How ought you to evaluate your options if you're uncertain about what's fundamentally valuable? A prominent response is Expected Value Maximisation (EVM)—the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. But the expected value of an option depends on quantitative probability and value facts, and in particular on value comparisons across axiologies. We need to explain what it is for such facts to hold. Also, EVM (...) is by no means self-evident. We need an argument to defend that it’s true. This book introduces an axiomatic approach to answer these worries. It provides an explication of what EVM means by use of representation theorems: intertheoretic comparisons can be understood in terms of facts about which options are better than which, and mutatis mutandis for intratheoretic comparisons and axiological probabilities. And it provides a systematic argument to the effect that EVM is true: the theory can be vindicated through simple axioms. The result is a formally cogent and philosophically compelling extension of standard decision theory, and original take on the problem of axiological or normative uncertainty. (shrink)

Spoken communication between social robotic devices, powered by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, and the senior population offers great potential for researching social interaction and robot identity perceptions as well as exploring the potential opportunities and challenges when implementing this human-machine interactions in real life situations and health care. In this paper we explore people’s perceptions of the social robot Furhat when administering verbal tasks similar to those used in screening for Alzheimer’s disease. We describe the Slovak system mounted (...) on the robot that includes a speech recognizer, the scenarios powered by generative large language model ChatGPT, and a speech synthesizer. We tested the functionality of the proposed approach with two groups of participants: attendees of a large science fair and a scientific conference. The observations from 87 collected questionnaires suggest good potential and applicability of such an approach for the given task and more positive attitudes of older subjects compared to younger ones. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in a restricted scenario (Olsson and Schubert 2007, Synthese 157:297–308). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario where it is any finite (...) number of witnesses that give equivalent reports. It is shown that only the so-called Shogenji measure is reliability conducive in this scenario. I take that to be an argument for the Shogenji measure being a fruitful explication of coherence. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) among testimonies implies a higher probability that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in scenarios of equivalent testimonies (Olsson and Schubert 2007; Schubert, to appear). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario where the (...) testimonies do not have to be equivalent. It is shown that four measures are reliability conducive in the present scenario, all of which are ordinally equivalent to the Shogenji measure. I take that to be an argument for the Shogenji measure being a fruitful explication of coherence. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (asmeasured) of a set of testimonies implies a higher probability that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that the Shogenji measure of coherence is reliability conducive in restricted scenarios (e.g., Olsson and Schubert, Synthese, 157:297–308, 2007). In this article, I investigate whether the Shogenji measure, or any other coherence measure, is reliability conducive in general. An impossibility theorem is (...) proved to the effect that this is not the case. I conclude that coherence is not reliability conducive. (shrink)

The manuscripts and writings of the fifteenth-century astronomer and physician Lewis Caerleon (d. c. 1495) have been largely overlooked. To fill this gap, this article focuses on his writings and working methods through a case study of his canons and table for the equation of time. In the first part, an account of his life and writings is given on the basis of new evidence. The context in which his work on the equation of time was produced is explored in (...) detail by reviewing the three key periods of his scientific production. His heavy reliance on Simon Bredon’s Commentum super Almagesti is also analyzed. The article also provides editions of Lewis Caerleon’s canons for calculating his table for the equation of time and a critical edition of Simon Bredon’s Commentum super Almagesti, III, 22–24. In the second part of this article, we analyze the table for the equation of time derived by Lewis around 1485. In addition to the final table, there is a unique table with intermediate results that records every step of his derivation. By following and discussing the details of this derivation, we shed a new light on tabular practices in mathematical astronomy. Following Lewis in his historical mathematical procedure, we argue, offers a novel historiographical approach that allows us to identify different sources and practices used by historical actors. Therefore, beyond the exchange of parameters residing in modern mathematical analysis, this novel approach offers a promising refinement for the analysis of the transmission of knowledge across space, time, and culture. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of “democracy” has become a much-debated concept in scholarship on business ethics, management, and organization studies. The strategy of this paper is to distinguish between a principle of organization that fosters participation (type I democracy) and a principle of legitimation that draws on consent (type II democracy). Based on this distinction, we highlight conceptual shortcomings of the literature on stakeholder democracy. We demonstrate that parts of the literature tend to confound ends with means. Many approaches employ type I (...) democracy notions of participation and often take for granted that this also improves type II democratic legitimation. We hold this to be a mistake. We provide examples of the ambiguity of organizational procedures and show that under some circumstances a decrease in the degree of participation may actually increase legitimation because a governance structure that results in higher productivity can provide higher benefits for all parties involved, serve their interests and therefore meet their agreement. Less type I democracy may mean more type II democracy. We believe this to be an important insight for judging (and further improving) the legitimacy of both capitalistic firms and competitive markets. (shrink)

Argues that content-independent reasons are intentions. Relies on Grice's distinction between natural and non-natural meaning. Rejects previous accounts, and argues that his account can understand the force of such reasons appropriately, through the conept of enabling-conditions. Illustrates through several paridigmatic types of content-independent reasons.

