The article examines the compatibility of agonistic democracy and populism as well as their relationship to the idea of constitutionalism. The first part shows that Chantal Mouffe’s recent attempts to reconcile her normative approach of an agonistic pluralism with a populist style of politics are not fully convincing. Although there are undeniable commonalities between an agonistic and a populist understanding of politics – the appreciation of conflict, the rejection of moralistic and juridical modes of conflict resolution etc. – the populist (...) mode of the construction of the people (and the denunciation of political opponents as enemies of the people) risks impeding the transformation of antagonistic into agonistic modes of political contest. The tensions between agonism and populism are especially evident in matters of constitutionalism. This topic is examined in the second part of the article, which provides some ideas for reducing the normative and institutional blind spots of contemporary theories of agonistic democracy. It focuses on elementary principles for an agonistic concept of democratic constitutionalism that differs from the populist view of the relationship between politics and law, especially in respect of its interpretation of the concept of ‘resistibility’ of legal norms. (shrink)

In these challenging times, connectedness has become more necessary than ever before. Meanwhile, research in organizations highlighted the importance of entrainment, a process of synchronizing rhythms over time that drives connectedness within, between, and across rhythmic activities. It is also suggested that an inner life and spiritual leadership coherence can play a key role in this process, out of which spiritual well-being emerges. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the conditions for entrainment through the revised model of spiritual (...) leadership at a professional services company that employs multiple teams simultaneously, as presented by Sandra & Nandram (Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion 17(4):316–332, 2020 ). It verifies if inner life and spiritual leadership coherence are jointly sufficient to foster the emergence of spiritual well-being, both at the individual and at the group level. Next, it seeks to understand how teams differ on these variables. To generate a more holistic insight, it uses an explanatory sequential research design as mixed methods approach, integrating and comparing quantitative data from eighty-six participants across fourteen teams with qualitative data from five team leaders. The findings support that inner life and spiritual leadership coherence can be usefully deployed in a consistent way to understand the emergence of spiritual well-being through entrainment. It further supports that developing personal spiritual leadership directly influences the level of spiritual leadership of the group to which the individual belongs. Finally, better performing teams pay more attention to inner life practices, while taking care of their team members. (shrink)

The literature on the interplay between geographic communities and organizations has largely ignored the role of individual residents. In adopting a meso-perspective, we examine a potentially vital relationship between corporate conduct and pro-social behavior demanding sacrifice from individuals. Drawing on Weber ), we theorize that organizations in a community legitimize personal social conduct in three ways—by serving as role models, imparting norms and values, and routinizing forms of interaction. We study the relationship between corporate social responsibility behavior by local firms (...) and the social distancing of citizens in US counties during the Covid-19 pandemic, a core ethical outcome. We argue and find that the residents of communities in which firms exhibit higher levels of CSR engaged in more SD during the Covid-19 pandemic. This was true when firms were long-established, isomorphic in their CSR, and major employers and vendors. Moreover, CSR relating to the treatment of employees as well as positive and negative extremes in CSR bore especially strong relationships with SD. Implications are drawn for the study of business ethics, as modeled by CSR, as a force for ethical personal behavior and public health in communities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Learning Through ServingDanny ReedI am a male CNA currently registered in Wisconsin since 1991, having worked as such since 1980 when I left high school. I have worked with ten different employers and many precious people I remember very well.I remember virtually everyone I have cared for in my over 30 years of work and yet there is not one person, place or moment that characterizes them all except (...) perhaps, May. She died within 24-hours of admission and we never spoke, except with the eyes. May had end-stage nerve and muscle wasting disease that left her mind intact but her body immobile and in pain. Her boyfriend brought her in after taking care of her at home, but he was wasted on some kind of drug, maybe her pain medication, feeling he needed it more than her. We ordered morphine and got her settled and she finally relaxed. She was gone by morning.May reminded me of Mary, another woman with a similar disease. Mary's husband Harold came to visit drunk. She could just point to a letter board similar to an Ouija board and spell out words and phrases with her right hand and then use her eyes to indicate if we were correct. Mary was a refined woman but very patient with me because I was an 18-year-old boy trying to be a man, sensitive but having a lot to learn. Mary taught me how to communicate without words—just using the eyes.These women are the core of understanding the meaning of what I have done for 30 years. Whether imprisoned by hearing loss, loss of sight or mobility, failing bodies and minds or simply being alone—the challenge was the same, to know when to reach into another's soul and touch them, to stay out of the way, and have the good sense to know the difference. Can I honestly say I fell in love with the woman that quietly said, "I'm tired of being old?" These were largely rhetorical questions without an answer.The men and women of this generation were far superior to me. I could only stand by and watch them die. Oh, I did the necessary things like I was paid to do, trained to do, but they were the ones patiently trying to teach me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to decipher their encrypted message because I am trapped here, too. Imprisoned by the ignorance of believing I understand what my eyes have seen, what I have heard, and experienced. That it can all be regulated and catalogued in journals of medicine.Is it not ironic that primary caregivers struggle to stay alive while money movers make millions, even billions tax free, moving money from here to there and acquiring the power and influence to change the world, but will not lift a finger unless they can make more money doing it? Ironic because I have taken care of them in their final hours and they would give me it all had I the power to give them more life. Yes, I have turned down a fortune because in their grief they wanted to pay me money for an hour of genuine kindness that in reality they could not afford. If you must ask how much it is worth you cannot afford it. Sincere kindness is priceless so I don't charge for it.It is not my intent to humiliate the achievements and status of professionals and others fallen upon hard times due to aging and disease because no one deserves these indignities. Indeed, I delight in restoring dignity to every human in need of it regardless of cause. I do not wish such suffering upon my worst enemy. Bill wanted one more hour. The cancer was sudden, painful, and terminal. Being sidetracked into a cozy hospice in the country is hardly comforting when given less than six months to live just when retirement promised the rewards earned from a life of hard work and sacrifice. Bill had spirituality and strong beliefs but it seemed to make matters worse because he cried every day begging God... (shrink)

