The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important for a number of reasons. If, as some have suggested, there are no ecological laws, this would seem to distinguish ecology from other branches of science, such as physics. It could also make a difference to the methodology of ecology. If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of useful models. These models would need to be (...) assessed for their empirical adequacy but not for their ability to capture fundamental truths, or the like. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this prompts further questions about what these laws are and why even the best candidates for ecological laws fall short of what might be expected of laws. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Logical Problem of Evil The Evidential Problem of Evil The Evil God Hypothesis and the Problem of Good Reverse Theodicies Notes.

立法・法改正論争が盛んな現代日本の法理論の背後にあるものを理解するため、幕末から新憲法までの法思想の道筋を辿る。.

On January 18, 2006, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the constitutional challenge to New Hampshire's Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act would be remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, to determine whether the Court of Appeals could, consistent with New Hampshire's legislative intent, formulate a narrower remedy than a permanent injunction against enforcement of the parental notification law in its entirety.In 2003, New Hampshire enacted the Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act. (...) The Act specifies, in pertinent part, that “No abortion shall be performed upon an unemancipated minor or upon a female for whom a guardian or conservator has been appointed… until at least 48 hours after written notice of the pending abortion has been delivered....” The Act allows for three exceptions where a physician may perform an abortion on a minor child without parental or guardian notification. (shrink)

Human rights discourse has been likened to a global lingua franca, and in more ways than one, the analogy seems apt. Human rights discourse is a language that is used by all yet belongs uniquely to no particular place. It crosses not only the borders between nation-states, but also the divide between national law and international law: it appears in national constitutions and international treaties alike. But is it possible to conceive of human rights as a global language or lingua (...) franca not just in a figurative or metaphorical sense, but in a literal or linguistic sense as a legal dialect defined by distinctive patterns of word choice and usage? Does there exist a global language of human rights that transcends not only national borders, but also the divide between domestic and international law? Empirical analysis suggests that the answer is yes, but this global language comes in at least two variants or dialects. New techniques for performing automated content analysis enable us to analyze the bulk of all national constitutions over the last two centuries, together with the world’s leading regional and international human rights instruments, for patterns of linguistic similarity and to evaluate how much language, if any, they share in common. Specifically, we employ a technique known as topic modeling that disassembles texts into recurring verbal patterns. The results highlight the existence of two species or dialects of rights talk—the universalist dialect and the positive-rights dialect—both of which are global in reach and rising in popularity. The universalist dialect is generic in content and draws heavily on the type of language found in international and regional human rights instruments. It appears in particularly large doses in the constitutions of transitional states, developing states, and states that have been heavily exposed to the influence of the international community. The positive-rights dialect, by contrast, is characterized by its substantive emphasis on positive rights of a social or economic variety, and by its prevalence in lengthier constitutions and constitutions from outside the common law world, especially those of the Spanish-speaking world. Both dialects of rights talk are truly transnational, in the sense that they appear simultaneously in national, regional, and international legal instruments and transcend the distinction between domestic and international law. Their existence attests to the blurring of the boundary between constitutional law and international law. (shrink)

If there is a second dimension of time – a so-called ‘hypertime’ – is it logically possible for the past to change? Some have said yes; others have said no. I say yes provided that one has the appropriate ontological view of hypertime. So far, the ontology of hypertime has seldom been discussed. As such, this paper not only defends the logical possibility of a changing past, but aims to start a discussion on what ontological commitments are required to make (...) sense of a changing past. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

On January 18, 2006, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the constitutional challenge to New Hampshire's Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act would be remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, to determine whether the Court of Appeals could, consistent with New Hampshire's legislative intent, formulate a narrower remedy than a permanent injunction against enforcement of the parental notification law in its entirety.In 2003, New Hampshire enacted the Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act. (...) The Act specifies, in pertinent part, that “No abortion shall be performed upon an unemancipated minor or upon a female for whom a guardian or conservator has been appointed… until at least 48 hours after written notice of the pending abortion has been delivered....” The Act allows for three exceptions where a physician may perform an abortion on a minor child without parental or guardian notification. (shrink)