The ocean’s properties and processes are now mostly known through distributed sensor networks. Among the most widespread of such networks are those that connect wave-measuring buoys. Buoys have been deployed and consulted by national meteorological organizations, state militaries, multinational corporations, and citizens. This paper zeroes in on the Directional Waverider, the most widely used buoy, manufactured since 1961 in the Netherlands by Datawell. I am interested in this buoy’s material qualities and networks of use, its life within legal frameworks, and (...) its media ecology. Staging my account against the metaphysical Italian author Italo Calvino’s “Reading a Wave,” I explore what it means to “read” a sensing technology. (shrink)

In der Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsches Kritik der Menschenwürde nimmt dieses Buch zugleich Stellung zur aktuellen Diskussion. Wie ist die gegenwärtige Norm der Menschenwürde, wie sie auch im Grundgesetz enthalten ist, vor dem Hintergrund der Theorien des vehementen Moralkritikers Nietzsche einzuschätzen? Welchen Stellenwert hat die Würde des Menschen im Zeitalter des Posthumanismus überhaupt? Im ersten Teil skizziert der Autor zunächst die wichtigsten philosophischen Konzeptionen der Menschenwürde von Cicero bis Kant. Dabei macht er deutlich, welche Probleme die gegenwärtige Rezeption historischer Konzeptionen aufwirft. (...) Der zweite Teil ist der ausführlichen Darstellung von Nietzsches Kritik der Menschenwürde gewidmet. Daraus ergeben sich wichtige Impulse für die gegenwärtige Diskussion und konkrete Hinweise, wie ein tragbarer Begriff der Menschenwürde für die Zukunft aussehen könnte. (shrink)

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant rapid growth in trade, financial transactions, and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this article, we examine how the globalization of national business systems has influenced the framing of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is done using text analysis of CEO letters appearing in the annual reports of 15 major corporations in Sweden during a period of transformational change. The results show that the discourse about CSR in the annual reports has changed (...) from a national and communitarian view of social responsibility (cf. a negotiated view of CSR) toward an international and individualistic view of social responsibility (cf. a self-regulating view of CSR). The article contributes theoretically (1) by adding a national–global dimension to previous conceptualizations of CSR and (2) by showing that the rise of CSR discourse and activities in the last 10 years does not have to imply an increased commitment and interest in corporate responsibility per se, only that there are increased societal expectations that corporations should develop the capability to act more independently as moral agents. (shrink)

Wenn digitale Technologien wie künstliche Intelligenz, Blockchain und Robotik auf die Medizin treffen, entstehen zwangsläufig ethische Fragestellungen. Diese lassen sich nicht ohne Weiteres mit medizinisch-technologischen, rechtlichen oder ökonomischen Argumenten allein beantworten. Neue Themenfelder wie die sich wandelnde Rolle der Patienten, die neue Verantwortung von Ärzten und Pflegenden, neue digitale Möglichkeiten in der Medizin, Smart Hospitals im Klinikalltag, die gesellschaftliche Legitimität eines möglichen dritten Datengesundheitsmarktes, eine zukunftsfeste Ausbildungslandschaft für den Gesundheits-/Medizinbereich sowie die Grenzen der digitalen Forschung bedürfen einer kritischen und gleichzeitig (...) thematisch breiten Auseinandersetzung mit ethischen Aspekten in der digitalen Gesundheitswirtschaft und Medizin. (shrink)

The article analyses the common notion that the consumer society is a reflection of those principles in the market that also provide the ideas of democracy and liberal constitutionalism with legitimacy in the political realm. The inalienable right to self-development and self-determination makes the individual the starting and ending point of life, rendering all spheres of market and society a ‘republic of choice’. But if consumer society shares the essentials of liberal constitutionalism and the rational, processual nature of democratic representation, (...) then its ontology needs to be investigated for the same reason and in the same manner as legal and political philosophy dissects the legitimacy and validity of the parliamentary institutions of modern democracy. Just as in the political philosophy of the constitutional structure of the democratic state, the question of who is sovereign is key to understanding the ontology of consumer society. But rather than simply placing sovereignty into the hands of the independent, self-determined consumer, the earliest ontologists of the consumer society took recourse to medieval political theology and presented the consumer market as a new corpus mysticum. Thus, it is medieval political theology, not modern liberal thought, which provided for an ontologization of the consumer. This, in turn, directly pertains to the questions of the legitimacy of consumer society per se, of consumer decisions in particular and of their sources of legitimacy. (shrink)

