This article develops a civic republican approach to medical ethics. It outlines civic republican concerns about the domination that arises from subjection to an arbitrary power of interference, while suggesting republican remedies to such domination in healthcare. These include proposals for greater review, challenge and pre-authorisation of medical power. It extends this analysis by providing a civic republican account of assistive arbitrary power, showing how it can create similar problems within both formal and informal relationships of care, and offering strategies (...) for tackling it. Two important objections to civic republican medical ethics—that it overvalues independence and political participation in healthcare—are also considered and rebutted. (shrink)

The few people familiar with the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus generally have a low opinion of it. It's easy to see why: the dialogue is a mish-mash of Platonic, Epicurean and Cynic arguments against the fear of death, seemingly tossed together with no regard whatsoever for their consistency. As Furley notes, the Axiochus appears to be horribly confused. Whereas in the Apology Socrates argues that death is either annihilation or a relocation of the soul, and is a blessing either way, "the (...) Socrates of the Axiochus wants to have it both ways": death is both annihilation and a release of the soul from the body into a better realm. This may be used to construct a valid argument for the conclusion that death is not evil, but at the expense of having a contradiction as one of its premises. But D. S. Hutchinson has recently proposed that these inconsistencies shouldn't surprise us if we view the Axiochus as "an unconventional version of a very conventional genre--the consolation letter." In this paper I expand on Hutchinson's brief suggestion and argue that the Axiochus can be rehabilitated by paying attention to its genre. Although the Axiochus does display many similarities to the consolation letter, the shift from letter to dialogue does--pace Hutchinson--significantly affect what's going on. Within the dialogue, Socrates behaves toward Axiochus in a way similar to the way the author of a consolation letter behaves towards the letter's reader: he is willing to use inconsistent arguments, borrowed from any source, in order to soothe the patient. However, in depicting this type of consolatory relationship between Socrates and Axiochus, the dialogue itself is not aiming at consoling its readers. Instead, it should be seen as displaying for the reader's consideration a certain type of consolatory argumentative practice. -/- Socrates notes that Axiochus is "very much in need of consolation" (365a), and he uses any means necessary to accomplish this task. Socrates exhibits many ways in which he is willing to sacrifice argumentative hygiene for the sake of therapeutic effectiveness. These include: -/- * Use of arguments with inconsistent premises, presented in propria persona. * Appeals to emotion * Tailoring arguments to the audience. * Presenting invalid arguments so as to induce unjustified but comforting beliefs. * Evasion. In these respects, I think that Socrates' argumentative practice is best compared to PH III 280-1, where Sextus Empiricus says that the skeptic will deliberately use logically weak arguments as long as they work. Dorothy Tarrant claims that what links the Socrates of the Axiochus to Socrates as he appears elsewhere in the Platonic corpus is his evident care for the welfare of his interlocutor's psyche. But this concern takes a quite different form in the Axiochus than it usually does. As with Sextus, psychic therapy in the Axiochus involves relief from pain. The primary difference between them is that Socrates, unlike Sextus, is not aiming at producing epochê in his patient. (shrink)

Unlike mainstream Cyrenaics, the Annicereans deny that friendship is chosen only because of its usefulness. Instead, the wise person cares for her friend and endures pains for him because of her goodwill and love. Nonetheless, the Annicereans maintain that your own pleasure is the telos and that a friend’s happiness isn’t intrinsically choiceworthy. Their position appears internally inconsistent or to attribute doublethink to the wise person. But we can avoid these problems. We have good textual grounds to attribute to the (...) Annicereans a doctrine of “non-hedonic habits,” which allows them to abandon psychological hedonism while still maintaining hedonism regarding well-being. (shrink)

Cameras, microphones, and other sensors continue to proliferate in the world around us. I offer a new metaphor for conceptualizing these technologies: they are _digital wormholes_, transmitting representations of human persons between disparate points in space–time. We frequently cannot tell when they are operational, what kinds of data they are collecting, where the data may reappear in the future, and how the data can be used against us. The wormhole metaphor makes the mysteriousness of digital sensors salient: digital sensors have (...) brought us to a strange place. If humans are to be capable of making sensible decisions while under observation by digital sensors, we must improve the epistemic position of potential sensor subjects. (shrink)

Cuối tháng 8-2023, Exxon Mobil, một trong những hãng kinh doanh dầu mỏ lớn nhất thế giới, tổ hợp lớn nhất của nhóm tách ra từ đế chế dầu mỏ Standard Oil của John D. Rockefeller đã công bố một báo cáo buồn về mục tiêu cứu Trái Đất trước hiểm họa biến đổi khí hậu. Báo cáo này đưa ra 2 kết luận tối quan trọng: a) Dầu mỏ và khí đốt vẫn chiếm tới 54% tổng nguồn cung năng (...) lượng của thế giới vào năm 2050; b) Phát thải CO2 vẫn cao gấp 2 lần kịch bản cần thiết mà IPCC đặt ra. Điều này cũng đồng nghĩa với việc thế giới sẽ thất bại trước mục tiêu kìm giữ nhiệt độ tăng thấp hơn 2⁰C. Đánh giá này dựa trên ước lượng thế giới sẽ sản sinh ra 25 tỷ tấn CO2 vào 2050. (shrink)

