Systemic risks are risks produced through interconnected non-wrongful actions of individuals, in the sense that an individual's action is a negligible cause of the risk. Due to scale effects of interaction, their consequences can be serious but they are also difficult to predict and assess via a risk assessment. Since we can have good reason to engage in the interconnected activities giving rise to systemic risk, we incur a concurrent collective responsibility to ensure that the risks are fairly distributed and (...) well regulated. James argues that fairness in this context requires taking reasonably available precautions ensuring for each risk-bearer a favourable ratio of expected benefits over expected losses. In sections 2 and 3 we argue that such a conception of fairness applies but only on the condition that the systemic risks created are irreversible risks and that the general background conditions of justice are imperfectly fair. When risks are reversible, compensatory justice can correct for unfairness in risk imposition. Where risks are irreversible, compensatory justice necessarily fails, giving rise to a collective responsibility to regulate fairly ex ante. Additionally, where background conditions of justice are fully fair and the systemic risk is well understood, risk bearers can be said to have consented to the systemic risk. If they are not fair, we argue that the primary political obligation should lie in fixing the fairness of the backgrounds of justice. A related reason for addressing the general background conditions of fairness is that James’ account of fairness in systemic risk imposition encounters a baseline problem. If expected risks and benefits are calculated again an unfair historic background condition, systemic risk imposition would not be fully fair. Section 4 shows why differences in evidentiary uncertainty as to probability and levels of harm and effective responses require a normatively appropriate response in the form of additional precautions. We show that the evidentiary standards set for risk-based cost-benefit analysis have a connection with deontology because they express a postulate of equal treatment in formal terms. Systemic risks can have different possible degrees of epistemological certainty due to factors of social and natural origin, such as more available research funding or higher degrees of complexity for some systemic risks but not others. These differences have to be mitigated by taking even greater precautions in difficult-to-research systemic risks. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that fairness in trade calls for relaxing existing WTO rules to include a greater liberalisation of labour migration. After having addressed several objections to global egalitarianism, it will argue, first, that the world’s rich and the world’s poor participate in a same multilateral trading system whose point is primarily to reduce trade barriers, and hence to establish global economic competitions, in order to raise their standards of living; second, that these competitions are subject to requirements (...) of formal and substantive fairness; and, third, that the substantive fairness of the competitions that are taking place in the field of trade in goods is likely to require a greater liberalisation of labour migration, especially low-skilled labour from developing countries. (shrink)

This paper applies insights from behavioral economics and nudge theory to foster sustainable and responsible investment. SRI provides an opportunity to express and promote ethical values via choice of financial instruments. While policy-makers have tried to encourage greater participation in SRI, the majority of retail investors retain a conventional approach to investment. I develop a conceptual framework to improve the effectiveness of SRI policy-making. The first part of the framework comprises a transmission mechanism which emphasizes the role of SRI as (...) a driver for sustainable development. The second part is a model of the individual decision for or against SRI. The framework suggests that low SRI demand is a case of behavioral market failure, and that nudging is a suitable tool for dismantling behavioral barriers to SRI. A specific example of smart choice architecture is used to illustrate the framework’s potential in the design of an SRI nudge. Assuming the nudge stands up to the rigors of empirical testing, it may well provide a feasible alternative for policy-makers. (shrink)

There is a gap in the clinical bioethics literature concerning the approach to assessment of medical decision-making capacity of adolescents or young adults who demonstrate diminished maturity due to longstanding reliance on caregiver support, despite having reached the age of majority. This paper attempts to address this question via the examination of a particular case involving assessment of the decision-making capacity of a young adult pregnant patient who also had a physically disabling neurological condition. Drawing on concepts from adolescent bioethics (...) and feminist critiques of bioethical theory, we argue that limited life experience, secondary to a disabling neurological condition, can result in a lack of adult-like capacity even in a patient who is legally an adult. In such cases, it may be that autonomy, to the extent that it is to be relevant and meaningful, must be viewed through a relational lens. Furthermore, clinicians may avoid unjustifiably paternalistic practices by working with the patient help her gain a better appreciation of the consequences of her decision, thereby calling forward her capacity rather than resorting to being directive in counseling. We conclude that lessons from this case can be used to approach ethically complex instances of medical decision-making in adult patients with normal cognition but diminished experiential maturity. (shrink)

A preeminent scholar of American studies explores the American literary and philosophical traditions, and the connections between them, by investigating, first, Emerson's thought and its influence on American writing and, second, the pluralistic and radical ways in which American modernists engaged the world.

