The state has always authoritatively used criminal law to give effect to its policy of condemning acts either antisocial or unacceptable to the conscience of the law and society. The existence of criminal law is well justified on grounds of ‘social welfare’ or “reinforcement of those values most basic to proper social functioning”. This initiates or sustains the process of criminalization. The relativity of ‘social welfare’ makes law ‘dynamic’ as well as ‘varying’, vis-à-vis its ambit and scope. Current (...) scholarship is critical of what is referred to as the trend of overcriminalization or rapid increase in criminalizing of acts, as leading to ‘uncertainty’ in criminal law. The rationale for such a critique is that there are activities that need not be labeled as offences if they do not possess the potential to cause damage that criminal law seeks to protect. In light of the overcriminalization critique, this paper examines the criminalization of certain offences labeled as public welfare offences. (shrink)

Vaccination against various diseases has been widely practised for more than a century and on a more limited scale its use in a variety of forms stretches back far longer. During earlier eras disease spread more slowly along shipping lanes on water and traditional transport routes on land. Today, in an era of air transport, contagion spreads far more rapidly. Travelling far more rapidly (indeed instantaneously) is the spread of misinformation that hinders vaccination which can, in the instance of Covid-19, (...) reduce disease impacts, including rates of severe illness and death. This paper explores the ethical issue of informed consent in the context of the contest between personal choice and the greater public welfare. It also makes reference to a number of low, middle and high income countries where vaccine hesitance, and to a lesser extent refusal, has been fed by misinformation on a scale not previously observed but made possible by the proliferation of modern technology. This campaign of ignorance has further undermined trust in governmental health bodies and their attempts to implement quarantine and other measures such as vaccination that had already been damaged by early variations and vacillation in governmental approaches around the globe due in part to a reluctance by some governments to take actions that would have economic repercussions but also by the necessary evolution of their approaches as more became known about the disease and its variants. The paper examines the historical background and the current situation and finds that more must be done to restore or increase trust levels between citizens and governmental authorities, including the dissemination of high quality accurate information in a form relevant to readers/viewers. While potential side-effects of vaccines must be disclosed to ensure informed consent, their incidence should also be clearly communicated (e.g., in vaccine information statements) so that clients/patients are aware that a risk is 1 in 100 or 1in 1000 or 1 in 2 million etc. Governments are urged to learn from their experience and better prepare for inevitable future pandemics to minimise vaccine hesitancy and refusal and maximise its acceptance where evidence is overwhelming as to the benefit to the community. Informed consent is part of the context of efforts to use vaccination to contain or eradicate any disease. Nevertheless, while better information for clients/patients/consumers may reduce vaccine hesitancy/refusal, it is unlikely that it would but eliminate the need for mandating vaccination in some circumstances for the benefit of the broader community, although strict quarantine of those reluctant to accept it is an alternative but one not generally accepted by those reluctant to be vaccinated. The information war is one that needs to be won to increase the voluntary uptake of vaccination in the context of voluntary informed consent. (shrink)

Vaccination against various diseases has been widely practised for more than a century and on a more limited scale its use in a variety of forms stretches back far longer. During earlier eras disease spread more slowly along shipping lanes on water and traditional transport routes on land. Today, in an era of air transport, contagion spreads far more rapidly. Travelling far more rapidly (indeed instantaneously) is the spread of misinformation that hinders vaccination which can, in the instance of Covid-19, (...) reduce disease impacts, including rates of severe illness and death. This paper explores the ethical issue of informed consent in the context of the contest between personal choice and the greater public welfare. It also makes reference to a number of low, middle and high income countries where vaccine hesitance, and to a lesser extent refusal, has been fed by misinformation on a scale not previously observed but made possible by the proliferation of modern technology. This campaign of ignorance has further undermined trust in governmental health bodies and their attempts to implement quarantine and other measures such as vaccination that had already been damaged by early variations and vacillation in governmental approaches around the globe due in part to a reluctance by some governments to take actions that would have economic repercussions but also by the necessary evolution of their approaches as more became known about the disease and its variants. The paper examines the historical background and the current situation and finds that more must be done to restore or increase trust levels between citizens and governmental authorities, including the dissemination of high quality accurate information in a form relevant to readers/viewers. While potential side-effects of vaccines must be disclosed to ensure informed consent, their incidence should also be clearly communicated (e.g., in vaccine information statements) so that clients/patients are aware that a risk is 1 in 100 or 1in 1000 or 1 in 2 million etc. Governments are urged to learn from their experience and better prepare for inevitable future pandemics to minimise vaccine hesitancy and refusal and maximise its acceptance where evidence is overwhelming as to the benefit to the community. Informed consent is part of the context of efforts to use vaccination to contain or eradicate any disease. Nevertheless, while better information for clients/patients/consumers may reduce vaccine hesitancy/refusal, it is unlikely that it would but eliminate the need for mandating vaccination in some circumstances for the benefit of the broader community, although strict quarantine of those reluctant to accept it is an alternative but one not generally accepted by those reluctant to be vaccinated. The information war is one that needs to be won to increase the voluntary uptake of vaccination in the context of voluntary informed consent. (shrink)

The paper links higher education reforms and welfare states reforms in postcommunist Central European countries. It links current higher education debates (and reform pressures) and public sector debates (and reform pressures), stressing the importance of communist-era legacies in both areas. It refers to existing typologies of both higher education governance and welfare state regimes and concludes that the lack of the inclusion of Central Europe in any of them is a serious theoretical drawback in comparative social research. (...) The region should still, after more than two decades of transition and heavy international policy advising, be viewed as a “laboratory of social experimentation”. It is still too risky to suggest generalizations about how Central European higher education and welfare systems fit existing typologies. Consequently, the “transition” period is by no means over: it is over in terms of politics and economics but not in terms of social arrangements. Both higher education and welfare states should be viewed as “work in progress”: permanently under reform pressures, and with unclear future. (shrink)