This paper will be concerned with the conjunctive interpretation of a family of disjunctive constructions. The relevant conjunctive interpretation, sometimes referred to as a “free choice effect,” (FC) is attested when a disjunctive sentence is embedded under an existential modal operator. I will provide evidence that the relevant generalization extends (with some caveats) to all constructions in which a disjunctive sentence appears under the scope of an existential quantifier, as well as to seemingly unrelated constructions in which conjunction appears under (...) the scope of negation and a universal quantifier. (shrink)

Abstract. The paper begins by challenging Hart's argument aimed to show that sanctions are not part of the concept of law. It shows that in the "minimal" legal system as understood by Hart, sanctions may be required for keeping the legal system efficacious. I then draw a methodological conclusion from this argument, which challenges the view of Hart (and his followers) that legal philosophy should aim at discovering some general, politically neutral, conceptual truths about law. Instead, the aim should be (...) to discover the values because of which certain things in the world are classified as law and others as non-law. Focusing on those would give us a more insight to the roles law plays in society, as well as more illuminating answers to traditional jurisprudential questions like the status of law in evil regimes. (shrink)

Stressful life events and subjective well-being are negatively related, but there is little research in the current literature exploring the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this association, especially for female adolescents in vocational schools who are subjected to undesirable life events. In the present study, we examined the mediating role of depression in the association between stressful life events and female adolescents’ subjective well-being, as well as the moderating role of perceived social support in the direct and indirect relations involved. (...) The participants were 1,096 vocational school female adolescents, who completed the questionnaires regarding stressful life events, subjective well-being, depression, and perceived social support. The results showed that depression partially mediated the relation between stressful life events and subjective well-being. Importantly, perceived social support moderated the direct link between stressful life events and subjective well-being, and the indirect link between stressful life events and depression, but not the indirect link between depression and subjective well-being. Especially, female adolescents high in perceived social support displayed higher levels of subjective well-being and lower levels of depression in facing with stressful life events than those low in perceived social support. These findings highlight the mechanisms underlying the relationship between stressful life events and subjective well-being in vocational school female adolescents. (shrink)

Introduction: Preference, Choice and (Libertarian) Paternalism Kalle Grill & Danny Scoccia This special issue originated in a workshop organized by one of the editors, Kalle Grill, at Umeå University in March 2014, with funding from The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences. The theme of the workshop was Respecting Context-Dependent Preferences. Contributors to this issue who were also speakers at the Umeå workshop are Richard Arneson, Kalle Grill, Jason Hanna, Sven Ove Hansson, Robert Sugden, and Torbjörn Tännsjö. The (...) other speakers at the workshop were Luc Bovens, Sarah Conly, Fabienne Peter and Danny Scoccia. Preferences are context-dependent when they are determined by circumstances other than the contents of the alternatives that preferences range over, such as the way alternatives are presented. As behavioral research increasingly indicates, many of our preferences are context-dependent in this sense. Context-dependence raises difficult issues for many areas of moral and political philosophy. Importantly, the fact that preferences are not in any obvious way based on settled values or considered judgments may cast doubt on liberalism’s stance on when paternalism is morally objectionable: What exactly is liberal antipaternalism supposed to protect, if not settled preferences? What about paternalism that operates by influencing the formation of preferences? Should we, as proposed by so called "libertarian paternalists", shape the choice environment so as to promote choices that are conducive to health, wealth and happiness over the long run? More generally, we may inquire what respect for persons should mean given the context-dependence of their preferences. Several articles in this issue deal with the plausibility of libertarian paternalism and the nudging it endorses. Sugden argues that those who take context-dependence to justify paternalism often rely on ideas of latent preferences that lack a convincing psychological explanation. William Glod argues that, because of informational constraints, nudging often fails to track people's actual preferences. Hanna, in contrast, defends nudging against the objection that it is manipulative. Andres Moles surveys some legitimate aims for which nudging can be justified. The remaining articles either take a more general view of context-dependence, or investigates it in some specific context: Arneson considers, in light of the debate on libertarian paternalism, the general concept of paternalism, and proposes a new theory for when paternalism is justified, in terms of a limited prerogative to be imprudent. Grill argues that respect for persons should be pluralist and include respect for their choices as well as their preferences, even when these two come apart. Tännsjö re-considers, in the light of context-dependence, his earlier rejection of any form of coercive care. Hansson contributes a historical perspective with a discussion of John Stuart Mill's three principles regulating the extent of individual liberty. The guest editors wish to thank the journal editors for giving us the opportunity to produce this special issue. We are grateful also to the reviewers who have helped in the editorial process, and to Margaret Dancy, the Managing Editor, for her friendly support throughout. (shrink)

It is well-known that constructions involving ellipsis share many properties with constructions that involve phonological reduction. The similarity between ECs and PRCs is semantic: the interpretation of both is constrained by the interpretation of an antecedent. Rooth and Tancredi have pointed out that this similarity follows from an independently needed theory of focus.

It is well known that in Sluicing constructions wh-dependencies can cross certain projections that are otherwise barriers to movement (Ross (1969), Chomsky (1972)). This fact would follow under the assumption that the relevant barriers are somehow deactivated when phonologically deleted ('island repair'). The problem, however, is that another form of phonological deletion (VP Ellipsis, VPE) seems to be impossible in certain contexts where Sluicing allows for island repair (Chung et al. (1995), Merchant (1999)).

