Georges Sorel's Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks (...) in surprising ways to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel's overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged. (shrink)

Hobbes' theory of sovereignty is in three parts. One is concerned with the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths. Another is concerned with the rights of properly established sovereigns, where the rights in question remedy the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths. The third part consists of a statement of the duties of sovereigns: constraints on the proper exercise of sovereign rights. Even when the rights of sovereigns are exercised properly, sovereignty is fragile. This is because there are problems of (...) making a sovereign power last beyond the lifetimes of a single sovereign or the leading members of a sovereign assembly, because there are always difficulties with putting the interests of a sovereign's subjects before other interests, and because sovereign rights are exercised in at best a permanent cold war with other sovereigns. (shrink)

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

I shall consider the preferred design of micro-lending (microfinance) institutions in the poorest parts of the world, and also in richer jurisdictions where welfare state provision is shrinking. The institutions needed in these different contexts are, unsurprisingly, different, and part of their design involves interacting with institutions that are not primarily designed to reduce poverty. I shall assume that design considerations also extend to exploiting opportunities thrown up by globally significant recent events: the world banking and financial crisis has altered (...) the image of large mainstream retail and investment banks. The fact that they had a large share of the responsibility for the crisis has prompted many developed country governments to impose punitive taxes on them: some of the proceeds could well be used to support financial services for the poor. Again, some tax incentives could be used to promote certain kinds of partnerships between developed country banks and Southern micro-lending institutions. (shrink)

This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two parts, the first considers the (...) ethics of underwriting, risk assessment and the acceptance and refusal of insurance risk by insurers. Discussing the unjust treatment of high-risk applicants, the authors identify sources of unfairness to both parties of the insurance contract, indicating how reasonable trade-offs can be made. The second part considers the argument for a mix of public and private insurance for acute and long-term care, offering recommendations for changes in the balance of social insurance, and discussing the shift toward long-term contracts in private health care and pension insurance. (shrink)

This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two parts, the first considers the (...) ethics of underwriting, risk assessment and the acceptance and refusal of insurance risk by insurers. Discussing the unjust treatment of high-risk applicants, the authors identify sources of unfairness to both parties of the insurance contract, indicating how reasonable trade-offs can be made. The second part considers the argument for a mix of public and private insurance for acute and long-term care, offering recommendations for changes in the balance of social insurance, and discussing the shift toward long-term contracts in private health care and pension insurance. (shrink)

`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new and traditional philosophies (...) have more in common than the orthodox account suggests. In two survey articles and thirteen essays on individual philosophers, the contributors show that the rise of modern philosophy was much more complicated and much more interesting than is usually thought. They consider not only metaphysics and the sciences but also claims of Machievelli, Hobbes and Spinoza to have invented `modern' ethics and politics. These two aspects of `modernity' in philosophy are connected for the first time. The book offers a broad view of the early modern philosophers, covering not only the much-studied major figures but also relatively neglected writers: Mersenne, Gassendi, White, and Sergeant. (shrink)

In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient's exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive (...) to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge. (shrink)

This study examines whether sanctions imposed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission against individual auditors result in greater auditor conservatism. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we find that clients of sanctioned individual auditors have lower discretionary accruals in the post-sanction period than in the pre-sanction period when compared to a matched control group of clients audited by individual auditors who were not sanctioned. Our findings suggest that sanctions imposed by the CSRC on individual auditors can lead to improvements in audit (...) quality by increasing the conservatism of the sanctioned auditors. That is, individual auditors are more likely to resist their clients’ income-increasing accounting manipulations after being sanctioned by the CSRC. (shrink)

The two ideals referred to are the ideal of the just state and the ideal of responsible agency. The view of Kant was that not every civil state could rightfully take the life of those that commit murder because not every civil state recognises the freedom, equality, and independence of citizens in the idealised civil state envisioned by Kant. The question is whether the death penalty can be justified in a properly constituted state even if most of the civil states (...) in the world that apply the death penalty are guilty of injustice. Kant's argument does not support the death penalty for even the worst crimes if it is unjustly legislated or unjustly administered. These arguments add weight to arguments against the death penalty. The more severe the penalty, the stronger the safeguards ought to be against its wrongful imposition. In addition to the just state, the ideal of responsible agency impinges on the death penalty. People are able to satisfy the ideal of responsible agency only if they rise above the threshold for being minimally responsible or if they rise above the threshold for being able to be held responsible. They must be able to take --by claiming-- responsibility. The ideal of responsible agency governs not only the execution of intention, but also deliberation before and after the action. A willingness to take the consequences is necessary for full-blown responsible agency. The worldly ideal does not rule out the death penalty because even in an imperfect world it does not cancel out the force of the ideal of responsible agency. (shrink)

