This book is a provocative contribution to contemporary ethical theory challenging foundational conceptions of character that date back to Aristotle. John Doris draws on behavioral science, especially social psychology, to argue that we misattribute the causes of behavior to personality traits and other fixed aspects of character rather than to the situational context. More often than not it is the situation not the nature of the personality that really counts. The author elaborates the philosophical consequences of this research for (...) a whole array of ethical theories and shows that, once rid of the misleading conception of motivation, moral psychology can support more robust ethical theories and more humane ethical practices. (shrink)

If the work carried out to gain a detailed understanding of the process of photosynthesis, and probably other types of bioenergetic conversions as well, fulfills the criteria of a molecular biology, and if the groups funding this research and those who worked in the laboratory regarded it as such, why has it been necessary for me to argue here that bioenergetics should always have been counted as part of - indeed, may have been in the forefront in establishing — the (...) molecular biology tradition? Why have the investigators themselves not insisted on correcting the historical record that has emerged thus far? I would like to offer two reasons: one institutional, the other scientific. (shrink)

Do we know what we're doing, and why? Psychological research seems to suggest not: reflection and self-awareness are surprisingly uncommon and inaccurate. John M. Doris presents a new account of agency and responsibility, which reconciles our understanding of ourselves as moral agents with empirical work on the unconscious mind.

Benefit sharing has been a recurrent theme in international debates for the past two decades. However, despite its prominence in law, medical ethics and political philosophy, the concept has never been satisfactorily defined. In this conceptual paper, a definition that combines current legal guidelines with input from ethics debates is developed. Philosophers like boxes; protective casings into which they can put concisely-defined concepts. Autonomy is the human capacity for self-determination; beneficence denotes the virtue of good deeds, coercion is the intentional (...) threat of harm and so on. What about benefit sharing? Does the concept have a box and are the contents clearly defined? The answer to this question has to be no. The concept of benefit sharing is almost unique in that various disciplines use it regularly without precise definitions. In this article, a definition for benefit sharing is provided, to eliminate unnecessary ambiguity. (shrink)

Paradoxes are more than just intellectual puzzles - they raise substantive philosophical issues and offer the promise of increased philosophical knowledge. In this introduction to paradox and paradoxes, Doris Olin shows how seductive paradoxes can be, why they confuse and confound, and why they continue to fascinate. Olin examines the nature of paradox, outlining a rigorous definition and providing a clear and incisive statement of what does and does not count as a resolution of a paradox. The view that (...) a statement can be both true and false, that contradictions can be true, is seen to provide a challenge to the account of paradox resolution, and is explored. With this framework in place, the book then turns to an in-depth treatment of the Prediction Paradox, versions of the Preface/Fallibility Paradox, the Lottery Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Sorites Paradox. Each of these paradoxes is shown to have considerable philosophical punch. Olin unpacks the central arguments in a clear and systematic fashion, offers original analyses and solutions, and exposes further unsettling implications for some of our most deep-seated principles and convictions. (shrink)

Paradoxes are more than just intellectual puzzles - they raise substantive philosophical issues and offer the promise of increased philosophical knowledge. In this introduction to paradox and paradoxes, Doris Olin shows how seductive paradoxes can be, why they confuse and confound, and why they continue to fascinate. Olin examines the nature of paradox, outlining a rigorous definition and providing a clear and incisive statement of what does and does not count as a resolution of a paradox. The view that (...) a statement can be both true and false, that contradictions can be true, is seen to provide a challenge to the account of paradox resolution, and is explored. With this framework in place, the book then turns to an in-depth treatment of the Prediction Paradox, versions of the Preface/Fallibility Paradox, the Lottery Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Sorites Paradox. Each of these paradoxes is shown to have considerable philosophical punch. Olin unpacks the central arguments in a clear and systematic fashion, offers original analyses and solutions, and exposes further unsettling implications for some of our most deep-seated principles and convictions. (shrink)