I criticize Brian Earp's ‘Some Writing Tips for Philosophy’. Earp's article is useful for someone who wishes to do well in analytic philosophy as currently practised but it also casts doubt on why such analytic philosophy would be of interest to someone who wants to learn something new. In addition to its good tips, Earp's article contains two bad tips which, if followed, will tend to produce a paper that says next to nothing. I list the two faulty tips, show (...) how the practices of great philosophers and scientists contradict them, then set out some contrary good tips for philosophers who aim to write a paper that makes a contribution to our knowledge. (shrink)

It is well known that in certain environments the scope of a moved quantifier phrase can be determined at either its pre-movement position (“scope reconstruction”) or its postmovement position (“surface scope”). Thus the familiar ambiguity of (1) results from two choices for the scope of the moved QP. Under scope reconstruction, the scope of the moved existential QP is the sister of the pre-movement position (i.e. the sister of t, [to win the lottery]), while under surface scope it is the (...) sister of the post-movement position (i.e. [is likely t to win the lottery]). The two scope possibilities yield different semantic interpretations, corresponding to the paraphrases in (2). (1) Someone from New York is likely t to win the lottery (2) a. It is likely that there will be someone from New York who wins the lottery.. (shrink)

While self-report data is a staple of modern psychological studies, they rely on participants accurately self-reporting. Two constructs that impede accurate results are insufficient effort responding and response styles. These constructs share conceptual underpinnings and both utilized to reduce cognitive effort when responding to self-report scales. Little research has extensively explored the relationship of the two constructs. The current study explored the relationship of the two constructs across even-point and odd-point scales, as well as before and after data cleaning procedures. (...) We utilized IRTrees, a statistical method for modeling response styles, to examine the relationship between IER and response styles. To capture the wide range of IER metrics available, we employed several forms of IER assessment in our analyses and generated IER factors based on the type of IER being detected. Our results indicated an overall modest relationship between IER and response styles, which varied depending on the type of IER metric being considered or type of scale being evaluated. As expected, data cleaning also changed the relationships of some of the variables. We posit the difference between the constructs may be the degree of cognitive effort participants are willing to expend. Future research and applications are discussed. (shrink)

A central problem of political philosophy is that of explaining how a state could have the moral authority to enforce laws, promulgate laws which citizens are thereby obliged to obey, give new duties to citizens and levy taxes. Many rival solutions to this problem of political authority have been offered by contemporary and recent philosophers but none has obtained wide acceptance. The current debate takes no cognisance of George Berkeley’s ‘Passive Obedience’, in which he defends the exceptionless duty of not (...) using force to resist the state and offers a rule-consequentialist account of morality which indicates an explanation of political authority as grounded in the social connectedness of human beings. I expound, criticise and develop Berkeley’s explanation to provide a promising solution to the problem of political authority. The solution impugns the political authority of all existing states as well as the duty of passive obedience. (shrink)

I offer consequentialist and deontological arguments for a competitive market in human organs, from live as well as dead donors. I consider the objections that a market in organs will frustrate altruism, coerce the desperate, expose under-informed agents to unacceptable risks, exacerbate inequality, degrade those who participate in it, involve a kind of slavery, impose invidious costs, and impair third-party choice sets. I show that each of these objections is without merit and that, in consequence, the opposition to markets in (...) organs is an untenable endorsement of death, suffering and the suppression of freedom. (shrink)

The chance objection to incompatibilist accounts of free action maintains that undetermined actions are not under the agent's control. Some attempts to circumvent this objection locate chance in events posterior to the action. Indeterministic-causation theories locate chance in events prior to the action. However, neither type of response gives an account of free action which avoids the chance objection. Chance must be located at the act of will if actions are to be both undetermined and under the agent's control. This (...) dissolves the apparent paradox of Frankfurt-type cases as well as the chance objection to incompatibilist free will. (shrink)

This paper proposes an architecture for the mapping between syntax and phonology — in particular, that aspect of phonology that determines ordering. In Fox and Pesetsky (in prep.), we will argue that this architecture, when combined with a general theory of syntactic domains ("phases"), provides a new understanding of a variety of phenomena that have received diverse accounts in the literature. This shorter paper focuses on two processes, both drawn from Scandinavian: the familiar process of Object Shift and the less (...) well-known process of Quantifier Movement. We will argue that constraints on these operations can be seen as instances of the same property of grammar that explains the fact that movement is local and successive cyclic. We begin by sketching a model in which locality and successive cyclicity are consequences of the architecture that we propose, rather than specific facts about movement itself. We next present our proposal in somewhat greater detail, and show how it can account for a wide range of apparent limitations on movement — in particular, superficially contradictory restrictions on Object Shift and Quantifier Movement. The restrictions on Object Shift include those grouped under the rubric of Holmberg's Generalization, which Quantifier Movement does not seem to obey. We will argue that Quantifier Movement instead obeys a near mirror-image of Holmberg's Generalization (an "Inverse Holmberg Effect"), but that both Holmberg's Generalization and its mirror image are expected if our proposed architecture is correct. (shrink)

This book uses the concepts of freedom, indeterminism, and fallibilism to solve, in a unified way, problems of free will, knowledge, reasoning, rationality, personhood, ethics and politics. Presenting an overarching theory of human freedom, Frederick argues for an account of free will as the capacity for undetermined acts. Knowledge, rationality, and reasoning, both theoretical and practical, as well as personhood, morality and political authority, are all shown to be dependent at their roots on indeterminism and fallibility, and to be connected (...) to individual freedom. Thought-provoking and original, Frederick’s theory of freedom examines a broad spectrum of issues, from the distinction between persons and other animals, to the purpose of the state and political authority. Offering a bold and succinct conspectus of the philosophy of freedom, this book makes surprising connections between perennial issues across the field of philosophy. (shrink)

I explain what haecceities are and the role they play in our thought and talk about specific individual things, whether those things are concrete or abstract. Everything that can be referred to by using a singular term has a haecceity. I distinguish between singular terms and general terms, on the one hand, and subject terms and predicate terms, on the other. I distinguish three types of sentence: singular predications; general predications; and singular quantifications. I show how singular predications can be (...) eliminated without loss of content, provided we have singular quantifications as well as general predications. This should not be confused with Quine’s “elimination of singular terms.” I say a few words about propositions. (shrink)

