Does it count against a normative theory in political philosophy that it is in some important sense infeasible, that its prescriptions are unlikely to be complied with? Though a positive answer seems plausible, it has proved hard to defend against the claim that this is not how normative theories work - noncompliance shows a problem with the noncomplying agents, not with the normative theory. I think that this line of thought - this defense of Utopianism - wins the battle (...) but loses the war. It’s right about what does and what does not refute a normative theory. It’s wrong in misidentifying the problem. The right way to think about the feasibility worry is as essentially involving multiple agents, and how expected noncompliance by one agent may refute a normative claim addressed at another. Thus understood, feasibility problems may very well refute a theory in political philosophy. In this paper I develop this understanding of the feasibility worry, tie it to more general discussions in normative ethics, and in political philosophy. (shrink)

People often fail to comply with the demands of morality. Partial compliance theory takes this noncompliance or its possibility into account in the formulation of moral requirements for people to comply with, or in the evaluation of people’s actions against those requirements. This chapter critically engages with recent work on partial compliance theory. It examines the relationship between noncompliance and injustice, assesses different ways of doing partial compliance theory, sketches the relationship between partial compliance theory and other central (...) methodological debates in moral and political philosophy, and considers whether it is reasonable to issue moral requirements without examining what would happen if everyone did their part. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the growing literature in social epistemology of diagnosing the epistemically problematic features of fake news. I identify two novel problems: the problem of relevant alternatives; and the problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment. The former arises among individual epistemic transactions. By making salient, and thereby relevant, alternatives to knowledge claims, fake news stories threaten knowledge. The problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment arises at the level of entire epistemic communities. I introduce the (...) notion of an epistemic environment, roughly the totality of resources and circumstances relevant to assessing the epistemically interesting statuses, such as knowledge. Fake news degrades our epistemic environment by undermining confidence in epistemic institutions and altering epistemic habits, thereby making the environment less conducive to achieving positive epistemic statuses. This is problematic even if the decrease in confidence and the altering of habits are rational. I end by considering solutions to these problems, stressing the importance of reproaching each other for proliferating fake news. I argue that we should reproach even faultless purveyors of fake news. This is because fake news typically arises in abnormal epistemic contexts, where there is widespread ignorance of, and noncompliance with, correct epistemic norms. (shrink)

A well-ordered society faces a crisis whenever a sufficient number of noncompliers enter into the political system. This has the potential to destabilize liberal democratic political order. This article provides a formal analysis of two competing solutions to the problem of political stability offered in the public reason liberalism literature—namely, using public reason or using convergence discourse to restore liberal democratic political order in the well-ordered society. The formal analyses offered in this article show that using public reason fails completely, (...) and using convergent discourse, although doing better, has its own critical limitations that have not been previously recognized properly. (shrink)

Many agents have failed to comply with their responsibilities to take the action needed to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. This pervasive noncompliance raises two questions of nonideal political theory. First, it raises the question of what agents should do when others do not discharge their climate responsibilities. (the Responsibility Question) In this paper I put forward four principles that we need to employ to answer the Responsibility Question (Sections II-V). I then illustrate my account, by outlining four kinds (...) of action that should be undertaken (Section VI). Pervasive noncompliance also raises a second question: Given the lack of progress in combating climate change, should existing governance structures be maintained or changed (and if they should be changed, in what ways)? (the Governance Question). The paper briefly outlines a methodology for addressing this question and outlines what a nonideal response to the existing institutional structures would be (Section VII). It does so with reference to the Paris Agreement, and in particular the creation of a "global stocktake" (Article 14, Paris Agreement) and the "facilitative dialogue" (paragraph 20 of the ‘Adoption of the Paris Agreement’). The aim, then, is to set out an account of a nonideal theory of climate justice. (shrink)

The revisionist critique of conventional just war theory has undoubtedly scored some important victories. Walzer’s elegantly unified defense of combatant legal equality and noncombatant immunity has been seriously undermined. This critical success has not, however, been matched by positive arguments, which when applied to the messy reality of war would deprive states and soldiers of the permission to fight wars that are plausibly thought to be justified. The appeal to law that is sought to resolve this objection by casting it (...) as a practical concern, a pragmatic worry about implementation, which while germane to debates over the laws of war, need not undermine our convictions in the fundamental principles the revisionists advocate. This response is inadequate. Revisionists have not shown that soldiers should obey the laws of war, in practice, when they conflict with their other moral reasons – our worries about application remain intact. Moreover, a theory of war that offers only an account of the laws of war, and a set of fundamental principles developed in abstraction from feasibility constraints, is radically incomplete. We need to know how to apply those fundamental principles, and whether, when applied, they lead to defensible conclusions. Only two options seem to remain. Perhaps the revisionists’ arguments for their chosen fundamental principles are sufficiently compelling that we should stick with them, and accept their troubling conclusions – in other words, accept pacifism. Alternatively, we need to revise our fundamental principles, so that when applied they yield conclusions that we can more confidently endorse. -/- Though it does not save the revisionist view from the responsibility dilemma and cognate objections, the appeal to law does raise an important, and previously inadequately theorized, question – or, rather, resurrects a neglected topic, discussed in depth by historical just war theorists such as Grotius and Vattel. There are good grounds for distinguishing the laws of war from the morality of war, and for adjusting the former to accommodate predictable noncompliance, that should not impact on our account of the latter. Nonetheless, I have argued that there are some profound moral insights underlying both combatant legal equality and noncombatant immunity: specifically, we cannot infer from a combatant’s side having not satisfied jus ad bellum that he may not justifiably use lethal force; and other things equal, it is more wrongful to harm a nonliable noncombatant than to harm a nonliable combatant. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: In today’s world of increased awareness regarding the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG), many firms in the developed countries consider noncompliance with CSR and CG standards as an important source of risk to their reputations with stakeholders. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) index and corporate factors, namely, board size, board independence, board meetings, CEO duality, a firm’s size, leverage, profitability and (...) age. This is the first known study in the case of Saudi Arabia to use the GRI 4th edition indicators to construct the CSRD index and evaluate Saudi listed firms. Results: The results show that profitability and size factor have positive and significant association with CSR disclosure in listed Saudi firms. While CG characteristics have no impact on CSR disclosure except board independence which has a negative impact. Conclusion: The average of CSRD index among Saudi firms is too low, it is about 11% that means Saudi firms disclose 11% of the information that they have to provide for stockholders according to GRI guidelines. Furthermore, the study concludes that the most polluted sectors “Ener. (shrink)

