This chapter contains sections titled: Why a Politics of Property‐Owning Democracy Is Needed Property‐Owning Democracy and Public Opinion Property‐Owning Democracy Versus the Welfare State, Revisited The Viability of Property‐Owning Democracy The Core Issue: The Morality of Large‐Scale Taxation of the Very Rich From Moral Critique to Mobilization: Who Would Be For Property‐Owning Democracy? Conclusion: Going Public With Property‐Owning Democracy References.

_An investigation into the foundations of democratic societies and the ongoing struggle over the power of concentrated wealth_ Much of our politics today, Paul Starr writes, is a struggle over entrenchment—efforts to bring about change in ways that opponents will find difficult to undo. That is why the stakes of contemporary politics are so high. In this wide‑ranging book, Starr examines how changes at the foundations of society become hard to reverse—yet sometimes are overturned. Overcoming aristocratic power was the (...) formative problem for eighteenth‑century revolutions. Overcoming slavery was the central problem for early American democracy. Controlling the power of concentrated wealth has been an ongoing struggle in the world’s capitalist democracies. The battles continue today in the troubled democracies of our time, with the rise of both oligarchy and populist nationalism and the danger that illiberal forces will entrench themselves in power. _Entrenchment_ raises fundamental questions about the origins of our institutions and urgent questions about the future. (shrink)

In discussions of the composition of wealth, a common distinction is made between non-financial assets and financial assets. Within the latter category the uncommon distinction is drawn between ‘capital ownership assets’ (referring to ownership in enterprises) and other financial assets. The reason is that capital ownership assets come with a degree of actual or potential economic power – in the sense of having the capacity to significantly influence enterprises’ policies. The article empirically applies this distinction to 24 OECD (...) countries that report uniform data on this (in line with the OECD guidelines). For the OECD average of these countries around 2019, it is shown that whereas the top 10% of households owns 51% of the total net wealth and 68% of the total financial assets, the top 10% owns 85% of the total capital-ownership assets. For individual OECD countries, the last figure ranges from 63% (Greece) to 97% (Lithuania). The figure for the USA is near to the latter, at 94%. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond the Ethics of Wealth and a World of Economic InequalityMark D. WoodAnalyzing the ethics of wealth and the relationship between the dominant ethics of wealth and economic inequality is vital to creating a humane mode of global life. We are living during a period in which the unequal concentration of wealth—which is to say, the unequal concentration of the resources that make human existence, (...) development, and fulfillment possible—has never been greater.1 The World Bank reports that almost “1.3 billion people remain below the extreme poverty line with an income of US $1.25 or less a day. Close to 2.5 billion—more than one-third of the world’s population—live on less than US $2 a day, another common measurement of deep deprivation,”2 and a staggering 80 percent of the world’s population struggles to survive on less than US $10 dollars a day.3 Credit Suisse’s 2012 Global Wealth Report indicates “the bottom half of the global population [or more than 3.5 billion persons] possess barely 1 percent of total wealth... In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent own 86 percent of the world’s wealth, with the top 1 percent alone accounting for 46 percent of global assets.”4 Given the history of international colonial and neocolonial relations, it comes as no surprise that wealth is highly concentrated in Western Europe and North America, while the overwhelming majority of individuals living in poverty are concentrated in Africa, India, Asia, and Central and South America.5The wealth gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent is, however, also reaching record levels in developed nations. While in 2012, the United States had the seventh highest average wealth holdings per adult in the world, “among nations with at least a quarter-million adults, only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon are more unequal” than the United States.6 A Reuters investigative report published in 2012 reveals that “inequality has risen not just in plutocratic hubs such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also in virtually every corner of the world’s richest nation: Inequality has increased in 49 of 50 states since 1989,” with Mississippi being the only exception, even as it still “ranks worst in the nation on both counts.”7 In 2010, “the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 35.4 percent of all privately held wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned a remarkable 89 percent, leaving only 11 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80 percent [End Page 125] (wage and salary workers).”8 In The Price of Inequality (2012), Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz indicates that the “six heirs to the Walmart empire command wealth of $69.7 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the entire wealth of the bottom 30 percent of U.S. society.”9 In short, six individuals possess more wealth than do ninety-six million individuals—though this figure is misleading inasmuch as most of the ninety-six million own almost nothing but mounting debt. Most significantly, the top 10 percent own between 81 percent and 94 percent of all stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80 percent of non-home real estate.10 G. William Domhoff makes the vital point that inasmuch as “financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets,” that is, control of the means of producing wealth, “we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America.”11 Meanwhile, according to the latest census, fifty million Americans qualify as poor and another 100 million qualify as low income.12The concentration of the lion’s share of wealth in the hands of a tiny fraction of humanity is devastating for the majority of people living on the planet and ultimately for everyone. On the ground, capitalism’s champagne glass–shaped distribution of wealth means that hundreds of millions of persons have barely enough of the basics necessary to exist. Between 24,000... (shrink)

Daniel Halliday examines the morality of the right to bequeath or transfer wealth, and argues that inheritance is unjust to the extent that it enhances the intergenerational replication of inequality, concentrating opportunities in certain groups. He presents an egalitarian case for imposition of a significant inheritance tax.

