For at least 50 years science fiction’s dangerousness has sprung largely from its leaps into the transgressive. But something has now changed; the biggest problem today for anyone trying to create dangerous science fiction is that in the developed countries we now live largely in a libertarian, post-transgressive culture. There is, however, at least one target for science fiction that grows increasingly dangerous; the border between scarcity and post-scarcity. This danger is perhaps best realized in the great Mars trilogy by (...) Kim Stanley Robinson, which not only imagines a bridge from our current scarcity-based culture to a post-scarcity culture, but also shows people building this very bridge up from the foundations of our life today. Perhaps more dangerously, he then follows Marcuse and Mumford in envisioning not only an end to the economic problem of poverty but also to the social, anthropological and psychical forces of scarcity, showing step-by-step the dramatic changes in psychology, values and lives that post-scarcity would bring. And so, like certain tales by Plato and Tolstoy, it is a ‘threshing tale’, a tale that forces us into an imaginative confrontation with our current values, intending to winnow the false from the true. This epic sets out to alter the way we see ourselves and our social sphere, hoping – like William Blake – that altering the eye alters all; perhaps nothing but such a plausible, non-utopian and social vision of life in post-scarcity can be truly dangerous to the way we now think, love, work and war. (shrink)

We discuss a recent approach to investigating cognitive control, which has the potential to deal with some of the challenges inherent in this endeavour. In a model-based approach, the researcher defines a formal, computational model that performs the task at hand and whose performance matches that of a research participant. The internal variables in such a model might then be taken as proxies for latent variables computed in the brain. We discuss the potential advantages of such an approach for the (...) study of the neural underpinnings of cognitive control and its pitfalls, and we make explicit the assumptions underlying the interpretation of data obtained using this approach. (shrink)

Health is certainly a valuable asset in the life of every human being and of particular relevance for a flourishing childhood. As empirical research concerning the social determinants of health shows, its distribution can, at least to a certain extent, be influenced by the way a society is arranged. Many philosophers now acknowledge that a fair distribution of health has to be a central part of a just society and they discuss to what extent a right to health can be (...) justified. However, they do not typically distinguish between physical and mental health and neglect the special problems arising from these distinct, though related, perspectives. In this paper, we argue in favour of such a distinction and ask whether a minimally just society ought to include mental health among the goods that are to be distributed in a fair way among its children. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between mental health and happiness and ask whether making mental health a subject of justice implies that children are entitled not only to a healthy but also to a happy childhood. Despite the positive impact of happiness on the lives of children, we conclude that happiness cannot be incorporated into a functional theory of justice, since it does not fully meet the criteria of objectivity, measurability and influenceability. (shrink)

In a questionnaire study on organ allocation 348 students of medicine (102) and economics (246) at the universities of Halle (114 students) and Hannover (234 students) responded to questions concerning their basic attitudes toward alternative criteria of organ allocation. Medical criteria were widely accepted by the respondents. Considerations concerning the patient's value to society were seen as being of minor importance. With respect to reciprocity, we could detect a high share of respondents who would favor former living donors and discriminate (...) against murderers. Among considerations of fairness, the criterion of waiting time gained the highest support. Furthermore, majorities favored the view that health-compromising behavior and differences in age should play a role. Economic considerations were strongly rejected as criteria of organ allocation. (shrink)

This essay argues that the practical reason approach to the study of social conventions (and social normativity more generally) fails to adequately account for the fluency of social action in environments that we experience as familiar. The practical reason approach, articulated most recently in Andrei Marmor’s Social Conventions: From Language to Law (2009) does help us, though not wholly adequately, to understand how we tend to react to, and experience, unfamiliar situations or unfamiliar behaviors, that is, those situations in which (...) a certain practice becomes problematic or is problematized, or where we are obliged to, or moved to, justify or deliberate. The reason why the practical reason approach is not wholly adequate when it comes to understanding unfamiliar situations or unfamiliar behaviors is that it tends to subsume the unfamiliar under the familiar, that is, it tends to negatively evaluate anything that is deemed to be not in accordance with the rules and reasons already familiar to the observer. This excludes the possibility of the observer having to transform himself or herself, and thus change what is familiar to him or her. (shrink)

This is an introduction to, and survey of, the constructive approaches to pure mathematics. The authors emphasise the viewpoint of Errett Bishop's school, but intuitionism. Russian constructivism and recursive analysis are also treated, with comparisons between the various approaches included where appropriate. Constructive mathematics is now enjoying a revival, with interest from not only logicans but also category theorists, recursive function theorists and theoretical computer scientists. This account for non-specialists in these and other disciplines.