Diversity of practice is widely recognized as crucial to scientific progress. If all scientists perform the same tests in their research, they might miss important insights that other tests would yield. If all scientists adhere to the same theories, they might fail to explore other options which, in turn, might be superior. But the mechanisms that lead to this sort of diversity can also generate epistemic harms when scientific communities fail to reach swift consensus on successful theories. In this paper, (...) we draw on extant literature using network models to investigate diversity in science. We evaluate different mechanisms from the modeling literature that can promote transient diversity of practice, keeping in mind ethical and practical constraints posed by real epistemic communities. We ask: what are the best ways to promote an appropriate amount of diversity of practice in scientific communities? (shrink)

Socialist republicans advocate public ownership and control of the means of production in order to achieve the republican goal of a society without endemic domination. While civic republicanism is often attacked for its conservatism, the relatively neglected radical history of the tradition shows how a republican form of socialism provides powerful conceptual resources to critique capitalism for leaving workers and citizens dominated. This analysis supports a programme of public ownership and economic democracy intended to reduce domination in the workplace and (...) wider society. I defend this socialist republicanism from both the Marxist objection that it overlooks the impersonal nature of domination under capitalism and the left-liberal objections that property-owning democracy or worker codetermination are sufficient to suppress dominating relationships. The resulting position identifies the need for more ambitious institutional grounds for republican liberty than is often supposed, while offering us a distinctive emancipatory justification for socialism. (shrink)

Many corporations are large, powerful, and wealthy. There are massive shortfalls of global justice, with hundreds of millions of people in the world living below the threshold of extreme poverty, and billions more living not far above that threshold. Where injustice and needs shortfalls must be remediated, we often look towards agents’ capabilities to determine who ought to bear the costs of rectifying the situation. The combination of these three claims grounds what I call a ‘linkage-based’ account of why corporations (...) have demanding positive duties to the global poor. In this paper, I put forward a distinctive linkage-based account of corporations’ positive duties centred on the idea of dependence and the importance of meeting agents’ core needs. In addition to outlining and defending this account, I will show that we can utilise its basic conceptual components to make headway on questions that have received insufficient attention in the business ethics literature; specifically, we can say something substantive about the weighting of needy agents’ competing claims to assistance, and about the limits to the demands that can be lodged against corporations on the basis of others' unmet needs. Having integrated considerations of duties' grounding, their comparative weight, and the limits of their demandingness into a single account of corporate positive duty, I conclude by discussing a challenge to attributing to corporations duties owed to the worst-off amongst the global poor. (shrink)

Nietzsche is known for his penetrating critique of Mitleid. He seems to be critical of all compassion but at times also seems to praise a different form of compassion, which he refers to as “our compassion” and contrasts it with “your compassion”. Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that Nietzsche’s criticism is not as unconditional as it may seem – that he does not condemn compassion entirely. I disagree and contend that even though Nietzsche appears to speak favorably of (...) some forms of compassion, he regards the nature of all compassion to be fundamentally bad. Furthermore, I suggest that Nietzsche’s discussion on different forms of compassion have significant implications for achieving greatness and meaning in life. More specifically, I argue that, for Nietzsche, “our compassion,” however regrettable qua compassion it is, may give occasion for a rare and peculiar insight into “co-suffering” with others, which in turn results in overcoming compassion entirely. I also argue that although Nietzsche objects to compassion, he approves of a form of what feminist theorists might now call “anticipatory empathy.” Even though a large body of literature has evolved over Nietzsche’s critical evaluation of compassion, his understanding of a non-compassionate response to suffering is, in my view, rather overlooked and should receive more attention. (shrink)

One of the most influential and controversial schools of 20th century Thomism—especially in North America—is the “River Forest School” or “River Forest Thomism”. And one of the most influential and controversial theses associated with that school is the thesis that metaphysics cannot be established as a distinct and autonomous science unless one has already proven the existence of a positively immaterial being. The purpose of this paper is to show that River Forest Thomism cannot and should not be reduced to (...) that controversial thesis. As such, rejection of the thesis cannot and should not constitute a rejection of the school. Indeed, as soon as we understand what River Forest Thomism was really about, it will become clear that all Thomists should be River Forest Thomists. (shrink)

To hold an environmental ethic is to hold that non-human beings and states of affairs in the natural world have intrinsic value. This seemingly straightforward claim has been the focus of much recent philosophical discussion of environmental issues. Its clarity is, however, illusory. The term ‘intrinsic value’ has a variety of senses and many arguments on environmental ethics suffer from a conflation of these different senses: specimen hunters for the fallacy of equivocation will find rich pickings in the area. This (...) paper is largely the work of the underlabourer. I distinguish different senses of the concept of intrinsic value, and, relatedly, of the claim that non-human beings in the natural world have intrinsic value; I exhibit the logical relations between these claims and examine the distinct motivations for holding them. The paper is not however merely an exercise in conceptual underlabouring. It also defends one substantive thesis: that while it is the case that natural entities have intrinsic value in the strongest sense of the term, i.e., in the sense of value that exists independently of human valuations, such value does not as such entail any obligations on the part of human beings. The defender of nature’s intrinsic value still needs to show that such value contributes to the well-being of human agents. (shrink)

