Fairness can be incorporated into Harsanyi’s utilitarianism through all-inclusive utility. This retains the normative assumptions of expected utility and Pareto-efficiency, and relates fairness to individual preferences. It makes utilitarianism unfalsifiable, however, if agents’ all-inclusive utilities are not explicitly specified. This note proposes a two-stage model to make utilitarian welfare analysis falsifiable by specifying all-inclusive utilities explicitly through models of individual fairness preferences. The approach is applied to include fairness in widely discussed allocation examples.

Background:The management of challenging behaviours in inpatient with intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorders can lead to an escalation of control measures. In these complex situations where patients have an intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder accompanied by a psychiatric comorbidity, the experiences of caregivers related to the crisis management have rarely been studied.Purpose:This study examined the moral experiences of caregivers related to challenging behaviours’ management and alternatives to control measures.Research design:Using Charles Taylor’s hermeneutic framework, a 2-month focused ethnography with a participatory (...) approach was used.Participants and research context:Sixteen caregivers were interviewed in a Canadian mental health setting for adults with intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder and psychiatric comorbidity.Ethical considerations:The research was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and local Research Ethics Board approval. Written informed consent was collected systematically from participants.Findings:By accounting for caregivers’ moral experiences, this study sheds light on a neglected dimension of the care relationship: the vulnerability of the caregiver. We highlight the main barriers and facilitators to alternatives to control measures. First, a caregiver’s vulnerability was characterised by the overall impact of challenging behaviours and the moral distress associated with the use of control measures and exclusion mechanisms of intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder patients. Second, a strong ambiguity between care and control measures and a lack of inclusive approaches were identified as the two main barriers to challenging behaviour management. Third, the involvement, both professional and personal, of caregivers was deemed necessary to implement alternatives to control measures.Discussion:A conflict of values opposes two conceptions of autonomy: a rational autonomy, which is counterproductive to the reduction of control measures, versus a relational autonomy based on shared vulnerability.Conclusion:The recognition of caregiver’s vulnerability is a benchmark to create alternative approaches, which defuse the logic of control and promote an ethics of care within which caregivers’ self-concern can be understood as fostering mutual respect. (shrink)

This study aims at demonstrating the usefulness of the Pareto in- clusive criterion methodology for comparative analyses of fungi toxicity. The toxicity of fungi is usually measured using a scale of several ranks. In practice, the ranks of toxicity are routinely grouped into only four conventional classes of toxicity: from a class of no toxicity, low toxicity, and moderate toxicity, to a class of high toxicity. The illustrative material included the N = 61 fungi samples obtained from three species: A. (...) ochraceus, A. niger and A. flavus. In accordance with the Pareto approach, four partial criterions of the worst toxi- city were defined, a single criterion used for each conventional class of toxicity. Finally, the odds ratios (OR) were calculated separately for each partial cri- terion, and the significance of the hypotheses OR = 1 was estimated. It was stated that A. ochraceus fungi are distinctly more toxic than the two remaining ones with respect to the all considered four partial criterions, with significance equal to p = 0.04, p = 0.04, p = 0.007 and p = 0.005, respectively. Thus, the suggested method illustrated its utility in the case under study. (shrink)

