This paper presents a non-preference-based approach to the analysis of negative freedom. It is argued that a proper understanding of (different conceptions of) negative freedom necessitates an examination of the consequences of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. For this reason the paper does not focus on freedom rankings of opportunity sets but on freedom rankings of opportunity situations, i.e., pairs consisting of a feasible set and an opportunity set. Three different freedom rankings of opportunity situations are axiomatically characterised. (...) Each of the three rankings forms a generalisation of the purely cardinality-based freedom ranking of opportunity sets presented by Pattanaik and Xu (1990). (shrink)

This paper presents a formal framework that purports to capture some aspects of Kant's theory of freedom. In particular, we argue that the analysis sheds further light on Kant's distinction between a negative and a positive concept of freedom. The paper shows that the two concepts are not equivalent: we not only argue that in a Kantian perspective negative freedom need not entail positive freedom, but also that there are situations in which a person can be said to be positively (...) but not negatively free (in a Kantian sense). (shrink)

This article analyses the relationship between rights and capabilities in order to get a better grasp of the kind of consequentialism that the capability theory represents. Capability rights have been defined as rights that have a capability as their object (rights to capabilities). Such a definition leaves the relationship between capabilities and rights to a great extent underspecified since nothing is said about the nature of those rights. Hence, it is not precluded that they are mere negative liberties, something that (...) capability theorists deny. On the other hand, to say that all capability rights are substantive in the sense that they themselves are capabilities (rights as capabilities) will in a significant number of cases fail to match well with our intuitions. This article presents an account of the relationship between rights and capabilities that avoids these problems of underspecification and of plausibility, respectively. First, it is argued that to take the idea of capability rights seriously, three new ‘list issues’ need to be addressed. Second, developing a point made by Nussbaum, it is argued that capability rights are to be defined as being purely instrumental. Whereas the resulting analysis of capability rights solves the problems of underspecification and plausibility, it raises doubts about the claim that the capability approach gives more importance to rights than do traditional forms of consequentialism. (shrink)

A hard choice is a situation in which an agent is unable to make a justifiable choice from a given menu of alternatives. Our objective is to present a systematic treatment of the axiomatic structure of such situations. To do so, we draw on and contribute to the study of choice functions that can be indecisive, i.e., that may fail to select a non-empty set for some menus. In this more general framework, we present new characterizations of two well-known choice (...) rules, the maximally dominant choice rule and the top-cycle choice rule. Together with existing results, this yields an understanding of the circumstances in which hard choices arise. (shrink)

Dutch euthanasia legislation states that an act of euthanasia is only permissible if it is based on a voluntary request made in a situation of unbearable suffering to which there are no alternatives.The central question of this article is whether these criteria can be satisfied simultaneously. In an analysis of several (partly overlapping) definitions of voluntariness it is argued that there are circumstances in which this question should be answered negatively.The possible incompatibility of the criteria reveals a tension between different (...) defences of the permissibility of euthanasia. (shrink)

Currently, there is a resurgence of interests in phenomenology in education. This article sheds light on the importance of hermeneutical phenomenology in teaching and learning based on the lived experience of a Sioux Indian adolescent boy, elicited from an ethnographic case study conducted at an alternative high school in the US. Employing narrative inquiry, this article seeks phenomenological ways of understanding students' lived experiences and explores the meaning of the pedagogical practice of hermeneutical phenomenology in education. I delve into how (...) hermeneutical understanding of the phenomena of students' lived experience can catapult both students and teachers into the personal growth and development in a reciprocal way. It is my hope that such an understanding will facilitate an educational aim that focuses on the ontology of being and becoming while students' existence is brought to the center of teaching and learning. (shrink)

Recent theories of negative freedom see it as a value-neutral concept; the definition of freedom should not be in terms of specific moral values. Specifically, preferences or desires do not enter into the definition of freedom. If preferences should so enter then Berlin's problem that a person may enhance their freedom by changing their preferences emerges. This paper demonstrates that such a preference-free conception brings its own counter-intuitive problems. It concludes that these problems might be avoided if the description of (...) the constraints which specify an agent's lack of freedom include the intentions of those who constrain the agents. (Published Online July 31 2007) Footnotes1 Versions of this paper have been read to a diverse set of academics in Bayreuth, Germany; Groningen, Netherlands; LSE, UK; and in Dublin, Ireland. We would like to thank participants at those sessions for their comments. We also thank anonymous referees, Ian Carter and Luc Bovens for their help in improving the paper. (shrink)

This paper makes a contribution to the further development of the game-theoretic analysis of rights. The model presented here differs in several respects from the existing models. First of all, a distinction is made between outcome-oriented and action-oriented rights, a distinction which is closely related to the distinction between active and passive rights. Second, the legal-theoretic notions of negative and positive rights are formally defined. Third, we not only discuss the definition of rights, but also the way rights can be (...) violated. Using the distinction between negative and positive rights on the one hand, and between active and passive rights on the other, four different types of basic rights are distinguished. For each of these rights, the situations in which they can be said to be respected are examined. We thereby distinguish two possible sources of obstruction: by (groups of) individuals, and by law. Finally, the question of the possible realization of rights is examined. Depending on how the problem of the possible mutual incompatibility of rights is addressed, two distinct approaches are examined. It turns out that in both approaches the possible realization of rights crucially depends on characteristics of the 'state of nature'. (shrink)