We examined how social cues and representational ones jointly shape people's spatial memory representations and their subsequent descriptions. In 24 pairs, Directors studied an array with a symmetrical structure while either knowing their Matcher's subsequent viewpoint or not. During the subsequent description of the array, the array's intrinsic structure was aligned with the Director, the Matcher, or neither partner. According to memory tests preceding descriptions, Directors who had studied the array while aligned with its structure were more likely to use (...) its orientation as an organizing direction. Directors who had studied the array while misaligned with its structure used its orientation more frequently as an organizing orientation when knowing that the Matcher would be aligned with it, but used their own viewpoint more frequently as an organizing direction when not knowing the Matcher's viewpoint. Directors also adapted their descriptions strategically, using more egocentric expressions when aligned with the intrinsic structure and more partner-centered expressions when their Matchers were the ones aligned with the structure, even when this information wasn't available in advance. These findings suggest that speakers are guided by converging social and representational cues to adapt flexibly the organization of their memories and the perspectives of their descriptions. (shrink)

We examine the conditions under which we can keep simplicity or categoricity after adding a Skolem function to the theory.

In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any particular observer’s perception, and obeying universal and intelligible rules. Rather than elaborating on the quantum formalism itself, we propose a new quantum ontology, where physical properties are attributed jointly to the system, and to the context in which it is embedded. In (...) combination with a quantization principle, this non-classical definition of physical reality sheds new light on counter-intuitive features of quantum mechanics such as the origin of probabilities, non-locality, and the quantum-classical boundary. (shrink)

Aujourd’hui, la question du consentement se règle par une dichotomie universellement admise : oui c’est oui et non c’est non. Mais que faire des « peut-être », des silences, des hésitations, ou encore des relations sexuelles acceptées mais non désirées? En déplaçant la focale analytique sur les sexualités quotidiennes des individu-e-s, le consentement apparaît finalement comme un spectre constitué de « zones grises », impossibles à expliquer via le cadre juridique et social du « vrai viol » ou du consentement (...) « libre et éclairé ». Pourtant, cette vision binaire hégémonique est la seule lecture reconnue pour juger de la légalité des pratiques sexuelles en France. Cet article pointe ainsi le décalage d’un système juridique garant d’une égalité théorique qui s’exerce au sein d’une société hétéronormative, et questionne l’efficacité des dispositifs institutionnels actuels pour comprendre et réguler le consentement sexuel. (shrink)

During the Third Reich, state‐sponsored violence was linked to scientific research on many levels. Prisoners were used as involuntary subjects for medical experiments, and body parts from victims were used in anatomy and neuropathology on a massive scale. In many cases, such specimens remained in scientific collections and were used until long after the war. International bioethics, for a long time, had little to say on the issue. Since the late 1980s, with a renewed interest in the Holocaust and other (...) Nazi crimes, a consensus has increasingly taken hold that research on human tissues and body parts from the Nazi era is inadmissible, and that such specimens should be removed from scientific collections and buried. The question of what to do with scientific data obtained from these sources has not received adequate attention, however, and remains unsolved. This paper traces the history of debates about the ethical implications of using human tissue or body parts from the Nazi period for scientific purposes, primarily in the fields of anatomy and neuropathology. It also examines how this issue, from after the war until today, influenced the establishment of legal and bioethical norms on the use of human remains from morally tainted sources, with a particular emphasis on Germany and Austria. It is argued that the use of such specimens and of data derived from them is unethical not only because of potential harms to posthumous rights of the victims, but also because such use constitutes a moral harm to society at large. (shrink)

For each k > 0 we construct an algebraic structure over which the polynomial hierarchy collapses at level k. We also find an algebraic structure over which the polynomial hierarchy does not collapse.