Winds of change, from the political perspective in Mexico, invite us to reformulate the methodological vision for the direction of public policy in the field of social development, directing their actions towards the construction of a methodological proposal that allows us to direct ourselves towards achieving higher levels of Well-being Social in our country, as a desirable objective of public policy and which is expected to be inclusive, participatory and democratic. -/- In this sense, it is important to (...) recognize that the current debate, in the academic and political sphere, questions what is being well? What is the life that is worth living? And that, additionally, the recognition of the satisfaction of life goals, at an individual and collective level, which invites us to reflect, if the current economic and social policy and strategy has produced results in what we envision as social welfare? Is a new approach necessary to solve the problem? What strategy should it be to consider the new methodological approach that seeks social welfare? And what components should be considered in the measurement of social welfare? This document is an invitation to review the concept of social welfare, as a proposal whose purpose is to correct the deficiencies or historical deficiencies suffered by the population, in the elemental enjoyment of social rights, a situation that causes social backwardness, marginalization, and that it is aimed at the impossibility of participating in the social decisions of the community and in collective decisions, such as: speaking, proposing, being heard and demanding compliance with fundamental human rights such as: health, food, housing, employment and security, among others. These deficiencies in the enjoyment of social and human rights are seen in the presence of social exclusion, and that together these social deficiencies explain the degree of multidimensional poverty suffered by the population in rural and urban areas. It is here that he invites us to reflect: what is the problem that social welfare seeks to solve? Multidimensional poverty, social exclusion, social backwardness or social inequality? And consequently, how to define the components to identify social welfare? -/- The document is made up of three sections: i) Social welfare: A retrospective look; ii) Social Welfare, an integrative view: The contribution of Sen, Naussbam, Rawls, Actis Di Pasquale and Keyes; and iii) Social Welfare: The recognition of limits in economic development -/- The first section presents a review of the proposals, which in the area of economic development have been presented since 1968 in the Human Condition Project, until the 2015 proposal of Sustainable Development Goals. -/- In the second section, the contributions of (Rawls, 1995), (Sen, 1982), (Nussbaum, 2011), (Keyes, 1998) , (Actis Di Pasquale, 2015) and (Actis Di Pasquale, 2017) are presented in order to present an integrative approach to the concept of social welfare. And finally, the third section presents the recognition of limits in development, as well as an invitation for action from a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective in the study of social welfare. -/- August 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24147.20006/1 LicenseCC BY-SA 4.0 -/- . (shrink)

The future of health research will be characterised by three continuing trends: rising demand for health data; increasing impracticability of obtaining specific consent for secondary research; and decreasing capacity to effectively anonymise data. In this context, governments, clinicians and the research community must demonstrate that they can be responsible stewards of health data. IRBs and RECs sit at heart of this process because in many jurisdictions they have the capacity to grant consent waivers when research is judged to be of (...) particular value. However, several different terms are used to refer to this value, indicating a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the appropriate test for access to health data for research without consent. In this paper we do three things. First we describe the current confusion and instability in terminology relating to public interest in the context of consent waivers. Second we argue for harmonisation of terminology on the grounds of clarity, transparency and consistency. Third we argue that the term ‘public interest’ best reflects the normative work required to justify consent waivers because it is the broadest of the competing terms. ‘Public interest’ contains within its scope positive and negative implications of a study, as well as welfare, justice and rights considerations. In making this argument, we explain the normative basis for consent waivers, and provide a starting place for further discussion about the precise conditions in which a given study can be said to advance the public interest. Ipsos MORI study found that: … the public would be broadly happy with administrative data linking for research projects provided Those projects have social value, broadly defined. Data are de-identified. Data are kept secure. Businesses are not able to access the data for profit. (shrink)

The social side of the animal welfare debate has been inadequately informed by economic science. This work examines the philosophical debate over animal welfare and proposes an alternative approach. It examines the prospects of the animal welfare/rights movement in the context of public choice theory. An economic theory of animal welfare is developed. Finally, a case study is used to demonstrate one methodology for estimating the direct human costs of animal welfare restrictions.

This paper proposes a way to undercut anarchist objections to taxation without endorsing an authoritarian justification of government coercion. The argument involves public goods, as understood by economists and others. But I do not analyse options of autonomous prisoners and the like; for, however useful otherwise, these abstractions underestimate the real-world task of sorting out the prerogatives of and limits on ownership. Proceeding more contextually, I come to recommend a shareholder addendum to the doctrine of public goods. This (...) recommendation involves modifying the public goods argument for government coercion to include a contributor-specific compensation provisio, thinking of contributors as investors, and including among the latter those whose investment is in the form not of a market transaction strictly speaking but of sacrifice. To reach this recommendation I constrain the market liberal''s limited endorsement of taxation by drawing on the (idealized) postcommunist privatizer''s continuing commitment to populism. (shrink)

This article challenges the view most recently expounded by Emily Jackson that ‘decisional privacy’ ought to be respected in the realm of artificial reproduction (AR). On this view, it is considered an unjust infringement of individual liberty for the state to interfere with individual or group freedom artificially to produce a child. It is our contention that a proper evaluation of AR and of the relevance of welfare will be sensitive not only to the rights of ‘commissioning parties’ to (...) AR but also to public policy considerations. We argue that AR has implications for the common good, by involving matters of human reproduction, kinship, race, parenthood and identity. In this paper we challenge presuppositions concerning decisional privacy. We examine the essential commodification of human life implicit in AR and the systematicity that makes this possible. We address the objection that it is an ethically neutral way of having children and consider the problem of ‘existential debt’. After examining objections to the thesis that AR is illegitimate for reasons of public policy and the common good, we return to the issue of decisional privacy in the light of considerations concerning the legitimate role of the state in matters affecting human reproduction. (shrink)

One of the key challenges of social policy in Poland in the early 21st century is to adapt its management to the requirements of a service economy. Essential conditions for the mixed economy of welfare have been already created after adjustments of the subsystems of national social policy during the first years of membership in the European Union since 2004. Labour market policies already include the relationships between providers from the public sector, the commercial sector, and the non-governmental (...) sector. However, the tasks and services of individual entities and institutions still lack coordination and integration. This paper focus on the examples of possibilities for their development by combining the activation policy with concepts of the governance and welfare mix. The paper presents the results of the author’s research on the implementation of welfare mix solutions in the field of professional activation of the unemployed people in Poland. Two case studies are included the implementation of outplacement programs that are based on the cooperation between different entities; and the cooperation between the public employment services and non-governmental employment agencies in the activation of people with disabilities in the labour market. Moreover, basic concepts of ongoing reforms of active labour market policies in Poland were discussed. The summary contains the practical recommendations and possible directions for further research in the field of integration of employment services. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that (...) the market may fail to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

