Liao and Carbonell argue that medical devices are often not merely biased, but rather materialize oppression through the perpetuation of oppression into the present and future (Liao and Carbonell 2...

Recent scholarship has considered the requirements of justice and economic regimes in the work of John Rawls. This work has not delved into the requirements of justice and liberal socialism as deeply as the work that has been done on property-owning democracy. A thorough treatment of liberal socialism and the requirements of justice is needed. This paper seeks to begin to fill this gap. In particular, it needs to be shown if liberal socialism fully answers the requirements of justice better (...) than property-owning democracy. It will be argued that liberal socialism does significantly better in realizing the two principles. This paper has the following structure, first, an overview of Rawls' position on economic regimes, capitalism, and the requirements of justice will be presented. In particular, how the two principles work in tandem to meet the demands of distributive justice will be considered. Second, a review of property-owning democracy will be conducted. Finally, liberal socialism will be examined and discussed as an economic regime that answers the requirements of justice more fully. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper restates the thesis of 'The Requirements of Justice and Liberal Socialism" where it was argued that liberal socialism best meets Rawlsian requirements of justice. The recent responses to this paper by Jan Narveson, Jeppe von Platz, and Alan Thomas merit examination and comment. This paper shows that if Rawlsian justice is to be met, then non-personal property must be subject to public control. If just outcomes merit the public control of non-personal property and this control is not (...) utilized, then justice has been subordinated to the objectively less important institution of private property. (shrink)

Modern Monetary Theory and Distributive Justice shows how the macroeconomic framework called modern money theory (MMT) is relevant to the field of political philosophy called distributive justice. Many of the macroeconomic assumptions of distributive justice are unstated and unexamined. The framework of MMT illuminates these assumptions and provides an alternative vision of distributive justice analysis and prescriptions. In particular, MMT holds that modern money is a nominal state issued token (fiat), there is a distinction between nominal assets and real assets, (...) that state money as a nominal token can cause changes in real terms, and that the macroeconomy has historically not operated at capacity. The upshot of these assumptions held by MMT is that state spending can bring about changes in persons’ well-being without traditional redistributive measures via taxation. This is in contradistinction to standard assumptions in the distributive justice literature, which holds that the macroeconomy is at capacity and, thus, redistribution is the necessary mechanism for enacting improvements in well-being. This is a fundamental shift in how distributive justice can be conceived. (shrink)

In contrast to the successful previous year, 2020 turned out to be difficult, not only for the earth’s population due to COVID-19 but also for JDDM with an unusually small sixth volume. Looking back at these two very different years back-to-back led us to some reflection: As the COVID-19 pandemic forcefully illustrates, dynamic decision-making with all its complications and uncertainty is a topic of high relevance for modern societies.

Rawls’s consideration not to include the choice of economic systems as part of a theory of justice is inconsistent with his comments on redistribution and the political effects of economic inequality. When Rawls’s discussion of economic systems and his discussion of economic inequalities is examined, it is apparent that the selection of economic systems is a pertinent topic for a theory of justice. The propensity for the primary social good of self-respect to be satisfied can be affected by the selection (...) of economic systems. Rawls has incorrectly determined the selection of economic systems to be unimportant if different economic systems can be more advantageous to the satisfaction of self-respect than others. When socialism and Rawls’s version of regulated capitalism are compared, socialism is a maximin solution, and accordingly will be selected by people within the original position under the veil of ignorance. (shrink)

This paper will show that Mary Wollstonecraft developed a modern feminist version of virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is an all-encompassing moral theory which holds that the best life for individuals is commensurate with a good society. Simply, self-interest and our public duties are argued as identical and not at odds when we realize what is truly good for ourselves and for others. In the Western philosophic cannon, the most common version of virtue ethics is Aristotle’s, with the Nicomachean Ethics as (...) the definitive presentation. Wollstonecraft’s argument for the political, social, economic, and personal equality of women utilizes ideas that are reminiscent of classical virtue ethics. Her novel and effective addition is to show that the explicit inclusion of women requires a reconsideration of the duties needed for happy lives to be led and for a good society, and good families, to exist. (shrink)

