Genetic studies in the social sciences could be augmented through the additional consideration of functional (transcriptome, methylome, metabolome) and/or multimodal genetic data when attempting to understand the genetics of social phenomena. Understanding the biological pathways linking genetics and the environment will allow scientists to better evaluate the functional importance of polygenic scores.

This entry considers the philosophical subject called 'metaphysics'. There have been many conceptions of metaphysics, and metaphysics has faced severe criticism throughout the history of philosophy and continues to do so. Besides discussing some major trends in analytic metaphysics - understood as 'metaphysics done by analytic philosophers' - we consider some of the criticisms and possible responses.

This article argues for a revised best system account of laws of nature. David Lewis’s original BSA has two main elements. On the one hand, there is the Humean base, which is the totality of particular matters of fact that obtain in the history of the universe. On the other hand, there is what I call the ‘nomic formula’, which is a particular operation that gets applied to the Humean base in order to output the laws of nature. My revised (...) account focuses on this latter element of the view. Lewis conceives of the nomic formula as a balance of simplicity and strength, but I argue that this is a mistake. Instead, I motivate and develop a different proposal for the standards that figure into the nomic formula, and I suggest a rationale for why these should be the correct standards. Specifically, I argue that the nomic formula should be conceived as a collection of desiderata designed to generate principles that are predictively useful to creatures like us. The resulting view—which I call the ‘best predictive system’ account of laws—is thus able to explain why scientists are interested in discovering the laws, and it also gives rise to laws with the sorts of features that we find in actual scientific practice 1Introduction2The LOPP3A Problem with Lewis's Formula4A Pragmatic Account of the Nomic Formula 4.1Informative dynamics4.2Wide applicability4.3Spatial locality4.4Temporal locality4.5Spatial, temporal, and rotational symmetries4.6Predictively useful properties4.7Simplicity4.8Recap5 Conclusion. (shrink)

In their recent article “A Hierarchy of Classical and Paraconsistent Logics”, Eduardo Barrio, Federico Pailos and Damien Szmuc present novel and striking results about meta-inferential validity in various three valued logics. In the process, they have thrown open the door to a hitherto unrecognized domain of non-classical logics with surprising intrinsic properties, as well as subtle and interesting relations to various familiar logics, including classical logic. One such result is that, for each natural number n, there is a logic which (...) agrees with classical logic on tautologies, inferences, meta-inferences, meta-meta-inferences, meta-meta-...-meta-inferences, but that disagrees with classical logic on n + 1-meta-inferences. They suggest that this shows that classical logic can only be characterized by defining its valid inferences at all orders. In this article, I invoke some simple symmetric generalizations of BPS’s results to show that the problem is worse than they suggest, since in fact there are logics that agree with classical logic on inferential validity to all orders but still intuitively differ from it. I then discuss the relevance of these results for truth theory and the classification problem. (shrink)

Ethical cultures, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability strategies are increasingly being addressed through formal organisational policies and structures. This is evidenced by codes of ethics, conduct, whistle-blowing reporting lines, anti-bribery and corruption policies, and broader stakeholder and environmental engagement strategies. In the United States, corporate ethics managers are responsible for these functions, supported by specific professional and university-level qualifications. However, this is not the case in Australia and Asia where the role appears delegated to human resource personnel in organisations. (...) Human resource management (HRM) is increasingly advanced as a formal profession, yet whether corporate ethics content features as a significant component of the HRM profession is unclear. Expert knowledge is a foundation of a profession along with the duty to act within the limits of that knowledge and expertise. This paper scopes what constitutes professional expert knowledge. It examines corporate ethics expertise and HRM within this context. Major Australian and Asian organisations are examined to verify that HRM Departments, and thus HRM practitioners, are responsible for managing corporate ethics. Given the seniority and strategic importance of this function, the content of selected Masters in HRM and related fields are examined to identify the extent of ethics content. This is considered in the light of the expertise required to manage corporate ethics, and conclusions are drawn whether the HRM discipline is appropriately qualified to manage this function. Finally, recommendations and further research towards advancing the role and function of corporate ethics managers in general are proposed. (shrink)

