There is no amount or quality of evidence such that if that amount or quality is reached, then truth is reached. If, therefore, a proposition must be true in order to constitute knowledge, knowledge is never reached. If certain standards of evidence are satisfied I have the right to say ?I know?, and the right does not depend on how one answers the question whether it is right what I say.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has vast natural resources, many of which are regularly exploited by the electronics industry. Unfortunately, in addition to these resources, there are widespread human rights abuses committed by armed groups entrenched in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. These armed groups are using profits from these minerals as a source of funding. Their human rights abuses have led to a growing humanitarian interest in the region and prompted the international community to action. (...) This paper explores the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, provides an understanding of the link between human rights abuses and conflict minerals, and interprets and critiques the legal actions of the international community. (shrink)

The measurement of short-term changes in maternal body composition during the post-partum period under field conditions poses many problems: body composition techniques depend on the constancy of the proportions of components or their physical properties and are less suitable for measuring changes; many of the techniques require expensive, technically sophisticated apparatus that is inappropriate to field conditions in many countries; changes in body composition affect some areas of the body more than others so regional as well as whole body approaches (...) are required. The measurements of body weight, triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses and upper arm circumference are essential measurements. These can be supplemented with further skinfold thicknesses and circumferences, and possibly body density and body water measurements. There is little to be gained by transforming anthropometric variables into whole body composition indices in these circumstances. (shrink)

I think--though this is not completely clear--that it would be accurate in the situation which I have envisaged, for me to say to you 'Once you were me,' and for you to say this to me. For suppose we represent our joint life-history in the obvious way by a big Y. The left arm is not the right arm, and neither arm is the pedestal; but the word 'me' does not denote the present part of my life-history, represented by the (...) left arm, nor any other part of my life-history, but rather denotes the person whose life history is represented by the pedestal plus the left arm, and the word 'you' similarly denotes the person whose life history is represented by the pedestal plus the right arm. These two persons were ex hypothesi one and the same person before the fission, and given that pronouns have the reference just indicated, 'Once you were me' seems a correct way of describing this fact. 'Once I was you' would of course do as well; for it doesn't mean 'Once I was you and there was no me,' which of course I cannot admit, but just 'Once I was you,' and that is fair enough. My memory of the sardine feast can then be expressed by 'I remember eating those sardines when I was you'. (shrink)

‘Let us not forget this: when “I raise my arm”;, my arm goes up. And the problem arises: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from that fact that I raise my arm?’.

This article addresses conceal and carry laws on higher education campuses as ethical and social dilemmas. The Second Amendment reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (U. S. Const. amend. II 1791 ). Proponents for conceal and carry laws on college and university campuses often interpret the Second Amendment as an overarching right to have weapons, regardless of location. Opponents (...) of such legislation argue that allowing guns on campuses would be a mistake and student safety can be addressed in other ways. Throughout the 2010–2011 legislative sessions Arizona and Texas have been on the cusp of passing pro conceal and carry laws which would allow higher education students to carry weapons on campus. Over two decades states have increased access to weapons, while most in the U.S. have sentiments against their neighbors carrying arms (Kranz 2006 ). While the Second Amendment provides the right for individual to carry arms, higher education campuses are regarded as a subset of the population, a space for maturing adults and not a place for concealed weapons. (shrink)

Placebo-trials on HIV-infected pregnant women in developing countries like Thailand and Uganda have provoked recent controversy. Such experiments aim to find a treatment that will cut the rate of vertical transmission more efficiently than existing treatments like zidovudine. This scenario is first stated as generally as possible, before three ethical principles found in the Belmont Report, itself a sharpening of the Helsinki Declaration, are stated. These three principles are the Principle of Utility, the Principle of Autonomy and the Principle of (...) Justice. These are taken as voices of moral imperative. But although each has intuitive appeal, it can be shown that there are possible scenarios in which they give conflicting prescriptions. To achieve consistency, one must be subordinate to the others. The voice of utility is taken as subordinate to those of justice and autonomy and it is shown that given plausible assumptions about the level of poverty and education in the developing country targeted, the experiment is ruled morally wrong in the name of both justice and autonomy. Moreover, it is argued that no justification can be found for the inclusion of a placebo group, when strictly defined. By contrast, a ‘no- treatment’ control arm might be justified, but only when the demands of autonomy are satisfied, demands that are more stringent than they might appear. A utilitarian defence of the experiment is examined, namely that the would-be participants are in a no-loss situation, and it is shown that this defence is seriously flawed. Finally, it is concluded that there is no justification for amending the Declaration of Helsinki. (shrink)