This paper aims to persuade its reader that libertarianism, at least in several of its varieties, is a species of the genus Michael Oakeshott referred to as ‘rationalism in politics’. I hope to demonstrate, employing the work of Oakeshott, as well as Aristotle and Onora O’Neill, how many libertarian theorists, who generally have a sincere and admirable commitment to personal liberty, have been led astray by the rationalist promise that we might be able to approach deductive certainty concerning the 'correctness' (...) of some political programme. Of course libertarians, in common with the adherents of almost any other political ‘stance’, are not a monolithic body, but exhibit a variety of more or less rationalist arguments for their views. For example, a thinker like Hayek, who is often placed in the libertarian camp, came to adopt much of Oakeshott’s critique of rationalism in his later work. And, of course, Oakeshott himself expressed an affinity for libertarian ideas in his essay, ‘The Political Economy of Freedom’ (1991 [1962]). But a general predilection to enhance individual freedom as far as is deemed practicable is quite a different matter from taking a stance in which liberty, and liberty conceived in a rather narrow fashion, is the only value deemed admissible into ‘reasonable’ political discourse. (We will see in a subsequent section that Oakeshott recognized this urge to sanctify one value above all others as a logical requirement of striving for deductive political truths.) I believe that a critique of such libertarian rationalism is particularly relevant given the present situation in the United States vis-à-vis civil rights and the ongoing ‘war on terror’, in that many non- libertarian supporters of peace and strong civil rights find themselves allied with libertarians on these issues—if libertarians have gotten these issues ‘correct’, then how might they have gone wrong elsewhere? Furthermore, the critique may aid libertarians themselves, because, if the title of this paper is accurate, such a single-minded exaltation of one value above all others is an enemy of true liberty, so that libertarians might want to rethink adopting such a position. As Philip Pettit demonstrates (1997), freedom as non-domination is more robust and inclusive of all that we value about freedom than is the libertarian concept of freedom as non-interference; by allowing, say, immense economic power to be concentrated in a single corporation, as intervention to break the company up would violate the principle of non-interference, libertarian ideas may greatly diminish the liberty of the people subject to that corporate power. (shrink)

We present evidence that preschool children oftentimes understand disjunctive sentences as if they were conjunctive. The result holds for matrix disjunctions as well as disjunctions embedded under every. At the same time, there is evidence in the literature that children understand or as inclusive disjunction in downward-entailing contexts. We propose to explain this seemingly conflicting pattern of results by assuming that the child knows the inclusive disjunction semantics of or, and that the conjunctive inference is a scalar implicature. We make (...) two assumptions about implicature computation in the child: that children access only a proper subset of the adult alternatives, and that children possess the adult capacity to strengthen sentences with implicatures. As a consequence, children are expected to sometimes not compute any implicatures at all, but in other cases they are expected to compute an implicature that is different from the adult implicature. We argue that the child’s conjunctive strengthening of disjunctive sentences realizes the latter possibility: the adult infers that the conjunction is false but the child infers that the conjunction is true. This behaviour is predicted when our assumptions about child development are coupled with the assumption that a covert exhaustive operator is responsible for strengthening in both the child and the adult. Specifically, children’s conjunctive strengthening is predicted to follow from the same mechanism used by adults to compute conjunctive free choice implicatures in response to disjunctive permission sentences. We furthermore argue that this parallel between the child and the adult extends to disambiguation preferences. In particular, we present evidence that children prefer to strengthen disjunctions to conjunctions, in matrix and embedded positions ; this result mirrors previous findings that adults prefer to compute free choice, at the root and under every. We propose a disambiguation strategy that explains the preference for conjunctive strengthening – by both the child and the adult – even though there is no general preference for exhaustification. Specifically, we propose that the preference for a conjunctive strengthening follows from a pragmatic preference for a complete answer to the Question Under Discussion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Clinicians, researchers and the informed public have come to view addiction as a brain disease. However, in nature even extreme events often reflect normal processes, for instance the principles of plate tectonics explain earthquakes as well as the gradual changes in the face of the earth. In the same way, excessive drug use is predicted by general principles of choice. One of the implications of this result is that drugs do not turn addicts into compulsive drug users; they retain (...) the capacity to say ?no?. In support of the logical implications of the choice theory approach to addiction, research reveals that most addicts quit using drugs by about age 30, that most quit without professional help, that the correlates of quitting are the correlates of decision making, and, according to the most recent epidemiological evidence, the probability of quitting remains constant over time and independent of the onset of dependence. This last result implies that, after an initial period of heavy drug use, remission is independent of any further exposure to drugs. In short, there is much empirical support for the claim that addiction emerges as a function of the rules of everyday choice. (shrink)

In a very literarily complicated setting, Frater Taciturnus sets a remark about Hamlet not being a Christian tragedy. After unpeeling that literary setting and noting that Taciturnus' remark aims more at Jacob Börne than at Shakespeare, the paper shows how Frater Taciturnus' remark calls into question the religious project of a certain danish author. For, Taciturnus' primary concern is to show that religious drama is not possible, or at least "ought not be." This general law applies to Hamlet as well, (...) and if Shakespeare was attempting a religious drama he a) shouldn't have because such a thing is essentially undramatizable, and b) failed because he did not begin (which would be possible) by showing the hero's religious presuppositions. Frater Taciturnus himself has given considerable thought to the extent and the manner in which the religious can be represented; in fact the letter to the reader is his proof of how perfectly his own narrative, "Guilty/Not Guilty," was constructed with precisely these problems in mind. The play is not the thing that Taciturnus is really interested in, nor is he interested in the playwright's intentions, he considers that the play's the thing that catches out Börne's misunderstanding of the religious, and it is this field—in particular, that area where the religious life and literary art intersect, that is the brother's interest and forte. But if Taciturnus is correct in his criticism of Börne, it should be impossible for S. Kierkegaard to produce a religious authorship as well. (shrink)

The usual interpretation of Republic 10 takes it as Socrates’ multilevel philosophical demonstration of the untruth and dangerousness of mimesis and its required excision from a well ordered polity. Such readings miss the play of the Platonic mimesis which has within it precisely ordered antistrophes which turn its oft remarked strophes perfectly around. First, this argument, famously concluding to the unreliability of image-makers for producing knowledge begins with two images—the mirror (596e) and the painter. I will show both undercut the (...) argument they introduce. Secondly, Socrates repeats the “three removes” argument three times. Each has its own object and philosophical axis. The “bed” argument (596a-598d) concerns the ontological status of images vis-à-vis human makers and the divine idea. The bit and bridle,” 601b-601d) emphasizes the epistemological status of image-making as beneath the human maker of bridles (having correct opinion) and the human user, who knows. This second takes away the ontological distinction which was the point of the first. Thus, any human being could be in any of the three positions—user, maker, imitator. This dance might bring one to doubt the conclusion that the imitator has “neither knowledge nor right opinion” (602a). Plato leads into his concluding psychological and moral argument (602c-605c) after a third variation of the 3 removes. This last gives us the image of the flute player (601d-602) as the one who knows and so can order the flute maker. We will conclude by considering what it is this flutist could know, and given that his art is itself a mimesis, who the imitator of this imitative artist could be. Thus attention to the differences among these examples opens a defense of the arts, which reverses many of the claims made against the arts within the ostensible “Platonic” argument. (shrink)