The debate between ‘inclusive’ and ‘dominant’ interpretations of Aristotle's concept of happiness (eudaimonia) has become one of the thorniest problems of Aristotle interpretation. In this paper, I attempt to solve this problem by presenting a multi-step argument for an ‘all-inclusive’ thesis, i.e., the Aristotelian philosopher or contemplator, in the strict sense, is someone who already possesses all the intellectual virtues (except technē), all the moral virtues (by way of the possession of phronēsis), and considerable other goods. If this (...) thesis is correct, the inclusive and dominant interpretations will converge, for the philosopher turns out to be the happiest human being both in the inclusive and dominant senses. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that all-inclusive superordinate categories, such as “citizens of the world” and “humans,” may represent different socio-psychological realities. Yet it remains unclear whether the use of different categories may account for different psychological processes and attitudinal or behavioral outcomes. Two studies extended previous research by comparing how these categories are cognitively represented, and their impact on intergroup helping from host communities toward migrants. In a correlational study, 168 nationals from 25 countries perceived the group of migrants as (...) more prototypical of the superordinate category “citizens of the world” than their national group, whereas no differences in prototypicality occurred for the category “humans.” Identification with “citizens of the world” was positively associated with a disposition to oppose helping migrants and to offer dependency-oriented help. However, identification with “humans” was positively associated with helping in general, and with offering dependency- and autonomy-oriented help; and negatively associated with opposition to helping. The experimental study manipulated the salience of “citizens of the world” vs. “humans” vs. control category, among 224 nationals from 36 countries. Results showed that the salience of “humans” triggered higher entitativity and essentialist perceptions, and dual-identity representations. No differences due to salience were found for representations of relative ingroup prototypicality or helping responses. Overall, these findings suggest that the interchangeable use of different labels is problematic, considering these might activate different representations, and thus, are likely to lead, in some circumstances, to different attitudinal or behavioral outcomes. (shrink)

The article expounds the concept of substance as a unified system in which all of its properties cannot be determined by its components parts alone. Instead the system as a whole verifies the notion of existence. Everything that exists, noetic and aesthetic, animate or inanimate, is governed by the fundamental status of substance. Hence, none of the parts (humans, angels, rocks, bacteria) can claim for absoluteness against the other. This idea goes back to Ancient Greek scholars, such as Aristotle, while (...) it reaches its climax throughout the Byzantine Philosophy with John of Damascus theories. Accordingly and as the image is concerned, one can encounter this kind of ontology in various artworks, from the frescoes of Lascaux caves, to early Renaissance. Beyond the substance there is the un-substance, which is often confused with western philosophical duality course such as those of the matter and the idea, of the sensible and the intelligible, of the body and the soul and finally of the born and the unborn. Nevertheless, and as for the Byzantine philosophy, these entities are lodged into the unity of the substance irrespective of their tangibility because they all contain some kind of materiality at variance to the immateriality of the un-substance. The most representative version of this theory appears in archaic and late antiquity imagery, a type of imagery that has been scattering into early motion pictures and into late Technoetic practices. (shrink)

This review essay of Economics Rules situates Dani Rodrik’s contribution with respect to the 2007–2008 global economic crisis. This financial meltdown, which the eurozone did not fully recover from before the Covid-19 pandemic, led to soul- searching among economists as well as a call for heterodox economic approaches. Yet, over the past decade, instead the economics profession has maintained its orthodoxy. Rodrik’s Economics Rules offers a critique of the economics profession that is castigating but mild. It calls for economists to (...) use more and diverse models without becoming wedded to any single model or an overarching vision. Yet Rodrik ratifies many of the benchmark models standard to orthodox economics and provides little ground for a fundamental rethinking of the discipline. This essay analyses the conservatism underlying Rodrik’s approach, which upholds general equilibrium theory and rational expectations underlying the efficient market hypothesis. It argues that the economics discipline’s scope-creep to maintain its applicability to all human decision-making, and its acceptance of all-inclusive utility functions, crowds out moral sentiments and civic virtue. Thus. it argues that rather than urging economists simply to be more cautious in their application of models to address particular social concerns, instead economists must recognise their discipline’s inherent limitations. (shrink)