This paper tackles the issue of the diversity of déjà experiences. According to the standard view in the neuropsychological literature, they should all be defined by means of a psychological criterion, by which they are experiences triggered by a perceived item and consist of a conscious clash between a first-order feeling of familiarity about the item and a second-order evaluation that assesses the first-order feeling as erroneous. This paper dismisses the standard view and contends there are two types of déjà (...) experiences, labeled déjà vu and déjà vécu respectively. But it also takes issue with the rare proponents of a distinct déjà vécu type. Contrary to their achievement view, it argues that recollection is not involved in déjà vécu experiences as an actual mental state or a component thereof. In our ability view, déjà vécu involves the feeling that one could recollect past occurrences of a currently lived episode of experience. (shrink)

Can there be phenomenal consciousness without self-consciousness? Strong intuitions and prominent theories of consciousness say “no”: experience requires minimal self-awareness, or “subjectivity”. This “subjectivity principle” faces apparent counterexamples in the form of anomalous mental states claimed to lack self-consciousness entirely, such as “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia and certain mental states in depersonalization disorder. However, Billon & Kriegel have defended SP by arguing that while some of these mental states may be totally selfless, those states are not phenomenally conscious and thus (...) do not constitute genuine counterexamples to SP. I argue that this defence cannot work in relation to certain experiences of ego dissolution induced by potent fast-acting serotonergic psychedelics. These mental states jointly instantiate the two features whose co-instantiation by a single mental state SP prohibits: phenomenal consciousness and total lack of self-consciousness. One possible objection is that these mental states may lack “me-ness” and “mineness” but cannot lack “for-me-ness”, a special inner awareness of mental states by the self. In response I propose a dilemma. For-me-ness can be defined either as containing a genuinely experiential component or as not. On the first horn, for-me-ness is clearly absent from my counterexamples. On the second horn, for-me-ness has been defined in a way that conflicts with the claims and methods of its proponents, and the claim that phenomenally conscious mental states can totally lack self-consciousness has been conceded. I conclude with some reflections on the intuitive plausibility of SP in light of evidence from altered states. (shrink)

This paper aims to explain why the laws of nature are held fixed in counterfactual reasoning. I begin by highlighting three salient features of counterfactual reasoning: it is conservative, nomically guided, and it uses hindsight. I then present a rationale for our engagement in counterfactual reasoning that aims to make sense of these features. In particular, I argue that counterfactual reasoning helps us evaluate the evidential relations between unanticipated pieces of evidence and various hypotheses of interest about the history of (...) the actual world. Given this goal, it makes a great deal of sense that counterfactual reasoning would have the aforementioned features. Additionally, it turns out that this account of counterfactual reasoning is nicely congruent with Humean views of laws. Specifically, it can explain, in a Humean-friendly way, both why the laws are counterfactually resilient, and why we may be inclined to have anti-Humean intuitions in the first place, even if some form of Humeanism is correct. (shrink)

Objective—To identify and describe the current state of clinical ethics support services in the UK.Design—A series of questionnaire surveys of key individuals in National Health Service (NHS) trusts, health authorities, health boards, local research ethics committees and health professional organisations. Interviews with chairmen/women of clinical ethics committees identified in the surveys.Setting—The UK National Health Service.Results—Responses to the questionnaires were received from all but one NHS trust and all but one health authority/board. A variety of models of clinical ethics support were (...) identified including twenty formal clinical ethics committees (CECs). A further twenty NHS trusts expressed an intention to establish a CEC within the next twelve months. Most CECs in the UK have been in existence less than five years and are still defining their role. The chairmen identified education of committee members and contact with other ethics committees as important requirements for committee development. Problems were identified around lack of support for the committee and with raising the profile of the committee within the institution. There has been little evaluation of clinical ethics support services either in the UK or in other countries with longer established services. What evaluation has occurred has focused on process rather than outcome measures.Conclusions—Clinical ethics support services are developing in the UK. A number of issues have been identified that need to be addressed if such support services are to develop effectively. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationships between forms of humor that conjure up possible worlds and real-world social critiques. The first part of the article will argue that subversive humor, which is from or on behalf of historically and continually marginalized communities, constitutes a kind of aesthetic experience that can elicit enjoyment even in adversarial audiences. The second part will be a connecting piece, arguing that subversive humor can be constructed as brief narrative thought experiments that employ the use of fictionalized (...) scenarios to facilitate an open, playful attitude, encouraging a space for collaborative interpretation. This interaction between humorist and audience is an aesthetic experience that is enjoyable in and of itself, as the feelings of mirth are intrinsically valuable. But connected to the “Ha-ha!” experience of these sorts of humorous creations is an “Aha!” or potentially revelatory experience that is a mixture of cognitive comprehension and motivated (emotional) response. The third part of the article will attempt to go beyond the consciousness-raising element with an account of how such possible worlds created in the realm of imagination through subversive humor can bleed into the real world of flesh and blood people. Finally, an example of subversive humor will be analyzed. (shrink)

Chris Daly; Tropes, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 253–262, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/94.1.253.