There is a widespread view that well-learned skills are automated, and that attention to the performance of these skills is damaging because it disrupts the automatic processes involved in their execution. This idea serves as the basis for an account of choking in high pressure situations. On this view, choking is the result of self-focused attention induced by anxiety. Recent research in sports psychology has produced a significant body of experimental evidence widely interpreted as supporting this account of choking in (...) certain kinds of complex sensorimotor skills. We argue against this interpretation, pointing to problems with both the empirical evidence and the underlying theory. The experimental research fails to provide direct support for the central claims of the self-focus approach, contains inconsistencies, and suffers from problems of ecological validity. In addition, qualitative studies of choking have yielded contrary results. We further argue that in their current forms the self-focus and rival distraction approaches both lack the theoretical resources to provide a good theory of choking, and we argue for an expanded approach. Some of the elements that should be in an expanded approach include accounts of the features of pressure situations that influence the psychological response, the processes of situation appraisal, and the ways that attentional control can be overwhelmed, leading to distraction in some cases, and in others, perhaps, to damaging attention to skill execution. We also suggest that choking may sometimes involve performance-impairing mechanisms other than distraction or self-focus. (shrink)

This article considers how we should frame the ethical issues raised by current proposals for large-scale genebanks with on-going links to medical and lifestyle data, such as the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council's 'UK Biobank'. As recent scandals such as Alder Hey have emphasised, there are complex issues concerning the informed consent of donors that need to be carefully considered. However, we believe that a preoccupation with informed consent obscures important questions about the purposes to which such collections are (...) put, not least that they may be only haphazardly used for research —an end that would not fairly reflect the original altruistic motivation of donors, and the trust they must invest. We therefore argue that custodians of such databases take on a weighty pro-active duty, to encourage public debate about the ends of such collections and to sponsor research that reflects publicly agreed priorities and provides public benefits. (shrink)

Um den Begriff des Originals gibt es heftige Debatten. Können Fälschungen ebenso gut sein wie Originale? Wann sind Kopien vielleicht sogar besser? Und ist die Zeit des Originals nicht überhaupt vorbei? Dabei tritt die Frage, was ein Original eigentlich sei, oft in den Hintergrund. Doris Reisinger stellt die These auf: Der Begriff des Originals ist nicht nur nicht obsolet, er hat auch nicht notwendig mit Neuheit, Urheberschaft oder ästhetischem Wert zu tun - das Problem des Originalbegriffs besteht schlicht darin, (...) dass seine komplexe Struktur verkannt wird. Vor diesem Ausgangspunkt erarbeitet sie einen Explikationsvorschlag, der die Beantwortung einer ganzen Reihe von Fragen dieser klassischen philosophischen Debatte erlaubt. (shrink)

From the 1950s to the 1970s, a group of physician–researchers forming the ‘Liverpool school’ made groundbreaking contributions in such diverse areas as the genetics of Lepidoptera and human medical genetics. The success of this group can be attributed to the several different, but interconnected, research partnerships that Liverpool physician Cyril Clarke established with Philip Sheppard, Victor McKusick at Johns Hopkins University, the Nuffield Foundation, and his wife Féo. Despite its notable successes, among them the discovery of the method to prevent (...) Rhesus haemolytic disease of the newborn, the Liverpool School began to lose prominence in the mid-1970s, just as the field of medical genetics that it had helped pioneer began to grow. This paper explores the role of partnerships in making possible the Liverpool school's scientific and medical achievements, and also in contributing to its decline. (shrink)

One of the most significant shifts in current thinking on war and gender is the recognition that rape in wartime is not a simple by-product of war, but often a planned and targeted policy. For many feminists ‘rape as a weapon of war’ provides a way to articulate the systematic, pervasive, and orchestrated nature of wartime sexual violence that marks it as integral rather than incidental to war. This recognition of rape as a weapon of war has taken on legal (...) significance at the Rwandan and Yugoslav Tribunals where rape has been prosecuted as a crime against humanity and genocide. In this paper, I examine how the Rwanda Tribunal’s record of judgments conceives of rape enacted as an instrument of the genocide. I consider in particular how the Tribunal’s conception of ‘rape as a weapon of war’ shapes what can be known about sexual violence and gender in the Rwandan genocide and what cannot, the categories of victims legally recognised and those that are not, and the questions pursued, and those foreclosed, about the patterns of violence before and during the genocide. (shrink)