Riassunto: Sviluppandosi sul piano della “prevenzione del rischio”, dei “livelli di controllo” in fase di programmazione e del possibile inserimento dei cosiddetti “algoritmi etici”, il dibattito sul presente e il futuro dell’Intelligenza Artificiale, ha favorito nel corso degli anni la creazione di una sempre più profonda spaccatura tra discipline “tecniche” e saperi “umanistici”, tra il dominio del “fare” e il dominio del “pensare”. Prendendo atto di questa sterile distanza, occorre mettere in questione i metodi dell’etica e interrogarsi sull’efficacia e l’utilità (...) della teoria e, più in generale, meglio definire la relazione che la filosofia oggi intrattiene – e potrà ancora intrattenere – con le macchine progettate per pensare e con i loro progettisti. Parole chiave: Filosofia; Etica; Intelligenza artificiale; Cibernetica; Controllo Beyond ethics: An anthropodecentric approach to artificial intelligence Riassunto: The ethical and philosophical debate around the present and future of Artificial Intelligence has grown in intensity over the years. Continual development within AI in terms of “prevention of risks”, “levels of control in programming”, and the inclusion of so-called “ethical algorithms”, has encouraged an ever deeper split between “technicians” and “humanists”, between the domains of “making” and “thinking”. Focusing on this unproductive distance, we interrogate ethical approaches methods and the effectiveness and utility of ethical theories. More generally, we attempt to better define the relationship that philosophy has today – and will be able to maintain in the future tomorrow – with machines designed to think and with their designers. Keywords: Philosophy; Ethics; Artificial Intelligence; Cybernetics; Control. (shrink)

I explore the frame of reference of the multiverse and the universe as point of reference for the meta-philosophical reflection on philosophy and the doing of philosophy. -/- Some of the many topics being dealt with in this frame of reference and from this perspective of the bigger picture are - -/- Determinism, -/- The absence of Free Will, -/- Consequences of this for Law, -/- God and determinism, -/- Embodied Consciousness and Conscious Embodiment, -/- Radical Scepticism, -/- Nihilism, -/- (...) Libertarianism, minarchism and anarchism, -/- Amoralism, -/- Intersubjectivity, -/- Mysticism and the Unity Experience, -/- Theorizing, -/- Philosophizing as part of the processes of theorizing, -/- Contexts, many levels and multi-dimensionality, -/- The Institutionalization of philosophy, -/- The professionalization of philosophy, -/- Philosophy as realization of wisdom, -/- Knowing that, facts, factual information, knowing how, insights and understanding, -/- Art and music as making the invisible visible without the use of words... (shrink)

Previous studies have claimed that the term ‘all-inclusive pervasion’ ( sarvopasaṃhāravyāpti ) appeared for the first time in the Hetubindu , and that it was Dharmakīrti who created this theory. This article attempts to modify this view and to show that the prototype of this theory can already be found in Dignāga’s system of logic. Dignāga states in the third chapter of the Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti that the co-existence of a logical reason with what is to be proved is understood by (...) means of two types of exemplification that sum up external items ( bāhyārthopasaṃhṛta ). Furthermore, with respect to where the pervasion is indicated, he states in the second chapter of the same work that the non-deviation of a logical mark from what is to be proved is indicated elsewhere ( anyatra ). He also implies that anyatra means in the substratum in general ( ādhārasāmānya ) and that the subject is implicitly included in other substrata, i.e., in the substratum in general. Building upon Dignāga’s awareness of the issue, the conflict between the universality of pervasion and the particularity of actual inference, Dharmakīrti reinforced Dignāga’s system of logic by demonstrating that a property to be proved as the universal is not particularised by the subject by the use of the idea of ‘the exclusion of nonconnection’ ( ayogavyavaccheda ) and by adopting the concept of ‘all’ in place of ‘external items’. (shrink)

I reply to the comments of Parkinson (2013), and de Sousa (2013), discussing the transactional nature of appraisal, the presumably overinclusive definition of appraisal, and the cognitive nature of appraisal.

This article is about the analogy between inclusive fitness and utility. In behavioral ecology, it is often assumed that individual organisms behave as if they were “striving” to maximize their inclusive fitness—a measure analogue to the kind of utility function that is used to represent the preferences of rational agents. Here, I explore some conceptual puzzles related to this view and question whether the kind of biological utility posited by the advocates of the “maximizing agent (...) analogy” can be adequately interpreted in inclusive fitness terms. (shrink)

The paper provides an introduction to the public discourse around the notion of smart healthy inclusive environments. First, the basic ideas are explained and related to citizen participation in the context of implementation of a "society for all ages" concept disseminated by the United Nations. Next, the text discusses selected initiatives of the European Commission in the field of intergenerational programming and policies as well as features of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly: Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE). The following sections (...) are focused on studying and discussing examples of projects and methodologies that have been aimed at: empowering facilitators of smart healthy inclusive environments, empowering citizens to deal with health emergencies, and supporting older people's voices. The conclusion covers selected recommendations for entities of public policy on ageing (ageing policy) as well as potential directions for further research. (shrink)