China’s rise to global power status is set to be amongst the primary shapers of politics and life more broadly in the 21st century. Yet despite its immense significance, political philosophers have been surprisingly quiet on the normative implications of China’s rise. This, I will argue, is a mistake. Not only does China’s rise generate interesting normative questions in its own right; it also upends some basic assumptions that many of us have hitherto adopted in our thinking about international distributive (...) justice. In the philosophical literature, the international order is often characterised by two sorts of states – developed and developing – with the former owing demanding duties and the latter having expansive permissions to further their own development. China’s status as both a genuine superpower and a middle-income country facing significant development challenges calls into question the continued functionality of such simplifying assumptions. Against the backdrop of China’s rise – and, to a lesser extent, that of other large emerging economies – this paper develops a more fine-grained account of how to conceive of states’ differential levels of advantage, distinguishing between states that are incapable, precariously capable, and robustly capable of realizing a minimally decent standard of domestic justice. This account reaffirms the assignment of the most onerous international duties to developed states, but also assigns duties and claims to developing states in a scalar fashion, with the upshot that better-off developing states in particular bear positive duties of international justice, owed to least-developed countries (LDCs). (shrink)

Bài viết đánh giá thực trạng hoạt động hệ thống ngân hàng Việt Nam trong bối cảnh thực hiện đề án cơ cấu lại hệ thống các tổ chức tín dụng (TCTD). Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy, hoạt động tái cấu trúc ngân hàng đã diễn ra mạnh mẽ với chỉ đạo quyết liệt của Chính phủ và Ngân hàng nhà nước, đặc biệt trong phê duyệt chủ trương chuyển giao bắt buộc 4 ngân hàng diện kiểm soát đặc (...) biệt nhằm lành mạnh và ổn định hệ thống ngân hàng. Tuy nhiên, với thực trạng nền kinh tế suy thoái, những vấn đề về nợ xấu gia tăng vượt qua ngưỡng an toàn 3%, tỷ lệ bao phủ nợ xấu giảm xuống dưới 100%, tín dụng tăng trưởng chậm, biên lợi nhuận thu hẹp đang trở thành nguy cơ dẫn dến rủi ro hoạt động của hệ thống ngân hàng Việt Nam. Trước thực trạng đó, tác giả đưa ra một số khuyến nghị chính sách nhằm nâng cao hiệu quả tái cơ cấu hệ thống ngân hàng. (shrink)

Purpose: The modern development of mass culture is characterized by the growth of the market for graphic narratives, the rapid increase in the segment of digital comics, and the active use of comics as a communication tool in various industries and disciplinary areas. The purpose of the study: to determine the media capabilities of the comics in presenting educational, cross-cultural, problematic, and ethical content of modern organizational culture. Design / Method / Approach: The review nature of the article involves the (...) use of traditional general scientific methods (description, comparison, abstraction, and specification). The interdisciplinary nature of the study actualized the comparative method in presenting the cross-cultural features of organizational/office/corporate comics. Findings: The influence of visual mass culture and the spread of interdisciplinary research tools made it possible to analyze three areas within the stated problematic: adaptive and audience-oriented comics techniques popularized their use for training and educational purposes; the possibility of comparing the typology of world comics with cross-cultural global studies (we relied on the methodology and results of the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) project); the ability of the comics to reproduce, maintain, and spread the tradition of a particular organizational culture. Theoretical value of the study: The work has expanded: (1) the possibilities of a multidisciplinary approach to comics culture in order to clarify the interdisciplinary methodology; (2) the idea of forming and maintaining an authentic organizational culture using comics techniques; (3) the possibilities of using graphic narratives in the process of educational and professional communication. Practical value of the study: The possibilities of using comics in modern organizational culture at the level of self-presentation, training, and maintaining traditions. Originality/value of the study: A multidirectional analysis of the influence of mass culture (comics as a part of it) on the representation of everyday modern business processes is presented. Research limitations / Future research: Analyzing business processes in the language of graphic culture requires valid methods. Further research requires a larger statistical sample and improved interdisciplinary methods. -/- Мета роботи: Сучасний розвиток масової культури характеризується зростанням ринку графічних наративів, стрімким збільшенням сегмента цифрових коміксів, активним використанням коміксу як інструменту комунікації в різних галузях і дисциплінарних напрямах. Мета дослідження: визначити медійні можливості коміксу в представленні освітньо-навчального, кроскультурного та проблемно-етичного контенту сучасної організаційної культури. Дизайн / Метод / Підхід дослідження: Оглядовий характер статті передбачає залучення традиційних загальнонаукових методів (опис, порівняння, абстрагування та конкретизація). Міждисциплінарність дослідження актуалізувала компаративний метод у представленні крос-культурних особливостей організаційних/офісних/корпоративних коміксів. Результати дослідження: Вплив візуальної масової культури та поширення міждисциплінарних інструментів дослідження уможливили в межах заявленої проблематики аналіз трьох напрямів: адаптивні та аудиторноспрямовані коміксові техніки популяризували їх використання з навчальною та освітньою метою; можливість зіставлення типології світових коміксів з кроскультурними глобальними дослідженнями (ми спиралися на методику та результати проєкту GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness); можливості коміксу відтворювати, підтримувати та поширювати традицію певної організаційної культури. Теоретична цінність дослідження: Робота розширила: (1) можливості різновекторного підходу до коміксової культури з метою уточнення міждисциплінарної методики; (2) уявлення щодо формування та підтримки автентичної організаційної культури за допомогою коміксових технік; (3) можливості використання графічних наративів в процесі навчально-освітньої та професійної комунікації. Практична цінність дослідження: Можливості використання коміксу в сучасній організаційній культурі на рівні самопрезентації, навчання та підтримки традицій. Оригінальність/цінність дослідження: Презентовано різновекторний аналіз впливу масової культури (коміксової як її частини) на представлення повсякдення сучасних бізнес-процесів. Обмеження дослідження / Майбутні дослідження: Аналіз бізнес-процесів мовою графічної культури вимагає валідних методів. Подальші дослідження потребують більшої статистичної вибірки та вдосконалення міждисциплінарних методик. (shrink)