Abstract: We are all familiar with the way in which social roles, such as mother, father, professor, club football coach, citizen, and so on, confront us with clusters of duties that purport to bind us. Though we generally experience these role-duties as normatively binding, we might question this. What reason do role-occupants have for conforming to the duties that define their roles? I argue that the agent who identifies with her role thereby has a weighty and important justificatory reason for (...) conforming to the role's defining duties: namely, the identifying agent realizes the fundamental goods of meaning and self-determination by doing so. This is an important normative ground of role-duties because it, unlike the grounds of natural duty or voluntary assumption, ensures that the duties it grounds are not alien impositions but rather are elements of the identifying agent's wellbeing. I also argue that role-identification provides a reason that shares many of the characteristics of a moral reason, and I argue that role-identification in tandem with the principle of fair play grounds a moral duty to conform to one's role-duties. (shrink)

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

ABSTRACTLocke’s influential discussion of agency in the chapter ‘Of Power’ in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding underwent important changes between the first and second edition. He reconside...

Polish philosophy of science has been the beneficiary of three powerful creative streams of scientific and philosophical thought. First and fore­ most was the Lwow-Warsaw school of Polish analytical philosophy founded by Twardowski and continued in their several ways by Les­ niewski, Lukasiewicz, and Tarski, the great mathematical and logical philosophers, by Kotarbinski, probably the most distinguished teacher, public figure, and culturally influential philosopher of the inter-war and post-war period, and by Ajdukiewicz, the linguistic philosopher who was intellectually sympathetic with (...) the anti-irrationalist (as he would say), logistic and meta-theoretical inquiries of the Vienna Circle. Second was independent and lively Polish Marxism, with its fine development of social research under Krzywicki, a social anthropologist and younger contemporary of Engels, and then after the war the economist Lange, the philosophers Schaff, Kolakowski, Baczko, and many others. Finally there has been a wide range of philosophical, scientific and humanistic scholar­ ship which lends its various qualities to the understanding of both the logic of science and the historical situation of the sciences: we mention only that great and humane physicist Infeld, the phenomenologist with deep epistemological interest Ingarden, the historian of scientific ideas Zawirski, the historian of philosophy and aesthetics Tatarkiewicz, and the mathematical logicians such as Mostowski and Szaniawski. (shrink)

On Shapiro’s view, any viable legal theory must successfully respond to his Possibility Puzzle and Humean Challenge. Moreover, he argues that Hartian legal theory fails in this respect. Here, I take issue with his characterization of these challenges and the Hartian response to them. I argue that he equivocates with respect to a number of the key terms and relations that inform his Possibility Puzzle, and I argue that if we disambiguate its terms consistently and plausibly, we will see that (...) its putative challenge to Hartian legal theory is illusory. I also argue that once we adequately characterize Hartian legal theory, it easily meets the Humean Challenge. If correct, these arguments undermine Shapiro’s larger project of defending his planning theory of law, for a key pillar supporting his theory is that it meets challenges that rival theories cannot. I also consider his planning theory directly, and I argue that it compares unfavourably to the Hartian approach in a crucial respect. It obscures the Hartian insight that customary practice is an ineliminable and fundamental feature of legal systems. Thus, I conclude that though Shapiro’s Legality brings to the fore many of the key issues in contemporary analytic jurisprudence and does so in an insightful and provocative way, it does not succeed in its ultimate ambition of improving upon and supplanting Hartian legal theory. (shrink)