Popper's well-known demarcation criterion has often been understood to distinguish statements of empirical science according to their logical form. Implicit in this interpretation of Popper's philosophy is the belief that when the universe of discourse of the empirical scientist is infinite, empirical universal sentences are falsifiable but not verifiable, whereas the converse holds for existential sentences. A remarkable elaboration of this belief is to be found in Watkins's early work on the statements he calls “all-and-some,” such as: “For every metal (...) there is a melting point.” All-and-some statements are both universally and existentially quantified in that order. Watkins argued that AS should be regarded as both nonfalsifiable and nonverifiable, for they partake in the logical fate of both universal and existential statements. This claim is subject to the proviso that the bound variables are “uncircumscribed” ; i.e., that the universe of discourse is infinite. (shrink)

In the United States, the field of bioethics has expanded over the last two decades. Several institutions offer graduate-level training at both the masters and doctoral level. However, a lack of published literature on the outcomes of doctoral training in bioethics from the perspective of graduates exists. Researchers conducted an online survey of doctoral students who had finished all doctoral requirements but their dissertation, as well as doctoral graduates, of four US-based institutions to ascertain their perspectives on a number of (...) items regarding their doctoral training and their perception of how that training prepared them for their current role in the workforce. Responses from 34 participants were assessed. Respondents had positive overall views on the utility of a bioethics doctorate and the educational training they received in their respective programs. A number of areas for improvement were identified, including better structured clinical ethics training, greater opportunities for research and publishing, and having the ability to teach during their doctoral program, as well as formal pedagogy training. Greater exposure to clinical ethics consultation during the doctoral program was associated with feeling fully prepared as a clinical ethics consultant. This is the first study to assess the perspectives of bioethics doctoral graduates and ABD students regarding the utility of a bioethics doctorate. Per the perspectives of graduates and ABD students, bioethics doctorates are important and effective to train professional bioethicists. We recommend that a few key changes to these programs’ curricula can further bolster their effectiveness. (shrink)

This volume provides a broad-based account of strategies used by southern nations to overcome the challenges of Education for All. Through local cases in context, the authors delve into the nitty-gritty of classroom dynamics including instructional strategies, teaching resources, age, gender, and the socio-economic context of going to school.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:We Walk the Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister EckhartSeung Hee KangWe Walk The Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart. By Brian J. Pierce. New York: Maryknoll, 2005. 202 pp.Being that he is a contemplative, Pierce’s Trinitarian Christian love beautifully manifests itself in this book in his art of interdialoguing on the Buddhist-Christian religious traditions. Pierce’s manner of interdialoguing resonates with (...) what Ann Belford Ulanov also attempts: “I am writing not about how to prove that God exists but rather about what happens religiously when psyche and soul create a space for conversation [End Page 178] out of which life can flow.” 1 If someone asks whether Pierce and Ulanov point to two different absolute realities, my response would be, “Absolutely not!” The sacred inner space that Pierce points to, in light of the two contemporary mystics from different religious traditions, namely Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart, also reminds me of Lao Tzu’s wisdom that permeates the Tao Te Ching, specifically in his concept of “useful emptiness.” 2We Walk the Path Together is neither an abstract account nor sheer philosophical speculation. The whole of the book is rooted in Pierce’s faith-based lived experience (pp. 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 113, 163); this renders the book life-giving and deeply ecological in terms of its transcendence of either/or dichotomies.Chapter 1 summarizes the meaning and art of dialogue. Pierce utilizes mystical language to illustrate what the dialogue is. For Pierce, dialogue connotes “a mutual giving and receiving, and it posits a profound sense of being of one heart and mind” (p. 3). Pierce extends his personal experience of a vow of obedience into the meaning of dialogue. For Pierce, this vow means to “transcend any illusion of separateness” and thus “obedience liberates him from his tiny world of ego” (p. 4). In the process of dialogue, according to Pierce, “our hearts are challenged to grow larger, all-inclusive and universal” (p. 8). This expansion of the heart is what mystics call “magnanimity.” As Pierce is acutely aware, “magnanimity is one of life’s un-planned for graces; it teaches us to see and hear and learn things that we never dreamed were possible” (p. 9).Chapter 2 discusses mindfulness as a gateway to eternity. Pierce asserts that home is everywhere in the present moment; it is where freedom is possible. This particular point echoes with what Thomas Merton spoke about in reference to the prodigal son who turned away from his father: “sin is our refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our spiritual reality hidden in the mystery of God” (p. 23). However, when the prodigal son was restored his senses, he was able to attune himself back to present moment: “I’ll get up and go to my father” (cited by Pierce, ibid.). He became free from his sin, returning home. In this chapter, Pierce highlights the words of the mystics (St. Irenaeus, St. John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, St. Augustine, Jan van Ruusbroec, and St. Catherine de Siena) who lived this present moment in order to help the readers understand the intrinsic relationship between our mindfulness of the present moment and eternity. He argues that Buddhist teachings on mindfulness and Christianity’s tradition concerning the kingdom of God are mutually informative (pp. 19, 21).In chapter 3, Pierce expands the meaning of present moment through its association with breathing; being present is not a concept, but a living reality, as we experience the Holy Spirit in our breathing practice, such as centering prayer and meditation (p. 36). Pierce carefully states, “contemplation is authentic only if it flows out in loving-kindness to others. When we breathe in all the spiritual energy of the universe, thus, we literally implode—a spiritual ego intoxication” (p. 40). Pierce explains further what contemplation means; breathing in the Holy Spirit and breathing out the Holy Spirit may mean two separate phenomena. Contemplation is, for Pierce, authentic, only when the Spirit that is breathed in reaches out to our community. [End Page 179] This is also Pierce’s ecological aspect... (shrink)