The effective implementation of regulation in organizations is an ongoing concern for both research and practice, in order to avoid deviant behavior and its consequences. However, the way compliance with regulations is actually enacted or “performed” within organizations instead of merely executed, remains largely under-characterized. Evidence from an ethnographic study in the compliance unit of a French investment bank allows us to develop a detailed practice approach to how regulation is actually implemented in firms. We characterize the work accomplished by (...) compliance analysts who are in fact, “curving” the script of regulation within what we conceptualize as a “comfort zone”. Beyond agency, ethics appears as a key element in linking the “letter of the law”, which serves as a referential anchor to guide action, with the complex nature of specific situations. We analyze the way individuals and compliance teams cope with, interpret, struggle and in fine, perform regulation within this comfort zone. A particular interest is thus given to the work of embedded ethics in this process, as an enabler to partly recouple compliance with the regulated activity. We find that blind execution is not only impossible, but also devoid of meaning both from regulatory, risk management, and business perspectives in organizations. We highlight and characterize a hermeneutic dimension to this work, essential to effectively perform regulation in complex environments, and we suggest some directions for further research. (shrink)

A wealth of experimental findings on how real actors do in fact bargain exists. However, as long as there is no systematic general account of the several experiments bargaining theory remains dominated by axiomatic approaches based on normative requirements or on assumptions of full rather than bounded rationality. Contrary to that, the new axiomatic account of aspiration level balancing in negotiations of boundedly rational actors presented in this paper incorporates experimental findings systematically into economic bargaining theory. It thereby forms a (...) descriptive theory of bargaining that has normative power as well. (shrink)

It is argued that a truly Humean approach to social interaction and to normative reflection on how we should interact needs to get even closer to the facts than the Binmore program suggests. In view of the facts Binmore’s normative conclusions on bargaining as well as on the nature of the equilibria of the game of life both seem precarious.

In the Eurotransplant region transplantable kidneys from cadaveric donors are allocated according to the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. This paper shows that the algorithm as it stands fulfils certain normative standards of a more formal nature while violating others. In view of these insights, it is explored how the algorithm could perhaps be improved. Even if issues of substantial rather than formal adequacy need to be addressed separately, analyses as presented in this paper can prepare the ground for a discussion of substantive (...) normative issues. In any event, axiomatic accounts can tell us something about what we are in fact doing when using a procedure like the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. (shrink)

The importance of relationality in ethical leadership has been the focus of recent attention in business ethics scholarship. However, this relational component has not been sufficiently theorized from different philosophical perspectives, allowing specific Western philosophical conceptions to dominate the leadership development literature. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of the relational ontology that informs various conceptualizations of selfhood from both African and Western philosophical traditions and unpacks its implications for values-driven leadership. We aim to broaden Western conceptions of leadership development (...) by drawing on twentieth century European philosophy’s insights on relationality, but more importantly, to show how African philosophical traditions precede this literature in its insistence on a relational ontology of the self. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we reflect on an executive education course called values-driven leadership into action, which ran in South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt in 2016, 2017, and 2018. We highlight an African-inspired employment of relationality through its use of the ME-WE-WORLD framework, articulating its theoretical assumptions with embodied experiential learning. (shrink)

During the English Civil War and subsequent Restoration, beekeeping provided a ready set of moral examples for those seeking answers about the ‘natural’ structure of society. The practice itself also underwent a number of substantial changes, moving from a traditional craft practice to a more knowledge-focused, technologically complex one. The advent of glass-windowed hives in the latter half of the sixteenth century allowed intellectuals from across the political spectrum to directly observe bees as a way of gathering knowledge about how (...) to understand the divine plan and, with that understanding, improve human society. (shrink)