Psychopaths appear to be ‘creatures apart’ – grandiose, shameless, callous and versatile in their violence. I discuss biological underpinnings to their pale affect, their selective inability to discern fear and sadness in others and a predatory orienting towards images that make most startle and look away. However, just because something is biologically underpinned does not mean that it is innate. I show that while there may be some genetic determination of fearlessness and callous-unemotionality, these and other features of the personality (...) may arise from developmental failures in the interpersonal reception of their emotions, needs and their sense of self. One is unlikely to be able to own inner experiences if shamed for having them, or if, having them, one does not know how to regulate and soothe. So psychopaths may learn to attend away and suppress them. Rather than a fully inherited difficulty, they may have become unable to reflect on inner states, so meta-emotions and self-reflective emotions like guilt and shame do not fully arise. They retain enough sensitivity to know their difference, and hide. I suggest that psychopaths are characterised by a nested sense of self, arising from the surprising effect of shame on these seemingly shameless characters. They do not have an integrated sense of self across context or across time or in relation to a generalised social other. With a nested sense of self, diminished intensity and scope of affective experience (in both directly experienced and vicarious forms) they lack textured access to a personal, owned and integrated past. Thus they lack the kind of access to the past required for a motivationally compelling planning of the future. They lack the emotional investment in the future that enables us to overcome the motivation to act opportunistically and myopically. These individuals live strangely in time. They have a fugitive sense of self and live nimbly among many pasts. They present an elegant and coherent mask to the person they are addressing in the moment and generate possible futures without conviction. (shrink)

Yoga is a unique form of expert movement that promotes an increasingly subtle interpenetration of thought and movement. The mindful nature of its practice, even at expert levels, challenges the idea that thought and mind are inevitably disruptive to absorbed coping. Building on parallel phenomenological and ethnographic studies of skilful performance and embodied apprenticeship, we argue for the importance in yoga of mental access to embodied movement during skill execution by way of a case study of instruction and practice in (...) two related traditions, Iyengar and Anusara. Sharing a pose repertoire, they are based on distinctive philosophical systems with different teaching styles and metaphoric structures. To address relations between pedagogy and practice in embodied expertise, and to investigate the reciprocal influences of embodiment and thought, we explore in detail the linguistically mediated learning context where practitioners work with yoga teachers. Here, the mind/body problem comes to practical life. We demonstrate the effects of words on bodies, as knowledge is literally incorporated. We show why interpersonal influence on our movement capacities is sometimes needed to enhance expertise. We theorize and identify ?signature patterns of tension? among practitioners. These patterns have four sources: ghost gestures, innate differences in bodily form, functional fusing, and signature patterns of affective experience, modulation and expression. These patterns of tension produce ?silent zones?, cognitively impenetrable actions, functional fusing of a skilful, compensatory form, and signature patterns of pain and damage. We show how instruction can disrupt these silent zones, enhancing mental and physical flexibility. (shrink)

John M. Doris has been a leading proponent of interdisciplinary approaches to moral psychology for decades. His work has transformed the way in which philosophers approach questions of character, virtue, and agency. This selection of his work focuses on the ways in which human personality orders moral cognition and behaviour.

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it (...) in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant’s concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity. (shrink)

The Médecins Sans Frontières ethics review board has been solicited in an unprecedented way to provide advice and review research protocols in an ‘emergency’ mode during the recent Ebola epidemic. Twenty-seven Ebola-related study protocols were reviewed between March 2014 and August 2015, ranging from epidemiological research, to behavioural research, infectivity studies and clinical trials with investigational products at early development stages. This article examines the MSF ERB’s experience addressing issues related to both the process of review and substantive ethical issues (...) in this context. These topics include lack of policies regarding blood sample collection and use, and engaging communities regarding their storage and future use; exclusion of pregnant women from clinical and vaccine trials; and the difficulty of implementing timely and high-quality qualitative/anthropological research to consider potential upfront harms. Having noticed different standards across ethics committees, we propose that when multiple ethics reviews of clinical and vaccine trials are carried out during a public health emergency they should be accompanied by transparent communication between the ECs involved. The MSF ERB experience should trigger a broader discussion on the ‘optimal’ ethics review in an emergency outbreak and what enduring structural changes are needed to improve the ethics review process. (shrink)