This article questions whether enmity is always bad and trust always good. In the borderlands between Ikland in northern Uganda and Turkanaland in Kenya, sometimes violent enmity combines with friendly barter relations between the Ik, a subsistence agricultural people that also hunts, and their goat-and-cattle herding neighbors, the Turkana and Dodoth peoples. “Half-trust,” as some of the Ik call it, works to prevent the escalation of conflict. While the Ugandan groups have been disarmed by their government, the Kenyan Turkana, armed (...) with AK-47s, are allowed into Ugandan territory for pasture during drought, and some Turkana take violent advantage of this power imbalance as they leave. Paradoxically, intervention by Ugandan state institutions that, in the name of peaceful coexistence, welcome the Turkana in Uganda has led to the escalation of conflict, while tribal “half-trust” has kept it relatively limited. (shrink)

It is acknowledged that most motifs used in Western art have an iconographic counterpart. It is inferred that the geometric and floral motifs that we encounter in Anatolia are provided by the world meanings such as “ornamentation”, “talisman”, “power” or “strength”, which have a wide place in folk beliefs, rather than creating a meaning by combining with religious images. In this study, it is focused that on the minaret of the Ibrahim Efendi Mosque in Kilis with the Seal of Solomon (...) motif, which has been used on area of usage in Turkish-Islamic arts, from architectural surfaces to wall paintings, from manuscripts to under-glass paintings. According to the data provided by historical sources, the first work that has existed till now was built by Hacı İbrahim, the son of Hacı Mustafa, one of the residents of Kızılca township. For an unknown reason, a large part of the building was demolished and a second building group was built over time. According to the inscription, the second building group refers to a building group called “the New Mosque”, which was rebuilt in 1831 by Mehmet Pasha, the son of Mehmet Ali Pasha (1769-1849), the Governor of Egypt, who was the Governor of Aleppo. Since only the minaret has existed from the second building group, which consisted of a madrasah-mosque combination, which was demolished over time, this single work is also called “orphan minaret” among the people. In this study, it is emphasized that on the Seal of Solomon motif and the ornamentation of the building, which is especially concentrated in the minaret balcony section. The general acceptance of the six-armed star motif on the pedestal and its usage areas in different works within the Turkish motif tradition were emphasized, and the difference of this motif from the six-armed star, which has a symbolic context in the Jewish faith as Magen David, was determined. The visual data obtained during the survey, archival sources and literature on the structure are based on the documentation method. (shrink)

Event-related desynchronization, as a proxy for mirror neuron activity, has been used as a neurophysiological marker for motor execution after mirror visual feedback. Using EEG, this study investigated ERD upon the immediate effects of single-session MVF in unimanual arm movements compared with the ERD effects occurring without a mirror, in two groups: stroke patients with left hemiplegia and their healthy counterparts. During EEG recordings, each group performed one session of mirror therapy training in three task conditions: with a mirror, with (...) no mirror, and with a covered mirror. An asymmetry index was calculated from the subtraction of the event-related spectrum perturbations between the C3 and C4 electrodes located over the sensorimotor cortices contralateral and ipsilateral to the moved arm. Results of the effect of task versus group in contralateral and ipsilateral motor areas showed that there was a significant effect of task condition at the contralateral motor area in the high beta band at C3. High beta ERD showed that the suppression was greater over the contralateral hemisphere than it was over the ipsilateral hemisphere in both study groups. The magnitude of low beta ERD in patients with stroke was more suppressed in contralesional C3 under the no mirror compared to that of the covered mirror and similarly more suppressed in ipsilesional C4 ERD under the no mirror compared to that of the mirror condition. The correlation analysis revealed that the magnitude of ERSP power correlated significantly with arm severity in the low and high beta bands in patients with stroke, and a higher asymmetry index in the low beta band was associated with higher arm functioning under the no-mirror condition. There was a shift in sensorimotor ERD toward the contralateral hemisphere as induced by MVF accompanying unimanual movement in both stroke patients and healthy controls. The use of ERD in the low beta band as a neurophysiological marker to indicate the relationships between the amount of MVF-induced ERD attenuation and motor severity, and the outcome indicator for improving stroke patients’ neuroplasticity in clinical trials using MVF are warranted to be explored in the future. (shrink)