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

As part of our exploration of a new conceptual framework for an economy that works for 100% of humanity, this conceptual paper asks why all talk about the purpose of organizations seems to suffer from a certain bias, namely the bias of scarcity, and how this myth of scarcity influences our understanding of corporate responsibility. The mainstream understanding of corporate purpose always contains partly normative and partly functional aspects designed to cope with the purported problem of scarcity. According to economic (...) and CSR reasoning, this bias concerning the purpose of business organizations triggers two quite distinct understandings of the essence of corporate responsibility. The economic view interprets it as responsibility towards the company, while CSR and business ethics argue that it reflects, or at least ought to reflect, a broader responsibility towards society. To overcome this responsibility gap, we need to affect a paradigm shift in economic reasoning, a shift which reconciles economic responsibility on the micro-level logic of raising profit with the greater demands of the meso, macro, and supra levels. Only then do we obtain a truly meaningful lever for changing real-world business practice from within the micro-logics of running a corporation. This paradigm shift requires a different mental model - a model of resource growth and natural abundance, rather than of scarcity - on the part of both economists and business ethicists. It can be labeled the economic model of future viability. This paper develops a conceptual argument for a future viable model of business practice which, first and foremost, takes seriously the need for the kind of micro-level decision-making which keeps individual organizations afloat, but which also, and crucially, delivers a solution for future viable business models and business behavior which breaks the apparent downward spiral of modern wealth creation, i.e. the spiral of continuous acceleration, disruption, concentration and resource exploitation, and which, thirdly, delivers a proper definition of purpose which can be applied in measurement systems which are free of biased assumptions of scarcity. (shrink)

As part of our exploration of a new conceptual framework for an economy that works for 100% of humanity, this conceptual paper asks why all talk about the purpose of organizations seems to suffer from a certain bias, namely the bias of scarcity, and how this myth of scarcity influences our understanding of corporate responsibility. The mainstream understanding of corporate purpose always contains partly normative and partly functional aspects designed to cope with the purported problem of scarcity. According to economic (...) and CSR reasoning, this bias concerning the purpose of business organizations triggers two quite distinct understandings of the essence of corporate responsibility. The economic view interprets it as responsibility towards the company, while CSR and business ethics argue that it reflects, or at least ought to reflect, a broader responsibility towards society. To overcome this responsibility gap, we need to affect a paradigm shift in economic reasoning, a shift which reconciles economic responsibility on the micro-level logic of raising profit with the greater demands of the meso, macro, and supra levels. Only then do we obtain a truly meaningful lever for changing real-world business practice from within the micro-logics of running a corporation. This paradigm shift requires a different mental model - a model of resource growth and natural abundance, rather than of scarcity - on the part of both economists and business ethicists. It can be labeled the economic model of future viability. This paper develops a conceptual argument for a future viable model of business practice which, first and foremost, takes seriously the need for the kind of micro-level decision-making which keeps individual organizations afloat, but which also, and crucially, delivers a solution for future viable business models and business behavior which breaks the apparent downward spiral of modern wealth creation, i.e. the spiral of continuous acceleration, disruption, concentration and resource exploitation, and which, thirdly, delivers a proper definition of purpose which can be applied in measurement systems which are free of biased assumptions of scarcity. (shrink)

THE CENTRALITY OF "SYMPATHY" to Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments points to the centrality of love in the book. While Smith delineates a somewhat unusual, technical sense of "sympathy", his actual use of the term frequently slips into its more ordinary sense of "compassion" or affectionate fellow feeling. This no doubt intentional equivocation on Smith's part helps suffuse the book with these themes, to the point that, without much exaggeration, one could say that the Theory of Moral Sentiments is (...) generally about love: our need for love and sympathy, love as friendship, self-love, the love of praise and praiseworthiness, the love of beauty. Even in the Wealth of Nations, our loves are thought to be very important in explaining our behavior. Smith is unusual among modern moral philosophers in according so central a place to love in this broad sense, although of course Christianity made love a central theme in reflection on ethical life, and philosophers such as Hutcheson made benevolence a key virtue in their ethical systems. However, it is not our purpose to examine Smith's critique of Hutcheson or indeed of any of his predecessors. Rather we aim in this paper to reflect on his treatment of this topic. We shall do so in part by means of comparisons with Aristotle and Plato, first with respect to friendship and then with respect to love generally. Smith's writing is replete with classical references, raising the issue of the degree to which his thought is "ancient" or "modern." Friendship is arguably the pinnacle of social relations for the ancients, and thus it provides us with a useful device for determining the degree to which Smith's thought embodies classical moral and philosophical principles. The subtlety of Smith's interweaving of traditions will become visible as we reflect not just on the ways Smith's thought exhibits classical conceptions of friendship and love, but also on the ways he departs from them. For in at least one important respect, love is a closed book from Smith's standpoint, and thus, as it turns out, also at odds with classical friendship. (shrink)