This paper examines recent attempts to defend Rule-Consequentialism against a traditional objection. That objection takes the form of a dilemma, that either Rule-Consequentialism collapses into Act-Consequentialism or it is incoherent. Attempts to avoid this dilemma based on the idea that using RC has better results than using AC are rejected on the grounds that they conflate the ideas of a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure. Other strategies, Brad Hooker's prominent amongst them, involving the thought that RC need contain (...) no overarching concern to maximize the good are acknowledged to avoid the original dilemma, but lead to further problems of motivating and justifying RC in the absence of such a concern. The paper argues that Hooker's attempt to deal with these problems by using a 'Reflective Equilibrium plus method is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Séminaire « Penser ensemble le droit et la société » Organisateurs : Cécile Lavergne & Gabrielle Radica _Programme des séances : _ _Mardi 4 octobre 2022_. Richard Sobel (U-Lille, CLERSÉ) « Droit du travail et analyse du rapport salarial. Quelques réflexions épistémologiques sur la mobilisation du droit en économie politique institutionnaliste » _Mercredi 9 novembre 2022_ - Daniel Adjerad (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, HIPHIMO EA 1451) : « Peut-on tout rapper? » _Mardi 6 décembre 2022_ - Cécile Degiovanni (Oxford University, Oxford (...) Law Faculty) « Devrions-nous pouvoir renoncer à nos droits fondamentaux? » _Mardi 17 janvier 2023_ - Elodie Djordjevic (Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, Institut Michel Villey) « Peut-on émanciper le droit de sa matrice privatiste? Droit, société civile et État chez Hegel » _Mardi 7 février 2023_ - Stéphane Zygart (U-Lille, STL) « Droits sociaux, droits de l’homme et droit d’exception à partir des handicaps » _Mardi 14 mars 2023_ - Magali Bessone : (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbon... (shrink)

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that pleasure from certain sources is genuinely beneficial. These sources can be sorted into two classes: ones that involve others’ pain; and ones that involve what seems to be damage rather than benefit to the person involved. Here’s an example of the latter: a woman who claims that she enjoys her work performing in hard-core pornographic films. Some find it hard to take such a claim at face value – they instinctively assume that (...) the woman is insincere or self-deceived.1 The reason seems a strongly paternalistic one: because the activity is assumed to be bad, it’s thought that only someone who was in some way damaged could genuinely like it. A statement from Brian Hill, the director of a documentary about such women, illustrates this: ‘I felt certain that she couldn’t enjoy what she does, that there must be some reason why she’s undergoing this kind of experience. But there was nothing: no messed-up childhood, no sense of pain or humiliation.’ Forced to conclude that the woman in question really does enjoy her work, Hill changes his view to imply that the pleasure gained cannot be truly beneficial: ‘When I hear a young woman talking about doing videos of fisting and asphyxiation, I have to wonder what it’s doing to her – even if she says that she’s having fun.’. (shrink)

Here's a brief introduction to the philosophical puzzle of free will.View HTMLSend article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select (...) to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.INTRODUCTIONVolume 18, Issue 52Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S147717561900006XYour Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. INTRODUCTIONVolume 18, Issue 52Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S147717561900006XAvailable formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. INTRODUCTIONVolume 18, Issue 52Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S147717561900006XAvailable formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

According to relativists, people who speak simply of what's ‘true’ are naïve. ‘Whose truth?’ asks the relativist. ‘No claim is ever true, period. What's true is always true for someone. It's true relative to a particular person or culture. There's no such thing as the absolute truth on any issue.’ This sort of relativism is certainly popular. For example, many claim that we are wrong to condemn cultures with moral codes different from our own: their moralities are no less valid. (...) Similarly, some claim that while astrology and Feng Shui might be ‘false’ from a Western, scientific viewpoint, they are ‘true’ when viewed from alternative, New Age points of view. What's ‘true’ and what's ‘false’ ultimately depend on where one is standing. Is this sort of relativism about truth tenable? (shrink)

This chapter provides a survey of Kierkegaard's views of systematic theology, doctrine, and dogmatics. It demonstrates that while Kierkegaard's view of theology is generally negative, for he regards it as a human enterprise created in order to avoid doing God's Word, his attitude to doctrine and dogmatics is nuanced and complex. Kierkegaard rejects doctrine insofar as it objectifies Christianity, but nevertheless generally accepts the classic doctrines of the Christian faith and sees no reason to reform them. This ambivalence toward doctrine (...) stems from his conviction that the task facing the believer is not to reflect on doctrine, but to appropriate and apply it existentially to his/her own individual existence. Similarly, although Kierkegaard rejects the efforts of contemporary dogmaticians, dogmatics itself is valid insofar as it reproduces the paradoxical character of Christianity and the decision between faith and offense with which Christian dogmas confront every human being. (shrink)

