The work project analyzes the evolution of administrative reforms and concepts of sustainability and solidarity in the management and administration of public collective demands and proposes a model that integrates strategic planning, management, use of information and communication tools (ITC's), and active citizenship, as an ideal model to manage and manage current and future collective demands. Through the bibliographic review of the main authors, a thorough study was made about the evolution of human behavior in the management and administration of (...) their collective demands, relating it to the concepts of sustainability and solidarity. What is the ideal management and public administration model for the State to be self-sustaining at the local, regional, and national levels? A model that manages and, through the active participation of taxpayers/citizens, their collective demands utilizing in an integrated and decentralized way, available tools of planning, management, information and communication, active citizenship, as observed in some countries and the international experiences of participatory budgeting and development of production chains integrated business. The research methodology developed was descriptive through documentary research. The study will have an essentially qualitative character. (shrink)

El artículo de Bunge The concept of a problem, que pertenece a una serie de entregas más amplias titulada Inverse problems publicada en el primer volumen de Scientia in verba Magazine, concluye interesantemente la tesis de esta forma: «The problematics of a field is the set of ideas and procedures that, far from being above criticism, raise problems worth being investigated. The degree of maturity of a discipline may be estimated by the state of its problematics. A discipline with more (...) problems than achievements is immature, while one without problems is either embryonic or already spent. For example, accounting hardly raises any research problems, while quantum physics keeps sparking off interesting controversies. A practical spinoff of the preceding is this: those who need a voluminous to get or keep a job should work on unproblematic subjects, while those who look for intellectual stimulation should work on problematic». Aunque estoy de acuerdo por mucho con el uso de las fórmulas y el diagnóstico, sobre todo con respecto al vacío de literatura filosófica sobre el concepto de “problema” como tal y la necesidad de clarificación cuando consideramos las condiciones generales del concepto y las variedades de uso a través de varios campos, debo apartarme de algunos enunciados cuya severidad y precisión me hacen dudar de cualquier utilidad general en el texto como un todo. Me propongo por lo tanto hacer algunos ajustes cuando considere que es necesario, en el uso de las fórmulas, no obstante su novedad y buen lenguaje a ser explotados y revisados en el futuro. (shrink)

Mark Colyvan formulates a puzzle about belief in inconsistent entities. As a scientific realist, Colyvan refers to salient instances of inconsistencies in our best science and demonstrates how an indispensability argument may justify belief in an inconsistent entity. Colyvan’s indispensability argument presents a two-horned dilemma: either scientific realists are committed to the possibility of warranted belief in inconsistent objects, or we have a reductio ad absurdum, bringing realism into a crisis. Firstly, this paper follows Graham Priest by opposing the received (...) characterisation of inconsistent belief as a kind of epistemic hell. Secondly, I challenge the Quinean naturalism that underpins Colyvan’s indispensability argument. Then, I reformulate Colyvan’s argument with a fallible naturalism, better equipped to account for certain problem candidates for inconsistent entities. Finally, I contend that—even if indispensable—an inconsistent entity poses no problem for the scientific realist, who can have justified belief in inconsistent entities. (shrink)

The case for secrecy in voting depends on the assumption that voters reliably vote for the political outcomes they want to prevail. No such assumption is valid. Accordingly, voting procedures should be designed to provide maximal incentive for voters to vote responsibly. Secret voting fails this test because citizens are protected from public scrutiny. Under open voting, citizens are publicly answerable for their electoral choices and will be encouraged thereby to vote in a discursively defensible manner. The possibility of bribery, (...) intimidation or blackmail moderates this argument but such dangers will be avoidable in many contemporary societies without recourse to secrecy. (shrink)

A longish (12 page) discussion of Richard Sorabji's excellent book, with a further discussion of what it means for a theory of emotions to be a cognitive theory.

This chapter is about micro-inequities and their connection to the problem of implicit bias. It begins by defining micro-inequities, goes on to discuss what makes them wrong and what solutions might be appropriate given the institutional context in which they occur.