Physical systems can store information and their informational properties are governed by the laws of information. In particular, the amount of information that a physical system can convey is limited by the number of its degrees of freedom and their distinguishable states. Here we explore the properties of the physical systems with absolutely one degree of freedom. The central point in these systems is the tight limitation on their information capacity. Discussing the implications of this limitation we demonstrate that (...) such systems exhibit a number of features, such as randomness, no-cloning, and non-commutativity, which are peculiarities attributed to quantum mechanics (QM). After demonstrating many astonishing parallels to quantum behavior, we postulate an interpretation of quantum physics as the physics of systems with a single degree of freedom. We then show how a number of other quantum conundrum can be understood by considering the informational properties of the systems and also resolve the EPR paradox. In the present work, we assume that the formalism of the QM is correct and well-supported by experimental verification and concentrate on the interpretational aspects of the theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Because of the nature of preventive vaccination programs, the viability of these public health interventions is particularly susceptible to public perceptions. This is because vaccination relies on a concept of ‘herd immunity’, achievement of which requires rational public behavior that can only be obtained through full and accurate communication about risks and benefits. This paper describes how irrational behavior that threatens the effectiveness of vaccination programs – both in crisis and non‐crisis situations – can be tied to public perceptions (...) created by media portrayals of health risks. I concentrate on childhood vaccination as an exemplar of ‘non‐crisis’ preventive vaccination, and on the recent flu vaccine shortage as a ‘crisis’ situation. The paper concludes with an examination of the steps necessary to resolve these threats through better public communication. (shrink)

Two major regulatory changes are affecting the provision of undergraduate legal education in England and Wales. On the one hand, the Qualifying Law Degree is being deregulated, meaning law schools are free to make significant changes to how and what they teach. On the other hand, higher education in England has seen a significant overhaul through the creation of the Office for Students, which treats students as consumers. Now more than ever, law schools need to ask themselves existential questions (...) which will not only test their continued relevance or indeed viability within the ‘market’ for higher education, but also the status of the discipline of law as a whole. The regulatory landscape may indeed present a significant threat, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on what law schools are for, and consequently what changes could result from the academic freedom that comes with deregulation. Whilst different law schools will interpret their mission differently, they should caution against either generalised inertia or succumbing to an outcomes-oriented provision that simply prepares students for the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Instead, law schools will find their proper purpose in critical reflection and academic self-grounding, providing undergraduate students with a ‘question everything’ mentality, and showing them that law is something to be experienced and not merely learnt. (shrink)

In the last decade, biodiversity became a central concept of ecology, as important as the concepts of sustainable development, right for future generations, global changes for instance. Biodiversity received a recognition through, the Brundtland report (1987) and the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro (1992). Protection of biodiversity represents nowadays a ethical and political obligation.If the concept is rather clear and is applied at three levels, genes (intraspecific and interspecific), species and ecosystems, if we know that the diversity is unequally (...) distributed, concentrated in tropical areas, if it is clear that ecologists have still the immense task to describe this diversity, the ethical foundations of protection of biodiversity are unclear by the high variability of concepts in use.Environmental ethics and protection of biodiversity are often placed in aKind of antagonism, between technocratism or neo-liberralism and fundamentalism of Nature or even eco-fascism. But, in fact, there is no need for an “either-or” attitude, for an “all-or- nothing” thought for an opposition between “natural” and “artificial” or between anthropocentrism and biocentrism: we have here perhaps not incompatible opposites but poles on an spectrum allowing for many degrees.We must manage that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is:* socially desirable, fulfilling people's cultural, material and spiritual needs in equitable ways, *economically viable, paying for itself with costs not exceeding income, ecologically viable, maintaining the long-term viability of supporting ecosystems.The “business-as-usual” activity resulted in low rigorous protection of biodiversity, we need an increasing part of ethical considerations in the environmental discussion. (shrink)

Why do so many—including philosophers—care about equality? Mere envy? This book investigates how Homo sapiens developed, thrived in, and nurtured a certain social condition that happened to abet our continual survival. Empirical evidence points to a natural, possibly inborn, sense that humans live most humanly as equals: No one told them what to do; no one had significantly more goods. Humans evolved in such a condition of social equality and autonomy. This condition of individual autonomy in turn shaped our species (...) and led humans to demand social equality to this day. All changed when groups stopped roving for food, settled down, and cultivated land. Some individuals started storing goods clandestinely, gaining wealth and power. Inequality set in and, ever since, a struggle between haves and have-nots. People strive to reestablish some degree of equality, philosophical theories notwithstanding. This book’s empirical theory of equality’s ontology explains why humans over the millennia strive for equality and help assess whether theories of equality, if implemented in policy, could accommodate this need. Equality is essentially bound up with autonomy, liberty and justice. Any political theory neglecting these interconnections may fall short of its goals. While industrial societies will unlikely implement the book’s theory, at the least it can illuminate common theories of equality and where they fly or fail. (shrink)

Because of the nature of preventive vaccination programs, the viability of these public health interventions is particularly susceptible to public perceptions. This is because vaccination relies on a concept of ‘herd immunity’, achievement of which requires rational public behavior that can only be obtained through full and accurate communication about risks and benefits. This paper describes how irrational behavior that threatens the effectiveness of vaccination programs – both in crisis and non-crisis situations – can be tied to public perceptions created (...) by media portrayals of health risks. I concentrate on childhood vaccination as an exemplar of ‘non-crisis’ preventive vaccination, and on the recent flu vaccine shortage as a ‘crisis’ situation. The paper concludes with an examination of the steps necessary to resolve these threats through better public communication. (shrink)

