theoretical significance, inconsistencies in DoP’s conceptualization and operationalization have resulted in mixed findings regarding its impact on language development. This study presents a research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis of ISLA studies on DoP, examining the operational definitions of DoP and the variations in its operationalizations across studies. The analysis examines how DoP affects L2 learning outcomes and how differences in its definition and operationalization shape these outcomes. The study also identifies key limitations in DoP research, including inconsistencies across conceptual frameworks and operationalizations, and a lack of a unified approach. Finally, it discusses the methodological and pedagogical implications of DoP and proposes future research directions to refine its operationalization and explore its sustained effects on L2 development.

Elite athletes perform visually guided actions under severe temporal constraints. Reconsidering conscious versus unconscious vision, we present evidence from elite athletes that challenges the conceptualization of unconscious action guidance and propose instead distinguishing seeing-for-movement and seeing-for-thought. Elite athletes appear to use both in a coordinated manner when performing visually guided actions.

A central plank of Fleming and Michel’s thought-provoking paper is that postdiction reveals a lower bound for the speed of consciousness, showing that perceptual awareness is slow and motivating their perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness. The plank cannot bear the weight: Postdiction neither demonstrates a lower bound for the speed of consciousness nor shows that awareness is slow.

Plant xylem consists of a network of interconnected vessels, through which water is transported under negative pressure. Filling of vessels with air, or embolism, disturbs this transport process and, in extreme cases, leads to tree mortality. Despite this significance, embolism propagation dynamics are still poorly understood, primarily because xylem is opaque to direct observation. Furthermore, existing models of embolism spreading build excessively on physiological and anatomical parameters, and many misrepresent the intervessel pit membrane as a 2D surface. Here, we first extend these physiological models by implementing the pit membrane as a 3D object. Then, we introduce a susceptible-infected (SI) model, a simple stochastic model for tracking spreading through a population, for embolism propagation. After correctly fitting the spreading probability, our SI model reproduces vulnerability curves produced by both the physiological model and empirical data, highlighting that the SI model can address embolism spreading dynamics in plant species, for which detailed physiological data are not available. Furthermore, relating the SI model to the physiological one allows interpreting embolism spreading as a directed percolation process. Elucidating the exact mapping between directed percolation and embolism spreading will likely yield new fundamental insights into the relationships between xylem network architecture and embolism dynamics.

Dairy farming has a strong position in Finnish food system. However, the sector phases managerial challenges due to structural change. We conducted a survey among dairy farmers resulting 135 responses, of which 25 had experience of using Lean, to explore which factors supports Lean adopting and potentially overcoming managerial challenges. Our results show that the adoption of Lean was related to farm size, growth orientation, and the need to improve labor efficiency. More support for Lean adoption is needed if Lean is seen as a potential solution to improve milk production practices, cost reduction, and continuous improvement of farm management practices.

Our response to commentaries further clarifies the links between visual postdictive phenomena, conscious experience, reality monitoring, and planning. We also engage with suggestions about the limits and generality of our conclusions for other sensory modalities and visually guided behavior in aquatic organisms. We conclude that the role of sensory horizons in visual consciousness offers powerful constraints on theory and generates novel testable hypotheses for consciousness science.

Levine et al. understate the range of folk moral judgments that cannot be easily explained by their contractualist theory of moral cognition (including judgments about future generations and nonhuman animals). On the flipside, Levine et al. also overstate the range of moral judgments that cannot be easily explained by rival deontological or consequentialist theories of moral cognition.