A minimal truthmaker for a given proposition is the smallest portion of reality which makes this proposition true. Minimal truthmakers are frequently mentioned in the literature, but there has been no systematic account of what they are or of their importance. In this article we shall clarify the notion of a minimal truthmaker and argue that there is reason to think that at least some propositions have minimal truthmakers. We shall then argue that the notion can play a useful role (...) in truthmaker theory, by helping to explain the truth of certain propositions as precisely as possible. (shrink)

R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research ) have recently gained attention from R&D theorists and practitioners. In aiming to come to grips with their complexity, past models have generally taken a stakeholder-analytical approach based on stakeholder types. Yet stakeholder types are difficult to operationalise. We therefore argue that a processual model is more suited for studying the interaction in QHCs because it eschews matters of titles and identities. We develop such a model in which the QHC is (...) represented as a process of generating four types of value: research value, market value, political value, and societal value. We then apply this processual model in analysing real-life cases of friction in QHCs. Friction is seen, not as an interpersonal clash, but as a discrepancy between two or more value-creation processes that compete for limited resources. (shrink)

In a world characterised by intense global poverty, do active corporate efforts to help the global poor constitute discretionary acts of charity, to be praised but not to be thought of as mandatory? Or, conversely, are such efforts a matter of binding moral duty? The traditional position among business ethicists – and still, perhaps, the dominant one – is that there is no such duty, except perhaps in exceptional circumstances such as rescue cases. In recent years, however, several authors have (...) made the case that corporations have quite wide-ranging positive duties to the global poor. This entry outlines the contours of the various arguments given in favour of the latter position, before highlighting two theoretical challenges which arise if we are to embrace this position – first, the issue of determining what sorts of actions count as adequately fulfilling positive duties to the global poor, and, second, the question of what limits there are, if any, to the demandingness of corporations’ positive duties. (shrink)

This article undertakes a republican analysis of power in the workplace and labour market in order to determine whether workers are dominated by employers. Civic republicans usually take domination to be subjection to an arbitrary power to interfere with choice. But when faced with labour disputes over what choices it is normal for workers to make for themselves, these accounts of domination struggle to determine whether employers possess the power to interfere. I propose an alternative capabilitarian conception of domination as (...) the arbitrary power to determine access to capabilities necessary for relationships of equality between citizens. This approach allows us to diagnose domination in the workplace and the labour market but does not capture unfreedom arising from the wider socio-structural position of workers. Thus, I supplement this capabilitarian account of the domination of workers with a structural account of dominating power, which reveals a richer set of conditions under which employers dominate workers. (shrink)

This chapter examines the possibility of using AI technologies to improve human moral reasoning and decision-making, especially in the context of purchasing and consumer decisions. We characterize such AI technologies as artificial ethics assistants (AEAs). We focus on just one part of the AI-aided moral improvement question: the case of the individual who wants to improve their morality, where what constitutes an improvement is evaluated by the individual’s own values. We distinguish three broad areas in which an individual might think (...) their own moral reasoning and decision-making could be improved: one’s actions, character, or other evaluable attributes fall short of one’s values and moral beliefs; one sometimes misjudges or is uncertain about what the right thing to do is in particular situations, given one’s values; one is uncertain about some fundamental moral questions or recognizes a possibility that some of one’s core moral beliefs and values are mistaken. We sketch why one might think that AI tools could be used to support moral improvement in those areas, and describe two types of assistance: preparatory assistance, including advice and training supplied in advance of moral deliberation; and on-the-spot assistance, including on-the-spot advice and facilitation of moral functioning over the course of moral deliberation. Then, we turn to some of the ethical issues that AEAs might raise, looking in particular at three under-appreciated problems posed by the use of AI for moral self-improvement: namely, reliance on sensitive moral data; the inescapability of outside influences on AEAs; and AEA usage prompting the user to adopt beliefs and make decisions without adequate reasons. (shrink)