Introspection is paradoxical in that it is simultaneously so compelling yet so elusive. This paradox emerges because although experience itself is indisputable, our ability to explicitly characterize experience is often inadequate. Ultimately, the accuracy of introspective reports depends on individuals' imperfect ability to take stock of their experience. Although there is no ideal yardstick for assessing introspection, examination of the degree to which self-reports systematically covary with the environmental, behavioural, and physiological concomitants of experience can help to establish the (...) correspondence between meta-consciousness and experience. We illustrate the viability of such an approach in three domains, imagery, mind-wandering, and hedonic appraisal, identifying both the situations in which introspections appear to be accurate and those in which they seem to diverge from underlying experience. We conclude with a discussion of the various factors that may cause meta-consciousness to misrepresent experience. (shrink)

This paper presents a theoretical elaboration of the ethical framework of classical capitalism as formulated by Adam Smith in reaction to the dominant mercantilism of his day. It is seen that Smith's project was profoundly ethical and designed to emancipate the consumer from a producer and state dominated economy. Over time, however, the various dysfunctions of a capitalist economy — e.g., concentration of wealth, market power — became manifest and the utilitarian ethical basis of the system eroded. Contemporary capitalism, (...) dominated as it is by large corporations, entrenched political interests and persistent social pathologies, bears little resemblance to the system which Smith envisioned would serve the common man. Most critiques of capitalism are launched from a Marxian-based perspective. We find, however, that by illustrating the wide gap between the reality of contemporary capitalism and the model of amoral political economy developed by Smith, the father of capitalism proves to be the most trenchant critic of the current order. (shrink)

This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtue. While Aristotle’s thought provides great resources for diagnosing oligarchic threats, it proves (...) less useful as a guide to democratic institutional design. Aristotle raises a deep-seated objection to democratic forms of ‘rule by the poor.’ A successful response to oligarchy must move beyond Aristotle’s objection and affirm the demos’ tripartite status as many, free, and poor. I briefly outline the terms of this ‘new’ mixed regime: one that seeks to tame oligarchy through a mixture of aggregative, deliberative, and plebeian institutions. (shrink)

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate whether oxygenated hemoglobin generated during a motor imagery task is associated with the motor learning level of the task.MethodsWe included 16 right-handed healthy participants who were trained to perform a ball rotation task. Hemodynamic brain activity was measured using near-infrared spectroscopy to monitor changes in oxy-Hb concentration during the BR MI task. The experimental protocol used a block design, and measurements were performed three times before and after the initial training of the BR task as (...) well as after the final training. The BR count during training was also measured. Furthermore, subjective vividness of MI was evaluated three times after NIRS measurement using the Visual Analog Scale.ResultsThe results showed that the number of BRs increased significantly with training. VAS scores also improved with training. Furthermore, oxy-Hb concentration and the region of interest showed a main effect. An interaction was confirmed, and it was ascertained that the change in oxy-Hb concentrations due to training was different for each ROI. The most significant predictor of subjective MI vividness was supplementary motor area oxy-Hb concentration.DiscussionHemodynamic brain activity during MI tasks may be correlated with task motor learning levels, since significant changes in oxy-Hb concentrations were observed following initial and final training in the SMA. In particular, hemodynamic brain activity in the SMA was suggested to reflect the MI vividness of participants. (shrink)

What limits should there be on the areas of life that are governed by market forces? For many years, no one seriously defended the buying and selling votes for political elections. In recent years, however, this situation has changed, with a number of authors defending the permissibility of vote markets. One popular objection to such markets is that they would lead to a tyranny of wealth, where the poor are politically dominated by the rich. In a recent paper, Taylor (...) :313–328, 2017. doi: 10.1007/s11158-016-9327-0) has argued that this objection can be avoided if certain restrictions are placed on vote markets. In this paper we will argue that this attempt to rebut an argument against vote markets is unsuccessful. Either vote markets secure their purported benefits but then they inevitably lead to a tyranny of wealth, or they are restricted so heavily that they lack the features that have been claimed to make vote markets attractive in the first place. Using Taylor’s proposal as a test case, we make the more general claim that vote markets cannot avoid the tyranny of wealth objection and bring about their supposed benefits at the same time. (shrink)

Locke's conceptualization of sovereignty and its uses, combining theological, social, and political perspectives, testifies to his intellectual profundity that was spurred by his endeavour to re-traditionalize a changing world. First, by relying on the traditional, personalistic notion of polity, Locke developed a concept of sovereignty that bore the same sense of authority as the “right of commanding” attributable only to real persons. Second, he managed to reconcile the unitary nature of sovereignty with the plurality of its uses, mainly through a (...) conception of the dual, vertical separation of functions, which implied degrees rather than kinds of sovereignty. While absolute sovereignty belongs to God, Locke argued, relative sovereignty, separated into “potential” and “actual” sovereignty, is vested in the community on the grounds of the Edenic testament with God. The community, established by a fundamental, single contract, is divided into “society”—to fulfil the function of legislation, which signifies the potential sovereignty of the community, so as to cultivate common law , and into “government”—to undertake the execution, which signifies the actual sovereignty of the king, of common law so as to procure common wealth. (shrink)