In Mengzi 6A4, Gaozi states that “yì 義 (propriety, rightness) is external, not internal.” In 6A5, Meng Jizi says of yì that “...it is on the external, not from the internal.” Their defenses are met with Mengzi’s resistance. What does he perceive and resist in these statements? Focusing on several key passages, I compare six promising interpretations. 6A4 and a relevant part of 2A2 can be rendered comparably sensible under each of the six. However, what Gaozi says in 6A1 clearly (...) is evidence to Mengzi that, of the six views, Gaozi holds three although he does not convey them in his statement. As for Meng Jiz’s defense of his statement, Meng Jizi cites a special occasion where one is required to act one way even though one would feel a different way. Mengzi’s response has been traditionally interpreted as boiling down to a dissenting opinion about empirical psychology, that the agent on that special occasion would in fact feel the same way as they ought to act. But on a more charitable reading, the point Mengzi makes is conceptual: Though the satisfaction of yì may not require that the feeling and the act align perfectly in this case, cases where the alignment obtains are conceptually prior. This not only refutes Meng Jizi’s statement but also enables a more elegant explanation of why the Mengzi rightly has no record of Mengzi affirming that yì is internal. I conclude that 6A5 itself uniquely favors one interpretation, as far as Meng Jizi’s position is concerned: How one feels is irrelevant to whether one satisfies yì. (shrink)

This short article looks at a move made by some theists in defence of theism: the suggestion is that because the atheist has failed fully to grasp what the theist means by ‘God’ etc. so the atheist's criticisms must miss their target.View HTMLSend article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. (...) Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.MISS THE TARGET: HOW SOME ‘SOPHISTICATED’ THEISTS DODGE ATHEIST CRITICISMVolume 17, Issue 50Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175618000167Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. MISS THE TARGET: HOW SOME ‘SOPHISTICATED’ THEISTS DODGE ATHEIST CRITICISMVolume 17, Issue 50Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175618000167Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. MISS THE TARGET: HOW SOME ‘SOPHISTICATED’ THEISTS DODGE ATHEIST CRITICISMVolume 17, Issue 50Stephen LawDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175618000167Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

The so-called ‘Humean’ view of motivation is pretty standard in the Philosophy of Mind. Its most prominent contemporary defender, Michael Smith, calls it a ‘dogma’. Humeans believe in a strict divide between beliefs and desires. Beliefs have no intrinsic motivating force: I may believe anything at all, but only with the contribution of a separate desire will I be motivated to act. This claim should be broadened out to include all cognitive states (belief, knowledge…). The Humean claim is that cognitive (...) states are wholly lacking in conative power. If some beliefs seem to us to motivate action, that can only be due to a contingent association with a separate conative state. (shrink)

Following the violent protests in the Republic of Moldova against the Communist Party – governing since 2001 – that took place in April 2009, after the release of the parliamentary elections results, the Romanian Government has adopted the measure of simplifying the fundamental and formal conditions for regaining Romanian citizenship through Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) No. 36/2009 for modifying and completing Law on Citizenship No. 21/1991. This measure is focusing particularly on the citizens of the Republic of Moldova who wish (...) to be granted Romanian citizenship. By presenting the changes brought by GEO No. 36/2009, by comparing them to the other changes made to Law No. 21/1991 in 2007 and 2008, this article tries to answer the question of how the system of granting and regaining Romanian citizenship should be regulated, taking into account the Romanian accession to the European Union and the necessity to discard the consequences of the Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact, which was officially condemned by the Romanian Parliament in 1991. The de lege ferenda proposals made in this article have the purpose to make the system of acquiring Romanian citizenship more transparent and easier to explain to the entitled persons and to the European Union institutions monitoring the legal and illegal migration. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss two aspects of ignorance of the law: ignorance of illegality (including mistaking the law) and ignorance of the penalty; and I will look at the implications for natives, for tourists and for immigrants. I will argue that Carlos Nino's consensual theory of punishment need to rely on two premises in order to justify that (claiming) ignorance of the law is no excuse. The first premise explains why individuals are presumed to 'know' current laws. The (...) second premise explains why individuals are presumed to 'know' new legislation. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Jerome Bruner: Language, culture, self by David Bakhurst and Stuart G. Shanker . The subject of this fine collection of essays is Jerome Bruner’s contribution to our contemporary understanding of the mind. As the editors note, although Bruner has typically “concerned himself with concrete and practical issues, such as education and, most recently, the law, he has always been an intensely theoretical thinker, a man fascinated by ideas” . It is for that reason that the editors and (...) contributors to this volume have chosen to focus exclusively on Bruner’s work as a “philosophical psychologist and philosopher of psychology” . 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage. This formal equality measure put Spain in the spotlight of the international media. It is the culmination of a series of developments spanning from the last years of the Franco regime (which ended in 1975), through the enactment of anti-discrimination measures in 1995, to the recent fight for kinship recognition. It also follows a recent shift, from 1998 to 2005, towards the (...) enactment of same-sex partnership laws at regional level, the approval of same-sex marriage and finally, the approval of a ‹gender identity law’ (2007). This legislative note assesses the context in which the new law on same-sex marriage has been enacted. I argue that although same-sex marriage has been represented by many activists and politicians in Spain as a gender neutral contract, it has the potential for differential impacts on lesbians and gay men, and further research and debates are needed in this area. (shrink)