The Blochian concept of cipher is discussed in some detail with a view to possible developments in the modern philosophy of nature. Parallels and differences are listed as to the Idealistic tradition in Germany preceding Bloch’s approach. It is found that within the framework of a strict process philosophy of the Blochian type, life forms and human life in particular show up as systemic parts of a nature that is projecting itself towards what has not yet become, hence a strong (...) similarity to Schelling’s approach. (shrink)

In elite sport, the advantages demonstrated by expert performers over novices are sometimes due in part to their superior physical fitness or to their greater technical precision in executing specialist motor skills. However at the very highest levels, all competitors typically share extraordinary physical capacities and have supremely well-honed techniques. Among the extra factors which can differentiate between the best performers, psychological skills are paramount. These range from the capacities to cope under pressure and to bounce back from setbacks, to (...) the knowledge of themselves, opponents, and the domain, which experts access and apply in performance. In the companion chapter on breadth and depth of knowledge in expert sport (see Chapter 11), we discussed the forms or kinds of knowledge deployed by elite athletes, and described some lines of research which seek to tap and study such expert knowledge (McPherson & MacMahon, 2008; McRobert, Ward, Eccles & Williams, 2011). In this chapter we focus more directly on questions about methods for measuring or more accurately assessing expert knowledge, in particular addressing a wider range of methods to help us understand what experts know. Suggesting that sport researchers can productively adopt and adapt existing qualitative methodologies for integration with more standard quantitative methods, we introduce and survey a number of areas of qualitative research in psychology. (shrink)

__Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay_ offers a timely analysis of professional dissatisfaction that challenges the common explanation of burnout. _Featuring the voices of educators, the book offers concrete lessons for practitioners, school leaders, and policy makers on how to think more strategically to retain experienced teachers and make a difference in the lives of students. Based on ten years of research and interviews with practitioners across the United States, the book theorizes the (...) existence of a “moral center” that can be pivotal in guiding teacher actions and expectations on the job. Education philosopher Doris Santoro argues that demoralization offers a more precise diagnosis that is born out of ongoing value conflicts with pedagogical policies, reform mandates, and school practices. _Demoralized_ reveals that this condition is reversible when educators are able to tap into authentic professional communities and shows that individuals can help themselves. Detailed stories from veteran educators are included to illustrate the variety of contexts in which demoralization can occur. Based on these insights, Santoro offers an array of recommendations and promising strategies for how school leaders, union leaders, teacher groups, and individual practitioners can enact and support “re-moralization” by working to change the conditions leading to demoralization. (shrink)

Yoga is a unique form of expert movement that promotes an increasingly subtle interpenetration of thought and movement. The mindful nature of its practice, even at expert levels, challenges the idea that thought and mind are inevitably disruptive to absorbed coping. Building on parallel phenomenological and ethnographic studies of skilful performance and embodied apprenticeship, we argue for the importance in yoga of mental access to embodied movement during skill execution by way of a case study of instruction and practice in (...) two related traditions, Iyengar and Anusara. Sharing a pose repertoire, they are based on distinctive philosophical systems with different teaching styles and metaphoric structures. To address relations between pedagogy and practice in embodied expertise, and to investigate the reciprocal influences of embodiment and thought, we explore in detail the linguistically mediated learning context where practitioners work with yoga teachers. Here, the mind/body problem comes to practical life. We demonstrate the effects of words on bodies, as knowledge is literally incorporated. We show why interpersonal influence on our movement capacities is sometimes needed to enhance expertise. We theorize and identify ‘signature patterns of tension’ among practitioners. These patterns have four sources: ghost gestures, innate differences in bodily form, functional fusing, and signature patterns of affective experience, modulation and expression. These patterns of tension produce ‘silent zones’, cognitively impenetrable actions, functional fusing of a skilful, compensatory form, and signature patterns of pain and damage. We show how instruction can disrupt these silent zones, enhancing mental and physical flexibility. (shrink)