Galasso (2024) reiterates the problem of medical research being grounded on data from people with European ancestry and subsequently describes efforts made by the All of Us Research Program in the...

This study explores the nature of parental attitudinal beliefs towards educational inclusion and the factors that determine these beliefs. Participants were drawn from the Growing Up in Scotland Survey. Results indicate that majority of parents held positive generalised belief towards including children with additional support needs in mainstream classrooms, compared with belief about the benefits of inclusion for children with ASN, or benefits for typically developing children. Lower parental income and higher levels of satisfaction with child’s current school were associated (...) with positive generalised beliefs. Belief about the benefits of inclusion for children with ASN was also positively associated with lower parental income, while belief about benefits for typically developing children was determined by higher parental education and age. Our findings suggest that efforts to increase parental attitudes should target salient beliefs and take into account the determinants of each of these beliefs. (shrink)

The paper provides an introduction to the public discourse around the notion of smart healthy inclusive environments. First, the basic ideas are explained and related to citizen participation in the context of implementation of a “society for all ages” concept disseminated by the United Nations. Next, the text discusses selected initiatives of the European Commission in the field of intergenerational programming and policies as well as features of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly: Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments. The following sections are (...) focused on studying and discussing examples of projects and methodologies that have been aimed at: empowering facilitators of smart healthy inclusive environments, empowering citizens to deal with health emergencies, and supporting older people’s voices. The conclusion covers selected recommendations for entities of public policy on ageing as well as potential directions for further research. (shrink)

It is a truth universally known but not oft discussed that a journal article is often a fragment of a larger series of thoughts, or a longer piece of work. In entering into dialogue with Gaab and Bamboulis and Bortolotti, I will briefly describe the context of this paper, in the hopes that it will clarify my commitments and wider thinking on this area.This paper isolates one thread of my doctoral dissertation evaluating what I take to be two central theoretical (...) claims of CBT: first, that mental illness is related to patterns of thought with epistemic issues and secondly, that CBT works through rectifying these epistemic issues. In the broader work I argue that over time, because psychotherapy has... (shrink)