Given the laws of our universe, the initial conditions and cosmological constants had to be "fine-tuned" to result in life. Is this evidence for design? We argue that we should be uncertain whether an ideal agent would take it to be so—but that given such uncertainty, we should react to fine-tuning by boosting our confidence in design. The degree to which we should do so depends on our credences in controversial metaphysical issues.

This paper accomplishes three goals. First, it reveals that God’s ethics has a radical satisficing structure: God can choose a good enough suboptimal option even if there is a best option and no countervailing considerations. Second, it resolves the long-standing worry that there is no account of the good enough that is both principled and demanding enough to be good enough. Third, it vindicates the key ethical assumption in the problem of evil without relying on the contested assumption that God’s (...) ethics is our ethics. (shrink)

My thesis is that there are good reasons for a philosophical account of measurement to deal primarily with the properties or magnitudes of objects measured, rather than with the objects themselves. The account I present here embodies both a realism about measurement and a realism about the existence of the properties involved in measurement. It thus provides an alternative to most current treatments of measurement, many of which are operationalistic or conventionalistic, and nearly all of which are nominalistic.1 This enables (...) the present account to give better explanations of a number of features of measurement and other aspects of science than competing accounts of measurement can, and to be more readily integrated into a realist account of natural laws and causation. It also illustrates a general strategy for combining a familiar and powerful approach to representation with intensional entities like properties, which I think can be useful for dealing with a number of philosophical problems. (shrink)

In Barrio et al. Barrio Pailos and Szmuc prove that there are systems of logic that agree with classical logic up to any finite meta-inferential level, and disagree with it thereafter. This article presents a generalized sense of meta-inference that extends into the transfinite, and proves analogous results to all transfinite orders.

"Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference" looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian ...

In social work there is seldom an uncontroversial `right way' of doing things. So how will you deal with the value questions and ethical dilemmas that you will be faced with as a professional social worker? This lively and readable introductory text is designed to equip students with a sound understanding of the principles of values and ethics which no social worker should be without. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book successfully explores the complexities of ethical issues, (...) while recognising the real-world context in which social workers operate. Key features of the text include: - Full of hands-on advice and tips for professional practice. - Engaging and student-friendly. Each chapter is packed with case studies, reader exercises, key definitions and useful summaries. - Comprehensive content. The book explores core issues such as moral philosophy; professionalism; religion; power; oppression; difference and diversity; and ethical codes of practice. - Satisfies all the curriculum and training requirements for the new social work degree. Mapping directly on to first year courses, this text is essential reading for all social work undergraduates. It is an ideal refresher text for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduate and post-qualifying students, and for professionals. `This introductory text succeeds in providing an accessible introduction to the subject area. The book is consistently structured, well planned and uniformly written in a conversational and immediate style…. The discussion manages to combine a sense of engagement with a balanced treatment of the issues. Readers who apply themselves will be well sensitised to the matters under discussion and should be able to take their understanding into the practical arena' - Chris Clark, University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

Analyzes the intellectual roots and philosophy of Ayn Rand. Second edition adds a new preface and an analysis of transcripts documenting Rand's education at Petrograd State University"--Provided by publisher.

Experimental philosophers have disagreed about whether "the folk" are intuitively incompatibilists or compatibilists, and they have disagreed about the role of abstraction in generating such intuitions. New experimental evidence using Construal Level Theory is presented. The experiments support the views that the folk are intuitively both incompatibilists and compatibilists, and that abstract mental representations do shift intuitions, but not in a univocal way.

This article focuses on practical, ethical and political issues that arise in the context of cetacean conservation. Our point of departure is the controversy surrounding plans to assist J50, an ailing member of the southern resident orca population, during the summer of 2018. A brief history of cetacean captivity provides context for the current backlash against captivity. We then argue that, in many cases, interventions aimed at capture, rehabilitation and release are practically feasible and that such interventions are ethically justifiable. (...) Moreover, the political context highlights the importance of engaging a broad range of stakeholders in conservation decision making. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends a novel version of a relatively neglected category of theory of the nature of happiness: the desire-satisfaction theory. My account is similar in its fundamentals to Wayne Davis’s theory of happiness-as-subjective-desire-satisfaction. After arguing that this is the best general way to proceed for the desire-based approach, I develop an improved version of subjective desire satisfactionism in light of recent arguments in the happiness literature.