Providing a timely contribution to the ongoing questions surrounding topics which are by definition subject to varying stakeholder interpretations, this book addresses "the missing link" between theoretical CSR concepts and everyday management practice. It acts as a guide to awaken managers to the advantages of adopting a CSR "mindset" when developing sustainable business strategies. The book consists of three parts: 1) A theoretical realm which establishes the key concepts and rationale for the adoption of a sustainable CSR approach, 2) A (...) practical realm which addresses putting CSR and sustainability into business practice, 3) An educational realm which proposes how to incorporate the concepts into teaching and training. Contents Theoretical realm Practical realm Educational realm The Editors Linda O'Riordan is a Professor of Business Studies and International Management and Director of the KompetenzCentrum for Corporate Social Responsibility (KCC) at the FOM University of Applied Sciences (FOM), Essen, Germany. She researches, writes, and lectures on responsible management and sustainable entrepreneurship with a focus on an inclusive approach to organising business in society. Piotr Zmuda is a Professor of Business Studies and International Management and a Research Associate of the KompetenzCentrum for Corporate Social Responsibility (KCC) at the FOM University of Applied Sciences (FOM), Essen, Germany. He teaches Master's and Bachelor's students in Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), International Management, Strategic Management, and Management Consulting. Stefan Heinemann is a Professor and Vice-Rector for Cooperations and Sustainability Representative at the FOM University of Applied Sciences (FOM), Essen, Germany. He is also a committed member of the work group "tertiary institutions" of the UNESCO World Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, Director of Business Ethics at the FOM KCC KompetenzCentrum für Corporate Social Responsibility and Member of the Board of Trustees of sneep - student network for ethics in economics and practice.. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that antecedents of modern corporate social responsibility prior to the Industrial Revolution can be referred to as “proto-CSR” to describe a practice that influenced modern CSR, but which is different from its modern counterparts in form and structure. We develop our argument with the history of miners’ guilds in medieval Germany—religious fraternities and secular mutual aid societies. Based on historical data collected by historians and archeologists, we reconstruct a long-term process of pragmatic experimentation with institutions (...) of mutual aid that address social problems in the early mining industry, and thus before the rise of the modern state and the capitalist firm. Co-shaped by economic and political actors, these institutions of mutual aid have influenced the social responsibility programs of early industrialists, modern social welfare legislation, and contemporary CSR. We conjecture that other elements of proto-CSR might have evolved according to similar trajectories. (shrink)

The operative nucleus of peer review processes has largely remained a ‘black box’ to analytical empirical research. There is a lack of direct insights into the communicative machinery of peer review, i.e., into ‘gatekeeping in action’. This article attempts to fill a small part of this huge research gap. It is based on an ethnographic case study about peer review communication in a sociological journal. It looks at the final phase of the peer review process: the decisions taken in the (...) oral communication of editors’ meetings. The article describes this meeting as an instrumented talk, supported by written tools and constrained by necessary procedural outcomes. It analyzes examples of interactive negotiations of manuscripts and, in the end, it discusses the procedural rationality of peer review as a public sphere for professional judgment. (shrink)

What sort of image does the planet Earth possess at the opening of the 21st century? If in the 1960s, the Whole Earth, the planet as seen from space, became a cold war, proto-environmentalist icon for a fragile ocean planet, in the 2010s, Google Earth, the globe encountered as a manipulable virtual object on our computer screens, has become an index for multiple and socially various interpretations and interventions; its thicket of satellite images, text legends, and street level photographs can (...) all be tagged, commented upon, modified. In this essay, I examine a kindred image-object, Google Ocean, asking what sort of representation of the planetary sea is in the making in our digital days. Stirring up the century-old classification of signs by semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce, I argue that Google Ocean is a mottled mash of icons, indexes, and symbols of the marine and maritime world as well as a simultaneously dystopian and utopian diagram of the sea - though one that floats in a media ecology that tends to occlude its infrastructural history and conditions of possibility. (shrink)

This article analyzes computer security rhetoric, particularly in the United States, arguing that dominant cultural understandings of immunology, sexuality, legality, citizenship, and capitalism powerfully shape the way computer viruses are construed and combated. Drawing on popular and technical handbooks, articles, and Web sites, as well as on e-mail interviews with security professionals, the author explores how discussions of computer viruses lean on analogies from immunology and in the process often encode popular anxieties about AIDS. Computer security rhetoric about compromised networks (...) also uses language reminiscent of that used to describe the “bodies” of nation-states under military threat from without and within. Such language portrays viruses using images of foreignness, illegality, and otherness. The security response to viruses advocates the virtues of the flexible and adaptive response—a rhetoric that depends on evolutionary language but also on the ideological idiom of advanced capitalism. (shrink)

Looking at the world through the window of opportunity costs directs attention to the good forgone rather than the good done by our decision making. In the paper it is illustrated by means of several examples that it may be useful for judicial decision makers to be better aware of this aspect of their choices. When they decide in favor of the realization of some good they should not neglect the shadow of the good that is thereby not done. Such (...) implications of living in a world of scarcity are driven home on the level of law enactment (de lege ferenda) as well as in the interpretation and application of the law (de lege lata) in our discussion of opportunity costs and the law. (shrink)