Over 1000 companies have either curtailed or else completely ceased operations in Russia as a response to its invasion of Ukraine, a mass corporate exodus of a speed and scale which we’ve never seen. While corporate withdrawal appears to have considerable public support, it’s not obvious that it has done anything to hamper the Russian war effort, nor is it clear what the long-run effects of corporate withdrawal as a regularised response to war might be. Given this, it’s important the (...) evaluate the ethical merits of such a response. In this paper I critique what I take to be the two most common arguments given in favour of voluntary corporate withdrawal, which I label ‘the instrumental argument’ and ‘the clean hands argument’ respectively. After illustrating their shortcomings, I reframe corporations’ predicament as a ‘spattered hands’ case—one where they may do good by remaining in a war-waging state, but where they contribute indirectly to grave wrongdoing by doing so. Drawing on ideas from the ‘Business for Peace’ and ‘Business and Human Rights’ literature, I highlight the potentially positive role of corporate presence within war-waging countries, before highlighting four considerations which corporations ought to bear in mind when determining whether to withdraw, or whether it is the lesser evil to stay and to let their hands be spattered. (shrink)

In this article, we describe a hitherto undocumented fallacy-in the sense of a mistake in reasoning-constituted by a negativity bias in the way that people attribute motives to others. We call this the "worst-motive fallacy," and we conducted two experiments to investigate it. In Experiment 1, participants expected protagonists in a variety of fictional vignettes to pursue courses of action that satisfy the protagonists' worst motive, and furthermore, participants significantly expected the protagonist to pursue a worse course of action than (...) they would prefer themselves. Experiment 2 was a preregistered attempted replication of Experiment 1, including a bigger range of vignettes; the first effect was not replicated for the new vignettes tested but was for the original set. Also, we once again found that participants expected protagonists to be more likely than they were themselves to pursue courses of action that they considered morally bad. We discuss the worst-motive fallacy's relation to other well-known biases as well as its possible evolutionary origins and its ethical consequences. (shrink)

Biomedical diagnostic science is a great deal less successful than we've been willing to acknowledge in bioethics, and this fact has far-reaching ethical implications. In this article I consider the surprising prevalence of medically unexplained symptoms, and the term's ambiguous meaning. Then I frame central questions that remain answered in this context with respect to informed consent, autonomy, and truth-telling. Finally, I show that while considerable attention in this area is given to making sure not to provide biological care to (...) patients without a need, comparatively little is given to the competing, ethically central task of making sure never to obstruct access to biological care for those with diagnostically confusing biological conditions. I suggest this problem arises from confusion about the philosophical value of vagueness when it comes to the line between biological and psychosocial needs. (shrink)

The republican ideal of non-domination identifies the capacity for arbitrary interference as a fundamental threat to liberty that can generate fearful uncertainty and servility in those dominated. I argue that republican accounts of domination can provide a powerful analysis of the nature of legal and institutional power that is encountered by people with mental disorders or cognitive disabilities. In doing so, I demonstrate that non-domination is an ideal which is pertinent, distinctive, and desirable in thinking through psychological disability. Finally, I (...) evaluate republican strategies for contesting domination, focusing on the limits of contestatory democracy, and proposing a participatory alternative which better addresses problems of political agency in the mentally disordered and cognitively disabled. (shrink)

In Beyond Art (2014), Dominic Lopes proposed a new theory of art, the buck passing theory. Rather than attempting to define art in terms of exhibited or genetic featured shared by all artworks, Lopes passes the buck to theories of individual arts. He proposes that we seek theories of music, painting, poetry, and other arts. Once we have these theories, we know everything there is to know about the theory of art. This essay presents two challenges to the theory. First, (...) this essay argues that Lopes is wrong in supposing that theories of arts were developed to deal with the ‘hard cases’ – developments such as Duchamp’s readymades and conceptual art. This is a problem since Lopes holds that the buck passing theory’s capacity to deal with the hard cases is one of its virtues. Second, this essay argues that the buck passing theory has no account of which activities are arts and no account of what makes some activity an art. (shrink)

Theo số liệu nghiên cứu, Việt Nam thường xuyên đứng trong nhóm 10 nước có các thành phố có chỉ số ô nhiễm không khí (AQI) cao nhất châu Á. Ô nhiễm không khí gây ra nhiều rất nhiều hệ lụy, nó tác động xấu đến sức khỏe con người và được xem là tác nhân thúc đẩy sự di cư và chảy máu chất xám.

This paper explains what an infinite regress argument is. Part 1 contains some examples of infinite regress arguments. Part 2 presents a schema for all such arguments an defines an infinite regress argument as one that approximates to the schema. Part 3 tests the schema on the examples. Part 4 contrasts my account of infinite regress arguments with that given by Passmore and shows that Passmore's theory succumbs to objections. Part 5 distinguishes an infinite regress argument from an infinite regress (...) and defines an infinite regress. Part 6 explains the dyslogistic force of 'infinite regress'. (shrink)