This paper connects to Jon Bing’s great vision of an integrated national legal information system. The intention of this paper is to variegate Bing’s vision of an integrated information system by shifting the focus to the lay users, thus to those, who are subject to the law. The modified vision is an integrated information system that supports intelligible access to law for the citizens. This presupposes however an unambiguous and transparent legal system. Accordingly, it is also stressed that intelligent legal (...) knowledge engineering has high potential to increase precision and rationality in law, and hence safeguard the predictability of law and legal certainty. The central hypothesis is that putting the person who is subject to the law at the centre provides more rational reason to aim for the greatest possible precision of law by exploiting the means and technologies of our time than to uphold strategic vagueness. On this basis, the paper proposes the development of a basic set of controllable and justiciable basic legal drafting standards on EU and on national level, and promotes a transparency by design approach for legal knowledge engineering in order to enhance precision, integrity, comprehensibility and accessibility of law. Similarly to Jon Bing’s vision, this modified vision of an integrated legal information systems is, most probably, also likely to remain unfulfilled. However, what would science be without visions and (science) fictions? (shrink)

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it (...) in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant's concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity. (shrink)

In a recent work, we introduced a theoretical model for fulfillment in life that covers cognitive and affective components and distinguishes different time frames. The present study evaluates this model and describes the construction of the Fulfilled Life Scale to assess fulfillment regarding the whole lived life retrospectively. We investigated the scale in two samples. The model of the cognitive component combines three sources of fulfillment with three criteria, yielding nine facets. Employing hierarchical factor analysis, we inspected all solutions between (...) one and nine. We identified three optimal factors, which we labeled unfolded self and life, the worthwhile life, and positive impact and legacy. Next, we selected marker items and replicated the factor structure in Sample 2. The three scales were positively intercorrelated and showed good internal consistency in both samples. For the affective component, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses established a one-factor structure in both samples, and high internal consistency was obtained. Across a range of related constructs, we demonstrated construct and criterion validity. Notably, cognitive and affective fulfillment incrementally predicted a global rating of a fulfilled life and mental well-being, even after controlling for subjective and eudaimonic well-being. Overall, the study proves that the FLS is necessary to capture people’s experience of a fulfilled life, which could not be assessed sufficiently with previous well-being measures. Both cognitive and affective fulfillment were able to predict additional variance in mental well-being. Moreover, the study reveals psychometric support for the FLS and presents the first evidence on its validity. Lastly, applications in research and practice are discussed, especially in the context of living and aging well in the second half of life. (shrink)

This open access book provides original, up-to-date case studies of “ethics dumping” that were largely facilitated by loopholes in the ethics governance of low and middle-income countries. It is instructive even to experienced researchers since it provides a voice to vulnerable populations from the fore mentioned countries. Ensuring the ethical conduct of North-South collaborations in research is a process fraught with difficulties. The background conditions under which such collaborations take place include extreme differentials in available income and power, as well (...) as a past history of colonialism, while differences in culture can add a new layer of complications. In this context, up-to-date case studies of unethical conduct are essential for research ethics training. (shrink)

This open access book offers insights into the development of the ground-breaking Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings (GCC) and the San Code of Research Ethics. Using a new, intuitive moral framework predicated on fairness, respect, care and honesty, both codes target ethics dumping – the export of unethical research practices from a high-income setting to a lower- or middle-income setting. The book is a rich resource of information and argument for any research stakeholder who opposes double (...) standards in research. It will be indispensable for applicants to European Union framework programmes, as the GCC is now a mandatory reference document for EU funding. (shrink)