This article defends the normative relevance of the representation of non-citizens in democracies. I argue that representation within nation-states constitutes a realistic institutionalisation of the All-Affected Principle, allowing justificatory practices towards non-citizens and establishing political institutions that can realise the ideal of inclusion of all externally affected individuals. I defend electoral, non-electoral and surrogate forms of representation of affected interests that satisfy both the cosmopolitan concern for the equal consideration of interests and the statist defence of the importance of a (...) territorially and civically bounded demos. I assess piecemeal implementations of representation practices, namely reciprocal representation, ombudspersons, self-appointed representatives and deliberative and advocacy groups. Gradual and pluralised means of representation constitute necessary and feasible first steps to consider affected interests and offer an alternative route to an all-or-nothing defence of inclusion as national enfranchisement. (shrink)

Practices of concept-revision among scientists seem to indicate that concepts can be improved. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union revised the concept "Planet" so that it excluded Pluto, and insisting that the result was an improvement. But what could it mean for one concept or conceptual scheme to be better than another? Here we draw on the theory of epistemic utility to address this question. We show how the plausibility and informativeness of beliefs, two features that contribute to their (...) utility, have direct correlates in our concepts. These are how inclusive a concept is, or how many objects in an environment it applies to, and how homogeneous it is, or how similar the objects that fall under the concept are. We provide ways to measure these values, and argue that in combination they can provide us with a single principle of concept utility. The resulting principle can be used to decide how best to categorize an environment, and can rationalize practices of concept revision. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to show the necessity and possibility of implementing inclusive development that is sustainable in Africa-China relations using the Conversational technique. I contend that the foremost challenges facing inclusive and sustainable developments are the dearth of constructive and balanced relationships. If a programme of development is constructive, that is, takes into consideration every relevant variable and practicable measure, it would be sustainable; and if it is balanced, that is, being fair to all groups, (...) it would be inclusive. Michelle and Paula have proposed that inclusive development is possible through a community-based strategy. This approach is bedeviled with difficulties which conversational thinking overcomes. Conversational thinking is a new approach in philosophical cogitation developed from the African place, but universally relevant. Its significance lies in the fact that it recognises the relevance of contending variables in a given project, and creates room for their creative engagement that opens new vistas for thought, concepts and interactions. Conversational thinking prioritises relationships that exist among development variables or groups designated as either nwansa or nwanju and purveys strategies for making such relationships constructive and balanced. In highlighting the importance of cultivating constructive and balanced relationships and sustaining the same, I appeal to conversational philosophy as the needed pathway for the implementation of the ideals of sustainable-inclusive development in Africa-China relations. My methods will be expository, prescriptive and analytic. Keywords : Sustainability, Inclusive Development, Conversational Thinking, Chimakonam, Africa-China Relations. (shrink)

In this article, I firstly discuss why a prioritarian clause can rescue the utilitarian doctrine from the risk of exacerbating inequality in the distribution of resources in those cases in which utility of income does not decline at the margin. Nonetheless, when in the presence of adaptive preferences, classic prioritarianism is more likely than utilitarianism to increase the inequality of resources under all circumstances, independently of the diminishing trend of utility. Hence, I propose to shift the informational focus (...) of prioritarianism from welfare to either social income or capabilities in order to safeguard those who are worse off. Following this, I argue that we may have reasons to limit the aggregative logic of priority-amended utilitarianism through one or more sufficiency thresholds, and that we can partially defuse the negative-thesis objection that is usually levelled against sufficientarianism, provided we interpret the threshold(s) as valid only as long as everyone is led above it. (shrink)