The paper aims to explore what it means for something to be a social cycle, for a theory to be a social cycle theory, and to offer a suggestion for a simple, yet, we believe, fundamentally grounded schema for categorizing them. We show that a broad range of cycle theories can be described within the concept of disruption and adjustments. Further, many important cycle theories are true endogenous social cycle theories in which the theory provides a reason why the cycle (...) should recur. We find that many social cycle theories fit with a two-population disruption and adjustment model similar to the well-known predator-prey model. This implies that a general modeling framework could be established for creating agent-based models of many social cycle theories. (shrink)

Camus himself called The Plague his most anti-Christian text, and most theologically oriented readings of the text agree. This paper shows how the sermons of Fr. Paneloux—an Augustine scholar--as well as Dr. Rieux’s mother present an Augustinian picture of love. This love opposes the passionate concupiscence for possession of things with the divine love which wishes for the constant conscious presence of the beloved in the light of the good. Such is possible for us, as Augustine exhibits and helps us (...) practice, if one reads the world as it really is—temporal signs of the eternal goodness, wisdom and presence of God—which Augustine discovers “too late.” While the doctor describes Oran as a city “without intimations” many elements of the text intimate otherwise. In such an Augustinian sacramental reading the “problem of evil” disappears. (shrink)

Camus is defined by many as an absurdist philosopher of revolt. The Plague, however, shows him working rigorously through a well-known division between ancient and modern ethics concerning the relation of reason, feeling and happiness. For Aristotle, the virtues are stable dispositions including affective and intellectual elements. For Kant, one’s particular feelings are either that from which we must abstract to judge moral worth, or are a constant hindrance to proper moral activity. Further, Kant claims “habit belongs to the physical (...) nature of the determination of the will,” which seems to imply habit cannot be a moral determination at all. A related disagreement regards virtue and happiness. Aristotle’s happiness is “an activity of the soul in accord with virtue.” For Kant and other moderns, happiness is an ideal of imagination, “a maximum of well-being in my present, and in every future, state,” all the elements of which “are without exception empirical.” Thus happiness seems more the constant counterweight to moral action than its fulfillment. Kant and Aristotle agree, however, in their judgment of many characters and actions, as is illustrated in The Plague. The novel provides realistic insights into a philosophical agreement between these supposed oppositions. In particular, I show how both philosophers would agree in their judgements concerning both the relative goodness and relative happiness of Joseph Grand and Raymond Rambert. The illustration of this agreement proves Camus is valorizing a traditional ethic. (shrink)

In Augustine's Confessions we can find two arguments against drama. One of them is entirely Platonic, echoing the problems raised in Republic 2 and 3 that representations of evil encourage moral turpitude. The other, which can be found in Republic 10, is much more visible in Confessions, and Augustine is more perspicuous than Plato in laying out the difficulty; it has to do with the immoral effect of suffering grief at staged sufferings, where we are moved neither to escape the (...) suffering nor to aid the sufferer, but to enjoy the suffering. Socrates had pointed out that letting suffering have free rein in us, as we do at a play, corrupts even the better sort of man (605c), but Augustine shows us that even the self-control we might exercise at a play is morally questionable. Like the arguments in Republic, Augustine's anti-poetic arguments raise serious problems about the status of the text in which they are found. The problems raised are both logical, on a par with the self-referential problems of Russell's theory of types, and moral, for the books themselves have the culpable nature each wishes to cast out from the republic and the soul: their narratives include representations of evil, and Augustine's book--if not Plato's--stages a suffering at the reading of which we might well be grieved. (shrink)

The pinnacle of the physician's clinical skills is his ability to develop the autonomy of his patients in the management of their health affairs. To do this requires the forging of a relationship in which patients' attitudes toward their health and illness are products of the doctor-patient relationship rather than unilateral behavior by either one. Modern medicine is beset with problems that make it difficult for physicians to develop and exercise the skills that lead to patient autonomy. An erosion of (...) public confidence in physicians is being caused by several mojar forces that include: (1) the power of science over life; (2) medical technology's dehumanizing effect; (3) legalization of medical ethics; and (4) industrialization and commercialization of medical care. To restore the kind of confidence that makes the physician an effective proponent of his patient's autonomy will require a major emphasis upon all aspects of medical ethics in the medical curriculum and in medical practice. Clinical investigation of this subject is highly appropriate. Clinical faculties should be developed in greater numbers who are authorities in the humanities as well as in science. Our medical schools need also to develop and to utilize models of health care in which relations with patients are personalized, continuous, and comprehensive so that ethical ideals such as patient autonomy can be demonstrated by precept and example, and can also be researched. (shrink)

This article describes and reflects upon Australia's extensive, federally-mandated, environmental education program. This program is based on a National Conservation Strategy which went into effect in 1989. But the program has massive support on the state and local levels as well. In addition to traditional classroom study of the environment and environmental issues, Audtralian Students do composting, re-vegetation of local canyons, and other hands-on activities. In many areas of the students' deatiledreports become the data base for the government's environmental monitoring (...) program. A remarkable aspect of environmental education in Australia is the web of groups and individuals who are involved: local farmers, Aboriginal peoples, banks, local nurseries, and all levels of government, along with environmental organizations like Greening Astraila and Landcare.In contrast to Australia, the United States lacks a systematic educational program focused on the environment. The article concludes by summarizing the strengths of the Australian program and criticizing the American failure to establish such a program. Reasons for this failure are suggested. Finally, a general contrast is offered, showing the differences between two philosophies of education—the Technocratic Philosophy of Education vs. the Holistic Philosophy of Education. (shrink)