A Reforma em território alemão possui duas figuras, por vezes próximas entre si, por vezes muito distantes: Lutero e Tomás Müntzer. À medida que foi se envolvendo na vida de seus fiéis, Müntzer foi tomando caminhos próprios, discordando de Lutero que este tomava a “Palavra, em sua realidade objetiva, como constitutiva da Igreja, e afirmando que os verdadeiros fiéis são os que possuem a experiência subjetiva do “Espírito”. Também contra Lutero, que defende a resistência à autoridade, mas em questões seculares (...) aceita a tirania, Müntzer, que vê a fé fortemente inserida no social, defende a revolução armada contra os príncipes. Müntzer não nega a graça, mas esta possui papel secundário em seu pensamento, enquanto, para Lutero, ela se coloca no centro de suas preocupações teológicas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Reforma. Palavra. Graça. Experiência subjetiva. Resistência. Revolução. ABSTRACT The Reform in german territory has two figures, sometimes very close to each other, and sometimes very distant: Luther and Thomas Müntzer. As he got envolved in the lives of his followers, Müntzer began taking his own paths, disaccording of Luther that took the “Word” in its objective reality, as constitutive of the Church, and affirming that the true followers are the ones who own the subjective experience of the “Spirit”. Also against Luther, that stands for the resistance against authority, but in secular matters accepts tyranny, Müntzer, that sees tyranny deeply inserted in the social, stands for the armed revolution against the princes. Müntzer does not deny grace, but it has a secondary role in his thought, as, for Luther, it is placed in the center of his theological worries. KEY WORDS – Reform. Word. Grace. Subjective experience. Resistance. Revolution. (shrink)

A Reforma em território alemão possui duas figuras, por vezes próximas entre si, por vezes muito distantes: Lutero e Tomás Müntzer. À medida que foi se envolvendo na vida de seus fiéis, Müntzer foi tomando caminhos próprios, discordando de Lutero que este tomava a “Palavra, em sua realidade objetiva, como constitutiva da Igreja, e afirmando que os verdadeiros fiéis são os que possuem a experiência subjetiva do “Espírito”. Também contra Lutero, que defende a resistência à autoridade, mas em questões seculares (...) aceita a tirania, Müntzer, que vê a fé fortemente inserida no social, defende a revolução armada contra os príncipes. Müntzer não nega a graça, mas esta possui papel secundário em seu pensamento, enquanto, para Lutero, ela se coloca no centro de suas preocupações teológicas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Reforma. Palavra. Graça. Experiência subjetiva. Resistência. Revolução. ABSTRACT The Reform in german territory has two figures, sometimes very close to each other, and sometimes very distant: Luther and Thomas Müntzer. As he got envolved in the lives of his followers, Müntzer began taking his own paths, disaccording of Luther that took the “Word” in its objective reality, as constitutive of the Church, and affirming that the true followers are the ones who own the subjective experience of the “Spirit”. Also against Luther, that stands for the resistance against authority, but in secular matters accepts tyranny, Müntzer, that sees tyranny deeply inserted in the social, stands for the armed revolution against the princes. Müntzer does not deny grace, but it has a secondary role in his thought, as, for Luther, it is placed in the center of his theological worries. KEY WORDS – Reform. Word. Grace. Subjective experience. Resistance. Revolution. (shrink)

The use of placebos in randomised controlled trials is a subject of considerable ethical debate. In this paper we present a set of considerations to evaluate the ethics of placebo controlled trials that includes: social value of the study; need for a randomised controlled trial and placebo; standards of care; risks of harm due to administration of placebo and the harm benefit balance; clinical equipoise; and double standards. We illustrate the application of these considerations using a case study of a (...) large ongoing multicentre, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, randomised trial to determine primaquine anti-relapse efficacy in vivax malaria. There is an urgent need for primaquine anti-relapse studies in order to rationalise the management of a potentially fatal disease. An ethical justification for the use of the placebo arm is provided on the grounds that the actual current applied standard of care in most endemic places does not include primaquine. It has also been argued that there is clinical equipoise among the primaquine study arms and that the risk of harms of being in the placebo arm is the risk of having relapse, which is no more than not being included in the trial, and that there are no double standards. Based on our set of considerations, we conclude that a placebo arm is not only justified but imperative in this study. We propose that similar considerations should be prospectively applied to other placebo controlled trials and observational control arms where no treatment is offered. (shrink)