In current Western societies, increasing numbers of people express their desire to choose when to die. Allowing people to choose the moment of their death is an ethical issue that should be embedded in sound clinical and legal frameworks. In the case of persons with dementia, it raises further ethical questions such as: Does the person have the capacity to make the choice? Is the person being coerced? Who should be involved in the decision? Is the person’s suffering untreatable? The (...) use of Advance Euthanasia Directives (AED) is suggested as a way to deal with end-of-life wishes of persons with dementia. However, in the Netherlands—the only country in which this practice is legal—the experiences of patients, doctors, and relatives have been far from satisfactory.Our paper analyses this complex ethical challenge from a Dignity-Enhancing Care approach, starting from the Dutch experiences with AED as a case. We first consider the lived experiences of the different stakeholders, seeking out a dialogical-interpretative understanding of care. We aim to promote human dignity as a normative standard for end-of-life care practices. Three concrete proposals are then presented in which this approach can be operationalised in order to deal respectfully with the end-of-life choices of persons with dementia. (shrink)

Philosophers who theorize about whether free will is compatible with causal determinism often rely on ordinary intuitions to bolster their theory. A revisionist theory of free will takes a different approach, saying that the best philosophical theory of what we ought to think about free will conflicts with what we ordinarily do think about free will. I contend that revisionism has not been taken as seriously as should be because philosophers have not realized the extent to which ordinary intuitions are (...) inconsistent. I present an experiment that gives empirical evidence for revisionism. The experiment shows that, in spite of the fact that the ?is compatible with? relation is symmetric, folk intuitions change as a function of whether we ask ?Is determinism compatible with free will?? versus ?Is free will compatible with determinism?? The paper explores possible explanations for why folk intuitions do not mirror the symmetry of the ?is compatible with? relation, but regardless of which of these explanations is correct, I argue that we must be revisionists in at least this sense: what we ought to believe about free will cannot include everything we do believe about free will. (shrink)

This paper begins by taking seriously former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ response in his What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? to systematic violence and oppression. He claims that direct argumentation is not the ideal mode of resistance to oppression: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.” I will focus on a few elements of this playful mode of resistance that conflict with the more straightforward strivings for abstract, universal, objective, convergent, absolute (...) thinking that champions reason over emotion, logic over narrative, and science over lived experience. In contrast, the type of protest employed by people like Douglass can utilize aesthetics and logic, playfulness and seriousness, emotion, even anger, and reason. Douglass provides examples of humorous, sincere parrhesia, oscillating between the lexicon of the dominant sphere and the critical reflection from a trickster on the margins. This will require an analysis of Michel Foucault’s conception of parrhesia: courageous truth-telling in the face of powerful people or institutions. It is a study of humor in the parrhesiastes, an element I think neglected by Foucault. I argue that the humorous parrhesiastes offers a mode of resistance which can subvert oppressive power structures that perpetuate injustice, revealing the fact that humor can be integral in courageous truth-telling. (shrink)

One can know how to ride a bicycle, play the cello, or collect experimental data. But who can know how to properly ride a tandem bicycle, perform a symphony, or run a high-energy physics experiment? Reductionist analyses fail to account for these cases strictly in terms of the individual know-how involved. Nevertheless, it doesn't follow from non-reductionism that groups possess this know-how. One must first show that epistemic extension cannot obtain. This is the idea that individuals can possess knowledge even (...) when others possess some of the epistemic materials generating it. I show that only knowledge-that can be epistemically extended, not knowledge-how. Appeal to epistemic extension is a viable way of avoiding group knowledge-that ascriptions but not group knowledge-how ascriptions. Therefore, groups can know how. (shrink)

In this article de Beauvoir defends a conception of literature as a kind of unveiling of something that exists outside itself, a mode of action which reveals certain truths about the world. What we call “literature” is eminently capable of grasping the world—a world which de Beauvoir, following Jean-Paul Sartre, conceives of as a “detotalized totality”; one that is real and independent of us, which exists for all, but is only graspable through our own projects and our perspectives. Yet far (...) from keeping us stranded within our unique subjectivities, literature restores to subjective experience its generality; it allows other to “taste” the world as it exists for others. We can communicate through literature because in it our world, our languages, and our projects overlap. Ultimately, for de Beauvoir, literature is what allows us to see the world as others see it—all the while remaining, irreducibly, ourselves. (shrink)