Foucault's analysis of an aesthetics of existence is presented as an instrument to practice ethical thought without the presupposition of an autonomous subject. The implications of Foucault's aesthetics of existence for ethical thought are traced to the work of Nietzsche. In Foucault's work, experiences of oneself are not a given, but are constituted in power relations and true-and-false games. In the interplay of truths and power relations, the individual constitutes a certain relationship to him- or herself. Foucault designated the relation (...) to oneself and one's existence as the main area of ethical concern and the most important field where aesthetic values are to be applied. In his aesthetics of existence, he invited the individual to problematize the relationship with the self and by using 'self-techniques' to transform it into a work of art. The relation to intimate others, shaped as friendship, is crucial to this ethical-aesthetic approach. Key Words: aesthetics of existence • ethics • Foucault • friendship • Nietzsche • subjectivity. (shrink)

A teaching method may not work for all students. Therefore, attention should be paid to the type of students entering the learning environment in order to explain how they perceive the learning environment and achieve. This study investigates students? perceptions and achievement in four learning environments that differed in the degree to which case-based and lecture-based learning were implemented (either separately or combined), hereby making use of students? motivational and learning profiles. Participants were 1098 first-year student teachers who took a (...) course on child development. Results showed that autonomously motivated deep-strategic learners were significantly more positive about each type of learning environment than little motivated and less pronounced deep-strategic learners. However, with regard to achievement, student profiles did not differ. Instead, the learning environment proved to be of significant influence: students in a gradually implemented case-based setting and a completely lecture-based setting scored significantly higher than students in a completely case-based setting. (shrink)

Our concern is with the ethical issues related to girlhood and bodily integrity—the right to be free from physical harm and harassment and to experience freedom and security in relation to the body. We defend agency, positive self-relations, and health as basic elements of bodily integrity and we advocate that this normative concept be used as a conceptual tool for the protection of the rights of girls. We assume the capability approach developed by Martha Nussbaum as an ethical framework that (...) enables us to evaluate girls’ well-being and well-becoming in relation to the potential, and often subtle, threats they face. The capability approach can be understood as a theory of justice, and, therefore, as an ethical and political approach. An enriched concept of bodily integrity can help in the design of better policies to address gender biases against girls because it could contribute to seeing them as active agents and valid participants. (shrink)

In the Eurotransplant region transplantable kidneys from cadaveric donors are allocated according to the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. This paper shows that the algorithm as it stands fulfils certain normative standards of a more formal nature while violating others. In view of these insights, it is explored how the algorithm could perhaps be improved. Even if issues of substantial rather than formal adequacy need to be addressed separately, analyses as presented in this paper can prepare the ground for a discussion of substantive (...) normative issues. In any event, axiomatic accounts can tell us something about what we are in fact doing when using a procedure like the Wujciak-Opelz algorithm. (shrink)

This research is part of a more extensive programme that deals with intercultural ethics from different perspectives. All of them share a common inspiration sprung from UNESCO’s Intercultural Ethics Project. The main goal of this paper consists in offering pragmatic/theoretical tools in order to analyse a cultural and political issue which is currently very important in Spain: the confrontation between those promoting Spanish national culture and those promoting the Basque one. I approach this confrontation in terms of discursive praxis, reaching (...) the conclusion that only if both groups are capable of self-understanding will they be capable of reciprocal-understanding, and only then will it be possible to maintain peace in our country. (shrink)

This article explores the maternal experiences of a heterogeneous group of 26 mothers from Granada. The aim is to analyse the needs and demands that these women express with regard to childrearing, using a qualitative methodology. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and analysed the discourses of the mothers following the hermeneutical method. The variables used for sample selection and the themes that emerged during the interviews revealed that the discourses of the mothers revolve around three dimensions: indifference, demands and resignation (...) regarding support for childrearing. The lack of paternal involvement in childrearing appears as a transversal dimension. This article shows that the material conditions of existence marked the differences in the responses of the women regarding support for childrearing, while the sexual division of labour and gender inequalities unified their discourses. (shrink)

Review Essay of Stephen P. Turner, Explaining the Normative, 2010.