The goal of behavioral economics is to improve the explanatory and predictive power of economics. This can be achieved by using theoretical and methodological resources of psychology. Its fundamental idea is that the relationship between psychology and economics cannot be subsumed under standard philosophical accounts of intertheoretical relations. Philosophical Problems of Behavioral Economics argues that behavioral economics is best understood as an attempt to deidealize economic theory guided by psychological research. Behavioral economics deconstructs the model of decision-making by adding different (...) elements. Based on this understanding behavioral economics has a number of tasks: first, it has to identify which economic theory needs to be challenged; second it aims to identify factors which need to be modelled within economic theories of choice and modify the theory accordingly; and finally, it has to create models that explain economic phenomena based on the new theory. This book analyses the different stages of this deconstruction process and shows how the scientific disciplines of economics and psychology are connected by it. This volume develops a new account of intertheoretical relations based on the idea of deidealization and thus contributes to debates within the philosophy of social science. It is suitable for those who are interested in or study economic theory and philosophy, economic psychology and philosophy of social science. (shrink)

Is there any good reason to believe in Nietzsche's metaphysics even thought he himself claims that it is not "the truth" in correspondence with the world? According to Danto, Nietzsche's metaphysics is only valid for Nietzsche himself. However, this answer does not take into consideration Nietzsche's claim for the general superiority of his philosophy. Nietzsche's view seems inconsistent: on the one hand, he claimed all perspectives are equally false in respect to "the truth," but on the other, he regarded his (...) view as superior. This book explains in which respect Nietzshe justifies his claims, that Nietzsche's position is not inconsistent, and why consistency is important for him. (shrink)

In this paper we analyse how risk factors in highly industrialised agriculture are connected to animal neglect. With Danish agriculture as a case study, we use two types of data. First, we use register data from Statistics Denmark to map how risk factors such as farmers’ financial and social troubles are connected to convictions of neglect. Second, we analyse narratives where interviewed farmers, involved in cases of neglect, describe how they themselves experienced the incidents. We find that while livestock farmers (...) in general have a low risk of animal neglect problems, a small percentage of them face severe financial difficulties, divorce and psychiatric problems, which are connected to an increased risk of being convicted for the neglect of farm animals. The narratives bring forward themes of pressure related to financial trouble, technological break down, family problems, stress and a growing concern among the farmers towards the governmental control in farm animal production. We discuss how these factors can be used to identify and help farmers with a high risk of being convicted of livestock neglect. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungWohin mit der Literatur im Zeitalter der semiotischen Überforderung? In einer Diskussion von El Polaco von J.M. Coetzee, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes von Mohamed Mbougar Sarr und Still Life von Zoë Wicomb schlägt dieser Aufsatz vor, dass eine Dialektik zwischen textueller Umgehung und der intertextuellen Produktivität von Kommentaren, Übersetzungen und generativer KI den Weg nach vorne weisen könnte.

: This paper examines two features of Kant’s 1768 critique of Leibniz’ conception of space. Firstly, Leibniz’ proposed geometrical calculus called ‘analysis situs’; secondly, Leibniz’ relational conception of space. The main thesis of the paper is that Kant’s arguments are more powerful than generally recognized. With regard to the analysis situs, I will show that Kant was quite well informed about this proposed science and that his arguments severely undermine Leibniz’ claims to what it could perform. With regard to the (...) relational theory of space, Kant’s argument would require Leibniz to present a complex story about the relation between God’s act of creation and our spatial experience to defend his relational view, rather than using the simple principle of sufficient reason. (shrink)

The creation of life has always spurred literary and cinematic productivity. Due to scientific progress in the fields of microbiology and genetics, countless novels and films today reflect the idea of human cloning more than other ideas. While the clone is often seen as the epitome of the posthuman, contemporary texts and films tend to modify the concept and humanize the clone. It can be said that fictional literature and films play a pivotal role in the construction, modification, and circulation (...) of concepts. Based on a cognitive linguistic concept of concept, the clone will be analyzed as an epistemic object. Focusing on conceptual processes of the configuration of knowledge, this article will show how the process of conceptualization works in literary texts and films and describe the techniques by which categories and concepts are constantly modified. Thus, it will be argued that literature and film play an active part in shaping a society's stock of knowledge. (shrink)