In 2035 global egg demand will have risen 50% from 1985. Because we are not able to tell in the egg whether it will become a male or female chick, billons of one day-old male chicks will be killed. International research initiatives are underway in this area, and governments encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day-old male chicks. The Netherlands holds an exceptional position in the European egg trade, but is also the (...) only country in the European Union where the downside of the egg sector, the practice of killing day-old male chicks, is a recurrent subject of societal debate. ‘Preventing the killing of young animals’ and ‘in ovo sex determination’ are the two alternative approaches available to solve this problem. It is clear that both approaches solve the problem of killing day-old male chicks, either by keeping them alive or by preventing them from living, but they also raise a lot of new animal welfare-related dilemmas. A thorough analysis was undertaken of these dilemmas and the results are presented in this article. The analysis resulted in an ethical framework based on the two main approaches in bioethics: a consequentialist approach and a deontological approach. This ethical framework was used to develop an online survey administered to ascertain Dutch public opinion about these alternative approaches. The results show that neither alternative will be fully accepted, or accepted by more than half of Dutch society. However, the survey does provide an insight into the motives that are important for people’s choice: food safety and a good treatment of animals. Irrespective of the approach chosen, these values should be safeguarded and communicated clearly. (shrink)

This chapter discusses how justice applies to public health. It begins by outlining three different metrics employed in discussions of justice: resources, capabilities, and welfare. It then discusses different accounts of justice in distribution, reviewing utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism, as well as desert-based theories, and applies these distributive approaches to public health examples. Next, it examines the interplay between distributive justice and individual rights, such as religious rights, property rights, and rights against discrimination, by discussing examples (...) such as mandatory treatment and screening. The chapter also examines the nexus between public health and debates concerning whose interests matter to justice (the “scope of justice”), including global justice, intergenerational justice, and environmental justice, as well as debates concerning whether justice applies to individual choices or only to institutional structures (the “site of justice”). The chapter closes with a discussion of strategies, including deliberative and aggregative democracy, for adjudicating disagreements about justice. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of libertarianism for welfare policy. There are two central arguments. First, the paper argues that if one adopts a libertarian framework, it makes most sense to be a Lockean right-libertarian. Second, the paper argues that this form of libertarianism leads to the endorsement of a fairly extensive set of redistributive welfare programs. Specifically, the paper argues that Lockean right-libertarians are committed to endorsing welfare programs under which the receipt of benefits is conditional (...) on meeting a work requirement, and also endorsing some form of publicly funded jobs of last resort for potential welfare recipients. (shrink)

Ethics is an attempt to guide human conduct and it is also an attempt to help man in leading good life by applying moral principles. Ethics refers to well based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics is related to issues of propriety, rightness and wrongness. What is right is ethical and what is wrong is unethical. Value is an important conception (...) in ethical discussion. Values relate to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms. In certain cultures norms reflect the values of respect and support of friends and family. Different cultures reflect different values. Over the last three decades, traditional-age college students have shown an increased interest in personal well-being and a decreased interest in the welfare of others. Recently, the department of personnel and training has decided to change the pattern of the Civil Services Examination by stressing more on general studies and aptitude skills. A notification has been issued is this regard. From this year the Civil Services (Mains) will also have a separate paper on “ethics, integrity and aptitude”. The notification for the 2013 exam said the “paper (on ethics, integrity and aptitude) will include questions to test the candidate’s attitude and approach to issues relating to integrity, probity in public life and his problem-solving approach to various issues and conflicts in dealing with society”. There are six major sections (i) Ethics and Human Interfaith, (ii) Attitude, (iii) Emotional Intelligence, (iv) Contributions of Moral thinkers and philosophers of India and World, (v) Public/Civil Service Values and Ethics in Public Administration and (vi) Probity in Governance. In this paper an attempt is made to describe the values needed in public service sector and ethical principles might use in public administration and related to the V section of this syllabus. (shrink)

All things considered, there are many public assistance recipients for whom there are compelling moral reasons to engage in welfare fraud. For many people, failure to defraud the welfare system, should they find themselves in a position to do so with impunity, would constitute a serious moral offense. This conclusion seems to fly in the face of prevailing notions of common sense. But this is misleading, since it is at the same time implied by principles that are (...) widely embraced, assuming a set of circumstances that can be readily shown to obtain in many cases. Under that set of circumstances, and given our affirmation of certain basic moral convictions, we cannot consistently blame the practitioner of welfare fraud, or excuse, without special justifications, the legal conformist. (shrink)

This paper offers an assessment of current welfare policy in the United States. I argue that there is a genuine set of reciprocal obligations owed between fellow citizens that both justify and constrain U.S. welfare policy. In particular, I argue that there is both a widespread duty for potential welfare recipients to seek employment and a similarly robust obligation for other members of society to provide publicly funded jobs of last resort for those unable to find traditional (...) employment. This leads me to endorse elements of current U.S. welfare policy but also recommend several substantial changes that would make the overall policy more just. (shrink)

In Mexico, the management of public resources has been questioned by the State, and mainly the results that the public administration at its three levels (federal, state and municipal), by the lack of transparency in the application and verification of public resources. The experience that gives us the operation of different emerging programs that focused on reducing social and economic inequality in the country, we can locate them as the first attempts in the search for a solution (...) that is complex. Moving from the role of the benefactor and welfare state to the promoter of the regions and in the recognition of the focalization of priority attention areas, the path that has been taken is not only the beginning. Recognizing the public nature of public finances as a promoter of social development, we must understand it as the one assumed by the State through social, political and economic co-responsibility to solve poverty and marginalization of its own public policy orientation and vision of solution has been made since the eighties. From the above, we can point out some preliminary conclusions including the study of the indigenous language-speaking population with a high level of social exclusion in the methodology for the definition of multidimensional poverty in Mexico, will allow the allocation of public resources in the fight against poverty to be effective since it will make it possible to identify to the target population that is subject to social exclusion and marginalization. This invites us to a final reflection: What to do to address the just social demands of the indigenous population that is immersed in poverty, marginalization and exclusion? What to do so that they do not leave their communities, and if they have already done so, how to attend to the needs of family groups that are due to the expense of a remittance that may never arrive? (shrink)

