This is the first book in welfare economics to be primarily intended for undergraduates and non-specialists. Concepts such as Pareto optimality in a market economy, the compensation criterion, and the social welfare function are explored in detail. Market failures are analysed by using different ways of measuring welfare changes. The book also examines public choice, and the issues of provision of public goods, median voter equilibrium, government failures, efficient and optimal taxation, and intergenerational equity. The three final chapters are devoted (...) to applied welfare economics: methods for revealing people's preferences, cost-benefit analysis, and project evaluation in a risky world. The book is intended for introductory and intermediate courses in welfare economics, microeconomics, and public economics. It will also be suitable for courses in health economics, environmental economics, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as those undertaking project evaluations in government agencies and private firms. (shrink)

Within the Participatory Design community as well as the Computer Supported Cooperative Work tradition, a lot of effort has been put into the question of letting field studies inform design. In this paper, we describe how game-like approaches can be used as a way of exploring a practice from a design point of view. Thinking of ethnographic fieldwork as a base for sketching, rather than descriptions, creates openness that invites collaborative authoring. The concept of playful collaborative exploration suggests certain ways (...) of interacting with material from field studies so that it becomes a design material for an open-ended design process. We have carried out field studies, transformed the field material into design material, and set up a design game for working with it together with the people we followed in the field. The design game builds on an idea about the power of narratives and the benefits of constraining rules. We believe that this framework for collaboration opens for playfulness, experimentation, and new design ideas. (shrink)

ONTOLOGY This book is a book about the world. I am concerned with ontology, not merely with language. Many ontological treatises concentrate largely on the ...

Contemporary or traditional? Blended or seeker? Pop or "classical"? Chorus or hymn? Combo or organ? Questions concerning music in worship abound these days. Is there a practical way to deal with these issues? In Music and Ministry: A Biblical Counterpoint, Calvin Johansson looks to God's Word for principles foundational to music ministry. Weaving together great scriptural truths, he establishes the need for a "directional balance" between pastoral contextualization and prophetic purity. In a time of facile musical accommodation of the (...) gospel to culture, Dr. Johansson suggests that a heightened concern for musical style and quality is in order—not for the sake of music, but for the sake of the gospel. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Suppose that, for every possible event and person who would exist whether or not the event were to occur, there is a well-being level that the person would occupy if the event were to occur, and a well-being level that the person would occupy if the event were not to occur. Do facts about such connections between events and well-being levels always suffice to determine whether an event would harm or benefit a person? Many seemingly attractive accounts of harm (...) and benefit entail an affirmative answer to this question, including the widely held Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA). In this paper, however, we argue that all such accounts will be unsuccessful. (shrink)

The epistemological soundness of controlled clinical trials is questioned. It is argued that the real effect of therapies cannot be determined by such experiments because there is a significant interaction between the placebo effect and real effect created by the individual therapist and treatment situation which, however, is neglected in controlled clinical trials. This critical standpoint is supported by several pharmacological examples.

The epistemological soundness of controlled clinical trials is questioned. It is argued that the real effect of therapies cannot be determined by such experiments because there is a significant interaction between the placebo effect and real effect created by the individual therapist and treatment situation which, however, is neglected in controlled clinical trials. This critical standpoint is supported by several pharmacological examples.

Famously, Galilei made the ontological claim that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Probably, if only implicitly, most contemporary natural scientists share his view. This paper, in contradistinction, argues that nature is only partly written in the language of mathematics; partly, it is written in the language of functions and partly in a very simple purely qualitative language, too. During the argumentation, three more specific but in themselves interesting theses are put forward: first (in Section (...) 3), there are more shapes than real numbers; second (in Section 4), the metrological notion ‘amount of substance’ can profitably be exchanged for ‘number of entities’; third (in Section 5), prototypical concepts will always be scientifically important. (shrink)

Death has long been a pre-occupation of philosophers, and this is especially so today. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death collects 21 newly commissioned essays that cover current philosophical thinking of death-related topics across the entire range of the discipline. These include metaphysical topics--such as the nature of death, the possibility of an afterlife, the nature of persons, and how our thinking about time affects what we think about death--as well as axiological topics, such as whether death is bad (...) for its victim, what makes it bad to die, what attitude it is fitting to take towards death, the possibility of posthumous harm, and the desirability of immortality. The contributors also explore the views of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Epicurus on topics related to the philosophy of death, and questions in normative ethics, such as what makes killing wrong when it is wrong, and whether it is wrong to kill fetuses, non-human animals, combatants in war, and convicted murderers. With chapters written by a wide range of experts in metaphysics, ethics, and conceptual analysis, and designed to give the reader a comprehensive view of recent developments in the philosophical study of death, this Handbook will appeal to a broad audience in philosophy, particularly in ethics and metaphysics. (shrink)