It is possible to defend the death penalty for aggravated murder in more than one way, and not every defence is equally compelling. The paper takes up arguments put forward by two very distinguished advocates of the death penalty, Mill and Kant. After reviewing Mill's argument and some weaknesses in it, I shall sketch another line of reasoning that combines his conclusion with premisses to be found in Kant. The hybrid argument provides at least the basis for a sound defence (...) of execution for the most serious murders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern PhilosophyTom SorellMurray Miles. Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Pp. xviii + 564. Cloth, $120.00.This book reopens the question of the correct interpretation of 'cogito, ergo sum,' and considers the significance of Descartes's first principle for Western philosophy up to and including the twentieth century. The gist of Miles's interpretation is (...) captured in the first three words of his title. The cogito is both insight and inference. How is it an inference, exactly? In the course of a process of selective attention to elements of thought, the cogito brings each person to the explicit knowledge of the fact of his or her existence (49). We have an implicit grasp of what the cogito makes explicit; and the passage from implicit to explicit knowledge amounts to a kind of inference. It is like an Aristotelian induction (cf. chapter 20).Inference is the topic of Part Three. Part Two concerns certainty. The cogito is certain in Meditation Two not in the light of the thought that God is veracious, but in the light solely of reflection on one's actually occurring thoughts (47). As for what Cartesian thoughts are, Miles seems to suggest that they are rather like what Husserl gets out of his phenomenological reduction: "intentionally-structured or object-directed acts of thinking" that are the sole immediate objects of consciousness (45). Miles rejects, correctly I think, the attribution to Descartes of any of the usual forms of representationalism.The diagnosis in Part Two of the certainty of the cogito seemed to me to be plausible on its face. It is in line with, although much more elaborate than, some reasonably familiar "psychologistic" interpretations clearing Descartes of the charge of circularity in the reasoning from clarity and distinctness to God's existence and nature and back again. (See A. Kenny, Descartes: A Study of his Philosophy [New York: Random House, 1968], chapter 8, and J. Tlumak, "Certainty and Cartesian Method" in M. Hooker, ed., Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978], 40-73. See also L. Loeb's article on the Cartesian Circle in J. Cottingham, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Descartes [New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992], 200-235.) To the extent that Miles departs from these interpretations, it seems to be by trying to base the authority of the cogito on the immutability of God (215-18). But this move seems ill-advised. Not only does it land Descartes in difficulties over the interpretation of pieces of scripture in which God changes his mind; it may also be in tension with the idea of omnipotence. On the whole, however, there is much in Part Two to admireófrom the interpretation of the simple natures (chapter 10), to the differences between scientia, persuasio, and notitia (chapter 11).Part One is less satisfactory, because Miles seems intent on reading Descartes through Husserl. Although he does not evade the objection that this approach is anachronistic (91-93), Miles does reinforce the impression, already created in the 55-page introduction, that he is unsure which interpretive perspective to use to control the book. Is he writing primarily as a twentieth century reader attracted to phenomenology, or is he someone who is keen to penetrate the seventeenth century and earlier and let the meanings of the early modern period infuse the text? Miles leaves the reader uncertain. In Part One we have a Husserlian Descartes. In the Introduction, the sixteenth and seventeenth century perspectives supply the preferred interpretation of [End Page 122] Descartes's metaphysics as something more or less traditional—concerned with the most certain, most universal, and the highest kind of being, the kind of being studied by theology.It is hard not to be put off by Miles's very swift dismissals of mainstream Anglo-American interpretations of Descartes's metaphysics as having some special connection with his physics (27ff). Can this line of interpretation really be refuted by quoting passages in which Descartes says that metaphysics is more basic and more certain than physics? Surely not. In choosing the formulation... (shrink)

There is something intuitively correct about singling out emergency workers for legal protection, and for criminalizing not just assault, but obstruction. Moreover, at least one sophisticated theory of right and wrong – Scanlon’s—indicates some deep reasons for endorsing these intuitions. After applying Scanlon’s theory in the relevant way, I want to argue that the same grounds it provides for recent Scottish legislation and UK sentencing guidelines can also be given for punishing more seriously offences that current English law trivialises.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Some institutional investors are exposed to social norms and public scrutiny. Prior research indicates that these norm-constrained institutions engage in negative screening and invest less in firms operating in ‘sin’ industries. We examine whether social norms also motivate these institutions to engage in positive screening—where they invest more in firms with better corporate social responsibility performance—and CSR-related activism—where they promote improvements in the CSR of existing investees. We find that firms with superior CSR performance have greater ownership by norm-constrained institutions, (...) consistent with positive screening, and we use a natural experiment to establish causality. We also find that increases in the shareholdings of norm-constrained institutions are associated with subsequent improvements in CSR, consistent with activism. Further, we rule out an alternative explanation for our results where the positive screening and activism are ‘profit-driven’ rather than driven by social pressure. Thus, our results suggest that the influence of social norms on stock markets is more pervasive than documented in the prior literature. (shrink)