According to the commonsense view of civic virtue, the places to exercise civic virtue are largely restricted to politics. In this article, I argue for a more expansive view of civic virtue, and argue that one can exercise civic virtue equally well through working for or running a for-profit business. I argue that this conclusion follows from four relatively uncontroversial premises: (1) the consensus definition of “civic virtue”, (2) the standard, most popular theory of virtuous activity, (3) a conception of (...) the common good widely shared by liberal political philosophers, and (4) the mainstream economic theory of for-profit business. (shrink)

Epicurus strongly discouraged sex, marriage, and the rearing of children. This paper looks at some of the primary evidence for these claims, clears up a translation of one passage, and emends another passage. (The emendation has been accepted into Dorandi's new edition of Diogenes Laertius).

I argue that Pyrrho was an epistemological skeptic, rather than the possessor of a positive metaphysical view.

The Mode of Relativity in Agrippa’s Five Modes does not fit with the other four modes, and disrupts an otherwise elegant system. We argue that it is not the familiar argument from epistemic relativism, but a formal condition on the structure of justifications: the principle that epistemic grounding relations cannot be reflexive. This understanding of Agrippan Relativity leads to a better understanding of the Modes of Hypothesis and Reciprocity, a clearer outline of the structure of Agrippa’s system as a whole, (...) and a new insight into the Two Modes that follow the Five. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, market capitalism was defended on parallel grounds. First, it promotes freedom by enabling individuals to exploit their own property and labor-power; second, it facilitates an efficient allocation and use of resources. Recently, however, both defenses have begun to unravel—as capitalism has moved into its “platform” phase. Today, the pursuit of allocative efficiency, bolstered by pervasive data surveillance, often undermines individual freedom rather than promoting it. And more fundamentally, the very idea that markets are necessary to achieve (...) allocative efficiency has come under strain. Even supposing, for argument’s sake, that the claim was true in the early 20th century when von Mises and Hayek pioneered it, advances in computing have rekindled the old “socialist calculation” debate. And this time around, markets—as information technology—are unlikely to have the upper hand. -/- All of this, we argue, raises an important set of governance questions regarding the political economy of the future. We focus on two: How much should our economic system prioritize freedom, and to what extent should it rely on markets? The arc of platform capitalism bends, increasingly, toward a system that neither prioritizes freedom nor relies on markets. And the dominant critical response, exemplified by Shoshana Zuboff’s work, has been to call for a restoration of market capitalism. Longer term, however, we believe it would be more productive to think about how “postmarket” economic arrangements might promote freedom—or better yet, autonomy—even more effectively than markets, and to determine the practical steps necessary to realize that possibility. (shrink)

Abstract At Charmides 163, Critias attempts to extricate himself from refutation by proposing a Prodicean distinction between praxis and poiēsis . I argue that this distinction leads him further into contradictions.

The era of AI-based decision-making fast approaches, and anxiety is mounting about when, and why, we should keep “humans in the loop” (“HITL”). Thus far, commentary has focused primarily on two questions: whether, and when, keeping humans involved will improve the results of decision-making (making them safer or more accurate), and whether, and when, non-accuracy-related values—legitimacy, dignity, and so forth—are vindicated by the inclusion of humans in decision-making. Here, we take up a related but distinct question, which has eluded the (...) scholarship thus far: does it matter if humans appear to be in the loop of decision-making, independent from whether they actually are? In other words, what is stake in the disjunction between whether humans in fact have ultimate authority over decision-making versus whether humans merely seem, from the outside, to have such authority? Our argument proceeds in four parts. First, we build our formal model, enriching the HITL question to include not only whether humans are actually in the loop of decision-making, but also whether they appear to be so. Second, we describe situations in which the actuality and appearance of HITL align: those that seem to involve human judgment and actually do, and those that seem automated and actually are. Third, we explore instances of misalignment: situations in which systems that seem to involve human judgment actually do not, and situations in which systems that hold themselves out as automated actually rely on humans operating “behind the curtain.” Fourth, we examine the normative issues that result from HITL misalignment, arguing that it challenges individual decision-making about automated systems and complicates collective governance of automation. (shrink)