Informed by a search of the literature about the usage of genetic testing information (GTI) by insurance companies, this paper presents a practical ethical analysis of several distinct public policy options that might be used to govern or constrain GTI usage by insurance providers. As medical research advances and the extension to the Human Genome Project (2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/human_genome_project_-_write) moves to its fullness over the next decade, such research efforts will allow the full synthesis of human DNA to be connected to (...) predictive health dispositions. As testing costs fall, there will be ever more pressure for citizens to disclose GTI. Genetic testing information is integral to future medical care because it can be used to better assess individually tailored medical therapies as well as to allow a more informed risk analysis by the insurance industry, which in some countries such as the USA underwrites a majority of citizen medical expenses. As discussed in this examination, the revelation of people’s uniquely personal GTI to insurers has enormous societal implications. The major contribution of the paper is to offer policy makers and concerned citizens a nuanced articulation of the basic options to regulate GTI, with a special consideration for ethical fairness and equity. As genetic-based medicine blossoms and pressures to reduce healthcare costs increase, there will be an ever greater impetus for countries to revisit their genetic testing policies. Organizations and policy makers striving to create GTI oversights perceived to be both “fair and effective” need to be aware of the ethical perspectives discussed in this paper. (shrink)

The COVID‐19 pandemic has reinforced the critical role of ethics and community engagement in designing and conducting clinical research during infectious disease outbreaks where no vaccine or treatment already exists. In reviewing current practices across Africa, we distinguish between three distinct roles for community engagement in clinical research that are often conflated: 1) the importance of community engagement for identifying and honouring cultural sensitivities; 2) the importance of recognising the socio‐political context in which the research is proposed; and 3) the (...) importance of understanding what is in the interest of communities recruited to research according to their own views and values. By making these distinctions, we show that current practice of clinical research could draw on anthropology in ways which are sometimes unnecessary to solicit local cultural values, overlook the importance of socio‐political contexts and wider societal structures within which it works, potentially serving to reinforce unjust political or social regimes, and threaten to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the research. We argue that more discerning anthropological engagement as well as wider collaboration with other social scientists and those working in the humanities is urgently needed to improve the ethics of current biomedical and pharmaceutical research practice in Africa. (shrink)

How should the “physical” in “physicalism” be understood? I here set out systematic criteria of adequacy, propose an account, and show how the account meets those criteria. The criteria of adequacy focus on the idea of rational management: to vindicate philosophical practice, the account must make it plausible that we can assess various questions about physicalism. The account on offer is dubbed the “Ideal Naturalist Physics” account, according to which the physical is that which appears in an ideal theory that (...) both meets the explanatory goals of physics and is naturalist in a sense to be explained. The combination of these two provides a satisfying account of the physical that meets the criteria of adequacy and can be used to predict puzzle cases as well. (shrink)

Writing in the Business and Politics, Santos and Laczniak (Business and Politics 14(1) 2012) formulated a normative, ethical approach to be followed when marketers e ngage impoverished market segments. It is labeled the integrative justice model (IJM). As noted below, that approach called for authentic engagement, co-creation, and customer interest representation, among other elements, when transacting with vulnerable market segments. Basically, the IJM derived certain operational virtues, implied by moral philosophy, to be used when marketing to the poor. But this (...) well-intentioned approach raises a significant “So what?” question. Are such sentiments anything but lofty aspirations for idealists or are there steps to be taken by society and business managers of goodwill to make the adaptation of the IJM by corporations more likely and pragmatic? This paper begins to layout a roadmap that shows “how and why” the IJM might more likely be vitalized. The crux, as described below, is found in the transformational justice dimensions that are embedded in institutions (and supporting institutional arrangements); such external institutions provide a “power” impetus to assure the ethical rights claims that impoverished consumers have owed to them. In this way, the ideal exchange characteristics for bottom (or base) of the pyramid (BoP) markets argued for in the IJM can become actively transformational. The main contribution of this paper is that it begins to chart out the institutional system elements that need to exercise power in order to deliver a “fairer” marketplace for BoP consumers. (shrink)

Fibril‐forming (fibrillar) collagens are extracellular matrix proteins conserved in all multicellular animals. Vertebrate members of the fibrillar collagen family are essential for the formation of bone and teeth, tissues that characterise vertebrates. The potential role played by fibrillar collagens in vertebrate evolution has not been considered previously largely because the family has been around since the sponge and it was unclear precisely how and when those particular members now found in vertebrates first arose. We present evidence that the classical vertebrate (...) fibrillar collagens share a single common ancestor that arose at the very dawn of the vertebrate world and prior to the associated genome duplication events. Furthermore, we present a model, ‘molecular incest’, that not only accounts for the characteristics of the modern day vertebrate fibrillar collagen family but demonstrates the specific effects genome or gene duplications may have on the evolution of multimeric proteins in general. BioEssays 25:142–151, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This is a review of Gregory Scott's book on Aristotle's Poetics, which he argues, with excellent and well-defended reasons, has the much narrow focus of dramatic musical art.

This clever and insightful book reveals the depth and breadth of high moral character and competence in the corporate world. The good news is that the corporate world, by and large, is in good shape. The bad news is that the bad apples number enough to make the rest of us vulnerable to their whims. A Knight?s Code of Business is the first book to arrive in the aftermath of high profiles disasters such as Enron and WorldCom. It presents both (...) the misadventures that befall corporations, as well as guidance to help upcoming managers achieve high moral character and competence in the corporate world. It?s a fun and insightful read. The lessons discussed come from the author?s 20+ years of experience, stories contributed by nearly two dozen other business professionals all across America, and the new survey of marketing executives. (shrink)