I aim in this paper to provide defense of one way to look at what should be regulated in the market place. In particular, I discuss what should be tolerated and argue against corporate welfare. I begin by endorsing John Stuart Mill’s harm principle as a normative principle of toleration. I call strict commitment to the harm principle when considering the regulatory structure of markets market libertarianism and oppose that to promotionism, the view that endorses government interference to promote (...) business interests. I next discuss the widespread use of promotionist policies, arguing against them and for market libertarianism. I also consider problems for my view, recognizing that one of my responses may leave some thinking the paper is a reductio of the market libertarian view because of the sort of slow-growth state it endorses. Others will recognize it as a view promoted by some of the U.S. founding fathers and find it attractive in its own right. (shrink)

As the word demos denotes, the democracy is generally considered as the rule or governance based on the general base of people in which monarchy or oligarchy form is excluded. We have a classical view about the four forms of government, which was proposed by Platonic concepts. Most idealistic form of government, in his prongs, could be found in Crete and Sparta, which was nevertheless not a democratic form. His accolade of these two nations, which, of course, would be a (...) kind of God’s product so to be most benevolent, humanly appealing, efficient and philanthropic. This means the democratic form of government is not best, but most favored alternative to police the society. The political terms, henceforth, would supervene the concept of democracy, and, for many reasons and on historical wake, democracy is generally accepted as practically most desired form of rule or governance. While some modern scholar revealed, a mini-republic can be a niche to contest the merits of various forms of governance. We can gauge a scope of elements we value through the governance process, human intrinsic, efficiency, equality, welfare and even individual happiness. As the time is a small city community, called a polis, in Plato and Socrates, a mini republic can be well envisaged in understanding the Platonic Republic. In that case, most benevolent ruler may be superior to any other form of governance, which can be a philosopher’s Republic. The ideal ruler would behave and govern with mighty intelligence and concomitant power to rule. It is idealistic to produce maximum happiness of polis constituents. The worst contras, however, a tyranny, comes that the constituents legitimately expel their ruler by a collective vote. This extreme contrast and the way of process also could be ascertained in the ancient form of oriental monarchy. The dynasty could be legitimately revoked to restore new heritage of emperor or Kings where a kind of rebellion, as elucidated by Locke, is well justified in the name of heaven’s command. Given the size of polis or governed territory, there are separate ways to redress the evils of tyranny while the Oriental culture has not recognized the kind of formal vote methods. Any means to expel the tyranny could be embraced to rebel. For our purpose of grasp through this working paper, I would theorize on the traditional elements of public policy and democratic form of government. (shrink)

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who (...) have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate on the relationship between marketing and propaganda through an analysis of social marketing as a mode of governing in permanent campaigning. The working hypothesis is that social marketing operations are agitational rather than propagandistic. The conceptual approach stems from a comparison of propaganda and marketing with Fordist and post-Fordist modes of production and governance. The research into the role of agitation involves an empirical study of the UK government campaign against benefit fraud, the most (...) expensive of its kind. Using a combination of methodologies, the political context is framed through a discourse analysis that charts the historical emergence of the problem of benefit fraud and the material effects of this discourse on welfare spending allocation, content analysis is used to identify correspondences between different newspapers’ rhetoric and policy under different governments, and semiotic analysis helps to decode the message of the campaign against benefit fraud, as it relates to the overall government’s strategy on this issue. The study offers insights into the political strategy of the government of New Labour between 1997 and 2010 and its resort to agitational techniques, exposing the limitations of government marketing and public relations in the context of an overall crisis of its political legitimacy, in both economic and political terms. (shrink)

Many people look to religion to help resolve the serious moral and legal issues associated with assisted reproductive technologies. Doing so presupposes that religion is the cornerstone of ethics, but this assumption is not well founded. While various faiths are entitled to articulate their views on matters of human reproduction, the contradictions involved in doing so make it unwise to rely on religion in the formulation of law and policy. These contradictions – such as the indeterminacy about what revealed truths (...) means – make moral secular philosophy a better guide for the protection of human welfare. (shrink)

Critics of luck egalitarianism have claimed that, far from providing a justification for the public insurance functions of a welfare state as its proponents claim, the view objectionably abandons those who are deemed responsible for their dire straits. This article considers seven arguments that can be made in response to this ‘abandonment objection’. Four of these arguments are found wanting, with a recurrent problem being their reliance on a dubious sufficientarian or quasi-sufficientarian commitment to provide a threshold of (...) goods unconditionally. Three arguments succeed, showing that luck egalitarians have good reasons for assisting ‘negligent victims’ on account of changes that may occur in an individual between the time of their choice and their subsequent disadvantage, bad option luck, and doubts about free will and responsibility. Luck egalitarianism is therefore shown to offer strong support for public insurance. (shrink)