This chapter examines the nature and normative significance of taxation. In particular, it identifies and explores two central normative questions: (1) What tax arrangements should a state or society put into place? (2) How should a citizen or taxpayer relate to an existing system? In thinking through these and relate questions, the discussion also critically engages with the broadly Rawlsian view of taxation defended by Murphy and Nagel in The Myth of Ownership.

Speaking from our experience as department chairs in fields in which women are traditionally underrepresented, we offer reflections and advice on how one might move beyond the chilly climate and create a warmer environment for women students and faculty members.

Normative Ethics examines a basis of moral aptitude in the implication of ethical perspective and understanding. The article utilizes concepts proposed in Jameson Brennan’s, Determinism in Epistemology, in providing summary of how determinism affects ethical standards and ultimately creates a contrast between inherent morality, and ethical concepts derived from deterministic principles. The article also draws consideration to Immanuel Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’ when considering the essence of indefinite or finite moral understandings. Ultimately, Normative Ethics asserts that all normative ethics, as (...) they are a construction of artificial ideals, are a fallacy, exploring the regular applications of such an assertion. The article then provides theology over the initial construction of normative ethics, demonstrating how fear and general aversion commiserates the construction of a false ideal (morality). (shrink)

The article describes the role of deterministic principles in epistemology derivative of Spinoza's works on metaphysics and determinism in the mind. The article however exemplifies the organization of the mind into three parts of categorical determinism identified as the external or metaphysical world, the internal or processing mind, and the conscience. In elaborating between the phenomenalism between three distinct parts of human psyche "Determinism in Epistemology" identifies the acute reasoning and understanding cooperative between each part and the portrayal of intelligence (...) and conscience thought. Ultimately the articles argues an indeterminate prospect of the internal mind as all thought and action is derived from externally provided demonstration. (shrink)

An almost poetic, symbolistic approach in analyzing Schopenhauer, "Some Thoughts on Schopenhauer: The Metaphysics of The Sexual Love" accounts for the logic behind why we love in the scheme of empiricism and instinct. The review is a short commentary revolving around the beliefs of Schopenhauer and exemplifies our understanding of human love in the abstract while promoting a realistic, almost sardonic perspective.

Teresa Brennan was born in 1952 in Australia and died in South Florida, following a hit-and-run car accident in December 2002. In the ten years between her doctorate and her death, Brennan published five monographs, the most famous posthumously. The Transmission of Affect begins with a question that readers often remember: “Is there anyone who has not, at least once, walked into a room and ‘felt the atmosphere’?” Here and throughout her work, Brennan challenges the self-contained subject (...) of Western modernity, whose affects are presumed to be possessions of that self, underscoring the historical emergence of this egoic construction.I never met Teresa Brennan; I did not know her name until a decade after she... (shrink)