While niche construction theory locates animal artefacts in their constructors’ environment, hence treating them as capable of exerting selective pressure on both the constructors and their descendants, the extended phenotype concept assimilates artefacts with their constructors’ genes. Analogous contrasts apply in the case of endoparasite and brood parasite genes influencing host behaviour. The explanatory power of these competing approaches are assessed by re-examining the core chapters of Richard Dawkins’ _The Extended Phenotype_. Because animal artefacts have multiple evolutionary consequences for their (...) constructors, the extra-body effects of a gene seemingly include feedback effects on multiple other genes, a result which is more consistent with niche construction theory than with selfish gene theory. In the case of endoparasite genes influencing host behaviour, Dawkins’ argument leaves out what appears to be the key explanatory component, namely the role of the host’s own bodily systems in making it possible for such genes to exist. For action at a distance, it is unclear whether the key genes have extended effects because they sit in the body of the manipulating organism, or alternatively do not have such effects because they sit in the body of its victim. It is argued that niche construction theory offers a superior explanation in all three cases, regardless of whether the extended phenotype concept is interpreted in selfish gene or selfish organism terms. (shrink)

Writing in the Business and Politics, Santos and Laczniak 2012) formulated a normative, ethical approach to be followed when marketers e ngage impoverished market segments. It is labeled the integrative justice model. As noted below, that approach called for authentic engagement, co-creation, and customer interest representation, among other elements, when transacting with vulnerable market segments. Basically, the IJM derived certain operational virtues, implied by moral philosophy, to be used when marketing to the poor. But this well-intentioned approach raises a significant (...) “So what?” question. Are such sentiments anything but lofty aspirations for idealists or are there steps to be taken by society and business managers of goodwill to make the adaptation of the IJM by corporations more likely and pragmatic? This paper begins to layout a roadmap that shows “how and why” the IJM might more likely be vitalized. The crux, as described below, is found in the transformational justice dimensions that are embedded in institutions ; such external institutions provide a “power” impetus to assure the ethical rights claims that impoverished consumers have owed to them. In this way, the ideal exchange characteristics for bottom of the pyramid markets argued for in the IJM can become actively transformational. The main contribution of this paper is that it begins to chart out the institutional system elements that need to exercise power in order to deliver a “fairer” marketplace for BoP consumers. (shrink)

Patient portals are poised to transform health communication by empowering patients with rapid access to their own health data. The 21st Century Cures Act is a US federal law that, among other provisions, prevents health entities from engaging in practices that disrupt the exchange of electronic health information—a measure that may increase the usage of patient health portals. Caregiver access to patient portals, however, may lead to breaches in patient privacy and confidentiality if not managed properly through proxy accounts. We (...) present an ethical framework that guides policy and clinical workflow development for healthcare institutions to support the best use of patient portals. Caregivers are vital members of the care team and should be supported through novel forms of health information technology (IT). Patients, however, may not want all information to be shared with their proxies so healthcare institutions must support the development and use of separate proxy accounts as opposed to using the patient’s own account as well provide controls for limiting the scope of information displayed in the proxy accounts. Lastly, as socioeconomic barriers to adoption of health IT persist, healthcare providers must work to ensure multiple streams of patient communication, to prevent further propagating health inequities. (shrink)

We outline three very different concepts of the gene—instrumental, nominal, and postgenomic. The instrumental gene has a critical role in the construction and interpretation of experiments in which the relationship between genotype and phenotype is explored via hybridization between organisms or directly between nucleic acid molecules. It also plays an important theoretical role in the foundations of disciplines such as quantitative genetics and population genetics. The nominal gene is a critical practical tool, allowing stable communication between bioscientists (...) in a wide range of fields grounded in well-defined sequences of nucleotides, but this concept does not embody major theoretical insights into genome structure or function. The post-genomic gene embodies the continuing project of understanding how genome structure supports genome function, but with a deflationary picture of the gene as a structural unit. This final concept of the gene poses a significant challenge to conventional assumptions about the relationship between genome structure and function, and between genotype and phenotype. (shrink)

We attempt to improve the understanding of the notion of agene being `for a phenotypic trait or traits. Considering theimplicit functional ascription of one thing being `for another,we submit a more restrictive version of `gene for talk.Accordingly, genes are only to be thought of as being forphenotypic traits when good evidence is available that thepresence or prevalence of the gene in a population is the resultof natural selection on that particular trait, and that theassociation between that trait and (...) the gene in question isdemonstrably causal. It is therefore necessary to gatherstatistical, biochemical, historical, as well as ecologicalinformation before properly claiming that a gene is for aphenotypic trait. Instead of hampering practical use of the `genefor talk, our approach aims at stimulating much needed researchinto the functional ecology and comparative evolutionary biologyof gene action. (shrink)

Although the field of psychiatry has witnessed the proliferation of studies on Gene x Environment (GxE) interactions, still limited is the knowledge we possess of GxE interactions regarding developmental disorders. In this perspective paper, we discuss why GxE interaction studies are needed to broaden our knowledge of developmental disorders. We also discuss the different roles of hazardous versus self-generated environmental factors and how these types of factors may differentially engage with an individual’s genetic background in predicting a resulting phenotype. (...) Then, we present exemplar studies that highlight the role of GxE in predicting atypical developmental trajectories as well as provide insight regarding treatment outcomes. Supported by these examples, we explicate the need to move beyond merely examining statistical interactions between genes and the environment, and to investigate specific genetic susceptibility and environmental contexts that drive developmental disorders. We propose that further parsing of genetic and environmental components is required to fully understand the unique contribution of each factor to the etiology of developmental disorders. Finally, with a greater appreciation of the complexities of GxE interaction, this discussion will converge upon the potential implications for clinical and translational research. (shrink)

Quantitative genetics (QG) analyses variation in traits of humans, other animals, or plants in ways that take account of the genealogical relatedness of the individuals whose traits are observed. “Classical” QG, where the analysis of variation does not involve data on measurable genetic or environmental entities or factors, is reformulated in this article using models that are free of hypothetical, idealized versions of such factors, while still allowing for defined degrees of relatedness among kinds of individuals or “varieties.” The (...) class='Hi'>gene - free formulation encompasses situations encountered in human QG as well as in agricultural QG. This formulation is used to describe three standard assumptions involved in classical QG and provide plausible alternatives. Several concerns about the partitioning of trait variation into components and its interpretation, most of which have a long history of debate, are discussed in light of the gene-free formulation and alternative assumptions. That discussion is at a theoretical level, not dependent on empirical data in any particular situation. Additional lines of work to put the gene-free formulation and alternative assumptions into practice and to assess their empirical consequences are noted, but lie beyond the scope of this article. The three standard QG assumptions examined are: (1) partitioning of trait variation into components requires models of hypothetical, idealized genes with simple Mendelian inheritance and direct contributions to the trait; (2) all other things being equal, similarity in traits for relatives is proportional to the fraction shared by the relatives of all the genes that vary in the population (e.g., fraternal or dizygotic twins share half of the variable genes that identical or monozygotic twins share); (3) in analyses of human data, genotype-environment interaction variance (in the classical QG sense) can be discounted. The concerns about the partitioning of trait variation discussed include: the distinction between traits and underlying measurable factors; the possible heterogeneity in factors underlying the development of a trait; the kinds of data needed to estimate key empirical parameters; and interpretations based on contributions of hypothetical genes; as well as, in human studies, the labeling of residual variance as a non-shared environmental effect; and the importance of estimating interaction variance. (shrink)