This essay asks what it is about the practice of trade that grounds duties of justice between states as trade partners. The answer advanced is that such duties are grounded in the dependence that trade generates. The essay puts forward four conditions that a plausible account of grounding in trade must meet: it must admit of degrees, explain the distinctly international character of trade justice, ground both procedural and distributive duties, and it must be a necessary feature of all trade (...) relationships which generate duties of justice. A dependence account of grounding meets all four conditions, and does so in an intuitively compelling way. While other accounts of what grounds duties of trade justice can meet some of the conditions, none can meet all of them. Relative to rival candidates, then, the dependence account provides a firmer foundation for the ongoing attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of trade justice. (shrink)

This paper addresses ways of arguing fors ome form of economic democracy from within a broadly Rawlsian framework. Firstly, one can argue that a right to participate in economic decision-making should be added to the Rawlsian list of basic liberties, protected by the first principle of justice. Secondly,I argue that a society which institutes forms of economic democracy will be more likely to preserve a stable and just basic structure over time, by virtue of the effects of economic democratization on (...) the development of an active, democratic character among citizens. Thirdly, I argue that a proper understanding of the demands of the difference principle shows that justice demands more than ex post redistribution, but also requires the ex ante redistribution of power and authority in economic life. This connects to Rawls’s discussion of the badness of inequality, and to his endorsement of a “property-owning democracy”. -/- My conclusion is that, even if we may doubt the success of this first Rawlsian argument,the second and third arguments are both successful, and together establish a strong Rawlsian case forseeing economic democratization as a requirement of justice. (shrink)

This paper explores how to deliberate about food choices from a Stoic perspective informed by the value of environmental sustainability. This perspective is reconstructed from both ancient and contemporary sources of Stoic philosophy. An account of what the Stoic goal of “living in agreement with Nature” would amount to in dietary practice is presented. Given ecological facts about food production, an argument is made that Stoic virtue made manifest as wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance compel Stoic practitioners to select locally (...) sourced, low resource input, plant-based foods whenever circumstances allow. (shrink)

Nietzsche is not known for his theory of empathy. A quick skimming of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on empathy demonstrates this. Arthur Schopenhauer, Robert Vischer, and Theodor Lipps are among those whose views are considered representative, but Nietzsche has been simply forgotten in discussion of empathy. Nietzsche’s theory of empathy has not yet aroused sufficient interest among commentators. I believe that his views on this subject merit careful consideration. Nietzsche scholars have been interested in his naturalistic accounts of (...) other phenomena, but there seems to be relatively limited interest in his naturalistic account of a phenomenon that is so central to his disagreement with Schopenhauer, namely, empathic concern for others. This is surprising because Nietzsche makes a valuable contribution; he has views more in keeping with contemporary theories of empathy than others of his time. My goal here is to fill in this gap in the scholarship and provide the first thorough analysis of Nietzsche’s theory of empathy, which appears most clearly in Dawn. (shrink)

This article uses sim-max games to model perceptual categorization with the goal of answering the following question: To what degree should we expect the perceptual categories of biological actors to track properties of the world around them? I argue that an analysis of these games suggests that the relationship between real-world structure and evolved perceptual categories is mediated by successful action in the sense that organisms evolve to categorize together states of nature for which similar actions lead to similar results. (...) This conclusion indicates that both strongly realist and strongly antirealist views about perceptual categories are too simple. (shrink)

This article argues that political injustices can arise from the distribution and character of our sexual desires and that we can be held responsible for correcting these injustices. It draws on a conception of structural injustice to diagnose unjust patterns of sexual attraction, which are taken to arise when socio-structural processes shaping the formation of sexual desire compound systemic domination and capacity-deprivation for the occupants of a social position. Individualistic and structural solutions to the problem of unjust patterns of sexual (...) attraction are assessed in the context of racialised sexual aversion, racial fetishism, and the desexualisation of people with disabilities. While both forms of intervention can help in principle, some of the advantages of structural approaches are laid out. A schema for assigning political responsibilities for addressing this injustice is proposed, with some limits identified to the kinds of state and social responses that are justified. Finally, the status of the merely aesthetically unappealing is considered, with a relational egalitarian approach concluding that they are subject to structurally unjust patterns of sexual desire only when exposed to oppression or second-class citizenship as a result. (shrink)

In crossmodal identification, a subject token identifies an item perceived in one sensory modality with an item perceived in another sensory modality. Does crossmodal identification always occur in cognition, or does crossmodal identification sometimes take place in perception? This paper argues that crossmodal identification occurs in cognition, and not in perception. Nevertheless, multisensory perception is not unalive to crossmodal identity. Experimental evidence demonstrates that perception is differentially sensitive to the identity of individuals presented to distinct senses. Such sensitivity enhances recognition (...) and improves action. This approach relies on distinguishing crossmodal identification from perceiving crossmodal identity. Perception registers crossmodal identity, but crossmodal identification as such belongs to thought. (shrink)

Socrates has an implicit argument for his afterlife story that concludes the Gorgias, with two key premises. One is at 527a-c, where he summarizes the ethical position he has been arguing for through most of the dialogue, regarding the intrinsic goodness of justice, the intrinsic badness of injustice, and the desirability of rehabilitative punishments. The second occurs at 507e-508a, where Socrates asserts that the universe is held together by justice. This argument explains why Socrates regards his story as a logos, (...) not merely a muthos. It also helps us understand the nature of the rewards and punishments in his story. (shrink)