In previous articles we presented a simple set of axioms named “Contexts, Systems and Modalities”, where the structure of quantum mechanics appears as a result of the interplay between the quantized number of modalities accessible to a quantum system, and the continuum of contexts that are required to define these modalities. In the present article we discuss further how to obtain Born’s rule within this framework. Our approach is compared with other former and recent derivations, and its strong links with (...) Gleason’s theorem are particularly emphasized. (shrink)

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) is one of the most important representatives of the French liberal school in the 19th century. Although a Belgian by birth, he is, without contest, a member of the French tradition in the same way as Jean-Baptiste Say or Frédéric Bastiat. Yet, his work is little-known, or only limited to the knowledge of his most controversial theories, which are set out in his most famous publications, “De la Production de la Sécurité.

Résumé Cet article explore le processus de déshumanisation et ses effets sur les individus et plus particulièrement sur leur corps. Pour approcher l’univers de la déshumanisation, les auteurs se sont plongées dans l’irreprésentable des violences génocidaires survenues dans la région des Grands Lacs au Burundi. Deux grandes interrogations constituent le fil rouge de la réflexion : le corps et le paradoxal. Le cas de Nemesa, jeune ex-rebelle burundaise, a permis de penser la souffrance paradoxale liée aux violences extrêmes et inhumaines.

Résumé Cet article explore le processus de déshumanisation et ses effets sur les individus et plus particulièrement sur leur corps. Pour approcher l’univers de la déshumanisation, les auteurs se sont plongées dans l’irreprésentable des violences génocidaires survenues dans la région des Grands Lacs au Burundi. Deux grandes interrogations constituent le fil rouge de la réflexion : le corps et le paradoxal. Le cas de Nemesa, jeune ex-rebelle burundaise, a permis de penser la souffrance paradoxale liée aux violences extrêmes et inhumaines.

Although there is a growing recognition that older adults and those with extensive comorbid conditions undergo cancer screening too frequently, there is little information about patients’ perceptions regarding cessation of cancer screening. Information on older adults’ views of screening cessation would be helpful both for clinicians and for those designing interventions to reduce overscreening.

Salvo contadas excepciones, el itinerario de Antonio Gramsci en la Argentina es generalmente asociado a los gramscianos argentinos reunidos en la revista Pasado y presente, encabezada por José Aricó, sin atender a su historia previa. Sin embargo, se olvida u omite que la introducción del pensamiento de Gramsci en este país fue realizada por Héctor P. Agosti, quien ejerció una notable influencia en muchos de aquellos jóvenes que luego confluirían en el grupo en torno a Aricó. El objetivo de este (...) trabajo es, más allá de las observaciones que se hacen sobre los detractores de Agosti, contribuir a la difusión, y presentación en algunos casos, del pensamiento de uno de los intelectuales más notables que ha dado el Partido Comunista Argentino . Se pretende profundizar en algunos de los vínculos entre las elaboraciones teóricas de Agosti y las de Gramsci que no han sido suficientemente atendidos, así como incidir en el papel que Agosti tuvo en la inserción del pensador italiano en el debate comunista argentino. (shrink)

From the analysis of the local and provincial elected people in the province of East-Flanders during the period 1946-1991 one can conclude that there are barriers for women, lower social classes and certain age categories preventing them from moving up the local and provincial political! elites.Clear differences between local and provincial elected people are present when comparing professional backgrounds with the composition of the total working population in East-Flanders. Workers are neither on the local, nor on the provincial level very (...) numerous. However the large absence with the provincial elected people bhs to be emphazised. Secondly farmers, intellectual and free professions, employees, self-employed and employers are on both levels constantly overrepresented. However the overrepresentation of farmers can mainly be situated on the local level until the mergers of 1976. For intellectual and free professions, till the mid-sixties the overrepresentation can mainly be situated on the provincial level, from then onwards on the local level. The employees' overrepresentation has always been most important on the provincial level white the self-employed and employers are mainly overrepresented on the local level from 1970 onwards. Finally till about 1970 teaching personnel was underrepresented on both levels white from then onwards there is an overrepresentation. (shrink)