This project addresses the critical issue of traffic safety and law enforcement, specifically focusing on noncompliance with helmet laws by motorcyclists, a leading cause of fatalities in road accidents. Traditional methods of enforcing helmet laws are often ineffective due to the challenge of ensuring immediate detection and action. To solve this, we propose an automated traffic management system that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) with real-time surveillance and data monitoring to improve road safety. The core of the proposed system utilizes (...) YOLOv11 (You Only Look Once), a state-of-the-art object detection algorithm, for both helmet detection and license plate recognition. The system is designed to automatically identify motorcyclists riding without helmets and capture the vehicle's license plate. Once a violation is detected, the system sends an instant notification containing the license plate information to the traffic control officer’s email, enabling immediate enforcement actions. This automated approach significantly enhances the efficiency and speed of traffic law enforcement, while ensuring high accuracy through advanced deep learning techniques. With real-time image processing capabilities, the system can operate effectively in dynamic traffic conditions, ensuring prompt action and promoting compliance with traffic safety laws. (shrink)

Theorists and activists favor empowering government agencies to regulate technology; but an examination of such regulation by the US government exposes the inadequacy of any such regimen. Vested interests routinely interfere, e.g., keeping administration of polio vaccine in the hands of physicians, political infighting with regard to cancer research funding, advantages gained from noncompliance with military technology-constraining treaties. Public/private salary differences limit availability of the best talents for government positions, nor are truly appropriate regulatory policies easily arrived at in (...) the absence of meaningful funding. Solutions such as a Science Court are unreliable given the influences that would undermine neutrality as well as competence. (shrink)

Phishing attacks are major threats to email security and pose challenges, while cyber attackers utilize increasingly sophisticated means to deceive the user and steal away important information. Well-established ways of detecting phishing attacks, such as rule-based systems or simple machine-learning models, usually cannot deal efficiently with such advanced threats. This research proposes an approach to detect phishing attacks on email systems, which deploys natural language processing and deep learning technologies. The method proposes to improve the detection accuracies and efficiencies of (...) phishing emails, which consequently enhances the protection of emails against popular cyberattack attempts and aids in securing users from such attacks. The research involves designing an active model that utilizes the strength of NLP-based text analysis for DL-oriented pattern identification. The NLP techniques used in this study include tokenization, stop-word removal, and context- based analysis to extract significant features from the email messages. Such context information greatly helps this model differentiate between actual emails and phishing ones. Deep learning algorithms exploited here are based on CNN and LSTM networks, offering sinusoidally varying parameters for optimum recognition of patterns from different perspectives in the email data's spatial and temporal domains. The experiment results validated that the hybrid model was far superior to the conventional methods in robbing phish attack detection. The model stood at an accuracy of 97.5%, much ahead of the baseline models purely having rule-based systems or traditional machine learning algorithms. The model also performed well under real-time detection conditions, with low latency and high throughput support for deployment in an active email environment. Evidence of the model's capability to sense new variants of future phishing threats also came in the automatic updating and continuous learning, thus making it applicable to newly emerging threats. The study's practical implications are numerous in providing advances in email protection. Companies can use the model to ward off phishing attacks with reduced chances of data breaches and financial loss. Due to its low cost and scalable features, this solution can be used in organizations from small- and medium-sized to large enterprise levels. The improved detection of phishing attacks brings organizations closer to compliance with data protection and cybersecurity regulations, thus minimizing their chances of noncompliance and the fines that come with it. Future research paths include exploring even newer NLP methods consisting of transformer-based models for feature extraction about contextual understanding. Exploring hybrid approaches that can merge DL with other techniques, such as reinforcement learning in ML, will create a more robust and adaptive phishing filter. Future fields for research are multimodal data, that is, a mixture of email metadata and behavior. Merely considering hybrid techniques merging artificial intelligence with machine learning approaches such as reinforcement learning can generate an even more robust and adaptive phishing filter. Coupling all these technical solutions with user awareness and education programs would greatly enhance overall security. (shrink)