Looks into evaluation of information provision probability from different sources, based on use of linguistic variables. Formation of functions appurtenant for its unclear variables provides for adoption of decisions by the decision maker, in conditions of nonprobabilistic equivocation. The development of market relations in Ukraine increases the independence and responsibility of enterprises in justifying and making management decisions that ensure their effective, competitive activities. As a result of the analysis, it is determined that the condition of economic facilities can be (...) described and determined by the decision-maker, in the presence of the necessary information. The confidence of the decision-maker in the information received is different and the decisions made have a correspondingly different level of information risk. It is important to substantiate the procedure for assessing the numerical extent of information risk in decision-making based on the information obtained in conditions of uncertainty. The use of a linguistic variable in the processing of expert data presented in the form of a matrix of binary relations of values of the membership function, which allowed to move to further processing of knowledge to support decision-making in the management of industrial, commercial, financial and other activities. As a mathematical model for estimating the numerical measure of information risk when making decisions based on the information obtained in conditions of non-stochastic uncertainty, a model has been developed to model natural language uncertainties, which differs from existing ones by formalizing knowledge taking into account uncertainty of input information. Making such a clear decision in a fuzzy environment has appropriate values of effectiveness and risk. The paper proposes all the functions and accessories of indicators of both quantitative nature and qualitative nature to bring their values in the field of definition to one scale. Then the indicator of the effectiveness of decision-making will be a measure of the clarity of the cross-section of fuzzy subsets, which correspond to the introduced indicators of information risk. The condition of economic facilities can be described and determined by the decision-maker, if the necessary information is available. Decision-making on thenumerical measure of information risk must be determined by a set of basic indicators, which can be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Predictive values of indicators should be determined in conditions of nonstochastic uncertainty. In this case, the indicators of a quantitative nature can be determined by fuzzy triangular numbers, which implement a high level of confidence in the subjective judgments of experts. Indicators of qualitative nature should be presented in linguistic variables. The values of the indicators of qualitative nature that are predicted must be considered for all fuzzy variable terms-sets of linguistic variables introduced into consideration. For any fuzzy variable, the introduction to the consideration of a clear set of values as carriers of the α-level of its membership function allows to reduce to a single interpretation of the predicted values of indicators of quantitative and qualitative nature in terms of non-stochastic uncertainty. (shrink)

Modern scientific communication traditionally uses visual narratives, such as comics, for education, presentation of scientific achievements to a mass audience, and as an object of research. The article offers a three-level characterization of the interaction of comic culture and science in a diachronic aspect. Attention is focused not only on the chronological stages of these intersections, the expression of the specifics of the interaction is offered against the background of scientific and public discussions that accompany the comics–science dialogue to this (...) day. Within the framework of the first stage (the appearance and distribution of popular science and educational comics), the characteristics of comics content necessary for the different genesis are highlighted: documentary storytelling, educational practices of learning through drawing, active cooperation with well-known companies and institutions, informativeness and empathic involvement of the young reader in a heroico-romantic narrative of scientific discoveries and mastering nature. With the intensification of interdisciplinary approaches (the second stage), comics are increasingly involved in presenting scientific results within the most diverse fields. Comics-based research is becoming an interdisciplinary method and a widespread practical area with the corresponding formation of scientific tools (applied comics, data comics), forms of interdisciplinary interaction (graphic medicine, ethnography, narrative geography, urban comics, comics journalism, etc.), and scientific publications (“The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship”, “Sequentials”). The national format of comics-based research is presented on the example of Ukrainian comics projects (historical, feminist comics). In the genesis of development, Comics Studies have gone from a field of research to disciplinary definitions. In the creation of the metadiscourse of the scientific direction (the third stage), the authors focused on scientific discussions, the formation of academic directions and approaches, and markers of disciplinary self-identification. Emphasis is placed on the unique phenomenon of the simultaneous concordance of various stages of the dialogue between comics and science, on the prolonged replication of successful inventions into modern experience, and the active testing of known narratives at new levels of a scientific presentation. (shrink)

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the (...) qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia. (shrink)

Nghiên cứu này phân tích các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc tuân thủ thuế (TTT) thu nhập doanh nghiệp (TNDN) của các doanh nghiệp nhỏ và vừa (DNNVV) tại địa bàn tỉnh Vĩnh Long. Kết quả phân tích với dữ liệu khảo sát 300 DNNVV được lấy mẫu theo phương pháp ngẫu nhiên phân tầng đã xác định được 6 nhân tố ảnh hưởng cùng chiều đến việc TTT TNDN của các DNNVV được sắp xếp theo mức độ ảnh (...) hưởng giảm dần gồm: (1) Năng lực quản lý thuế của cơ quan thuế (CQT); (2) Chế tài khi không TTT; (3) Công tác thanh tra, kiểm tra thuế; (4) Ý thức nghĩa vụ thuế của DNNVV; (5) Cơ cấu tổ chức của CQT; (6) Chính sách thuế. (shrink)