It is more than a coincidence that in his two essays, “Wilderness and the City: Not such a Long Drive After All” and “Can Cities Be Both Natural and Successful? Reflections Grounding Two Apparently Oxymoronic Aspirations,” Scott Cameron looks to water as a basis for evaluating the city in relationship to the wild and in imagining new possibilities for urban nature. In an attempt to complement and enrich Cameron’s thinking, this essay focuses on emerging, decentralized and ecologically responsive approaches to (...) water and wastewater systems in architectural projects in dense urban environments. Such an emphasis on “blue architectures” allows for a reframing of the city/nature relationship in terms of degrees of concentration—of water, organisms, and pollutants—as a precursor to considerations of distances involved (“not such a long drive”). To concentrate on localized hydrologic conditions is to support the integrity of broader scale ecological systems and to reconnect urban dwellers to processes that bear directly on the wild. (shrink)

Leonardo Bruni’s well-known oration, the Laudatio Florentinae urbis, has long stood at the center of discussions on the emergence of the modern republican state. Recent historiographical trends have emphasized the degree to which Bruni’s oration represents a propagandistic attempt both to portray Florence as a territorial power of Northern Italy keen to impose its sovereign authority on neighboring polities and as a republic intent on fashioning an image of itself as a popular sovereignty. It is in this second element (...) of Bruni’s oration that we can discover his rhetorical purposes: he needed to give a distorted image of Florence as enjoying “popular” rule precisely because Florence was in fact moving in the opposite direction towards a more oligarchic concentration of political authority. The essay investigates the changes contemplated in revisions to Florence’s juridical codes at precisely the time of the oration’s composition, suggesting that when these two sources are juxtaposed, Bruni’s oration appears as a strongly ideological literary work the rhetorical gestures of which camouflage the actual historical and legal developments of Florence’s political life in the early fifteenth century. (shrink)

Sociopolitical attitudes are often the root cause of conflicts between individuals, groups, and even nations, but little is known about the origin of individual differences in sociopolitical orientation. We test a combination of economic and evolutionary ideas about the degree to which the mating market, sex, age, and income affect sociopolitical orientation. We collected data online through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk from 1108 US participants who were between 18 and 60, fluent in English, and single. While ostensibly testing a new (...) online dating website, participants created an online dating profile and described people they would like to date. We manipulated the participants’ popularity in the mating market and the size of the market and then measured participants’ sociopolitical attitudes. The sociopolitical attitudes were reduced to five dimensions via Principal Components Analysis. Both manipulations affected attitudes toward wealth redistribution but were largely not significant predictors of the other dimensions. Men reported more unrestricted sociosexual attitudes, and more support for benevolent sexism and traditional family values, than women did, and women supported wealth redistribution more than men did. There was no sex difference in accepting nonconforming behaviors. Younger people and people with lower incomes were more liberal than older people and people with higher incomes, respectively, regardless of sex. Overall, effects were largely not interactive, suggesting that individual differences in sociopolitical orientation may reflect strategic self-interest and be more straightforward than previously predicted. (shrink)

A standard objection to a market in political votes is that it will enable the rich politically to dominate the poor. If a market in votes was allowed then the poor would be the most likely sellers and the rich the most likely buyers. The rich would thus accumulate the votes of the poor, and so the candidates elected and the policies passed would represent only their interests and not those of the electorate as a whole. To ensure that the (...) poor do not become de facto disenfranchised, then, markets in votes should be disallowed. This objection seems so straightforward and compelling that it has received almost no critical scrutiny. This is unfortunate, for close examination reveals that this argument is not as straightforward as it initially appears. Indeed, there are four different ways of understanding this objection. It could be understood as expressing: the concern that markets in votes would enable candidates to win elections who would otherwise lose them; the concern that they would enable the election of candidates opposed by the majority of the electorate; the concern that they would lead to the poor having disproportionately low political influence; and the concern that they would lead to the rich having disproportionately high political influence. I will argue in this paper that only and could plausibly ground objections to markets in votes. Moreover, these will only plausibly ground objections to unrestricted markets in votes; they will not ground objections to markets in votes per se. Thus, if we are to continue to object to markets in political votes we will have to do this on grounds other than that were they to be allowed the rich will politically dominate the poor. (shrink)

The Mismeasure of Wealth: Essays on Marx and Social Formgathers Patrick Murray's essays reinterpreting Marx and Marxian theory published since his Marx's Theory of Scientific Knowledge(1988), along with a previously unpublished essay and an introduction.