Non-Humean accounts of the metaphysics of nature posit either laws or powers in order to account for natural necessity and world-order. We argue that such monistic views face fundamental problems. On the one hand, neo-Aristotelians cannot give unproblematic power-based accounts of the functional laws among quantities offered by physical theories, as well as of the place of conservation laws and symmetries in a lawless ontology; in order to capture these characteristics, commitment to governing laws is indispensable. On the other hand, (...) ontologies that entirely exclude some kind of power ascription to worldly entities face what we call the Governing Problem: such ontologies do not have the resources to give an adequate account of how laws play their governing role. We propose a novel dualist model, which, we argue, has the resources to solve the difficulties encountered by its two dominant competitors, without inheriting the problems of either view. According to the dualist model, both laws and powers are equally fundamental and irreducible to each other, and both are needed in order to give a satisfactory account of the nomological structure of the world. The dualist model constitutes thus a promising alternative to current monistic views in the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

Informal science learning sites create opportunities for children to learn about science outside of the classroom. This study analyzed children’s learning behaviors in ISLS using video recordings of family visits to a zoo, children’s museum, or aquarium. Furthermore, parent behaviors, features of the exhibits and the presence of an educator were also examined in relation to children’s behaviors. Participants included 63 children and 44 parents in 31 family groups. Results showed that parents’ science questions and explanations were positively related to (...) children observing the exhibit. Parents’ science explanations were also negatively related to children’s science explanations. Furthermore, children were more likely to provide science explanations when the exhibit was not interactive. Lastly there were no differences in children’s behaviors based on whether an educator was present at the exhibit. This study provides further evidence that children’s interactions with others and their environment are important for children’s learning behaviors. (shrink)

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

Kant’s most canonical argument against suicide, the universal law argument, is widely dismissed. This paper attempts to save it, showing that a suicide maxim, universalized, undermines all bases for practical law, resisting both the non-negotiable value of free rational willing and the ordinary array of sensuous commitments that inform prudential incentives. Suicide therefore undermines moral law governed community as a whole, threatening ‘savage disorder’. In pursuing this argument, I propose a non-teleological and non-theoretical nature – a ‘practical nature’ or moral (...) law governed whole – the realization of which morality demands. (shrink)

Do the laws of nature supervene on ordinary, non-nomic matters of fact? Lange's criticism of Humean supervenience (HS) plays a key role in his account of natural laws. Though we are sympathetic to his account, we remain unconvinced by his criticism. We focus on his thought experiment involving a world containing nothing but a lone proton and argue that it does not cast sufficient doubt on HS. In addition, we express some concern about locating the lawmakers in an ontology of (...) primitive subjunctive facts and suggest that a 'mixed' metaphysics to the lawmaker question might be attractive. (shrink)