We subsist under the law where we claim our rights and are obliged to do something enforced. What is a law? The question would be perplexing in history, and one of crucial themes with many lawyers or legal philosophers. As we know, two most important perspectives had earned a universal and historical forge in academics, to say, the natural law and legal positivism. The concept of natural law deals in its primacy for the humanity and natural order which often can (...) be traded as something inviolable or inalienable. The concept has strands in several aspects; (i) its anchor with the civil democratic revolution around 17 and 18 centuries (ii) its supremacy with the new constitutional states (iii) less quality as a realist law from ambiguities and lack of clear definition. The concept of public policy may be related with the social justice, ethics and administration. It generally pursues a justice and desired state of public or community where the tension and conflict always exist between the ruling class and citizens. Historically, the public policy could be mightier to address the society than law where the benevolent Kings or Sovereigns liked to address both their needs and social justice. They may abrogate, more in endowment and divinity, the laws or social customs. The tension between the public power and private interests could be one reason as well as offers a good dualism in understanding the rule of law concept and advent of modern democracy. In this dimension, the King would no longer be divine nor entitled to exercise a plenary power of state rule. Instead, the popular sovereignty in the US democracy or parliamentary type in the UK were to be established to resolve a feudal conflict within the class and society. Lighted to be in vein of influence could arise the two contexts which are a contractarian view and plutocracy desire of the founding fathers. They underlay the mood and philosophical ethos of US revolution. Hence, three concepts as a pillar in private law were sanctified in the very foundation of US constitutional state, sanctity of property right, freedom of contract and due limits for the civil liability. The governmental power should be limited to protect the life and limb of citizens which addressed the Hobbes’ evil, “war against all the rest.” The due process concept was expressed as a fundamental principle of constitution where the human rights are inviolable and inalienable. The separation of powers principle could serve the freedom and wealth of new civil class in the continent, and bicameralism was devised for the check and balance within the federal congress. They see the role of judicial branch is important to preserve their civil interest. Then we can derive some assumptions between the law and public policy. First, a law plays to protect the private interest while the public policy pursues the social justice and mediates the competing interests, “private v. private” and “public v. private.” The civil courts may address a first nature of conflict and the law of takings or regulatory laws may deal with the second aspect. Second, the public or administrative law can shape a legal plane of bureaucracies or public administration, and may guarantee the rule of law ideals. It plays as an enabling authority and, on the other, monitors an arbitrariness and unfairness in the bureaucratic government. In this context, the unresponsive and unfathomable bureaucracy in the Kafka’s could be remedied. Third, for the welfare state in the late 19th and 20th century, a law can well be seen as one of authoritative expression of public policy to redress the evils of capitalist states. Some public laws, such as the Sherman Act classically and Lanham Act recently, may act to regulate the monopoly or oligopoly while other laws were enacted to restore justice between the labor and employers. Through the chapters, the fundamentals of law and public policy will be considered to address their proper status. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to (...) use a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to (...) use a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

Contemporary republicans have adopted a less-than-charitable attitude toward private beneficence, especially when it is directed to the poor, worrying that rich patrons may be in a position to exercise arbitrary power over their impoverished clients. These concerns have led them to support impartial public provision by way of state welfare programs, including an unconditional basic income (UBI). In contrast to this administrative model of public welfare, I will propose a competitive model in which the state regulates (...) and subsidizes a decentralized and nonstatist provision of support for the poor. This model will fix the historically objectionable features of private provision by having the state prevent collusion among private charities, deliver information to recipients about alternative sources of assistance, and give substantial grants to charities as well as tax incentives and vouchers to donors. I will contend that such an approach would do a better job of minimizing domination of the poor than traditional welfare states and may prove more politically feasible than a UBI, at least in the near term in certain national contexts. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophy of science has witnessed a significant increase in attention directed toward the field’s social relevance. This is demonstrated by the formation of societies with related agendas, the organization of research symposia, and an uptick in work on topics of immediate public interest. The collection of papers that follows results from one such event: a 3-day colloquium on the subject of socially engaged philosophy of science (SEPOS) held at the University of Cincinnati in October 2012. In (...) this introduction, we first survey the recent history of philosophy of science’s social involvement (or lack thereof) and contrast this with the much greater social involvement of the sciences themselves. Next, we argue that the field of philosophy of science bears a special responsibility to contribute to public welfare. We then introduce as a term of art “SEPOS” and articulate what we take to be distinctive about social engagement, with reference to the articles in this collection as exemplars. Finally, we survey the current state of social engagement in philosophy of science and suggest some practical steps for individuals and institutions to support this trajectory. (shrink)

This work discusses human rights from the perspective of welfarism. The problem of human rights and welfare has been central in the thought system of political philosophy. This is so because the state which objective is to protect human rights and guarantee welfare has rather use her apparatus to trample on human rights thereby depriving citizens of their welfare. For the state to ensure successes of human rights she needs to take as its cardinal objective, human rights (...) grounded on universal moral principles that require government to aid, protect and refrain from abusing their own citizens. These will help advance tip triumph of human rights and welfare. To achieve this, I recommend that the state should protect and respect human rights and provide a framework within which human welfare can be satisfactorily promoted. Therefore rationally argues that human' rights promotion enhances human well-being. That by respecting specific rights, government, and states will enhance public welfare. (shrink)

Development in all of its stages, from organizing the vision and strategy to implementing plans, requires policy-making. We show that the division of labor and specialization of sciences and some philosophical doctrines cause the emergence of technocracy in policies. Technocracy makes development not happen in the direction of public welfare. For this reason, for sustainable development, we need institutions, strategies, and philosophical contexts that provide a democratic ground for the possibility of criticizing and reforming policies.

Gandhi was a political and social activist rather than a philosopher or thinker. However, the level of morality and purity in his politics was so high that it took politics to the spiritual and philosophical level. The same thing can be said for his social and economic thoughts. Therefore, Gandhi's Swaraj is cultural, political and spiritual because politics was a spiritual ( religious) work for him. The question of Swaraj was not just a political question for him, nor did Swaraj (...) mean for him only the expulsion of the British from India but freedom from slavery mentality as well . Thus, Gandhian Swaraj goes beyond the concept of political sef rule and freedom. Swaraj is one's self rule over body and soul, a comprehensive self control. Swaraj is an equally important question in post independent India too. Swaraj is a vigilance for civil rights, public welfare, constitutionalism and good governance in a politically independent country. It empowers civil society. Hence Swaraj is continuous effort of independence and insistence on truth against arbitrary power of state and thus Swaraj creates and empowers civil society. From this point of view, Locke, Mill, and Rousseau are seen together in his Swarajist thoughts. Therefore, for Gandhi, Swaraj is a continuous process . (shrink)

Publics trust experts for personal and pro-social reasons. Scientists are among the experts publics trust most, and so, epistemic trust is routinely afforded to them. The call for epistemic trust to be more socially situated in order to account for the impact of science on society and public welfare is at the forefront of enhanced epistemic trust. I argue that the value-free ideal for science challenges establishing enhanced epistemic trust by preventing the inclusion of non-epistemic values throughout the (...) evaluation of evidence and communication of these values. By selectively silencing non-epistemic values, the ideal cannot take into account publics’ social and moral responses to inductive risk, which are instrumental for defining and determining public welfare. Furthermore, by emphasising epistemic values almost exclusively in science education and communication, the value-free ideal is presented to publics in such a way that it becomes a social indicator of trust. I show this through examination of the importance of values in decisions to trust, and conclude that values (and restrictions on them) can be used by lay publics to help decide which experts to trust. (shrink)