This paper seeks to identify the distinctive moral wrong of stalking and argues that this wrong is serious enough to criminalize. We draw on psychological literature about stalking, distinguishing types of stalkers, their pathologies, and victims. The victimology is the basis for claims about what is wrong with stalking. Close attention to the experiences of victims often reveals an obsessive preoccupation with the stalker and what he will do next. The kind of harm this does is best understood in relation (...) to the value of privacy and conventionally protected zones of privacy. We compare anti-stalking laws in different jurisdictions, claiming that they all fail in some way to capture the distinctive privacy violation that stalking involves. Further reflection on the seriousness of the invasion of privacy it represents suggests that it is a deeply personal wrong. Indeed, it is usually more serious than obtrusive surveillance by states, precisely because it is more personal. Where state surveillance genuinely is as intrusive as stalking, it tends to adopt the tactics of the stalker, imposing its presence on the activist victim at every turn. Power dynamics —whether rooted in the power of the state or the violence of a stalker —may exacerbate violations of privacy, but the wrong is distinct from violence, threats of violence and other aggression. Nor is stalking a simple expression of a difference in power between stalker and victim, such as a difference due to gender. (shrink)

No single text could be considered more important in the history of philosophy than Descartes' Meditations. This unique collection of background material to this magisterial philosophical text has been translated from the original French and Latin. The texts gathered here illustrate the kinds of principles, assumptions, and philosophical methods that were commonplace when Descartes was growing up. The selections are from: Francisco Sanches, Christopher Clavius, Pierre de la Ramee, Francisco Suárez, Pierre Charron, Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Scipion Dupleix, Marin Mersenne, (...) Pierre Gassendi, Jean de Silhon, François de la Mothe le Vayer, Charles Sorel, and Jean-Baptiste Morin. (shrink)

We ask whether it is reasonable to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines that have been shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective against infectious diseases. We consider two kinds of vaccine hesitancy. The first is geared to scientifically informed open questions about vaccines. We argue that in cases where the data is not representative of relevant groups, such as pregnant women and ethnic minorities, hesitancy can be reasonable on epistemic grounds. However, we argue that hesitancy is (...) not reasonable if a vaccine has passed well-conducted clinical trials. The second kind of hesitancy is to do with beliefs about the institutions offering a successfully trialled vaccine and the justifiability of cooperating with those institutions. For example, in the UK, distrust of the UK Government or the National Health Service is identified as a factor in the vaccine hesitancy of minority ethnic populations. We ask whether this sort of hesitation is reasonable given normative requirements of fair co-operation, both with those institutions and the wider population. We suggest that the answer is not straightforward. Sometimes the hesitation is unreasonable but understandable. -/- . (shrink)

Patients have not been entirely ignored in medical ethics. There has been a shift from the general presumption that ‘doctor knows best’ to a heightened respect for patient autonomy. Medical ethics remains one–sided, however. It tends (incorrectly) to interpret patient autonomy as mere participation in decisions, rather than a willingness to take the consequences. In this respect, medical ethics remains largely paternalistic, requiring doctors to protect patients from the consequences of their decisions. This is reflected in a one–sided account of (...) duties in medical ethics. Duties fall mainly on doctors and only exceptionally on patients. Medical ethics may exempt patients from obligations because they are the weaker or more vulnerable party in the doctor–patient relationship. We argue that vulnerability does not exclude obligation. We also look at others ways in which patient responsibilities flow from general ethics: for instance, from responsibilities to others and to the self, from duties of citizens, and from the responsibilities of those who solicit advice. Finally, we argue that certain duties of patients counterbalance an otherwise unfair captivity of doctors as helpers. (shrink)

This is a book about Hobbes's philosophy as a whole, viewed through the lens of his philosophy of science. Political philosophy is claimed to have a certain autonomy within Hobbes's scheme of philosophy and science as a whole, and in particular, a kind of autonomy in relation to natural sciences. Hobbes's moral and political philosophies guide action --of both individual subjects and sovereigns. They have a role in a special kind of rhetorical product called counsel. In natural science Hobbes probably (...) exaggerates the explanatory powers of mechanics --the theory of matter in motion-- including by an attempted assimilation of geometry to the sciences of motion. (shrink)