This research is part of a more extensive programme that deals with intercultural ethics from different perspectives. All of them share a common inspiration sprung from UNESCO’s Intercultural Ethics Project. The main goal of this paper consists in offering pragmatic/theoretical tools in order to analyse a cultural and political issue which is currently very important in Spain: the confrontation between those promoting Spanish national culture and those promoting the Basque one. I approach this confrontation in terms of discursive praxis, reaching (...) the conclusion that only if both groups are capable of self-understanding will they be capable of reciprocal-understanding, and only then will it be possible to maintain peace in our country. (shrink)

This paper offers an example of what may be called ‘an aesthetic history of legal and political thought’. Such a task engages in theorising historically the features of aesthetic traditions that enable and further normative inquiry, i.e. an exploration of the norms and values that might contribute to the good life and the common good. The three features offered in this paper as useful to identifying such aesthetic traditions are communality and interactivity, experimentalism, and exemplarity. The paper shows how each (...) of these features is present, in particular ways, in one specific aesthetic tradition, namely the declamatory tradition. Tracing the declamatory tradition back to Ancient Rome, and examining its influence in the English Renaissance, especially in Sir Thomas More’s response to Lucian’s declamatory thema, Tyrannicide, the paper argues that the particular ways in which declamatory practice combines the above three features enables those engaged in it to pursue normative inquiry. The paper argues that the integration of these three features is especially visible in one aspect of declamatory practice, namely the introduction and exchange of colores, i.e. changes in the narrative, introduced by declaimers and their audiences, which shed light on the possible motivation of a character, and thereby also invited shifts in affective allegiance and evaluative perspective. The paper argues that it is in large part through such introduction and exchange of colores that the declamatory tradition enables and furthers normative inquiry, and thus also offers a good reason for including the declamatory tradition in ‘an aesthetic history of legal and political thought’. (shrink)

Stripping the Virgin Mary of the myths, stories, and dogmas surrounding her is a task that has particularly appealed to a branch of feminist theology which seeks to reclaim her as a figure of female empowerment. This article aims to explore the transformation of Mary’s body into an element of resistance in the work of some contemporary artists. By depicting her nude or semi-nude, artists disrupt the gender values commonly associated with the Virgin and open up alternative possibilities of affirmative (...) selfhood through her body. I contend that, in these works, the Virgin’s body functions as a ‘relational’ body that enters into dialogue with hitherto marginalized categories, such as the carnal, the sensual, the notion of fleshly materiality, or even the excluded sexualities of transgender people. (shrink)

This paper argues that not only does history matter to legal epistemology, but also that understanding legal epistemology can yield a certain understanding of the past. The paper focuses on the common law practice of precedent and argues that there is no set of rules, principles, reasons or material facts that constitute the fixed or foundational content of past decisions, but rather that what is taken by a judge resolving a particular dispute to be the content of past decisions depends (...) on the active and creative construal of relevance engaged in by that judge. Precedents are better thought of as `thick resources with dynamic content'. Such content is constrained by a variety of stabilising practices, but never so constrained as to determine how it can be construed to be relevant. This image of law's past may offer a general view of the past as something with which we can actively and creatively relate in the course of coping with the present. (shrink)

“No one can serve two masters.” This Bible quotation highlights an irreducible contradiction, which echoes numerous organizational settings. This article considers the under-explored ethical implications of paradoxical injunctions created by such a contradiction at the managerial level. Contradictory organizational constraints turn into paradoxant systems , where the organization structurally settles paradoxical injunctions which challenge managerial ethics in practice. We then ask what managerial responsibility means in such contexts and find that managers have then to reshape their practice as a situated (...) construction through constant mediation between different “masters” and bricolage (i.e., tinkering with concepts). An ethnographic case study of an anti-money laundering service in an investment bank illuminates this phenomenon from a practice perspective. The possibility to enact an actual ethical practice within the contradictory organization relies on a new role of the manager. This implies drawing on an approach of responsible management as an enactment of ethics in practice which is situated within the framework of a new conception of both the organization, as a structurally “paradoxant system,” and the manager as a mediator in charge of enacting coherence. (shrink)

Daydreaming appears to have a complex relationship with life satisfaction and happiness. Here we demonstrate that the facets of daydreaming that predict life satisfaction differ between men and women , that the content of daydreams tends to be social others , and that who we daydream about influences the relation between daydreaming and happiness variables like life satisfaction, loneliness, and perceived social support . Specifically, daydreaming about people not close to us predicts more loneliness and less perceived social support, whereas (...) daydreaming about close others predicts greater life satisfaction. Importantly, these patterns hold even when actual social network depth and breadth are statistically controlled, although these associations tend to be small in magnitude. Individual differences and the content of daydreams are thus important to consider when examining how happiness relates to spontaneous thoughts. (shrink)