This article interprets Teresa Brennan’s work on the forgetting of affect transmission in conjunction with Sylvia Wynter’s argument concerning the rise of Western Man through the dehumanization of native and African peoples. While not directly in dialogue, Wynter’s decolonial reading of Foucault’s epistemic ruptures enriches Brennan’s inquiry into this “forgetting,” given that callous, repeated acts of cruelty characteristic of Western imperialism and slavery required a denial of the capacity to sense suffering in others perceived as differently human. Supplementing (...) Brennan with Wynter, we can better describe the limits of sympathy discourses as resting on identification and perceived sameness. In turn, Brennan comes to Wynter’s defense in her call for a new science of plural cultures to redefine the human, which some have interpreted as a positivist misreading of Frantz Fanon. Brennan and Wynter alike have been criticized for their appeals to science; yet, I defend their respective proposals for social-scientific inquiry with support from Brennan’s response to the 1996 Sokal Hoax: the influence of the social on the biological body is, indeed, difficult to study, but this does not invalidate the inquiry as such. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski argue in recent work that “semiotic” or “symbolic” objections to markets are unsuccessful. I counter-argue that there are indeed some semiotic limits on markets and that anti-commodification theorists are not merely expressing disgust when they disapprove of markets in certain goods on those grounds. One central argument is that, contrary to what Brennan and Jaworski claim, semiotic arguments against markets do not depend fundamentally on meanings that prevail about markets. Rather, they depend on (...) the meanings that attach to various goods, meanings that give us moral bases on which to make judgments about their prospective commodification. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski reject expressive objections to markets on the grounds that market symbolism is culturally contingent, and contingent cultural symbols are less important than the benefits markets offer. I grant and, but I deny that these points suffice as grounds to dismiss expressive critiques of markets. For many plausible expressive critiques of markets are not symbolic critiques at all. Rather, they are critiques grounded in the idea that some market transactions embody morally inappropriate normative stances toward (...) the goods or services on offer. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that stability is one of the enabling conditions for epistocratic arrangements to function well and justify their claim right to rule. Against this backdrop, I demonstrate that advocates of strategies to allocate exclusive decision-making power to knowledgeable citizens fail to demonstrate that in a context marked by the fact of pluralism, liberal epistocracies will be stable. They could argue that liberal epistocracies will be stable because epistocratic arrangements are better equipped than democratic decision-making bodies to (...) produce outcomes that approximate the common good. They could argue that liberal epistocracies will be stable because there is a shared meritocratic set of values and ideas. Furthermore, they could opt for two standard liberal strategies, such as overlapping consensus and modus vivendi. Yet, in all cases, the argument for the stability of liberal epistocracies is not persuasive. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness (2018) and (2020) argue that adjuncts are not exploited. We are sympathetic to some of their points. We agree, for example, that certain ways in which adjuncts are compared to sweatshop workers are offensive. For, as Brennan and Magness point out, there are many respects in which adjuncts are much better off than sweatshop workers. However, we show that the core insights of their paper are compatible with the view that adjuncts are exploited. (...) Furthermore, their more general views about exploitation expressed in Cracks in the Ivory Tower actually lend support to the claim that adjuncts are exploited. (shrink)

The plane was going to crash, but it didn't. Johnny was going to bleed to death, but he didn't. Geach sees here a changing future. In this paper, I develop Geach's primary argument for the (almost universally rejected) thesis that the future is mutable (an argument from the nature of prevention), respond to the most serious objections such a view faces, and consider how Geach's view bears on traditional debates concerning divine foreknowledge and human freedom. As I hope to (...) show, Geach's view constitutes a radically new view on the logic of future contingents, and deserves the status of a theoretical contender in these debates. (shrink)

Prevailing opinion—defended by Jason Brennan and others—is that voting to change the outcome is irrational, since although the payoffs of tipping an election can be quite large, the probability of doing so is extraordinarily small. This paper argues that prevailing opinion is incorrect. Voting is shown to be rational so long as two conditions are satisfied: First, the average social benefit of electing the better candidate must be at least twice as great as the individual cost of voting, and (...) second, the chance of casting the decisive vote must be at least 1/N, where N stands for the number of citizens. It is argued that both of these conditions are often true in the real world. (shrink)

This paper examines the link between political liberties and social equality, and contends that the former are constitutive of, i.e. necessary to secure, the latter. Although this constitutive link is often assumed in the literature on political liberties, the reasons why it holds true remain largely unexplored. Three such reasons are examined here. First, political liberties are constitutive of social equality because they bestow political power on their holders, leaving disenfranchised individuals excluded from decisions that are particularly pervasive, coercively enforced, (...) hard to avoid, monopolistic, and final. Second, they are constitutive of social equality due to their positional value, such that those who are denied such liberties are socially downgraded because and to the extent that others enjoy them. Third, they are constitutive of social equality due to their expressive value, in the sense that, by disenfranchising some individuals, the state publicly fails to recognize their equal moral agency. While unpacking these reasons, we address some criticisms of this constitutive link recently raised by Steven Wall and Jason Brennan. (shrink)