This paper will focus on the problem of environmental refugees related to environmental decay and resource loss. Robert Nozick’s distributive justice theory will be used as a theoretical framework to analyze the problem of environmental refugees. The restrictive nature of Nozick’s theory of distribution is rather practical since it meets with many of the current mores regarding wealth accumulation, desert, and aspirations for inheritance. Given our current reluctance to redistribute to prevent the effects of environmental decay, and to pay to (...) prepare for disasters generally, the prospect of a redistributive solution to environmental refugees that permanently alters patterns of ownership is rather unlikely. Nevertheless, given the rather unfortunate possibility of increasing numbers of environmental refugees in the future, a practical means to provide for their well-being needs to be considered. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen attempts to provide a case for socialism that takes into consideration the reasons why socialism is desirable and some of the problems for its feasibility. He finds that the kind of community sentiment that socialism requires is possible, but the devices of social organization that can facilitate the growth of socialist sentiment along with the effective transmission of information are not currently known. In short, Cohen thinks social scientists and philosophers need to find out how to harness the (...) information transmission capacity of market exchange without the motivational encouragement of rapacious self-interest that market exchange fosters. This paper argues that Cohen’s appraisal of the ineffectiveness of informational transmission in socialist planned economies in incorrect. A democratically planned socialist economy can serve as the basis for the fostering of the socialist community sentiment that Cohen advocates along with the required transmission of economic information. (shrink)

In his Republic, Plato argues that self-rulership cannot be widespread enough in a populace due to structural failures of education. This means that rulership by the few with the use of manipulative mythological devices is inevitable. That is, if a populace cannot rule themselves through the use of their reason, then they will be ruled by others through the use of myth, at best, and at worst, violence. Even given this rather grim conclusion, if we closely examine what Plato has (...) to say about politics, we can see that there is no natural impossibility for generalized rule by the many. That is, there is no aristocracy of birth, but there is an aristocracy of the educated. As I will show below, we can develop a more democratic politics out of Plato if we consider the possibility of a democratic education. Before I do that, I will briefly consider Rawls’ comments on the education of citizens for democracy. This will allow for a clearer consideration of the democratic potential of Plato’s political philosophy in his Republic. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen’s critique of the Rawlsian difference principle points out an inconsistency in its presentation. The initial equality decided by the participants in the original position under the veil of ignorance is not preserved by the inequality sanctioned by the difference principle. Cohen shows how the breakdown of the initial equality of the original position prevents the desired results of the Rawlsian system from being realized. Cohen argues that an egalitarian ethos is required within a society for equality preserving economic (...) distributions and Pareto superior outcomes to occur. Nonetheless, Cohen’s analysis of Rawls misses the ultimate cause of inequality, which is the dynamics of capital accumulation. An egalitarian ethos is only possible if there is a socialist mode of production to facilitate its development. Additionally, Cohen’s critique of Rawlsian constructivism through an argument for intuitionism does not address the natural-material existence of human beings. This existence must be considered for any advantageous social formation. (shrink)

This paper will examine the three distributive problems of inequality, social scarcity, and environmental decay. All three of these problems are the result of economic growth that is not properly structured by institutions. It will be argued that each one of these distributive problems exacerbates the other two. Any solution to one of these problems must address the other two as well. This paper will show that these three distributive problems can be minimized through a combination of tax measures, institutional (...) changes, public employment creation, public service provision, and the nationalization of certain industries. (shrink)

Modern money theory is a conjecture concerning fiscal spending and the nature of money. I show that modern money theory provides two interesting insights into distributive justice that have not been addressed in the recent Anglo-American distributive justice literature: (i) that the nature of a sovereign fiat currency allows for some distributive conflicts to be avoided; and (ii) that recent Anglo- American distributive justice theories assume that the economy is at capacity. Based on this, I consider if the policy results (...) of modern money theory can help foster a sense of justice. (shrink)

Harm is a concept in philosophy that has been able to elude definition. Many attempts have been made to formulate a definition of harm, however they have all been futile. This has led many to question if it is even possible to define harm, or if we really even need a definition of harm? My answer to both of these questions is yes, harm is something that is worth caring about and has many practical implications in society today. The theories (...) of harm that have been the closest thus far have been comparative accounts of harm, which compare different states of the agent undergoing the harm. The most common of these comparative accounts has been the counterfactual comparative account of harm. This approach has faced many problems like preemption, overdetermination, and omission. I argue the comparative account of harm is correct, but the wrong comparison is being made. Instead of a counterfactual comparison we should make a temporal comparison, and evaluate whether or not the agent has become worse off than he or she was before the harming event occurred. First I will use Bradley’s model to sketch a brief definition checklist of harm. I will then briefly evaluate a general counterfactual theory of harm and illustrate why it falls short. Next I will pose the temporal comparative account of harm , and explain how it gets around the counterexamples that tripped up the counterfactual approach. Finally I will present some objections to TCA, and try to respond to them. (shrink)

Hun Chung’s recent article “Rawls’s Self-Defeat: A Formal Analysis” argues that the selection of results equivalent to justice as fairness can be derived by utilitarianism. Chung argues that these results can be achieved through the use of Rawls’s constructed utility function from his work Justice as Fairness. Although Chung’s article is finely argued and presented in great detail, this paper will show that Chung made three mistakes in the fundamentals of his argument. First, Chung mistakes Rawls’s constructed utility function as (...) actually utilitarian. Second, Chung confuses the motivations and the assumptions of those held by agents in the original position and those held by utilitarian agents. Last, Chung’s previous mistakes result in the incorrect conclusion that an equal distribution of resources will be selected by representative agents instead of the unequal distribution prescribed by the difference principle. (shrink)

Daniel Susskind examines how machines will generate more prosperity, but he is convinced that their proliferation will have some alarming consequences, like higher income inequality, dangerous greed for power to control others, and a world in which people lose their sense of meaning in life for lack of work.