These two remarkable books, both published in 2010, share many themes but differ in significant ways, and each is very much worth reading and pondering. Oord’s The Nature of Love concentrates primarily on conceptual and theological themes relating to the very nature of love itself and what influential theologians have had to say about love. His Defining Love focuses on how the social and physical sciences impact our understanding of human and divine love. Both books presuppose and express many themes (...) that are prominent in process theology such as: freedom is universally present (by degrees) in all creatures, especially us; predestination is abhorrent and untenable; God exists necessarily and everlastingly but not .. (shrink)

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (...) he neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

This paper describes a formal measure of epistemic justification motivated by the dual goal of cognition, which is to increase true beliefs and reduce false beliefs. From this perspective the degree of epistemic justification should not be the conditional probability of the proposition given the evidence, as it is commonly thought. It should be determined instead by the combination of the conditional probability and the prior probability. This is also true of the degree of incremental confirmation, and I (...) argue that any measure of epistemic justification is also a measure of incremental confirmation. However, the degree of epistemic justification must meet an additional condition, and all known measures of incremental confirmation fail to meet it. I describe this additional condition as well as a measure that meets it. The paper then applies the measure to the conjunction fallacy and proposes an explanation of the fallacy. (shrink)

'Those most capable of being moved by passion are those capable of tasting the most sweetness in this life.'Descartes is most often thought of as introducing a total separation of mind and body. But he also acknowledged the intimate union between them, and in his later writings he concentrated on understanding this aspect of human nature. The Passions of the Soul is his greatest contribution to this debate. It contains a profound discussion of the workings of the emotions and (...) of their place in human life - a subject that increasingly engages the interest of philosophers and intellectual and cultural historians. It also sets out a view of ethics that has been seen as a radical reorientation of moral philosophy.This volume also includes both sides of the correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, one of Descartes's keenest disciples and shrewdest critics, which played a crucial role in the genesis of The Passions, as well as the first part of The Principles of Philosophy, which sets out the key positions of Descartes's philosophical system.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Philosophical aesthetics has recently been expanding its purview—with exciting work on everyday aesthetics, somaesthetics, gustatory aesthetics, and the aesthetics of imperceptibilia like mathematics and human character—reclaiming territory that was lost during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the discipline begun concentrating almost exclusively on the philosophy of art and restricted the aesthetic realm to the distally perceptible. Yet there remains considerable reluctance towards acknowledging the aesthetic character of many of these objects. This raises an important question—partly made salient again by (...) the ongoing expansion of the aesthetic domain, and partly by the fact that many still seem resistant to this aesthetic diversification—which aestheticians seem to avoid: what, if anything, constrains the scope of beauty or the aesthetic? I argue that form, construed as comprising a degree, however minimal, of experienceable complexity, is necessary and sufficient for an object's candidature for the possession of aesthetic properties. Such a condition serves to discriminate between attempts to expand the scope of the aesthetic that are legitimate and those that are not. If correct, my view suggests that the aesthetic realm, though not limitless, is very broad indeed—but this, I think, is as it should be. (shrink)

Rousseau is considered to be at once the most modern political thinker of the 18th century and the most ancient in his allegiance to classical republicanism. These essays address the place of liberty in his moral and political philosophy, and the origins, meaning, strength, weakness and significance of his argument.

The invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago has been called the worst mistake in human history. Alongside the social, political, and technological innovations that stemmed from it, there came a litany of drawbacks ranging from social inequality, a decline in human health, to the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Millennia after the invention of agriculture, another revolution—the digital revolution—is having a similar impact on humanity, albeit at a scale and speed measured in decades. Despite the tremendous (...) advances brought about by this revolution, there is today a rapidly expanding gulf within and between societies along technological lines; alarming effects on sociality and cognition due to a persistent online presence; and a concentration of power in the form of wealth and data within a handful of tech companies, the likes of which has never been seen before. While the effects of agriculture can now be discerned with thousands of years of hindsight, those of the digital revolution can be witnessed in real time. Is the digital revolution paving the way for a more equitable and stable world, or is it leading humanity down a road that will prove to be more detrimental the more ensconced in technology we become? (shrink)

In post-Roman Western Europe a two-class society of lords and their dependents was maintained by an intense concentration of wealth and by the lords' control of the supply of food, arms, and land. When the Normans came to England there was no knightly class. Until the late twelfth century knights were only knights while they were in possession of their weapons, and they were not clearly distinguished from the cultivators from whom they were drawn. All were subject to the (...) arbitrary demands of lordship, and vulnerable to labor services and corporal taxes. In England, thanks to strong royal/public government, the meaning of “freedom” was extended from “not being owned” to “not being dominated” . By the thirteenth century a class of small landholders was able to achieve independence of lordship—and independence of the Crown—to the extent that they could not be taxed without being consulted. Since post-Conquest England had no allodial land, this independence could only be achieved within the tenurial structure. My aim is to discuss, within the framework of the new views of European knighthood and Norman feudalism, some of the factors that brought a large section of the population of England out of dependency to freedom and created an independent landholding gentry. (shrink)