From the analysis of the social background of the local elected people in Flanders during the period 1946-1988 one can conclude that there are barriers for women, lower social classes and certain age categories preventing them from moving up the local political elite. The democratization process of the Flemish local political elite bas not yet made much progress. It appears from the fact that men are more numerous in political fonctions, that the distribution among the various professional categories strongly deviates (...) from the general social stratification and from the conclusion that certain age categories are clearly dominant. It is however clear that the composition of the elites neverfully reflect society as a whole. On the other hand, the important fact is that the differences cannot be reduced to smaller variances which inevitably go together with any representative system. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the Wittgensteinian critique of the orthodoxy in animal ethics that has been championed by Cora Diamond and Alice Crary. While Crary frames it as a critique of “moral individualism”, we show that their criticism applies most prominently to certain forms of moral individualism (namely, those that follow hedonistic or preference-satisfaction axiologies), and not to moral individualism in itself. Indeed, there is a concrete sense in which the moral individualistic stance cannot be escaped, and we believe (...) that it is this particular limitation that justified Crary’s later move to a qualified version of moral individualism. At the same time, we also argue that there are significant merits to the Wittgensteinian critique of moral individualism, which pertain to its attack on the rationalism, naturalism, and reductionism that characterise orthodox approaches to animal ethics. We show that there is much of value in the Wittgensteinians’ call for an ethics that is more human; an ethics that fully embraces the capacities we are endowed with and one that pays heed to the richness and complexity of our moral lives. (shrink)

Although tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is the only medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute ischemic stroke, there is no consensus about the need for informed consent for its use. As a result, hospitals throughout the U.S. have varying requirements regarding obtaining informed consent from patients for the use of tPA, ranging from no requirement for informed consent to a requirement for verbal or written informed consent. We conducted a study to (1) determine current (...) beliefs about obtaining patients’ informed consent for tPA among a large group of stroke clinicians and (2) identify the ethical, clinical, and organizational factors that influence tPA consent practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by trained and experienced investigators and research staff to identify key barriers to implementing acute stroke services. Part of the interview explored current beliefs and practices around informed consent for tPA.This was a multicenter study that included 38 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospital locations. Participants were 68 stroke team clinicians, serving primarily on the neurology (35 percent) or emergency medicine (41 percent) service. We conducted thematic analysis based on principles of grounded theory to identify codes about consent for tPA. We used interpretive convergence to ensure consistency among the individual investigators’ codes and to ensure that all of the investigators agreed on coding and themes.We found that 38 percent of the stroke clinicians did not believe any form of consent was necessary for tPA, 47 percent thought that some form of consent was necessary, and 15 percent were unsure. Clinicians who believed tPA required informed consent were divided on whether consent should be written (40 percent) or verbal (60 percent). We identified three factors describing clinicians’ attitudes about consent: (1) legal and policy factors, (2) ethical factors, and (3) medical factors.The lack of consensus regarding consent for tPA creates the potential for delays in treatment, uneasiness among clinicians, and legal liability. The identified factors provide a potential framework to guide discussions about developing a standard of care for acquiring the informed consent of patients for the administration of tPA. (shrink)

Through theoretical discussion, literature review, and a computational model, this paper poses a challenge to the notion that perspective-taking involves a fixed architecture in which particular processes have priority. For example, considerable work has shown that egocentric perspectives can arise more quickly, with other perspectives (such as of task partners) emerging only secondarily. This theoretical dichotomy is challenged here, and we propose a general view of perspective-taking as an emergent phenomenon governed by the interplay among several cognitive mechanisms. We first (...) describe the pervasive relevance of perspective-taking to cognitive science. A dynamical systems model is then introduced which explicitly formulates the timescale interaction proposed. Implications are discussed, with ideas for future empirical research. (shrink)

0-categorical o-minimal structures were completely described by Pillay and Steinhorn 565–592), and are essentially built up from copies of the rationals as an ordered set by ‘cutting and copying’. Here we investigate the possible structures which an 0-categorical weakly o-minimal set may carry, and find that there are some rather more interesting examples. We show that even here the possibilities are limited. We subdivide our study into the following principal cases: the structure is 1-indiscernible, in which case all possibilities are (...) classified up to binary structure; the structure is 2-indiscernible, classified up to ternary structure; the structure is 3-indiscernible, in which case we show that it is k-indiscernible for every finite k. We also make some remarks about the possible structures of higher arities which an 0-categorical weakly o-minimal structure may carry. (shrink)

Olgária Chain Féres Matos é professora titular aposentada pelo Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade de São Paulo e professora titular no Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade Federal de São Paulo. Sua trajetória tem início em fins dos anos 1960, quando ingressa como estudante na Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da Universidade de São Paulo, então situada à rua Maria Antonia. Rousseau, Marcuse, Adorno, Derrida e principalmente Walter Benjamin são algumas de suas referências filosóficas mais importantes, a partir das quais (...) a filósofa compõe uma constelação de ideias animadas pelo afeto e pelo erótico. Tendo a utopia como bússola, o desvio como método e a astúcia como guia, seu esforço constantemente renovado é o de iluminar os clássicos com a potência do efêmero e o brilho questionador do extemporâneo. (shrink)

An emerging discipline depends on a rich and multifaceted supply of theoretical and methodological approaches. The diversity of perspectives offered in this book will serve as a guide for future explorations in action science.