Behaviorism was a peculiarly American phenomenon. As a school of psychology it was founded by John B. Watson (1878-1958) and grew into the neobehaviorisms of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Philosophers were involved from the start, prefiguring the movement and endeavoring to define or redefine its tenets. Behaviorism expressed the naturalistic bent in American thought, which came in response to the prevailing philosophical idealism and was inspired by developments in natural science itself. There were several versions of naturalism in American (...) philosophy, and also several behaviorisms. Most behaviorists paid homage to Darwinian functionalism; all forswore introspection and made learned changes in behavior the primary subject matter and explanatory domain of psychology. They differed in their descriptions of behavior, modes of explanation, and attitudes toward mentalistic concepts. Watson was a strict materialist who wanted to eliminate all mentalistic talk from psychology. Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959) regarded mind as a biological function of the organism. He permitted mentalistic terms such as 'purpose' in behavioral description, and posited intervening processes that included 'representations' of the environment, while requiring such processes be studied only as expressed in behavior. Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) developed a hypothetical-deductive version of behaviorism, akin to Tolman's functionalism in positing intervening variables but without his cognitivist constructs. B. F. Skinner (1904-90) rejected intervening variables and developed his own account of the behavior of the whole organism, based on the laws of operant conditioning. The naturalism in American philosophy of the early twentieth century showed respect for the natural sciences, especially biology and psychology. John Dewey (1896, 1911), George Santayana (1905, 1920), and F. J. E. Woodbridge (1909, 1913) expressed this attitude. It animated the neorealism of E. B. Holt and Ralph Barton Perry, who gave special attention to psychology, and the evolutionary naturalism and critical realism of Roy Wood Sellars. This naturalism differed from Watson's in regarding mind as part of nature from a Darwinian and functionalist perspective, and treating behavior as the product of the mental functioning. It fed Tolman's version of behaviorism. It was not materialistic or physical-reductionist. Only later, with Quine and logical empiricism, was behaviorism seen as essentially physicalistic. (shrink)

Holt argues that Rawls’s first principle of justice requires democratic control of the economy and that property owning democracy fails to satisfy this requirement; only liberal socialism is fully democratic. However, the notion of democratic control is ambiguous, and Holt has to choose between the weaker notion of democratic control that Rawls is committed to and the stronger notion that property owning democracy fails to satisfy. It may be that there is a tension between capitalism and democracy, so (...) that only liberal socialism can be fully democratic, but if so, we should reject, rather than argue from, the theory of democracy we find in justice as fairness. (shrink)

This article strives to make novel headway in the debate concerning esports' relationship to sports by focusing on the relationship between esports and physicality. More precisely, the aim of this article is to critically assess the claim that esports fails to be sports because it is never properly “direct” or “immediate” compared to physical sports. To do so, I focus on the account of physicality presented by Jason Holt, who provides a theoretical framework meant to justify the claim that (...) esports is never properly immediate and therefore never sports. I begin by motivating Holt's account of physicality by contrasting it with a more classical way of discussing physicality and sports, namely in terms of physical motor skills. Afterwards, I introduce Holt's account of physicality as immediacy and engage with its assumptions more thoroughly to problematize the claim that esports is fundamentally indirect. Lastly, I argue that the assumption that esports necessarily lacks immediacy is based on a narrow understanding of body and, consequently, of space. In response, I offer a different way of thinking about body and space, focusing on the subjective, bodily engagement of the esports practitioners with their practice, whereby physical space and virtual space can be appreciated as immediately interconnected during performance in a hybrid manner. In providing such an account, the article contributes directly to the broader, growing discussion on the relationship between physicality and virtuality in an increasingly digital world. (shrink)

The giving up of the body or suicide for spiritual reasons has been dealt with by James Benn and D Max Moermane. The relationships of the dead and the living are discussed by Bryan J Cuevas, John Cliff ord Holt, and Matthew T Kapstein, while Hank Glassman, Mark Rowe, and Jason A Carbine talk about different funeral practices. With glossaries for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters and an elaborate index, this book is a unique peek into Buddhist practices regarding (...) the dead and deserves attention by researchers, students, and admirers of this religion. (shrink)