To localize wheat ESTs on chromosomes, 882 homoeologous group 6-specific ESTs were identified by physically mapping 7965 singletons from 37 cDNA libraries on 146 chromosome, arm, and sub-arm aneuploid and deletion stocks. The 882 ESTs were physically mapped to 25 regions flanked by 23 deletion breakpoints. Of the 5154 restriction fragments detected by 882 ESTs, 2043 were localized to group 6 chromosomes and 806 were mapped on other chromosome groups. The number of loci mapped was greatest on chromosome 6B and (...) least on 6D. The 264 ESTs that detected orthologous loci on all three homoeologs using one restriction enzyme were used to construct a consensus physical map. The physical distribution of ESTs was uneven on chromosomes with a tendency toward higher densities in the distal halves of chromosome arms. About 43% of the wheat group 6 ESTs identified rice homologs upon comparisons of genome sequences. Fifty-eight percent of these ESTs were present on rice chromosome 2 and the remaining were on other rice chromosomes. Even within the group 6 bins, rice chromosomal blocks identified by 1-6 wheat ESTs were homologous to up to 11 rice chromosomes. These rice-block contigs were used to resolve the order of wheat ESTs within each bin. (shrink)

A total of 944 expressed sequence tags generated 2212 EST loci mapped to homoeologous group 1 chromosomes in hexaploid wheat. EST deletion maps and the consensus map of group 1 chromosomes were constructed to show EST distribution. EST loci were unevenly distributed among chromosomes 1A, 1B, and ID with 660, 826, and 726, respectively. The number of EST loci was greater on the long arms than on the short arms for all three chromosomes. The distribution of ESTs along chromosome arms (...) was nonrandom with EST clusters occurring in the distal regions of short arms and middle regions of long arms. Duplications of group 1 ESTs in other homoeologous groups occurred at a rate of 35.5%. Seventy-five percent of wheat chromosome 1 ESTs had significant matches with rice sequences, where large regions of conservation occurred between wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 5 and between the proximal portion of the long arm of wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 10. Only 9.5% of group 1 ESTs showed significant matches to Arabidopsis genome sequences. The results presented are useful for gene mapping and evolutionary and comparative genomics of grasses. (shrink)

A total of 1918 loci, detected by the hybridization of 938 expressed sequence tag unigenes from 26 Triticeae cDNA libraries, were mapped to wheat homoeologous group 4 chromosomes using a set of deletion, ditelosomic, and nulli-tetrasomic lines. The 1918 EST loci were not distributed uniformly among the three group 4 chromosomes; 41, 28, and 31% mapped to chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D, respectively. This pattern is in contrast to the cumulative results of EST mapping in all homoeologous groups, as reported (...) elsewhere, that found the highest proportion of loci mapped to the B genome. Sixty-five percent of these 1918 loci mapped to the long arms of homoeologous group 4 chromosomes, while 35% mapped to the short arms. The distal regions of chromosome arms showed higher numbers of loci than the proximal regions, with the exception of 4DL. This study confirmed the complex structure of chromosome 4A that contains two reciprocal translocations and two inversions, previously identified. An additional inversion in the centromeric region of 4A was revealed. A consensus map for homoeologous group 4 was developed from 119 ESTs unique to group 4. Forty-nine percent of these ESTs were found to be homoologous to sequences on rice chromosome 3, 12% had matches with sequences on other rice chromosomes, and 39% had no matches with rice sequences at all. Limited homology was found between wheat ESTs on homoeologous group 4 and the Arabidopsis genome. Forty-two percent of the homoeologous group 4 ESTs could be classified into functional categories on the basis of blastX searches against all protein databases. (shrink)

The focus of this study was to analyze the content, distribution, and comparative genome relationships of 996 chromosome bin-mapped expressed sequence tags accounting for 2266 restriction fragments on the homoeologous group 3 chromosomes of hexaploid wheat. Of these loci, 634, 884, and 748 were mapped on chromosomes 3A, 3B, and 3D, respectively. The individual chromosome bin maps revealed bins with a high density of mapped ESTs in the distal region and bins of low density in the proximal region of the (...) chromosome arms, with the exception of 3DS and 3DL. These distributions were more localized on the higher-resolution group 3 consensus map with intermediate regions of high-mapped-EST density on both chromosome arms. Gene ontology classification of mapped ESTs was not significantly different for homoeologous group 3 chromosomes compared to the other groups. A combined analysis of the individual bin maps using 537 of the mapped ESTs revealed rearrangements between the group 3 chromosomes. Approximately 232 of the consensus mapped ESTs matched sequences on rice chromosome 1 and revealed large- and small-scale differences in gene order. Of the group 3 mapped EST unigenes ∼21 and 32% matched the Arabidopsis coding regions and proteins, respectively, but no chromosome-level gene order conservation was detected. (shrink)