Filosoof en arts Marli Huijer, de opvolger van René Gude als Denker des Vaderlands, is geen studeerkamergeleerde, al schreef ze meerdere boeken, zoals het recente Ritme en Discipline. Ze is geen tegen-, geen mee-, maar een tussendenker, ze wil de stemmen van allerlei verschillende mensen laten klinken. In de interviews in Het leven is niet leuk als je je mond houdt praat Peter Henk Steenhuis met haar over haar inspiratiebron Hannah Arendt, haar overstap van haar werk bij de methadonpost in (...) Beverwijk naar de filosofie, haar bijdrage aan het Filosofisch Elftal van Trouw, hoe wij met elkaar omgaan, hoe je jezelf kunt disciplineren, Simone de Beauvoir en Martha Nussbaum, de participatiesamenleving, omgaan met teleurstellingen, bevolkingsonderzoeken. In deze veelheid van onderwerpen benadrukt Huijer keer op keer dat het belangrijk is je vrijmoedig uit te spreken.00. (shrink)

Yoga, together with other so-called holistic spiritual practices such as reiki or meditation, is one of the most popular spiritual disciplines in our contemporary society. The success of yoga crosses the boundaries between health, sport, religion, and popular culture. However, from a sociological point of view, this is a largely under-researched field. Aiming to fill this gap, this article analyzes the impact, meaning, and implications of the practice of yoga by taking prisons as the institutional context of the study. The (...) growth of yoga in penitentiary settings is a recent trend in many countries and raises new questions concerning its potential to foster well-being and self-transformation. The research presented here applies Schutz’s concepts of “finite province of meaning” and “stock of knowledge” to understand yoga’s role in inmates’ lives. The main argument of the article is that yoga is a body technique that affords inmates the possibility to enter into a “finite province of meaning” and transcend their everyday prison lives. However, the impact of yoga upon inmates’ lives is not limited just to its physical effects as learning yoga also involves the acquisition of a “spiritual stock of knowledge” made up of Eastern philosophy, holistic concepts, and self-help therapeutic narratives. Indeed, physical movements and spiritual accounts constitute one another in the practice of yoga, thus opening up a pathway into a different reality; movement and spiritual discourse inform one another—and it is precisely in this reflexivity that “transcendent experiences” are created and yoga is made meaningful and important in the improvement-setting of the prison. This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork developed carried out in two different penitentiary institutions. (shrink)

Experts in the field of organ transplantation had to rank order a set of 32 patients according to their priority in receiving a donated kidney. The patients were described by the five characteristics that are incorporated in the kidney allocation algorithm applied by Eurotransplant. The priority rankings as defined by the experts were analyzed and patterns of dedsion making identified in the rankings investigated in this study. All patterns could be explained by some type of lexicographical ranking. The larger group (...) of experts preordered tissue compatibility or, more technically speaking, the criterion of HLA match, while the complementary group applied the criterion of the length of waiting time first. Analyzing the finer decision structures of expert rankings and com paring the method of pattern exploration with a conjoint measurement analysis led to two follow-up questions: First, how can the value judgments of the experts be described adequately? Second, which type of aggregated ordering derived from the individual rankings represents them ‘best’? (shrink)

States, as agents who make moral and political decisions, may also be influenced in decision making by emotions as fear, cognitive states as worry, expectations, etc. that will crystallize in the way they cope with the new challenging agenda. Bearing in mind that the argumentative debates about new risky technologies focus on the precautionary principle, and on an anticipated fear, this manuscript suggests to analyze the main biases that arise in the state anxiety (in attention, selection and evaluation of information, (...) and memory) and vice versa, the different types of coping with anxiety depending of the styles of processing the information ( i.e. highly sensitive, highly anxious, repressive, and non-defensive); and will relate them to the different ways of interpreting the precautionary principle. Eventually, I will emphasize the advantages of a better knowledge of our emotional nature and an emotional education, also in political decision making. (shrink)

The classical dichotomical framework has shaped the western conceptualization of emotions and is still alive in our common imagery impregnating our own assumptions about the polarity emotion/reason. Thereby, my main purpose is to suggest that another framework can be defended. In order to it, I will firstly analyse the basis of this logic, as well as I will also offer a critique of its main principles and consequences. Finally, as a way of surpassing the old dichotomic model, I will argue (...) in favour of the links between reason and emotions taking into account the new evidences found over the last decades. To conclude, I will point out some of the benefits of replacing a dualistic framework by an interactive one. (shrink)