Psychological well-being is a major global concern receiving more scholarly attention following the 2008 Great Recession, and it becomes even more relevant in the context of COVID-19 outbreak. In this study, we investigated the impact of economic uncertainty resulting from natural disasters, epidemics, and financial crisis on individuals' mental health. As unemployment rate exponentially increases, individuals are faced with health and economic concerns. Not all society members are affected to the same extent, and marginalized groups, such as those suffering from (...) chronic mental illnesses or low-income families cannot afford the downsizing, mass lay-offs and lack of access to public health services. Psychiatric profession is familiarized with the phenomenon of intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and we examine how this concept is associated with job uncertainty and social identity disturbance. Several studies have formally investigated the effects of IU, but to our knowledge, this is the first research integrating the psychological well-being, job uncertainty and identity disturbance caused by economic breakdown. Literature points to many reported cases of PTSD, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies following major social disasters. Yet, we have undertaken to analyze the subjective experiences underlying the self-harming behaviors in an attempt to fill the methodological gap by drawing insights from prominent psychological, sociological and economic theories. We find economic uncertainty to have a positive relation to job uncertainty and identity disturbance, and a negative relationship with psychological well-being. Psychological well-being depends on coherency between both abstract subjective and concrete objective identity, and when these perceptions are inconsistent, cognitive dissonance arises resulting in identity disturbance. We argue that stability is not associated with monetary advantage only, but also with a wide range of other benefits that are crucial for individuals' growth, satisfaction and sense of identity. Therefore, we propose the implementation of social support and public welfare policies to mitigate health risks during the turbulent socio-economic changes. (shrink)

What is the research for in the society? We may imagine the professionals engaged in these activities, shall we say, university professors, researchers in the public and private institutions, and even the lay inventors at home or in the neighborhood. The research is related with some of knowledge or ideas, which, however, should be creative and original. It is the main function of those professionals, and can develop in dissemination of the findings produced by research. It frontiers the knowledge (...) of humans which enables a better view of world and generates the public welfare. The scholars are often those professionals who are required or in some cases, squeezed to produce an original contribution to the specific field of academy. As the society develops, we now require a scientific knowledge beyond the plain understanding of the nature and society. The scientific knowledge is qualified of some elements, i.e., evidence-based, universal frame to be applied, sense of understanding, pragmatic in comprehension or application, more persuasion on theory, paradigm, typologies, intersubjectivity, empirical relevance and so. It informs a philosophy of humans, makes them conscientious and knowledgeable, as well as enhances a professional performance for not only their field but also other disciplines. For example, the criminal justice system borrows the idea or information confirmed by other disciplines, psychology and sociology notably. What is the Durham rule in the excuse of culpability? The scope of rule could not enjoy a persuasion if not to be supported by the works of psychologists. The scientific knowledge perhaps could recourse its most salient dynamism in coupling with an economic exploitation. A cultivation of knowledge to serve the economic use and its industrialization reveals it’s competitive edge in the society. The kind of concepts, information age, e-technology, and intellectual property rights are leading the present time of narrative as we see routinely. Many new laws, and new concept of e-education or e-government, GMO products as well as the travel of universe in the near future also follow that the updated profile of scientific knowledge on the engineering and natural science contributed to expand our horizon of subsistence. With this crucial importance, the author attempts to file some thoughts on the research and society. (shrink)

Factory farming continues to grow around the world as a low-cost way of producing animal products for human consumption. However, many of the practices associated with intensive animal farming have been criticized by public health professionals and animal welfare advocates. The aim of this essay is to raise three independent moral concerns with factory farming, and to explain why the practices associated with factory farming flourish despite the cruelty inflicted on animals and the public health risks imposed (...) on people. I conclude that the costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits, and offer a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people. (shrink)

Manipur and Tripura are two important integral states of North east India with a long glorious history of its own. Both the states maintained cordial relationship from the very early period despite regular intervals of conflicts. Marriage alliances between the royal families of Manipur and Tripura were common phenomena which began from remote antiquity and continued till 20th century. The instance of first marriage alliance occurred during the reign of Tripura king Taidakshin, the 43rd Raja. However, the most notable cases (...) of matrimonial alliances between Manipur and Tripura started towards the end of 18th century. The distinctive feature in the marriages was that the Rajas of Tripura married not only Manipuri princesses but also many Manipuri girls belonging to plebeian family. The marriage alliances not only brought cordial relations between the two kingdoms but also there was cultural assimilation. The tradition of marrying Manipuri girls were even followed by many noblemen of the Tripura royal family. Tripura also witnessed various public welfare works that was contributed by the Manipuri Maharanis. Thus, we find that the Tripura royal house was filled with descendants from the Manipuri queens. This article focuses on providing a chronological historical account of the matrimonial alliances that occurred in the royal families of Manipur and Tripura during the period of monarchies. It also highlights the basic causes behind the arrangement of the marriages and also the cultural amalgamation between the two states. (shrink)

In the midst of rapid transformation and interstate competition within the global village, the effectiveness and prestige of national government should be any priority to measure a good order of constitutional democracy, especially for the nations to be called on service provision and public welfare. The times of ideology and philosophy had waned while the diverse civilizations clash, in which the technological advance and socio-economic environment inflict a tremendous change for the private and public mode of our (...) contemporary livings. In fact, the increasing diversity and volatility of community has brought the crisis and challenge against the constitutional tradition. In this backdrop, the paper examines the relationship of those two values embedded on the states of modern constitutionalism - limited toward the modern administrative state through this new millenium. The law or right and democracy as a political ideals is not futile merely with tweaks, but foundational or inseparably entwined into the value system of modern minds. We can be clear if to imagine of the times for the divinity of monarchy or feudal piety. The civil revolution for modern constitutionalism created a new order of society and nations began or manage to practice their national politics and administration on its basis. The recent tumultus in South Korea, stretching from the candlelight vigil through theimpeachment and incrimination of lady president, actually imprinted a deep wake for the politics of Koreans. In this line of thought alignment, the concept of democratic experimentalism engrafted with the rule of constitution was revisited that could give a lesson as a sedative meliorism for the radicalism or mob politics. Additionally, I presented some of brief evaluation about the Korean ways by gathering my thoughts on the candlelight vigil. Despite both of strengths and weaknesses on the theory of democratic experimentalism, I cordially suggest that it could work as a model to meet the increasing need of national competitiveness, participation, information sharing and learning as well as the protection of civil rights embedded on the constitutional tradition. (shrink)