Recently highly-efficient quantum engines were devised by exploiting the stochastic energy changes induced by quantum measurement. Here we show that such an engine can be based on an interaction-free measurement, in which the meter seemingly does not interact with the measured object. We use a modified version of the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester, an interferometric setup able to detect the presence of a bomb triggered by a single photon without exploding it. In our case, a quantum bomb subject to a gravitational (...) force is initially in a superposition of being inside and outside one of the interferometer arms. We show that the bomb can be lifted without blowing up. This occurs when a photon traversing the interferometer is detected at a port that is always dark when the bomb is located outside the arm. The required potential energy is provided by the photon even though it was not absorbed by the bomb. A natural interpretation is that the photon traveled through the arm which does not contain the bomb—otherwise the bomb would have exploded—but it implies the surprising conclusion that the energy exchange occurred at a distance despite a local interaction Hamiltonian. We use the weak value formalism to support this interpretation and find evidence of contextuality. Regardless of interpretation, this interaction-free quantum measurement engine is able to lift the most sensitive bomb without setting it off. (shrink)

The complex hexaploid wheat genome offers many challenges for genomics research. Expressed sequence tags facilitate the analysis of gene-coding regions and provide a rich source of molecular markers for mapping and comparison with model organisms. The objectives of this study were to construct a high-density EST chromosome bin map of wheat homoeologous group 2 chromosomes to determine the distribution of ESTs, construct a consensus map of group 2 ESTs, investigate synteny, examine patterns of duplication, and assess the colinearity with rice (...) of ESTs assigned to the group 2 consensus bin map. A total of 2600 loci generated from 1110 ESTs were mapped to group 2 chromosomes by Southern hybridization onto wheat aneuploid chromosome and deletion stocks. A consensus map was constructed of 552 ESTs mapping to more than one group 2 chromosome. Regions of high gene density in distal bins and low gene density in proximal bins were found. Two interstitial gene-rich islands flanked by relatively gene-poor regions on both the short and long arms and having good synteny with rice were discovered. The map locations of two ESTs indicated the possible presence of a small pericentric inversion on chromosome 2B. Wheat chromosome group 2 was shown to share syntenous blocks with rice chromosomes 4 and 7. (shrink)

Relative to the abundance of literature devoted to the legal significance of UN authorisation, little has been written about whether the UN’s failure to sanction an intervention can ever make it immoral. This is the question that I take up here. I argue that UN authorisation (or lack thereof) can have some indirect bearing on the moral status of a humanitarian intervention. That is, it can affect whether an intervention satisfies other widely accepted justifying conditions, such as proportionality, “internal” legitimacy, (...) and likelihood of success. The more interesting question, however, is whether the UN’s failure to provide a mandate can make a humanitarian operation unjust independently of these other familiar considerations. Is a proportional, internally legitimate humanitarian intervention, with a just cause and strong prospect of success, still morally unacceptable if it is not approved by the United Nations Security Council? This is the question that I turn to in the second half of the paper. (shrink)

1. Two IssuesIn recent years, a number of philosophers have discussed the possibility that the widely recognized right of self-defense includes another, more controversial right: a right to arms, where “arms” is understood to include guns. I will argue in what follows that the right of self-defense does indeed have this feature, and I will offer a new explanation of why it does so—an explanation that, despite its novelty is, I believe, deeply rooted in common sense.I n Section 2, I (...) will clarify the issue to be addressed and define a spectrum of possible solutions to it. Underlying the narrow issue of the relation between the right of self-defense and the putative right to arms is a broader issue of more general interest, between two classes of rights: what I will call option-rights and means-rights. My ultimate purpose will be to propose a solution to both issues. In Section 3, I attempt to show that the most extreme solutions to the issue of self-defense and arms are not very plausible. In Section 4, I will lay down some desiderata concerning some features that an ideally illuminating solution to these issues should have. These will serve as a rough guide as I attempt to discuss the more moderate solutions. In Section 5, I discuss one such potential solution—one grounded in the distinction between reasonable and unreasonable costs. I argue that, though it may be plausible enough as a guide to policy, it does not satisfy any of my desiderata, nor does it answer my original question, about what is included in the right of self–defense. In Sections 6 and 7, I propose my own solution to both the narrower and broader issues—one that is grounded in the nature of action itself. (shrink)

Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer | : À première vue, il s’agit d’une chose et son contraire : la guerre est tellement le lieu par excellence de la violation des droits humains que leur relation semble se résumer à cet antagonisme primaire — l’un serait la négation de l’autre. La guerre viole les droits et les droits ont la paix, donc l’absence de guerre, comme condition de possibilité. Puis l’on se souvient que, contrairement aux apparences, la guerre n’est pas cet état de (...) non-droit où tout est permis, mais un espace normé, codifié. Il est question des droits humains pendant la guerre — pour dénoncer leur violation, certes, mais la violation des règles n’est pas la preuve de leur absence — mais aussi avant la guerre, puisque certains conflits sont justifiés par la protection des droits des populations locales, ou en vertu d’un « droit de l’humanité » qui serait un intérêt à agir. Les relations entre droits humains et conflits armés sont résumées dans cet article en quatre parties : d’un point de vue historique, d’abord, où l’on montre leur réciprocité. En reprenant la trilogie de l’éthique de la guerre ensuite : la guerre au nom des droits humains, les droits humains dans la guerre et, en guise de conclusion, les droits humains après la guerre. | : At first glance these two terms may seem contradictory. War is the most extreme context of human rights violations, suggesting that they have a fundamentally antagonistic relationship and that one is the negation of the other. War violates rights, while rights require peace and hence the absence of war. Despite this appearance, however, war is not a state of lawlessness where all is permitted, but rather a regulated, codified space. There is a question of human rights in war and we obviously denounce their violation, but the violation of rules is not proof of their absence. There is another question of human rights before war, since certain conflicts are justified by the protection of the local population’s rights, or the “rights of humanity” as a cause for action. This article summarises the relations between human rights and armed conflicts in four sections : firstly from a historical perspective, focusing on their reciprocity. The next sections follow the trinity of the ethics of war : war in the name of human rights, human rights in war and, to conclude, post-war human rights. (shrink)

Through numbers of studies on the formation of equivalence relations and causal induction, it is known that human beings tend to consider conditional statements ``if p then q " as biconditional statements ``if and only if p then q ": we call the tendency to perceive ``if p then q " as ``if q then p " the ``symmetry bias". On the other hand, many studies on children's word learning have pointed out that children tend to expect each object has (...) only one label. This is so-called the ``mutual exclusivity bias". This bias implies. (shrink)

Poser la question de la lecture des Écritures, et spécifiquement de la lecture théologique des Écritures, implique – mais cela est-il si clair ? – qu’une lecture non théologique des Écritures soit vraiment possible, qu’elle n’ait jamais eu lieu. Or, la question de la lecture, c’est-à-dire du « comment lire? », est une question politique, à cause de son arraisonnement à la logique calculante du programme, mais aussi parce qu’elle suppose résolues les questions « pourquoi lire? » et « qui (...) peut lire? ». Et s’agissant plus spécifiquement de la lecture de la Bible, et de ce que l’on appelle une lecture théologique des Écritures, les questions se redoublent. Identifier une certaine lecture cléricale – c’est-à-dire une lecture officielle, et à la limite autoritaire - à la lecture authentiquement théologique possible, ou exclure, en la disqualifiant, toute lecture théologique en lui reprochant par exemple son déficit d’ecclésialité ou de scientificité, c’est s’interdire de penser une certaine lecture théologique des Écritures.To raise the question of reading the Scriptures, and specifically of a theological reading of the Scriptures, implies –is it so obvious? – that a non-theological reading of the Scriptures may be truly possible and has never occurred. But the question of reading, i.e. “how to read?”, is a political question, because it examines the calculating logic of the program, and also because it presupposes that the questions “why read?” and “who can read?” have been resolved. More specifically with regard to reading the Bible, and what is known as a theological reading of the Scriptures, the questions become twofold. To identify a certain clerical reading – i.e. an official, and ultimately authoritarian reading – with the theologically authentic reading possible, or to exclude, by disqualifying it, any theological reading by criticizing its ecclesial or scientific deficiencies, is to deny the possibility of thinking about a certain theological reading of the Scriptures. (shrink)