Advances in genetic technology in general and medical genetics in particular will enable us to intervene in the process of human biological development which extends from zygotes and embryos to people. This will allow us to control to a great extent the identities and the length and quality of the lives of people who already exist, as well as those we bring into existence in the near and distant future. Genes and Future People explores two general philosophical questions, one metaphysical, (...) the other moral: (1) How do genes, and different forms of genetic intervention (gene therapy, genetic enhancement, presymptomatic genetic testing of adults, genetic testing of preimplantation embryos), affect the identities of the people who already exist and those we bring into existence? and (2) How do these interventions benefit or harm the people we cause to exist in the near future and those who will exist in the distant future by satisfying or defeating their interest in having reasonably long and disease-free lives? Genes and Future People begins by explaining the connection between genes and disease, placing genetic within a framework of evolutionary biology. It then discusses such topics as how genes and genetic intervention influence personal identity, what genetic testing of individuals and the knowledge resulting from it entails about responsibility to others who may be at risk, as well as how gene therapy and genetic enhancement can affect the identities of people and benefit or harm them. Furthermore, it discusses various moral aspects of cloning human beings and body parts. Finally, it explores the metaphysical and moral implications of genetic manipulation of the mechanisms of aging to extend the human life span.The aim Genes and Future People is to move philosophers, bioethicists, and readers in general to reflect on the extent to which genes determine whether we are healthy or diseased, our identities as persons, the quality of our lives, and our moral obligations to future generations of people. (shrink)

Co‐option of the eye developmental gene regulatory network may have led to the appearance of novel functional traits on the wings of flies and butterflies. The first trait is a recently described wing organ in a species of extinct midge resembling the outer layers of the midge's own compound eye. The second trait is red pigment patches on Heliconius butterfly wings connected to the expression of an eye selector gene, optix. These examples, as well as others, are discussed (...) regarding the type of empirical evidence and burden of proof that have been used to infer gene network co‐option underlying the origin of novel traits. A conceptual framework describing increasing confidence in inference of network co‐option is proposed. Novel research directions to facilitate inference of network co‐option are also highlighted, especially in cases where the pre‐existent and novel traits do not resemble each other. (shrink)

A common view is that species occupy a unique position on the Tree of Life. Evaluating this claim requires an understanding of what the Tree of Life represents. The Tree represents history, but there are at least three biological levels that are often said to have genealogies: species, organisms, and genes. Here I focus on defending the plausibility of a gene-based account of the Tree. This leads to an account of species that are determined by gene genealogies. On (...) this view, an exclusive group is a group of organisms that forms a clade for a higher proportion of the genome than any conflicting clade. Taxa occupy a unique position in what can be called the ‘primary concordance tree’. But each gene has its own historical ‘Tree of Life’. I conclude by arguing that both organismal pedigrees with their corresponding Tree as well as gene genealogies and their trees are objectively real and play important, but different, roles in biological practice. (shrink)

Co‐option of the eye developmental gene regulatory network may have led to the appearance of novel functional traits on the wings of flies and butterflies. The first trait is a recently described wing organ in a species of extinct midge resembling the outer layers of the midge's own compound eye. The second trait is red pigment patches on Heliconius butterfly wings connected to the expression of an eye selector gene, optix. These examples, as well as others, are discussed (...) regarding the type of empirical evidence and burden of proof that have been used to infer gene network co‐option underlying the origin of novel traits. A conceptual framework describing increasing confidence in inference of network co‐option is proposed. Novel research directions to facilitate inference of network co‐option are also highlighted, especially in cases where the pre‐existent and novel traits do not resemble each other. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the way information transfers across networks depends importantly on the structure of the network. Here, we show that the mechanism of information transfer is crucial: in many respects the effect of the specific transfer mechanism swamps network effects. Results are demonstrated in terms of three different types of transfer mechanism: germs, genes, and memes. With an emphasis on the specific case of transfer between sub-networks, we explore both the dynamics of each of these across networks (...) and a measure of their comparative fitness. Germ and meme transfer exhibit very different dynamics across linked networks. For germs, measured in terms of time to total infection, network type rather than degree of linkage between sub-networks is the primary factor. For memes or belief transfer, measured in terms of time to consensus, it is the opposite: degree of linkage trumps network type in importance. The dynamics of genetic information transfer is unlike either germs or memes. Transfer of genetic information is robust across network differences to which both germs and memes prove sensitive. We also consider function: how well germ, gene, and meme transfer mechanisms can meet their respective objectives of infecting the population, mixing and transferring genetic information, and spreading a message. A shared formal measure of fitness is introduced for purposes of comparison, again with an emphasis on linked sub-networks. Meme transfer proves superior to transfer by genetic reproduction on that measure, with both memes and genes superior to infection dynamics across all networks types. What kinds of network structure optimize fitness also differ among the three. Both germs and genes show fairly stable fitness with added links between sub-networks, but genes show greater sensitivity to the structure of sub-networks at issue. Belief transfer, in contrast to the other two, shows a clear decline in fitness with increasingly connected networks. When it comes to understanding how information moves on networks, our results indicate that questions of information dynamics on networks cannot be answered in terms of networks alone. A primary role is played by the specific mechanism of information transfer at issue. We must first ask about how a particular type of information moves. (shrink)