Qur’ān Recitation (qirā’āt) activities constitute a good part of the Qur’ān education history starting with the revealation of the Qur’ān. In Prophet Muḥammad’s era and after his death, education and teaching activities for spreading the Qur’ān recitations were maintained by muslims. Several institutions were built for this purpose, and many works are written for qirā’ātscience education and methods developed made a big contribution to the spreading of qur’ān recitation science. An Interregnum period for qirā’ātscience has happened at the last period (...) of Ottomans and first years of Republic of Turkey. Qirā’ātScience, under the state supervision and by formal institutions for many years, were sustained in an informal way after the law on unification of education were introduced. With the decrease of teachers, the education of the Qur’ān recitation faced a difficult time and almost nearly ceased. In our country, increasing of the expertness courses and number of men who trained in this places in recent years deserve a separate study, particularly on this subject. SummaryThere are many scholars who have studied the recitation of the Qur’ān (qirā’āt), and many papers that have been written on this subject analysing it by means of practice. Some institutions are founded with the purpose of teaching qirā’ātand a number of different methods have been developed in the historical process of qirā’āt.It is not clear when the knowledge of qur’ānic recitation first emerged in the region of Anatolia. In the Ottoman Empire, Khaṭīb ‘Abdulmu’min Rūmī who was tutee of Ibn al-Cezerī started to accept students for teaching qirā’ātin Bursa. Since then, qirā’ātbecame an official discipline of Islamic sciences. Evidently, the time Turks learned qirā’ātshould be before Ibn al-Cezerī’s arrival to Bursa.The brightest era of the qirā’ātand its institutionalisation was between XI-XIII centuries during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Not only did training and teaching activities took place as seven and ten recitations, but authors also wrote books as supplementary references by depending on the works of the scholars such as Dānī, Shāṭıbī and Ibn al-Cezerī. Thus, the scholars made education practical and started to teach it as part of certain methods. The end of the 13th century was the time when sab‘a(seven) method based on seven recitations was superseded by ‘ashara(ten) method based on ten recitations. That is, the sab‘amethod was replaced by the ‘asharamethod in the country.The education of qirā’ātwhich were taught in expert institutions known as dār al-qurrāuntill the closure of madrasas was officially interrupted with the the law on unification of education on 3rd March 1924 in Turkey. The education of qirā’ātwas not officially given from the Republic of Turkey to 1968, but it was taught by self-abnegating scholars with their own efforts. The teaching of qirā’ātalmost disappeared due to some reasons such as education which wasn’t officially given by the state and the lack of encouragement for people interested in qirā’ātuntil 1968. The education of qirā’ātlater became official with the initiation of Tayyar Altıkulaç who was the vice president of religious affairs under the presidency of Mehmed Rüşdü Aşıkkutlu in 1968. At that time, a number of staffs were sent to the town Çifaruksa/Uğurlu in Of /Trabzon for the job training with the appointment of the presidency of religious affairs in order to get education from Aşıkkutlu. The specialized training course named as ‘Ashera-Taqrīb-Ṭayyibah’ was the first course about qirā’ātwith the opening of Istanbul Haseki Training Center by the presidency of religious affairs in 1976. The education of qirā’ātwas carried out by Aşıkkutlu who used Egypt method and Gürses used Istanbul method. These specialized training courses were made as periods of 3 years and trainees were begun to be admitted by taking an exam. The first students graduated who learned both methods at the end of the first period which was between 1976 and 1979. The presidency of religious affairs held the exam at a predetermined time for issuing in-service training certification to people, who have worked within its own institution, other institutions and in the private sector, and completed the education on ‘asharamethod with their own efforts and got a degree. This certification has been given to people who succeeded in the written and oral examinations. 184 people got the certification after taking the exam entitled as ‘the exam for external students in the ‘ashara-taqrībcourse’ which was taken place biennially and for the first time in 2010. When students have learned the fundamental principles of ‘ashara method, the first five-ten pages of the Qur’ān were read and indited with regard to distinguish narratives from each other with infirād method. ‘Asheraanalysis of the Qur’ān was indited and read with indirāc method for each student after being taught about certain issues such as the concepts of qirā’āt, its principles, and the grading of the imāmand rāvito students who get education with infirād method in qirā’āteducation in the country. Sources and methods used by scholars who are engaged in qirā’āteducation have become widespread in regions; and these methods have gone under the name of those regions.In this context, the science of qirā’ātwas taught with Istanbul and Egypt methods in the Ottoman Empire. These methods have still been valid in today’s Turkey. Sūfī profession stands for Istanbul method and qirā’āteducation is given with regard to this profession in notably Istanbul and several centers. The education of this profession is given in Pendik, Müftü Yusuf Karali and Haseki Abdurrahman Gürses training centers. Mehmed Rüşdü Aşıkkutlu who was one of the latest period scholars and Gönenli Mehmed are representatives of Egypt method. At the present time, Egypt method is represented as Atāullah profession by reason of the fact that it is commonly followed, adopted and conducted in the country.Nowadays, the edāmethod is used especially at the beginning of qirā’āteducation. Thus, student hears what instructor reads and gives a presentation. Instructors concentrate on the practice arzin the ongoing process and ease off on practice samʿaafter student implemented the lesson. At the present time, the curriculum followed in the qirā’āteducation is the same as the classic method in the country. The ‘Ashera, Taqrīb and Ṭayyibah’ methods were used in education. On the other hand, the person who recites should be a decent ḥāfiẓand know the science of tajweedwell in compliance with Hafs narrative of Asım and implement it. Notwithstanding that, there is the tajweedlesson in curriculum in order to strengthen implementations of the science of tajweed. (shrink)