This book sets out a new reading of the much-neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers either as a proponent of irrationalist cultural philosophy or as an early, peripheral disciple of Martin Heidegger, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy. Giving particular consideration to his position in epistemological, metaphysical and political debate, the author argues that Jaspers's work deserves renewed consideration in a number of important discussions, particularly in hermeneutics, anthropological reflections (...) on religion, the critique of idealism, and debates on the end of metaphysics. (shrink)

This article returns to the debate about the relative importance of the productive forces and the relations of production in the feudal mode of production. It argues, using western medieval evidence, that this relation is an empirical one and varies between modes, maybe also inside modes; and that, in the specific case of feudalism, not only were the relations of production the driving force, but developments in the productive forces actually depended upon them.

I connect two increasingly popular ideas in social epistemology—group knowledge and epistemic extension—both departures from mainstream epistemological tradition. In doing so, I generate a framework for conceptualizing and organizing contemporary epistemology along several core axes. This, in turn, allows me to delineate a largely unexplored frontier in group epistemology. The bulk of extant work in group epistemology can be dubbed intra-group epistemology: the study of epistemically salient happenings within groups. I delineate and attempt to motivate what I dub inter-group epistemology: (...) the study of epistemically salient happenings between groups and other subjects and entities. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether and when experience can be evidence. It argues that experiences can be evidence, and that this claim is compatible with just about any epistemological theory. It evaluates the most promising argument for the conclusion that certain experiences (e.g., seeming to see) are always evidence for believing what the experiences represent. While the argument is very promising, one premise needs further defense. The argument also depends on a certain connection between reasonable belief and the first person perspective.

A new ontology that forms the groundwork for ethical practices of resistance What and how should individuals resist in political situations? While these questions recur regularly within Western political philosophy, answers to them have often relied on dogmatically held ideals, such as the distinction between truth and doxa or the privilege of thought over sense. In particular, the strain of idealist political philosophy, inaugurated by Plato and finding contemporary expression in the work of Alain Badiou, employs dualities that reduce the (...) complexities of practices of resistance to concepts of commitment. (shrink)

To have a fully integrated understanding of neurobiological systems, we must address two fundamental questions: 1. What do brains do (what is their function)? and 2. How do brains do whatever it is that they do (how is that function implemented)? I begin by arguing that these questions are necessarily inter-related. Thus, addressing one without consideration of an answer to the other, as is often done, is a mistake. I then describe what I take to be the best available approach (...) to addressing both questions. Specifically, to address 2, I adopt the Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) of Eliasmith & Anderson [Neural engineering: Computation representation and dynamics in neurobiological systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003] which identifies implementational principles for neural models. To address 1, I suggest that adopting statistical modeling methods for perception and action will be functionally sufficient for capturing biological behavior. I show how these two answers will be mutually constraining, since the process of model selection for the statistical method in this approach can be informed by known anatomical and physiological properties of the brain, captured by the NEF. Similarly, the application of the NEF must be informed by functional hypotheses, captured by the statistical modeling approach. (shrink)

The 2018 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes that the constant monitoring of our health does more harm than good”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is now in its tenth year. This year’s debate was hosted at the Oxford Union on 8th of February 2018, with Oxford winning for the Opposition, and was the catalyst for the collation and expansion of ideas in this paper.New technological devices have the (...) potential to enhance patient autonomy, improve patient safety, simplify the management of chronic diseases, increase connectivity between patients and healthcare professionals and assist individuals to make lifestyle changes to improve their health. However, these are pitted against an encroachment of technology medicalising the individual and home, an exacerbation of health inequalities, a risk to the security of patient data, an alteration of the doctor-patient relationship dynamic and an infringement on individual self-identity. This paper will draw upon and develop these concepts, while contending arguments for and against constant health monitoring. This is not a review of medical devices and health monitoring, but a reflective development and more detailed elaboration of the main points highlighted in the 2018 Varsity Medical Ethics debate. (shrink)