The pandemic significantly raised the stakes for the translation of bioethics insights into policy. The novelty, range and sheer quantity of the ethical problems that needed to be addressed urgently within public policy were unprecedented and required high‐bandwidth two‐way transfer of insights between academic bioethics and policy. Countries such as the United Kingdom, which do not have a National Ethics Committee, faced particular challenges in how to facilitate this. This paper takes as a case study the brief career of the (...) Ethics Advisory Board (EAB) for the NHS Covid‐19 App, which shows both the difficulty and the political complexity of policy‐relevant bioethics in a pandemic and how this was exacerbated by the transience and informality of the structures through which ethics advice was delivered. It analyses how and why, after EAB's demise, the Westminster government increasingly sought to either take its ethics advice in private or to evade ethical scrutiny of its policies altogether. In reflecting on EAB, and these later ethics advice contexts, the article provides a novel framework for analysing ethics advice within democracies, defining four idealised stances: the pure ethicist, the advocate, the ethics arbiter and the critical friend. (shrink)

In Just Fodder, Milburn argues for a relational account of our duties to animals. Following Clare Palmer, he argues that, though all animals have negative rights that we have a duty not to violate, we only gain positive obligations towards animals in the contexts of our relationships with them, which can be personal or political. He argues that human beings have collective positive duties towards domesticated animals, in virtue of the kind of relationship between us established by domestication. However, when (...) it comes to wild animals, he argues that we have no such morally relevant relationships, and so we have only negative duties towards them. I argue that throughout history and even prehistory human beings have morally entangled themselves with wild animals sufficiently that we may in fact have collective positive duties towards many, if not all, wild animals. (shrink)

One striking oddity about Democritus and Epicurus is that, even though Epicurus' theory of perception is largely the same as that of Democritus, Democritus and his followers draw skeptical conclusions from this theory of perception, whereas Epicurus declares that all perceptions are true or real. I believe that the dispute between Democritus and Epicurus stems from a question over what sort of ontological status should be assigned to sensible qualities. In this paper, I address three questions: 1) Why were Democritus (...) and his followers skeptical? 2) How did Epicurus modify Democritus' metaphysics in order to avoid these skeptical conclusions? and 3) How successful was he? -/- 1) I argue that Democritus allows only the intrinsic properties of atoms into his ontology, and then runs into skeptical difficulties because of the relativity of perception. 2) I propose that Epicurus modifies Democritus' ontology by allowing dispositional and relational properties as real properties of bodies. Sensible qualities are conceptualized as dispositional properties of bodies to cause certain experiences in percipients. 3) I argue that Epicurus does not run into the same problems as Democritus. Finally, I consider how my interpretation of Epicurus' ontology helps to make sense of his claim that all perceptions are alethes--'true' or 'real.'. (shrink)

Aaron Ridley posed the question of whether results in the ontology of musical works would have implications for judgements about the interpretation, meaning or aesthetic value of musical works and performances. His arguments for the conclusion that the ontology of musical works have no aesthetic consequences are unsuccessful, but he is right in thinking (in opposition to Andrew Kania and others) that ontological judgements have no aesthetic consequences. The key to demonstrating this conclusion is the recognition that ontological judgments are (...) a priori and aesthetic judgments are empirical. A priori judgements have no empirical consequences. Neither fundamental ontology of music nor higher- order ontological reflections have any aesthetic consequences. (shrink)

Observers inspected normal, high quality color displays of everyday visual scenes while their eye movements were recorded. A large display change occurred each time an eye blink occurred. Display changes could either involve "Central Interest" or "Marginal Interest" locations, as determined from descriptions obtained from independent judges in a prior pilot experiment. Visual salience, as determined by luminance, color, and position of the Central and Marginal interest changes were equalized. -/- The results obtained were very similar to those obtained in (...) prior experiments showing failure to detect changes occurring simultaneously with saccades, flicker, or “mudsplashes” in the visual scene: Many changes were very hard to detect, and Marginal Interest changes were harder to detect than Central Interest changes. -/- Analysis of eye movements showed, as expected, that the probability of detecting a change depended on the eye’s distance from the change location. However a surprising finding was that both for Central and Marginal Interest changes, evenwhen observers were directly fixating the change locations (within 1 degree),more than 40% of the time they still failed to see the changes. It seems that looking at something does not guarantee you “ see” it. (shrink)

Radical constructivists appeal to self-legislation in arguing that rational agents are the ultimate sources of normative authority over themselves. I chart the roots of radical constructivism and argue that its two leading Kantian proponents are unable to defend an account of self-legislation as the fundamental source of practical normativity without this legislation collapsing into a fatal arbitrariness. Christine Korsgaard cannot adequately justify the critical resources which agents use to navigate their practical identities. This leaves her account riven between rigorism and (...) voluntarism, such that it will not escape a paradox that arises when self-legislation is unable to appeal to external normative standards. Onora O'Neill anchors self-legislation more firmly to the self-disciplining structures of reason itself. However, she ultimately fails to defend sufficiently unconditional practical norms which could guide legislation. These endemic problems with radical constructivist models of self-legislation prompt a reconstruction of a neglected realist self-legislative tradition which is exemplified by Christian Wolff. In outlining a rationalist and realist account of self-legislation, I argue that it can also make sense of our ability to overcome anomie and deference in practical action. Thus, I claim that we need not make laws but can make them our own. (shrink)