Comparisons of indirect measures with direct measures can help elucidate the relationship between nonconscious and conscious perception. We report three experiments on masked word priming in which we observed a negative correlation between prime discriminability and priming , i.e. where priming decreased with increasing prime visibility. While such observations are rare , they may indicate a conflict between conscious and nonconscious processing when primes are shown close to the subjective visibility threshold for the priming-relevant information. For instance, such a conflict (...) could occur between nonconscious processing of a prime’s meaning and conscious perception of prime letters. Theoretical accounts that discuss similar conflicts assume that the conflict is resolved either by automatically prioritising conscious processes or by discounting the estimated confusion caused by a prime-target pair . In both cases, priming is predicted to decrease when prime visibility increases from below threshold to perithreshold levels. Therefore, we suggest that negative priming-d’ relationships are most likely observed when the d’ measure assesses prime visibility at a level of representation that is below the level of representation at which priming arises, in terms of a putative hierarchy of word processing. (shrink)

Homonyms, i.e. ambiguous words like ‘score’, have different meanings in different contexts. Previous research indicates that all potential meanings of a homonym are first accessed in parallel before one of the meanings is selected in a competitive race. If these processes are automatic, these processes of selection should even be observed when homonyms are shown subliminally. This study measured the time course of subliminal and supraliminal priming by homonyms with a frequent and a rare meaning in a neutral context, using (...) a lexical decision task. In the subliminal condition, priming across prime-target asynchronies ranging from 100 ms to 1.5 s indicated that the dominant meaning of homonyms was facilitated and the subordinate meaning was inhibited. This indicates that selection of meaning was much faster with subliminal presentation than with supraliminal presentation. Awareness of a prime might decelerate an otherwise rapid selection process. (shrink)

In 2006, the Indonesian government decided to withhold avian flu samples from the World Health Organization. They argued that even though Indonesian samples were crucial to the development of vaccines, the results of vaccine research would be unaffordable for its citizens. Commentaries on the case varied from alleging blackmail to welcoming this strong stance against alleged exploitation. What is clear is that the concern expressed is related to benefit sharing.Benefit sharing requires resource users to return benefits to resource providers in (...) order to achieve justice. One benefit sharing tool within health research is the duty to provide a health care intervention which has been proven to be beneficial (or alternative benefits) to research participants after a study has been concluded. This duty is generally known as a post-study obligation. It was enshrined in the Declaration of Helsinki in 2000 and re-emphasized in 2008. Yet, there are few, if any, examples of good practice.In this article, we analyse the obstacles to giving more bite to benefit sharing provisions in health research through ethical review. We conclude that the provision of post-study access to healthcare interventions is not a promising mechanism when monitored through research ethics committees. Alternative benefit provision is preferable if one focuses on achieving compliance. However, even the latter faces challenges, which we address in specific recommendations. (shrink)

In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level, many American states and localities are undertaking their own legal reforms. The new state and local laws have been challenged by immigrant-rights organizations and individuals on the grounds that the federal government has already pre-empted the field. The lawsuits bring a new narrative voice—that of judges—into the boiling U.S. immigration debate. Judges engage the controversy over local enforcement of immigration enforcement, as they have other contentious disputes, both as pragmatic (...) decision-makers and as spokespersons for justice. The tensions this dual role entails are explored here in the context of a single, controversial case. Close-up analysis of the judge’s narrative strategy reveals a range of specific techniques to create moral distance from a decision, combined, ironically, with the enlistment of moral themes to justify the ruling. The inter-twining of rule-of-law and justice rhetoric mirrors and also shapes a broader politics of justice in the United States. (shrink)

This paper deals with the particularities of vagueness in law. Thereby the question of the law’s capacity for vagueness is closely related to the question of the impact of vagueness in law, since exaggerated vagueness combined with the elasticity of legal interpretation methodology may affect the constitutional principles of legal certainty, the division of powers, and the binding force of statute. To represent vagueness and the instability of legal concepts and rules, a Hyperbola of Meaning is introduced, opposing Heck’s metaphor (...) of a core and a periphery of meaning. Furthermore, evidence is provided that the use of vague legal concepts and the capability of legal methodology to affect the specific meaning of those concepts, may give rise to astonishing and irrational changes of meaning of the law. Finally the paper sets out in search of an added value of vagueness in law, and weighs several stated pros and contras of vagueness. The paper is written against a background of the German speaking realm. (shrink)

The Moral Psychology Handbook offers a survey of contemporary moral psychology, integrating evidence and argument from philosophy and the human sciences.