This paper analyzes the proposed use of combinatorial derivatives markets for event prediction, especially for catastrophic events such as terrorism, war, or political assasination. Following a presentation of the philosophical principles underlying these politico-economic tools, I examine case studies (U.S. DoD proposals) that evaluate their advantages and disadvantages in terms of both efficacy and moral considerations. I conclude that these markets are both fatally flawed due to internal conceptual contradictions and morally problematic.

This interdisciplinary paper identifies principles of an affluent country (im)migration policy that avoids: (1) the positivist inclusion/exclusion mechanism of liberalism and communitarianism; and (2) the idealism of most cosmopolitan (im)migration theories. First, I: (a) critique the failure of liberalism and communitarianism to consider (im)migration under distributive justice; and (b) present cosmopolitan (im)migration approaches as a promising alternative. This paper’s central claim is that cosmopolitan (im)migration theory can determine normative shortcomings in (im)migration policy by coupling elements of Frankfurt School methodology to (...) case studies of (im)migration regimes. Lastly, I apply this analytical procedure to recent special changes in Spanish and UK immigration law. (shrink)

This paper presents the history of the Frankfurt School’s inclusion of normative concerns in social science research programs during the period 1930-1955. After examining the relevant methodology, I present a model of how such a program could look today. I argue that such an approach is both valuable to contemporary social science programs and overlooked by current philosophers and social scientists.

In this article, I discuss what motivated reasoning research tells us about the prospects for deliberative democracy. In section I, I introduce the results of several political psychology studies examining the problematic affective and cognitive processing of political information by individuals in nondeliberative, experimental environments. This is useful because these studies are often neglected in political philosophy literature. Section II has three stages. First, I sketch how the study results from section I question the practical viability of deliberative democracy. Second, (...) I briefly present the results of three empirical studies of political deliberation that can be interpreted to counter the findings of the studies in section I. Third, I show why this is a misinterpretation and that the study results from section I mean that it is implausible that sites of political deliberation would naturally emerge from the wide public sphere and coalesce into institutionalized forms of the practice such that deliberative democracy can satisfy its raison d’être. Finally, in section III, I conclude that viable conceptions of deliberative democracy should be limited to narrower aims. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Sally Haslanger’s (2000) proposed approach to modelling gender which she intends to overcome several problems for such a project. I specifically focus on what Haslanger calls the normativity problem, in which definitions meant to overcome oppression only reinforce oppressive norms. I argue that the normativity problem is a serious one for defining gender and that Haslanger does not successfully overcome it with her definitions of man and woman. In §§1 and 2, I offer background for (...) and explain her account of the problem before offering my own formal reconstruction of it as what I call the normativity argument that (a) we ought not marginalise individuals in our defining of social categories, (b) definitions encouraging normative behaviour do this, and (c) any model of gender encourages such behaviour. In §3 I then give an account of her proposed definitions of man and woman along with her theoretical objections to the normativity argument—suggesting that only certain kinds of marginalisation are undesirable within the constraints of a particular feminist project and that her definitions do not encourage normative behaviour. I then offer my responses to her objections in §4, suggesting that her definitions are normative and do marginalise in a way incongruous even with her particular feminist project. Before concluding, I briefly discuss in §5 where my criticisms of Haslanger’s approach to defining gender fit into some existing criticisms, in order to give my position an even clearer shape. This paper concludes in §6 by sketching some possible ways forward in the philosophy of gender responding to this problem. (shrink)