This paper offers an ethical framework for the development of robots as home companions that are intended to address the isolation and reduced physical functioning of frail older people with capacity, especially those living alone in a noninstitutional setting. Our ethical framework gives autonomy priority in a list of purposes served by assistive technology in general, and carebots in particular. It first introduces the notion of “presence” and draws a distinction between humanoid multi-function robots and non-humanoid robots to suggest that (...) the former provide a more sophisticated presence than the latter. It then looks at the difference between lower-tech assistive technological support for older people and its benefits, and contrasts these with what robots can offer. This provides some context for the ethical assessment of robotic assistive technology. We then consider what might need to be added to presence to produce care from a companion robot that deals with older people’s reduced functioning and isolation. Finally, we outline and explain our ethical framework. We discuss how it combines sometimes conflicting values that the design of a carebot might incorporate, if informed by an analysis of the different roles that can be served by a companion robot. (shrink)

Summary This essay recounts Hermann von Helmholtz's trip to represent Germany at the International Electrical Congress in Chicago in 1893 as well as his reception by various members of the American scientific, technological, and cultural elite in several other American cities. In doing so, it seeks to portray something of the vitality of the youthful and increasingly important American scientific community; of the strong relationship between American and German scientists, including how Helmholtz used and was used by them and various (...) other members of the American elite to promote science and culture in America as well as to promote his own and German interests; and, finally, of what many considered to be the close interactions between science and technology in the late nineteenth century. In short, the essay seeks to use Helmholtz's trip to capture a sense of the broader relationship among science, the nation-state, and cultural elites in Gilded-Age America and between Germany and America. (shrink)

Over the past decade a substantial literature has emerged on the concept of political forgiveness and the process of restorative justice. This article argues that importing an idea of forgiveness into political affairs is a mistake. It is not necessary for the promotion of peace and security, and it is has been construed in a way that leans heavily toward Christian conceptions of forgiveness, as is evident in the influence of Desmond Tutu. The article also examines the influence of Hegelian (...) recognition theory in current discussions of the political benefits of forgiveness, and reviews the case of postwar German-Jewish relations, which conformed more closely to traditional Jewish thinking on forgiveness than to the Christian-Hegelian model. (shrink)

Although much has been said about the decline of the printed word, this would be hard to claim for the discipline of philosophy. Recent years have seen a proliferation of dictionaries, anthologies, "companions," and histories. Though varying in format, they are all intended to give readers—scholars, students, and philosophically-inclined members of the public—both a general overview of certain periods and fields, and a sophisticated, up-to-date discussion of standard topics and problems. While this might all seem too much of a good (...) thing, especially since many of the same authors are included in the different collections published by different presses, taken as a whole the enterprise will no doubt serve to elevate .. (shrink)

This paper seeks a new perspective on a long-standing ambiguity in historical materialism. The term "property," its apparent inclusion in both the economic base and the politicolegal superstructure in Marx's schema, and the consequent difficulty of asserting a causal connection between base and superstructure, are seen as deriving from intellectual influences on the young Marx. These influences conveyed certain central ideas from the history of Roman law and its treatment of property. Some implications for Marxist theory are considered.

Seventeenth-century philosophy scholars come together in this volume to address the Insiders--Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Hobbes--and Outsiders--Pierre Gassendi, Kenelm Digby, Theophilus Gale, Ralph Cudworth and Nicholas Malebranche--of the philosocial canon, and the ways in which reputations are created and confirmed. In their own day, these ten figures were all considered to be thinkers of substantial repute, and it took some time for the Insiders to come to be regarded as major and original philosophers. Today these Insiders all feature in (...) the syllabi of most history of philosophy courses taught in western universities, and the papers in this collection, contrasting the stories of their receptions with those of the Outsiders, give an insight into the history of philosophy which is generally overlooked. (shrink)

This is an introduction to a special number of Midwest Studies discussing the 2008 global financial crisis and the ethical issues it raised. The immediate origins of the crisis are discussed, as are some of the exotic financial instruments involved, and some of the strategies for valuing and trading these instruments. This is necessary background for attributions of moral responsibility and blame to both individuals and institutions in the American financial system and its counterparts elsewhere in the developed world.

"The well-known moral and political doctrines of Leviathan have tended to overshadow Hobbes's speculations in other fields. In this book doctrines familiar from the treatises on 'Policy', as well as less familiar empirical and metaphysical theories, are given balanced consideration against the background of his philosophy of science."--Bookjacket.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.