In Minds, Brains, and Norms , Pardo and Patterson deny that the activities of persons (knowledge, rule-following, interpretation) can be understood exclusively in terms of the brain, and thus conclude that neuroscience is irrelevant to the law, and to the conceptual and philosophical questions that arise in legal contexts. On their view, such appeals to neuroscience are an exercise in nonsense. We agree that understanding persons requires more than understanding brains, but we deny their pessimistic conclusion. Whether neuroscience can be (...) used to address legal issues is an empirical question. Recent work on locked-in syndrome, memory, and lying suggests that neuroscience has potential relevance to the law, and is far from nonsensical. Through discussion of neuroscientific methods and these recent results we show how an understanding of the subpersonal mechanisms that underlie person-level abilities could serve as a valuable and illuminating source of evidence in legal and social contexts. In so doing, we sketch the way forward for a no-nonsense approach to the intersection of law and neuroscience. (shrink)

Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb No. 247. 2 vols. Translated and edited by Anthony J. Barbieri-Low and Robin D. S. Yates. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 126. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Vol. 1: pp. cxiv + 377; vol. 2: pp. xiv + 1038. €299, $389.

In this paper, I engage with Law’s paper ‘Evil Pleasure Is Good For You!’ I argue that, although his criticism of hedonistic utilitarianism may hold some weight, his analysis of the goodness of pleasure is overly simplistic. I highlight some troubling results which would follow from his analysis and then outline a new account which then remedies these problems. Ultimately, I distinguish between Law’s ‘evil pleasures’ and, what I call, ‘virtuous pleasures’ and show how we can accept the goodness of (...) virtuous pleasures without being obliged to say that evil pleasures are also good for us. (shrink)

Spearman’s Law of Diminishing Returns holds that correlation between general /fluid intelligence factor and other cognitive abilities weakens with increasing ability level. Thus, cognitive processing in low ability people is most strongly saturated by g/gf, whereas processing in high ability people depends less on g/gf. Numerous studies demonstrated that low g is more strongly correlated with crystallized intelligence/creativity/processing speed than is high g, however no study tested an analogous effect in the case of working memory. Our aim was to investigate (...) SLODR for the relationship between Gf and WM capacity, using a large data set from our own previous studies. We tested alternative regression models separately for three types of WM tasks that tapped short-term memory storage, attention control, and relational integration, respectively. No significant SLODR effect was found for any of these tasks. Each task shared with Gf virtually the same amount of variance in the case of low- and high-ability people. This result suggests that Gf and WM rely on one and the same cognitive mechanism. (shrink)

Much recent research on child language has been inspired by linguistic principles uncovered by linguists working in the generative framework. Developmental psycholinguists have demonstrated young children’s mastery of a variety of linguistic principles; mostly syntactic principles, but also some semantic principles. The present paper contributes to research on the acquisition of semantics by presenting the findings of a new experiment designed to investigate young children’s knowledge of downward entailment, which is a basic semantic property of Universal Grammar. Section 2 describes (...) how downward entailing operators work in natural languages. Section 3 addresses the issue of how a child could master the complex behavior displayed by downward entailing operators across natural languages. That section also reviews the findings of previous research on children’s knowledge of downward entailment. Section 4 presents the new experiment which was designed to investigate whether children’s knowledge of downward entailment extends to one of its logical properties, as illustrated by one of De Morgan’s laws. Section 5 offers some brief remarks on future research. (shrink)

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies (...) concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the ‘but for’ rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Physical activity and sedentary behaviour have been linked to the mental health of children and adolescents, yet the timing of behaviours may play a role in this relationship and clarifying this could inform interventions. We explored cross-sectional associations of PA and SED in varying time segments throughout the school day with the mental health of school-aged children and adolescents from rural Northeastern Ontario, Canada. A total of 161 students wore accelerometers for 8 days and completed a self-report survey. Mental health (...) was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Accelerometer-measured SED, light PA, and moderate and vigorous PA were estimated in the time-segments before school, school time, after school, and evenings. Associations were tested with multilevel linear regressions while adjusting for confounding factors. Students spent 72.6 min in MVPA, 209.0 min in LPA, and 621.0 min in SED per day. Daily SED was associated with less conduct problems. Evening LPA was inversely associated with hyperactivity, while SED was associated with hyperactivity and with peer problems before school, and during school. No associations were observed for MVPA, emotional symptoms, or prosocial behaviour. In conclusion, displacing SED with LPA in some specific periods of the day may benefit the mental health of students; taking this into account could strengthen interventions. (shrink)

Arian Lewis provides a comprehensive overview of how the United Kingdom’s medicolegal context manages challenges to determining death by neurologic criteria (DNC) and suggests that a well-crafted s...