In his paper ‘A libertarian case for mandatory vaccination’, Jason Brennan argues that even libertarians, who are very averse to coercive measures, should support mandatory vaccination to combat the harmful disease outbreaks that can be caused by non-vaccination. He argues that libertarians should accept the clean hands principle, which would justify mandatory vaccination. The principle states that there is a (sometimes enforceable) moral obligation not to participate in collectively harmful activities. Once libertarians accept the principle, they will be compelled (...) to support mandatory vaccination. In my paper, I argue that the cases Brennan uses to justify this principle are disanalogous to the case of non-vaccination and that they are not compelling to libertarians. The cases Brennan offers can be explained by a libertarian using the individual sufficiency principle: which states that if an individual’s action is sufficient to cause harm, then there is a (sometimes enforceable) moral obligation not to carry out that action. I argue that this principle is more appropriate to Brennan’s examples, and more appealing to the libertarian, than the clean hands principle. In order to get libertarians to accept the clean hands principle, I present a modified version of one of Brennan’s cases that is analogous to the case of non-vaccination. Using this case, I argue that whether the clean hands principle will justify mandatory vaccination is dependent on whether the herd immunity rate in a given population is approaching a threshold after which a collective risk of harm will be imposed onto others. (shrink)

In Two Minds is a practical casebook of problem solving in psychiatric ethics. Written in a lively and accessible style, it builds on a series of detailed case histories to illustrate the central place of ethical reasoning as a key competency for clinical work and research in psychiatry. Topics include risk, dangerousness and confidentiality; judgements of responsibility; involuntary treatment and mental health legislation; consent to genetic screening; dual role issues in child and adolescent psychiatry; needs assessment; cross-cultural and gender issues; (...) rational and irrational suicide; shared decision making in multi-agency teams, and the growing role of the user's voice in psychiatry. Key ethical concepts are carefully introduced and explained. The text is richly supported by detailed guides for further reading. There are separate chapters on teaching psychiatric ethics, including a sample seminar, and on writing a research ethics application. Each case history and discussion is followed by a critical commentary from a practitioner with relevant experience. Jim Birley adds a comparative international perspective on psychiatric ethics. Cartoons by Johnny Cowee provide punchy counterpoint! In Two Minds is the sister volume to the third edition of Sidney, Paul Chodoff and Steven Green's highly successful Psychiatric Ethics. In providing a bridge between theory and practice, it will be essential reading for everyone concerned with improving standards in mental health care. (shrink)

European Computing and Philosophy conference, 2–4 July Barcelona The Seventh ECAP (European Computing and Philosophy) conference was organized by Jordi Vallverdu at Autonomous University of Barcelona. The conference started with the IACAP (The International Association for CAP) presidential address by Luciano Floridi, focusing on mechanisms of knowledge production in informational networks. The first keynote delivered by Klaus Mainzer made a frame for the rest of the conference, by elucidating the fundamental role of complexity of informational structures that can be analyzed (...) on different levels of organization giving place for variety of possible approaches which converge in this cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research field. Keynotes by Kevin Warwick about re-embodiment of rats’ neurons into robots, Raymond Turner on syntax and semantics in programming languages, Roderic Guigo on Biocomputing Sciences and Francesco Subirada on the past and future of supercomputing presented different topics of philosophical as well as practical aspects of computing. Vonference tracks included: Philosophy of Information (Patrick Allo), Philosophy of Computer Science (Raymond Turner), Computer and Information Ethics (Johnny Søraker and Alison Adam), Computational Approaches to the Mind (Ruth Hagengruber), IT and Cultural Diversity (Jutta Weber and Charles Ess), Crossroads (David Casacuberta), Robotics, AI & Ambient Intelligence (Thomas Roth-Berghofer), Biocomputing, Evolutionary and Complex Systems (Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Søren Brier), E-learning, E-science and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (Annamaria Carusi) and Technological Singularity and Acceleration Studies (Amnon Eden). (shrink)