Contingencies of the early nuclear arms race Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-23 DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9495-z Authors S. S. Schweber, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Science Center 371, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Alex Wellerstein, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Science Center 371, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Ethan Pollock, Department of History, Box N, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA Barton J. Bernstein, History Department, Building 200, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2024, USA Michael D. Gordin, History (...) Department, 305 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796. (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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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 (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Philosophers often call emotions appropriate or inappropriate. What is meant by such talk? In one sense, explicated in this paper, to call an emotion appropriate is to say that the emotion is fitting: it accurately presents its object as having certain evaluative features. For instance, envy might be thought appropriate when one's rival has something good which one lacks. But someone might grant that a circumstance has these features, yet deny that envy is appropriate, on the grounds that it is (...) wrong to be envious. These two senses of `appropriate' have much less in common than philosophers have supposed. Indeed, the distinction between propriety and correctness is crucial to understanding the distinctive role of the emotions in ethics. We argue here that an emotion can be fitting despite being wrong to feel, and that various philosophical arguments are guilty of a systematic error which we term the moralistic fallacy. (shrink)

Rational Sentimentalism develops a novel theory of the sentimental values. These values, which include the funny, the disgusting, and the shameful, are profoundly important because they set standards for emotional responses that are part of our shared human nature. Yet moral philosophers have neglected them relative to their prominence in human mental life. The theory is sentimentalist because it holds that these values are emotion-dependent—contrary to some prominent accounts of the funny and the disgusting. Its rational aspect arises from its (...) insistence that the shameful (e.g.) is not whatever elicits shame but what makes shame fitting. Shameful traits provide reasons to be ashamed that do not depend on whether one is disposed to be ashamed of them. Furthermore, these reasons to be ashamed issue in reasons to act as shame dictates: to conceal. Sentimentalism requires a compatible theory of emotion and emotional fittingness. The book explicates a motivational theory of emotion that explains the peculiarities of emotional motivation, as other theories cannot. It argues that a class of emotions are psychological kinds with the same goal across cultures, despite differences in their elicitors. It then develops an account of fittingness that helps to differentiate reasons of fit, which bear on the sentimental values, from other considerations for or against having an emotion. Some significant and controversial conclusions emerge from rational sentimentalism. The sentimental values conflict with one another, and with morality, but nevertheless provide practical reasons that apply to humans—though not to all rational agents. (shrink)

Philosophers often call emotions appropriate or inappropriate. What is meant by such talk? In one sense, explicated in this paper, to call an emotion appropriate is to say that the emotion is fitting: it accurately presents its object as having certain evaluative features. For instance, envy might be thought appropriate when one’s rival has something good which one lacks. But someone might grant that a circumstance has these features, yet deny that envy is appropriate, on the grounds that it is (...) wrong to be envious. These two senses of ‘appropriate’ have much less in common than philosophers have supposed. Indeed, the distinction between propriety and correctness is crucial to understanding the distinctive role of the emotions in ethics. We argue here that an emotion can be fitting despite being wrong to feel, and that various philosophical arguments are guilty of a systematic error which we term the moralistic fallacy. (shrink)

This chapter explores the debate between contemporary projectivists or expressivists, and the advocates of sensibility theory. Both positions are best viewed as forms of sentimentalism — the theory that evaluative concepts must be explicated by appeal to the sentiments. It argues that the sophisticated interpretation of such notions as “true” and “objective” that are offered by defenders of these competing views ultimately undermines the significance of their meta-ethical disputes over “cognitivism” and “realism” about value. Their fundamental disagreement lies in moral (...) psychology; it concerns how best to understand the emotions to which sentimentalist theories must appeal. (shrink)

Sentimentalist theories in ethics treat evaluative judgments as somehow dependent on human emotional capacities. While the precise nature of this dependence varies, the general idea is that evaluative concepts are to be understood by way of more basic emotional reactions. Part of the task of distinguishing between the concepts that sentimentalism proposes to explicate, then, is to identify a suitably wide range of associated emotions. In this paper, we attempt to deal with an important obstacle to such views, which arises (...) from the dominant tradition in the philosophy of emotion. We will be attempting to steer a middle course between the traditional view and some recent, empirically-minded criticism. (shrink)