The idea of equality in political thought is often approached from a distributive perspective that entails a rethinking of institutional arrangements. In this paper I present an approach to conceived as a complement to the common institutional approach in liberal theory. The foundational claim is that blacks do not come into view for a wide range of people as worthy of full human recognition, that is, persons in possession of human vulnerabilities that require responses and in possession of warrants to (...) rights that demand respect. The central argument is that this problem of diminished social value can be addressed by imagination and that imagination is crucially important to bridge the experiential divide between white and black Americans. I deploy two ideas I claim are essential for leveraging imagination: attentiveness and skill. When we are attentive we provide the imagination range to sense the more difficult aspects of others’ lives under inequality; when we are skilled we deploy a finer sensibility in taking the proper ethical stance towards others’ experiential difficulties under a regime of racial inequality. To achieve this, I provide a schematic of three pairs of concepts that provide a foundation though not full accounting of the necessary skills in response to ethical challenges: narrative/receptivity, reasons/responsibility, affect/compassion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A review of two of the strands of cultural studies that Mark Fenster contends are superior to Murray Edelman’s analysis of mass public opinion—Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, and Bourdieu’s sociology—and a more general look at work in the field of cultural studies suggests that all of these alternatives suffer from severe theoretical and methodological limitations. Future studies of culture and politics need to pose questions similar to the ones that preoccupied Edelman, but they must move beyond the political and (...) interpretive biases that have dominated cultural studies (some of which Edelman shared), as well as the questionable view of “ideology” as a matter of elite domination of the masses, rather than as a mediating, constitutive force in the process of individual opinion formation. (shrink)

So what is feminism anyway? Why are all the experts so reluctant to give us a clear definition? Is it possible to make sense of the complex and often contradictory debates? In this concise and accessible introduction to feminist theory, Chris Beasley provides clear explanations of the many types of feminism. She outlines the development of liberal, radical and Marxist//socialist feminism, and reviews the more contemporary influences of psychoanalysis, postmodernism, theories of the body, queer theory, and attends to the (...) ongoing significance of race and ethnicity. Given the diversity of feminist ideas, Chris Beasley a number of ways of looking at feminist theory and offer an open-ended approach which allows for variety and change. What is Feminism? is a clear and up-to-date guide to Western feminist theory for students, their teachers, researchers and anyone else who wants to understand and engage in current feminist debates. `Over the last three decades feminist theories and methodologies have become an increasingly complex as well as somewhat fraught terrain where ideas and egos alternately clash productively and destructively. This is an up-to-date and intelligent introduction to a field which remains a vital component of contemporary sociopolitical issues and debates' - Sneja Gunew, Professor of English and Women’s Studies, University of British Columbia. (shrink)

Tragic choices arise during the COVID-19 pandemic when the limited resources made available in acute medical settings cannot be accessed by all patients who need them. In these circumstances, healthcare rationing is unavoidable. It is important in any healthcare rationing process that the interests of the community are recognised, and that decision-making upholds these interests through a fair and consistent process of decision-making. Responding to recent calls to safeguard individuals’ legal rights in decision-making in intensive care, and for new authoritative (...) national guidance for decision-making, this paper seeks to clarify what consistency and fairness demand in healthcare rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic, from both a legal and ethical standpoint. The paper begins with a brief review of UK law concerning healthcare resource allocation, considering how community interests and individual rights have been marshalled in judicial deliberation about the use of limited health resources within the National Health Service. It is then argued that an important distinction needs to be drawn between procedural and outcome consistency, and that a procedurally consistent decision-making process ought to be favoured. Congruent with the position that UK courts have adopted for resource allocation decision-making in the NHS more generally, specific requirements for a procedural framework and substantive triage criteria to be applied within that framework during the COVID-19 pandemic are considered in detail. (shrink)

International Political Theory focuses on the point where two fields of study meet - International Relations and Political Theory. It takes from the former a central concern with the 'international' broadly defined; from the latter it takes a broadly normative identity. IPT studies the 'ought' questions that have been ignored or side-lined by the modern study of International Relations and the 'international' dimension that Political Theory has in the past neglected. A central proposition of IPT is that the 'domestic' and (...) the 'international' cannot be treated as self-contained spheres, although this does not preclude states and the states-system from being regarded by some practitioners of IPT as central points of reference. This Handbook provides an authoritative account of the issues, debates, and perspectives in the field, guided by two basic questions concerning its purposes and methods of inquiry. First, how does IPT connect with real world politics? In particular, how does it engage with real world problems, and position itself in relation to the practices of real world politics? And second, following on from this, what is the relationship between IPT and empirical research in international relations? This Handbook showcases the distinctive and valuable contribution of normative inquiry not just for its own sake but also in addressing real world problems. The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations. The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smith of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by a distinguished pair of specialists in their respective fields. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of the original Reus-Smit and Snidal The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by a pair of scholars drawn from alternative perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions. (shrink)