In 'Yeogi (禮記)', the Chinese scriptures of Confucianism, they recoded the solar calendar of modern viewpoints. According to the ancient document, the 24 solar terms was one of seasonal divisions in a year. The regularly change of the four seasons play an important part in the national economic project. For a national economy depended on agriculture in East Asia of ancient times, the administration to pay no regard to the change of the season was directly connected to the fall of (...) the nation. And then the legislator must enact laws to reflect the change of the season. According to the 'Wolryeong (月令)' in 'Yeogi (禮記)', there is recoded national regulations to suit with the each twelve momth. The first month of spring is the prime of the year (February). The month shows sign of new livingthings. The ruler take order to protect the first breath of spring and ought to put a ban on the military training and labor mobilization. The reasons are to safeguard the new life and not to interrupt the preparation for farming. Confucian attach value to the nature within a human’s way of life. Therefore the norm of human do correlate closely with the principle of nature. The rule of Wuju (宇宙) was not a simple concept of the natural phenomenon and Cheon (天) was not the Almighty for himself. Cheon was just the existence of virtue and moral influence in the confidence of man. And Ji (地) was the Mother of all things. In this space man had to manage the world in sympathy with the process of cheonJi (天地); Cheonsi (天時), JIri (地利), Inhwa (人和). (shrink)

Om spørgsmålet: Hvad er oplysning? af Moses Mendelssohn oversat af Anders Hee Nørbjerg Poulsen.

Humor is a contextual phenomenon that exists in all societies, although the impact of humor may differ across different cultures. The data for this research was collected using an ethnographic approach, incorporating participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Based in three different South Korean organizations, this research offered the opportunity to interact in depth with workers of varying ages, genders, hierarchical levels, and organizational roles. Observations were complimented by 46 in-depth interviews and ad hoc follow-up discussions. This paper adopts a Confucian (...) perspective to understand the perception and use of workplace humor in these South Korean organizations. Confucian philosophy emphasizes the value of formality within society in order to maintain respectful relationships between individuals. We suggest that humor is used in these South Korean workplaces to support traditional Confucian values of harmony and hierarchy, and the changing cultural values in these workplaces influence humor perceptions in complex ways. The Confucian value of harmony maintained through the idea of hierarchy creates pressure for organizational members, to accept and cope with contentious humor in the workplace. In particular, the clash between the need to maintain harmonious relationships in the workplace (through obedience towards superiors) and the desire to reject some types of humor highlights issues for younger organizational members. Internal conflict creates distress for younger employees who may hold more Westernized values and this affects their emotional, psychological well-being. This study presents a cross-cultural perspective to organizational humor, and suggests that humor may not always be a positive experience for organizational members, but instead may create psychological distress in some employees. (shrink)

Learning to solve a class of problems can be characterized as a search through a space of hypotheses about the rules for solving these problems. A series of four experiments studied how different learning conditions affected the search among hypotheses about the solution rule for a simple computational problem. Experiment 1 showed that a problem property such as computational difficulty of the rules biased the search process and so affected learning. Experiment 2 examined the impact of examples as instructional tools (...) and found that their effectiveness was determined by whether they uniquely pointed to the correct rule. Experiment 3 compared verbal directions with examples and found that both could guide search. The final experiment tried to improve learning by using more explicit verbal directions or by adding scaffolding to the example. While both manipulations improved learning, learning still took the form of a search through a hypothesis space of possible rules. We describe a model that embodies two assumptions: the instruction can bias the rules participants hypothesize rather than directly be encoded into a rule; participants do not have memory for past wrong hypotheses and are likely to retry them. These assumptions are realized in a Markov model that fits all the data by estimating two sets of probabilities. First, the learning condition induced one set of Start probabilities of trying various rules. Second, should this first hypothesis prove wrong, the learning condition induced a second set of Choice probabilities of considering various rules. These findings broaden our understanding of effective instruction and provide implications for instructional design. (shrink)

O presente trabalho trata-se de uma discussão sobre algumas ferramentas da análise do discurso de Michel Foucault. Tal estudo se deu a partir de uma tese de doutorado que analisou o modo pelo qual a revista Veja coloca em funcionamento e potencializa um dispositivo da Educação Ambiental no século XXI. As análises situam-se a partir das reportagens de capa da revista Veja de 2001 até a atualidade. Evidencia-se uma determinada constituição discursiva de Educação Ambiental na revista, porém esta funciona em (...) relação a outras práticas contemporâneas. Compreende-se que o dispositivo em estudo não se fabrica apenas nos ditos da revista, mas ela é uma das formas de potencializá-lo, tornando-o visível e enunciável na atualidade. Porém, outros elementos a auxiliam e atualizam tal dispositivo, há uma rede discursiva em torno da EA muito potente e heterogênea Assim, trabalha-se com ferramentas analíticas que fortalecem o trabalho: enunciação, enunciado, discurso, dispositivo, relações de poder e modos de subjetivação. Esta empreitada de estudos alinha-se aos autores da perspectiva Pós-estruturalista e dos Estudos Culturais. O estudo tornou possível entender que há uma constituição de determinado domínio de saber, colocado em funcionamento a partir de relações de poder, que subjetivam os sujeitos a certas práticas ambientalmente “necessárias”. Nesse sentido, os ditos em torno da questão ambiental se pautam em emblemas muito caros aos pesquisadores da EA, isso porque, parece, muitas vezes, que lhes é repassada a tarefa de encontrar o caminho certo para fazer uma adequada Educação Ambiental. Na contramão de tais emblemas, o movimento do trabalho em questão é o de colocar-se a pensar de que modo a EA foi se conjecturando e funcionando como um dispositivo potente neste século. Palavras-chave: Educação Ambiental. Ferramentas Analíticas. Michel Foucault. (shrink)