What is the research for in the society? We may imagine the professionals engaged in these activities, shall we say, university professors, researchers in the public and private institutions, and even the lay inventors at home or in the neighborhood. The research is related with some of knowledge or ideas, which, however, should be creative and original. It is the main function of those professionals, and can develop in dissemination of the findings produced by research. It frontiers the knowledge (...) of humans which enables a better view of world and generates the public welfare. The scholars are often those professionals who are required or in some cases, squeezed to produce an original contribution to the specific field of academy. As the society develops, we now require a scientific knowledge beyond the plain understanding of the nature and society. The scientific knowledge is qualified of some elements, i.e., evidence-based, universal frame to be applied, sense of understanding, pragmatic in comprehension or application, more persuasion on theory, paradigm, typologies, intersubjectivity, empirical relevance and so. It informs a philosophy of humans, makes them conscientious and knowledgeable, as well as enhances a professional performance for not only their field but also other disciplines. For example, the criminal justice system borrows the idea or information confirmed by other disciplines, psychology and sociology notably. What is the Durham rule in the excuse of culpability? The scope of rule could not enjoy a persuasion if not to be supported by the works of psychologists. The scientific knowledge perhaps could recourse its most salient dynamism in coupling with an economic exploitation. A cultivation of knowledge to serve the economic use and its industrialization reveals it’s competitive edge in the society. The kind of concepts, information age, e-technology, and intellectual property rights are leading the present time of narrative as we see routinely. May new laws, and new concept of e-education or e-government, GMO products as well as the travel of universe in the near future also follow that the updated profile of scientific knowledge on the engineering and natural science contributed to expand our horizon of subsistence. (shrink)

The research material proposes the use of decision support information-analytical technology in discharge military personnel employment, which, in contrast to the usual processing of survey results, makes it possible to obtain more information for decision-making. Adherence to such an approach in the development of public administration mechanisms increases the likelihood that in the case of their implementation in the country there will be positive changes, as they will indirectly take into account the availability of necessary resources. Information and analytical (...) technology to support decisions in the field of labor economics substantiates the development of the example of discharged military personnel social welfare. According to the content, the developed decision support information-analytical technology in the field of labor economics provides for the following components: formation of social protection mechanisms; development of a questionnaire on the use of the appropriate mechanism; statistical analysis of survey results (generation of empirical distributions of answers to questions relative frequencies; comparison of answers medians; correspondences analysis; factor analysis; analysis of hierarchies); meaningful interpretation; decision making. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has forced a difficult trade-off between limiting the health impacts of the virus and maintaining economic activity. Welfare economics offers tools to conceptualize this trade-off so that policy-makers and the public can see clearly what is at stake. We review four such tools: the Value of Statistical Life (VSL); the Value of Statistical Life Years (VSLYs); Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs); and social welfare analysis, and argue that the latter are superior. We also discuss how to (...) choose policies that differentially affect people’s wellbeing. We argue in favor of evaluating policies using a Social Welfare Function (SWF), which evaluates the possible distributions of wellbeing across individuals that may result from a policy. Such a function, we argue, should regard increases in the wellbeing of the less well-off as especially valuable. We then use a model to illustrate how such a framework can help evaluate two broad policy types in response to the pandemic: eradication of the virus, and more lenient control of the spread. Our model reveals how such evaluations depend on many empirical facts but also on key value judgments about the relative importance of health and on the extent of special concern for the worse off. The purpose of this brief is not to make precise recommendations, as conditions vary widely across countries and over time, but to provide a methodology. (shrink)

Public policymakers and institutional decision-makers routinely face questions about whether interventions “work”: does universal basic income improve people’s welfare and stimulate entrepreneurial activity? Do gated alleyways reduce burglaries or merely shift the crime burden to neighbouring communities? What is the most cost-effective way to improve students’ reading abilities? These are empirical questions that seem best answered by looking at the world, rather than trusting speculations about what will be effective. Evidence-based policy (EBP) is a movement that concretizes this (...) intuition. It maintains that policy should be based on evidence of “what works.” Not any evidence will do, however. Following on the heels of its intellectual progenitor, evidence-based medicine (EBM), EBP insists on the use of high-quality evidence produced in accordance with rigorous methodological standards. Though intuitively compelling, EBP has attracted significant criticism from methodologists, political scientists, and philosophers. This chapter provides a critical overview of EBP through a philosophical lens, reviewing and discussing some of the most pressing challenges that EBP faces and outlining some proposals for improving it. I first provide a brief overview of EBP and distinguish a broader and narrower understanding of it. I then review existing lines of criticism of EBP, two of which are considered in detail. The first elaborates how EBP struggles with extrapolation, that is, the use of evidence from study populations to make inferences about the effects of policies on novel target populations. The second maintains that EBP’s methodological tenets are deeply entwined with moral and political values, which can threaten EBP’s promise to promote objectivity in policymaking. Finally, I make some proposals for how EBP could be improved going forward. (shrink)

Determining the precise nature of the connection between preference, choice, and welfare has arguably been the central project in the field of welfare economics, which aims to offer a proper guide for economists in the making of policy decisions that affect people’s welfare. The two leading approaches here historically – the revealed preference and latent preference approaches – seem equally incapable of so guiding economists. I argue that the deadlock here is due to welfare economists’ failure (...) to recognize a crucial distinction between two senses of “preference.” I analyze and defend these senses of “preference,” and argue that each shares a close connection with just one of choice and welfare. This analysis reveals how economists should conceive of both the connections between “preference,” choice, and welfare, and the proper roles of these concepts in welfare economics. I conclude by showing this analysis to best explain the plausibility of two leading alternative approaches from Hausman and Sugden. (shrink)