The ‘limits of markets’ debate broadly concerns the question of when it is (im)permissible to have a market in some good. Markets can be of tremendous benefit to society, but many have felt that certain goods should not be for sale (e.g., sex, kidneys, bombs). Their sale is argued to be corrupting, exploitative, or to express a form of disrespect. InMarkets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski have recently argued to the contrary: For any good, as long as (...) it is permissible to give it for free, then it is permissible to give it for money. Their thesis has led to a number of engaging objections, and I leverage recent work on the nature of feasibility within political philosophy to offer a new challenge.I argue that feasibility offers a constraint on which markets can be permissibly implemented. Though it may be possible to create a morally acceptable version of an otherwise repugnant market, some of these markets may be infeasible, and so we are not permitted to implement them. After laying out this challenge, I consider several replies. They concern the relevance of feasibility, and whether any markets really are infeasible. This provides an opportunity to explore the dangers of pursuing the infeasible and with markets generally. I conclude by considering what might lead us to pursue these markets despite their infeasibility, or how knowledge of infeasibility may prove useful regardless. (shrink)

This chapter examines how epistemic norms could be social norms, with a reliance on work on the philosophy and social science of social norms from Bicchieri (on the one hand) and Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood (on the other hand). We explain how the social ontology of social norms can help explain the rationality of epistemic cooperation, and how one might begin to model epistemic games.

Critics of commodification often claim that the buying and selling of some good communicates disrespect or some other inappropriate attitude. Such semiotic critiques have been leveled against markets in sex, pornography, kidneys, surrogacy, blood, and many other things. Brennan and Jaworski (2015a) have recently argued that all such objections fail. They claim that the meaning of a market transaction is a highly contingent, socially constructed fact. If allowing a market for one of these goods can improve the supply, access (...) or quality of the good, then instead of banning the market on semiotic grounds, they urge that we should revise our semiotics. In this reply, I isolate a part of the meaning of a market transaction that is not socially constructed: our market exchanges always express preferences. I then show how cogent semiotic critiques of some markets can be constructed on the basis of this fact. (shrink)

This article explores a historical challenge for contemporary accounts of the role that the desire of being esteemed can play in exercising social control. According to Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit, the economy of esteem normally has two aspects: it is supportive of virtuous action and it occurs spontaneously. The analysis of esteem presented by the 18th‐century materialist Claude‐Adrien Helvétius challenges the intuition that these two aspects go together unproblematically. This is so because, in Helvétius's view, the desire for (...) esteem is always triggered by sensible interest. In the frequent situations where sensible interest diverges from the demands of virtue, the economy of esteem thus can be spontaneous but will not be supportive of virtue. Helvétius allows for cases of moral luck where sensible interest coincides with the demands of virtue but regards these cases as rare occurrences. This is why he believes that a functioning economy of esteem crucially depends on political constitutions—in which case the economy of esteem can be supportive of virtue but will not be spontaneous. (shrink)

Lachlan Umbers defends democracy against Jason’s Brennan’s competence objection, by showing that voting even incompetently does not violate the rights of others, as the risk imposed is negligible, and furthermore lower than other permissible actions, e.g. driving. I show there are costs in taking this line of argument. Accepting it would make arguing for the duty to vote more difficult in two ways: since voting incompetently is permissible, and not voting imposes less risk than not voting, then not voting (...) is permissible; in terms of fairness, voting incompetently is worse than not voting, if voting incompetently is permissible, then there cannot be a fairness-based duty to vote. (shrink)