Jane Campion’s work regularly revolves around women’s often complex relationship with socio-cultural discourses and their articulation in language, whether in familial and institutional structures or in cultural and creative practice. In this sense, Campion’s filmmaking continues a feminist tradition of exploration regarding female subjectivity, identity and desire as it is represented in language (cinematic or otherwise). In the Cut (2003), adapted from Susanna Moore’s novel of the same name, again places language and the (dis)articulation of the female voice at its (...) heart: the renewal of which is positioned within the film as crucial to women’s survival. In taking its cue from Hélène Cixous’s ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ (1976) and later writings such as ‘Castration or Decapitation?' (1981) and ‘Coming to Writing' (1991), this article frames its discussion of Campion’s interrogation of ‘Woman’s’ attempts at the articulation of the self as an exemplar (in both theme and form) of Cixousian strategies. The article will argue that techniques such as a cinematic écriture feminine, and the appropriation and adaptation of the language of Hollywood genre film, form part of Campion’s feminist inquiry into the discourses and legacies of a phallogocentric patriarchal culture which traditionally delimit Woman as a ‘speaking’ subject. In this way, In the Cut exposes the tensions between what Cixous calls the ‘Absolute Woman’ of culture (the aphonic hysteric) and attempts towards agency, thus challenging phallogocentric representations of women. In using these strategies, Campion’s adaptation creates a polyphonic artefact which not only revises Moore’s novel but also re-visits (in order to reclaim) female articulation; re-writing phallogocentric claims to agency and subjectivity, imagining women's ‘survival’ through language. In this sense, then, adaptation itself can be thought of as a feminist act of subversion. (shrink)

Resumo: Para ampliar a compreensão das problemáticas ambientais atuais, este texto reúne as análises interpretativas de dois documentos, os quais, por possuírem perspectivas distintas, contribuem significativamente com o estudo da teoria fleckiana. São dois coletivos de pensamento desenvolvendo práticas científicas com intencionalidades advindas das opções teóricas e políticas, configurando um processo dinâmico de produção de conhecimento. A essência de cada um desses coletivos de pensamento consiste na ampliação e na disseminação da ideia transpessoal, por ela não pertencer, de forma exclusiva, (...) a nenhum dos componentes do coletivo. Propiciar a troca constante de concepções interna e externamente impulsiona o conhecimento científico, cuja evolução depende do processo coletivo em que o pensamento se desenvolve por vínculos e interferências engendradas pelo condicionamento social.: With the intention of broadening the understanding of current environmental issues, this article contains interpretive analysis of two documents which, because of their different perspectives, contribute significantly to the study of Fleckian theory. They are two collective thought manifestoes which develop scientific practices, their goals arising from theoretical and political options that configure a dynamic process of knowledge production. The essence of each of these collective thoughts consists in the expansion and spread of transpersonal ideas that do not belong exclusively to any of the components of the collective. Propitiating the constant exchange of internal and external views drives scientific knowledge, whose evolution depends on a collective process in which thought is developed by bonds and interferences engendered by social conditioning. (shrink)

A coletânea de artigos de Herbert Marcuse comemora em 2007 o lançamento de mais um volume: Art and Liberation. Originada de uma série de visitas empreendidas, a partir de 1989, por Douglas Kellner aos Arquivos Marcuse em Frankfurt, esta coletânea de artigos prevê o lançamento de seis volumes, cada um dos quais dedicado ao tratamento de um tema específico. Único impresso no Brasil, o primeiro engloba alguns textos escritos em colaboração com o governo norte-americano, e discute a relação entre a (...) tecnologia, a guerra e o fascismo (MARCUSE, 1999). (shrink)