(Winner of The Res Publica Essay Prize) This article defends a moderate version of state perfectionism by using Gerald Gaus’s argument for liberal neutrality as a starting point of discussion. Many liberal neutralists reject perfectionism on the grounds of respect for persons, but Gaus has explained more clearly than most neutralists how respect for persons justifies neutrality. Against neutralists, I first argue that the state may promote the good life by appealing to what can be called “the qualified judgments about (...) the good life,” which have not been considered by liberal perfectionists including Joseph Chan and Steven Wall. Then I clear up several possible misunderstandings of these judgments, and argue that: (a) moderate perfectionism does not rely on controversial rankings of values and is committed to promoting different valuable ways of life by pluralistic promotion; and (b) moderate perfectionism requires only an indirect form of coercion in using tax money to support certain moderate perfectionist measures, which is justifiable on the grounds of citizens’ welfare. Thus, I maintain that moderate perfectionism does not disrespect citizens, and is not necessarily unfair to any particular group of people. It is, in fact, plausible and morally important. The defence of moderate perfectionism has practical implications for the state’s policies regarding art development, drug abuse, public education, and so on. (shrink)

This thesis argues that a particular version of equal opportunity for welfare is the best way of meeting the joint demands of three liberal egalitarian ideals: distributional equality, responsibility, and respect for individuals’ differing reasonable judgements of their own good. It also examines which social choice rules best represent these demands. Finally, it defends the view that achieving equal opportunity for welfare should not only be a goal of formal public institutions, but that just citizens should also (...) sometimes be guided by it in their everyday life. The version of equal opportunity for welfare it defends differs from some well-known contemporary versions in the following ways. First, it rejects a definition of welfare as the degree of satisfaction of a person’s preferences, because, it argues, this conception of welfare cannot adequately deal with preference change. Instead, it suggests that we should adopt a conception of welfare based on a list of goods and conditions that are recognised as valuable from the perspective of a variety of different conceptions of the good. Second, it argues that individuals’ prima facie claim to an equally valuable share of the world’s resources—a claim which is based on their equal moral worth—is limited to situations in which giving one person a more valuable share means that someone else ends up with a less valuable share. It also argues that in situations where we can improve at least one person’s situation without worsening anyone else’s, we generally do not fail to respect each person’s equal moral worth by doing so, even if this leads to inequalities. Third, it defends a distinct view of responsibility, which justifies social arrangements that give people certain options with reference to the value that individuals can achieve (but don’t necessarily achieve) through their choices from these options. (shrink)

Soda taxes are controversial. While proponents point to their potential health benefits and the public projects that could be funded with their revenue, critics argue that they are paternalistic and regressive. In this paper, we explore the prospects for designing a just soda tax, one that appropriately balances the often-competing ethical considerations of promoting social welfare, respecting people’s autonomy, and ensuring distributive fairness. We argue that policymakers have several paths forward for designing a just soda tax, but that (...) the considerations relevant to ethical policy design are more complicated than is sometimes acknowledged. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 165-189, May 2022. It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health care is needed to address the significant market failures in these sectors; however, it is also thought that the primary rationale for state involvement in health must lie elsewhere, for example in an egalitarian commitment to equalizing access to health care for all citizens. This paper argues that a complete theory of justice in (...) health can be derived from a commitment to correcting market failure, or in other words promoting Pareto-efficiency, in the domain of health. This approach can address familiar problems around access to care, as well as problems related to resource allocation and rationing, the control of health care costs, and the foundations of public health. Egalitarian theories of justice in health cannot make sense of the depth and pervasiveness of state involvement in health and health care; only a theory rooted in the need to correct market failure can. (shrink)

The Future of Social Epistemology: A Collective Vision sets an agenda for exploring the future of what we – human beings reimagining our selves and our society – want, need and ought to know. The book examines, concretely, practically and speculatively, key ideas such as the public conduct of philosophy, models for extending and distributing knowledge, the interplay among individuals and groups, risk taking and the welfare state, and envisioning people and societies remade through the breakneck pace of (...) scientific and technological change. An international team of contributors offers a ‘collective vision’, one that speaks to what they see unfolding and how to plan and conduct the dialogue and work leading to a knowable and desirable world. The book describes and advances an intellectual agenda for the future of social epistemology. (shrink)

Gerontology together with its subfields, such as social gerontology, geragogy, educational gerontology, political gerontology, environmental gerontology, and financial gerontology, is still a relatively new academic discipline that is currently intensively developing, expanding research fields and combining various theoretical and practical perspectives. The interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and multidisciplinarity of research on ageing and old age, despite its vast thematic, methodological and theoretical diversity, have a common denominator, which is the focus of research work on improving the quality of life of older people. (...) It is the concern for the components of quality of life such as welfare and well-being as well as focus on learning about phenomena conditioning successful ageing that has become motivators and premises hidden or visible in many texts included in the Research Topic “Perspectives and Theories of Social Innovation for Ageing Population.” The Research Topic that we are presenting to our readers is unique not only because of its size but above all because of its novelty and social involvement, visible in the content of individual chapters. The presented collection includes 17 articles prepared in total by 76 authors from the following countries: China, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Two journals were combined with this Research Topic: “Frontiers in Public Health” and “Frontiers in Sociology.” The presented Research Topic contains seven types of articles covering: two community case studies, eight original research articles, two perspective articles, one hypothesis and theory paper, one policy and practice review, one methods article, and two book reviews. The rationale to start work on this set of texts was the desire to continue and deepen the research analyses of the editors of this set, which concern the development of social innovations for the ageing population as well as changes of public policy on ageing. This Research Topic deals with topics covering issues such as social learning, intergenerational transmission, senior entrepreneurship, creative content creation by older adults, care services, raising the independence of older people in their living environments, dementia challenges, the image of the older generation in local social policies, new trends in qualitative research on old age, strategies for dealing with chronic diseases, the use of digital tools in health education, the silver economy/longevity economy, age-friendly environments, the diversity of structures and social services, preparation for old age, and food safety. The wide variety of submitted texts shows several selected and, according to the authors, current challenges that contemporary seniors have to face. The articles comprising this Research Topic are organized according to five themes. (shrink)