Ruben Östlund’s film Force Majeure was mostly received as a depiction of the crisis of masculinity. And it is, but that particular theme is also placed within a larger context concerning questions of value, understanding, order, and control, questions asked not only on a thematic level but also through cutting, framing, and the use of camera views. Not accepting any simple dichotomy between form and meaning, Force Majeure places itself firmly in an avant- garde and modernist tradition. Thereby the film (...) is also related to this tradition’s ambition of investigating Western thought, knowledge and art anew, problematising given forms of rational thinking in order for something new to emerge. In the wake of World War II it was, for thinkers like Adorno, Foucault, Stockhausen, and Boulez, seen as unavoidable and urgent to deconstruct the conventions and norms that had made Auschwitz possible. It is still urgent. This article takes its starting point in the connections between avant-garde serialism in music, Foucault’s serialist methods of research and Deleuze’s theories of modernist film, in order to grasp how the aesthetics of Force Majeure continues to deconstruct. (shrink)

Graphene is a nanomaterial with many promising and innovative applications, yet early studies indicate that graphene may pose risks to humans and the environment. According to ideas of responsible research and innovation, all relevant actors should strive to reduce risks related to technological innovations. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated the idea of graphene as a risk held by two types of key actors: graphene researchers and innovation advisors at universities, where the latter are facilitating the movement of graphene from the (...) laboratory to the marketplace. The most common idea found is that graphene is not a risk due to, e.g., low toxicity, low amounts produced/used, and its similarity to harmless materials. However, some researchers and advisors also say that graphene is a risk, e.g., under certain conditions or due to a lack of risk-related information. We explain the co-existence of these seemingly contradictory ideas through the semantic ambiguity of the word risk and a risk/no-risk rhetoric, where risks are mentioned rhetorically only to be disregarded as manageable or negligible. We suggest that some of the ideas held by the researchers and innovation advisors constitute a challenge to responsible research and innovation regarding graphene. At the same time, we acknowledge the dilemma that the discourse of responsible innovation creates for the actors: denying graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to a lack of risk awareness, while affirming graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to their everyday engagement in graphene development. We therefore recommend more research into what researchers and innovation advisors should do in practice in order to qualify as responsible. (shrink)

There are two main ways of understanding the function of surrogate decision making in a legal context: the Best Interests Standard and the Substituted Judgment Standard. First, we will argue that the Best Interests Standard is difficult to apply to unconscious patients. Application is difficult regardless of whether they have ever been conscious. Second, we will argue that if we accept the least problematic explanation of how unconscious patients can have interests, we are also obliged to accept that the Substituted (...) Judgment Standard can be coherently applied to patients who have never been conscious at the same extent as the Best Interests Standard. We then argue that acknowledging this result is important in order to show patients respect. (shrink)

Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this “selective laziness,” we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was (...) someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own. (shrink)

A central claim in abortion ethics is what might be called the Harm Claim – the claim that abortion harms the fetus. In this article, we put forward a simple and straightforward reason to reject the Harm Claim. Rather than invoking controversial assumptions about personal identity, or some nonstandard account of harm, as many other critics of the Harm Claim have done, we suggest that the aborted fetus cannot be harmed for the simple reason that it does not occupy any (...) well-being level. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm faces problems in cases that involve overdetermination and preemption. An influential strategy for dealing with these problems, drawing on a suggestion made by Derek Parfit, is to appeal to _plural harm_—several events _together_ harming someone. We argue that the most well-known version of this strategy, due to Neil Feit, as well as Magnus Jedenheim Edling’s more recent version, is fatally flawed. We also present some general reasons for doubting that the overdetermination and preemption problems (...) for the counterfactual comparative account can be satisfactorily solved by appealing to plural harm. (shrink)

The burdens of resource constraints in publicly funded healthcare systems urge decision makers in countries like Sweden, Norway and the UK to find new financial solutions. One proposal that has been put forward is co-payment—a financial model where some treatment or care is made available to patients who are willing and able to pay the costs that exceed the available alternatives fully covered by public means. Co-payment of this sort has been associated with various ethical concerns. These range from worries (...) that it has a negative impact on patients' wellbeing and on health care institutions, to fears that co-payment is in conflict with core values of publicly funded health care systems. This article provides an overview of the main ethical issues associated with co-payment, and ethical arguments both in support of and against it will be presented and analyzed. (shrink)

A popular view of harming is the causal account (CA), on which harming is causing harm. CA has several attractive features. In particular, it appears well equipped to deal with the most important problems for its main competitor, the counterfactual comparative account (CCA). However, we argue that, despite its advantages, CA is ultimately an unacceptable theory of harming. Indeed, while CA avoids several counterexamples to CCA, it is vulnerable to close variants of some of the problems that beset CCA.

Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation, we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This (...) survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change. (shrink)

A central claim in abortion ethics is what might be called the Harm Claim – the claim that abortion harms the fetus. In this article, we put forward a simple and straightforward reason to reject the Harm Claim. Rather than invoking controversial assumptions about personal identity, or some nonstandard account of harm, as many other critics of the Harm Claim have done, we suggest that the aborted fetus cannot be harmed for the simple reason that it does not occupy any (...) well-being level. (shrink)

In a world of limited resources, it could be argued that companies that aspire to be good corporate citizens need to focus on making best use of resources. User value and environmental harm are created in supply chains and it could therefore be argued that company business ethics should be extended from the company to the entire value chain from the first supplier to the last customer. Starting with a delineation of the linkages between business ethics, corporate sustainability, and the (...) stakeholder concept, this article argues that supply chains generally have a great innovation potential for sustainable development. This potential could be highlighted with system thinking and the use of change management knowledge, promoting not only innovations within technology but also within organizational improvement. We propose process models and performance indicators as means of highlighting improvement potential and thus breaking down normative business ethics' requirements to an opertionalizable corporate level: Good business ethics should focus on maximizing stakeholder value in relation to harm done. Our results indicate that focusing on supply chains reveals previously unknown innovation potential that seems to be related to limited system understanding. The assumption is that increased visibility of opportunities will act as a driver for change. Results also highlight the importance of focusing on sustainability effects of the core business and clearly relating value created to harm done. (shrink)

Introduction Hundreds of thousands of premature neonates born in low-income countries are implicitly denied treatment each year. Studies from India show that treatment is rationed even for neonates born at 32 gestational age weeks (GAW), and multiple external factors influence treatment decisions. Is withholding of life-saving treatment for children born between 28 and 32 GAW acceptable from an ethical perspective? Method A seven-step impartial ethical analysis, including outcome analysis of four accepted priority criteria: severity of disease, treatment effect, cost effectiveness (...) and evidence for neonates born at 28 and 32 GAW. Results The ethical analysis sketches out two possibilities: (a) It is not ethically permissible to limit treatment to neonates below 32 GAW when assigning high weight to health maximisation and overall health equality. Neonates below 32 GAW score high on severity of disease and efficiency and cost-effectiveness of treatment if one gives full weight to early years of a newborn life. It is in the child's best interest to be treated. (b) It can be considered ethically permissible if high weight is assigned to reducing inequality of welfare and maximising overall welfare and/or not granting full weight to early years of newborns is considered acceptable. From an equity-motivated health and welfare perspective, we would not accept (b), as it relies on accepting the lack of proper welfare policies for the poor and disabled in India. Conclusion Explicit priority processes in India for financing neonatal care are needed. If premature neonates are perceived as worth less than other patient groups, the reasons should be explored among a broad range of stakeholders. (shrink)

The nature of blame is not to be identified solely with a judgment, or an overt act, or an angry emotion. Instead, blame should be identified with a sentiment: more specifically, a multi-track disposition that manifests itself in various different emotions, thoughts or actions in a range of different circumstances. This paper aims to argue for these two claims. I start by arguing that blame is not solely a judgment, overt act, or an angry emotion. Then I develop the view (...) that blame is a sentiment. In doing so, I also show how viewing blame as a sentiment avoids objections that justifies us in dismissing the previous accounts. In addition, I argue that it significantly affects other inquiries concerning blame. I end by answering a skeptical challenge that there cannot be an illuminating and unifying analysis of blame. (shrink)

In this paper, some conceptual issues are addressed in order to make sense of what string theory is supposed to tell us about spacetime. The dualities in string theory are used as a starting point for our argumentation. We explore the consequences of a standard view towards these dualities, namely that the dual descriptions represent the same physical situation. Given this view, one has to understand string theory in a manner such that what counts as physical spacetime is based only (...) on the shared physical content—or common core—of the dual descriptions. In general such a spatiotemporal picture does not have to agree with, or be similar to, any of the ones suggested by naïve readings of the dual descriptions. However, in certain regimes or limits, one or the other of the initial dual descriptions may give a good effective description of physical spacetime. (shrink)

Our aim was to describe Chinese nurses' experiences of workplace distress and ethical dilemmas on a neurological ward. Qualitative interviews were performed with 20 nurses. On using latent content analysis, themes emerged in four content areas: ethical dilemmas, workplace distress, quality of nursing and managing distress. The ethical dilemmas were: (1) conflicting views on optimal treatment and nursing; (2) treatment choice meeting with financial constraints; and (3) misalignment of nursing responsibilities, competence and available resources. The patients' relatives lacked respect for (...) the nurses' skills. Other dilemmas could be traced to the transition from a planned to a market economy, resulting in an excessive workload and treatment withdrawal for financial reasons. Lack of resources was perceived as an obstacle to proper patient care in addition to hospital organization, decreasing the quality of nursing, and increasing moral and workplace distress. The nurses managed mainly by striving for competence, which gave them hope for the future. (shrink)

In a recent Utilitas article, Neil Feit argues that every person occupies a well-being level of zero at all times and possible worlds at which she fails to exist. Views like his face the problem of the subject': how can someone have a well-being level in a scenario where she lacks intrinsic properties? Feit argues that this problem can be solved by noting, among other things, that a proposition about a person can be true at a possible world in which (...) neither she nor the proposition exists. In this response, we argue that Feit has not solved the problem of the subject, and also raise various related problems for his approach. (shrink)