This article is a theoretical treatment of the ways in which local worldviews on wealth acquisition give rise to contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace. It unpacks spiritual (occult) economies and wealth generation through a historical perspective. The article ‘devil advocates’ the ‘sainthood’ of claimed law-abiding citizens, by highlighting that the line dividing them and the Nigerian cybercriminals (Yahoo-Boys) is blurred with regards to the use of magical means for material ends. By doing so, the article also illustrates (...) that the intersectionality of the spirit world and the acquisition of wealth (crime or otherwise) is connected with local epistemologies and worldviews, and its contemporaneity has social security benefits. Therefore, the view that the contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace signify a ‘new-danger’ and an ever-increasing outrage in the Nigerian society is misplaced. I conclude that if people believe all aspects of life are reflective of the spiritual world and determined by it, the spiritual realm, by implication, is the base of society, upon which sits the superstructure comprised of all aspects of life, especially wealth. Inferentially, this conceptual position that the spirit world is the base of society is an inversion of Orthodox Marxist’s theory of economic determinism. (shrink)

Smith’s statements on wealth and happiness are paradoxical. On the one hand, Smith states that individuals’ pursuit of wealth is beneficial for society because it leads to economic growth and establishes rank and order in society. On the other hand, he appears to say that pursuit of wealth leaves individuals unhappy. Griswold refers to this as ‘comic irony’. In this paper, by examining what Smith says about wealth and happiness, we attempt to resolve this paradox. Towards (...) this end, we analyze the unconscious that is implicit in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. As we will describe, analyzing Smith’s statements by considering the role of the unconscious implies that the pursuit of great wealth can make individuals happy. (shrink)

Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is for a (...) degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth or degree of culture are treason to the democratic way of life. Merely legal guarantees of the civil liberties of free belief, free expression, free assembly are of little avail if the give and take of ideas, facts, experiences, is choked by mutual suspicion, by abuse, by fear and hatred.Without some kind of (...) oversight, the golem, not God, might emerge from machines … it is naïve to believe that government is competent, let alone in a position to control the development and deployment of robots, self-generating algorithms, and artificial intelligence.... (shrink)

Firms are increasingly personalising their offers and services, leading to an ever finer-grained segmentation of consumers online. Targeted online advertising and online price discrimination are salient examples of this development. While personalisation's overall effects on consumer welfare are expectably ambiguous, it can lead to concentration in the distribution of advertising and commercial offers. Constellations are possible in which a market is generally open to competition, but the targeted consumer is only made aware of one possible seller. For the consumer, such (...) a market could effectively resemble a monopoly. We call such extreme cases ‘targeting pockets’. Competition-law metrics such as the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and traditional means of public oversight of adverts would not detect this concentration. We, therefore, suggest a novel metric, the Concentration-after-Personalisation Index (CAPI). The CAPI treats every consumer as a separate ‘market’, computes a measure of concentration for personalised adverts and offers for each individual consumer separately, and then averages the result to measure the exposure experienced by an average consumer. We demonstrate how the CAPI can serve as a monitoring tool for regulators and auditors and thus help to enforce existing consumer law as well as proposed new regulations such as the European Union's Digital Services Act and its Artificial Intelligence Act. We further show how adding noise via randomly distributed non-personalised adverts can dilute the potential harm of overly concentrated personalisation. We demonstrate how the CAPI can identify the optimal degree of added noise, balancing the protection of consumer choice with the economic interests of advertisers. (shrink)

Volume II of Classical Recursion Theory describes the universe from a local (bottom-up or synthetical) point of view, and covers the whole spectrum, from the recursive to the arithmetical sets. The first half of the book provides a detailed picture of the computable sets from the perspective of Theoretical Computer Science. Besides giving a detailed description of the theories of abstract Complexity Theory and of Inductive Inference, it contributes a uniform picture of the most basic complexity classes, ranging from small (...) time and space bounds to the elementary functions, with a particular attention to polynomial time and space computability. It also deals with primitive recursive functions and larger classes, which are of interest to the proof theorist. The second half of the book starts with the classical theory of recursively enumerable sets and degrees, which constitutes the core of Recursion or Computability Theory. Unlike other texts, usually confined to the Turing degrees, the book covers a variety of other strong reducibilities, studying both their individual structures and their mutual relationships. The last chapters extend the theory to limit sets and arithmetical sets. The volume ends with the first textbook treatment of the enumeration degrees, which admit a number of applications from algebra to the Lambda Calculus. The book is a valuable source of information for anyone interested in Complexity and Computability Theory. The student will appreciate the detailed but informal account of a wide variety of basic topics, while the specialist will find a wealth of material sketched in exercises and asides. A massive bibliography of more than a thousand titles completes the treatment on the historical side. (shrink)

Professor Ryszard Wójcicki once asked whether the degree of maximality of the consequence operationC determined by the theorems of the intuitionistic propositional logic and the detachment rule for the implication connective is equal to ? The aim of the present paper is to give the affirmative answer to the question. More exactly, it is proved here that the degree of maximality ofC — the — fragment ofC, is equal to , for every such that.

Prior research has showed that the subjective perception of objective wealth might be affected by various individual difference variables, such as one’s love of money, level of desires, or materialistic inclinations. This paper examines an impact of attitudes towards money on the relation between personal net income and household income, and its subjective evaluation, measured as financial satisfaction and subjective economic well-being. The results of two studies revealed that the affective dimension of money attitudes partially mediated the relationship between (...) income and financial satisfaction. Moreover, the instrumental dimension of attitude towards money moderated this relationship: The relationship between the two was stronger for individuals highly concentrated on money management than for those with low scores on this factor. (shrink)