‘Sentimentalism’ is an old-fashioned name for the philosophical suggestion that moral or evaluative concepts or properties depend somehow upon human sentiments. This general idea has proven attractive to a number of contemporary philosophers with little else in common. Yet most sentimentalists say very little about the nature of the sentiments to which they appeal, and many seem prepared to enlist almost any object-directed pleasant or unpleasant state of mind as a sentiment. Furthermore, because battles between sentimentalism and its rivals have (...) tended to be joined over large issues about realism and antirealism, or cognitivism and noncognitivism, some attractive reasons for adopting sentimentalism which are to some extent independent of these issues have been largely ignored in metaethical discussion. This paper aims to motivate sentimentalism, but also to circumscribe its ambitions by rendering explicit some tacit assumptions in moral psychology on which I think the most promising sentimentalism depends. I begin (in section one) by sketching the kind of sentimentalism that I want to defend. Then, in sections two and three, I articulate two positive arguments for a sentimentalist understanding of certain evaluative concepts. The arguments I consider have their origins in the writings of various other authors, I think, but neither they nor their consequences have been clearly articulated before. In section four, I explore just what the sentiments would have to be like in order to play the role required of them in the arguments I develop. I will suggest that these arguments supply a highly specific ‘job description’ for the states to which sentimentalism appeals. Hence, sentimentalists who want to use these arguments, or ones like them, cannot be as casual about what they mean by ‘sentiments’ as many have tended to be. I then investigate a category of ‘natural emotions’ that meets that job description rather nicely, and offer some reasons for doubting that more inclusive categories of.... (shrink)

Game theoretic explanations of the evolution of human behavior have become increasingly widespread. At their best, they allow us to abstract from misleading particulars in order to better recognize and appreciate broad patterns in the phenomena of human social life. We discuss this explanatory strategy, contrasting it with the particularist methodology of contemporary evolutionary psychology. We introduce some guidelines for the assessment of evolutionary game theoretic explanations of human behavior: such explanations should be representative, robust, and flexible. Distinguishing these features (...) sharply can help to clarify the import and accuracy of game theorists' claims about the robustness and stability of their explanatory schemes. Our central example is the work of Brian Skyrms, who offers a game theoretic account of the evolution of our sense of justice. Modeling the same Nash game as Skyrms, we show that, while Skyrms' account is robust with respect to certain kinds of variation, it fares less well in other respects. (shrink)

Cultural education for the soldiers of People army of Vietnam.

Abstract In the last 20 years the ruthless competition for natural resources, political instability, armed conflicts, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have paved the way for private military and security companies (PMSCs) to operate in areas which were until recently the preserve of the state. PMSCs, less regulated than the toy industry, commit grave human rights violations with impunity. The United Nations has elaborated an international binding instrument to regulate their activities but the opposition of the U.S., U.K., and (...) other Western governments?and from PMSCs, which prefer self-regulation?have prevented any advancement. (shrink)

The literature on the wrong kind of reason problem largely assumes that such reasons pose only a theoretical problem for certain theories of value rather than a practical problem. Since the normative force of the canonical examples is obvious, the only difficulty is to identify what reasons of the right and wrong kind have in common without circularity. This chapter argues that in addition to the obvious WKRs on which the literature focuses, there are also more interesting WKRs that do (...) not overtly refer to the advantages of having some evaluative attitude. Instead they refer to features of the object that bear on the propriety of having certain attitudes toward it. What is interesting about these cases is that their normative force is opaque. It can be clear that some consideration bears on whether or not to feel shame, pity, or amusement, for example, but unclear just how it does so—specifically, whether the consideration helps make the object of the attitude shameful, pitiable, or funny. The problems caused by WKRs are ubiquitous, and they outstrip the wrong kind of reason problem as it has ordinarily been conceived, since extant solutions to the technical problem offer no help resolving the opacity of normative force. (shrink)

“Sentiment” is a term of art, intended to refer to object-directed, irruptive states, that occur in relatively transient bouts involving positive or negative affect, and that typically involve a distinctive motivational profile. Not all the states normally called “emotions” are sentiments in the sense just characterized. And all the terms for sentiments are sometimes used in English to refer to longer lasting attitudes. But this discussion is concerned with boutish affective states, not standing attitudes. That poses some challenges that will (...) be my focus here. Rational sentimentalism is a cousin of fitting attitude theories of value, but other fitting attitude theories appeal to attitudes that are widely assumed to be governable by certain kinds of judgments. The basic challenge is this: are these boutish sentiments the sorts of things that we can and do regulate in the ways that are required for treating ‘shameful’, ‘funny’, ‘disgusting’ and the like as values? In what follows I briefly sketch some necessary conditions on treating something as a value, from which it emerges that treating sentimental values as values requires regulating the sentiments for fittingness. The rest of the paper is devoted to two ways of understanding how such regulation might work. I argue first that sentiments are susceptible to regulation by evaluative judgment, though perhaps not in quite the same way that philosophers have thought “judgment-sensitive attitudes” are regulated by judgment. I then suggest more tentatively that sentiments are also susceptible to regulation for fittingness in a different way: by educating sensibilities. (shrink)