The paper outlines various concepts of rationality, their characteristics and consequences. In the first, most general part, the metaphysical, instrumental and discursive rationality is distinguished. The following part focuses on instrumental rationality and the rational choice theory and ordinal and cardinal utility, expected utility and game theory, respectively. All those concepts are summarised as being the most mathematically elegant and mostly decidable and helpful in the decision-making process. Giving primacy to individual preferences and withholding the judgment on their (...) “objective” value, they are also devoid of double standards. They are, however, strongly normative and weakly coincide with actual agents’ behaviour. Empirical findings on agents’ decision making seem to demonstrate their irrationality, unless we introduce into the analysis different concepts of rationality, namely based on costs efficient heuristics, inclusive fitness and ecological rationality. They are discussed respectively, and although they seem better to explain the set of humans’ seemingly irrational behaviour, they are likely week in predicting that behaviour. They are also losing their normative dimension and thus cease to be helpful in decision making. Applying the particular theory of rationality, either descriptively or normatively, seems to depend strongly on the environment, which can be characterised by its extension from a small to a large world. The more the small world’s features an environment reveals, the more effective is the application of the particular model of rationality. Beyond the small worlds, rule stochasticity, underspecification and misspecification and the only reasonable method are consecutive trials and errors, which eventually may reduce the large world to the small one. (shrink)

The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities). I argue that, (...) on a plausible articulation of it, the idea of dignity does not lead to these exclusions and that it in fact helps defend an appropriately inclusive moral and political treatment of all individuals. Difficult issues about equality and diversity indeed arise, but a dignitarian approach can provide good answers to them or at least help make them clearer and more tractable. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that traditional African communitarian values such as togetherness, mutual cooperation and solidarity are more consistent with the social structure and the political organization of many traditional societies in Africa and could be a veritable framework for implementing a program of inclusive development. I establish that African communitarian values take into consideration the contributions of all stakeholders, including the poor, vulnerable, and the marginalized in a bid to address development issues. I also provide strong reasons (...) for implementing communitarian strategies of togetherness, solidarity and mutual cooperation which support mutual interdependence and could promote inclusive development in Africa. I draw examples from traditional African ethic with communitarian values salient among small self-governing communities, and reflect on the ethic / politics of consensus in light of important developmental challenges facing the world today. I draw the conclusion that a critical and creative reevaluation of the communitarian values may help Africans and the rest of humanity in meeting the challenges of inclusive development. Keywords : Inequality, Inclusive Development, Liberalism, African Communitarianism, Ontology, Wellbeing, African Socialism. (shrink)

Naga Tribal communities residing in rural Nagaland are deprived of access to adequate health care services, livelihood opportunities, road connectivity, sanitation and education. About 71.14 percent of Naga Tribes inhabit rural areas; most of these tribal communities are engaged in agriculture and allied activities for livelihood. The absence of adequate road network suitable for all weather, public transportation system, and high cost of transportation fares hinder the mobility of the tribal communities in the rural areas. The confinement of development to (...) the urban areas has led to interdistrict disparities and dearth of basic facilities in the rural communities. This study intends to portray the socio-economic status of the Naga Tribal communities in rural areas. The study will identify infrastructural challenges of the Naga tribal communities. Descriptive Research Design have been adopted and the study includes only secondary data. The Survey method was used in the analysis of the collected secondary data. The implementation of inclusive development has become an urgent need, in order to provide basic infrastructures with equity to the Naga tribal community in rural Nagaland. The study will show how achieving inclusive development can contribute to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals at the national and global level. Key words : Inclusive Development, Naga Tribes. (shrink)

In 1991 Mark Nelson argued that if time is infinitely long towards the future, then under certain easily met conditions traditional utilitarianism is unable to discriminate among actions. For under these conditions, each action produces the same infinite amount of utility, and thus it seems that utilitarianism must judge all actions permissible, judge all actions impermissible, or remain completely silent. In response to this criticism of utilitarianism, I argued that utilitarianism had the resources for dealing with at least some (...) cases of infinite utility. More specifically, I defended the following principle as being part of the "spirit" of traditional (total) utilitarianism: -/- PMU*: An action a1 has better consequences than an action a2 if and only if there is a time t such that for any later time t' the cumulative amount of utility produced by a1 up to t' is greater than that produced by action a2 up to t'. -/- For the usual finite cases, this principle agrees exactly with the standard approach of comparing totals. For infinite cases, however, it can distinguish among two actions each of which produces an infinite amount of utility. It says, for example, that an action that produces 2 units of utility at each time has better consequences than an action that produces 1 unit of utility at each time -- even though they both produce the same infinite amount of utility. Of course, cases where one action produces more utility than a second at each time are going to be rather rare. PMU* is not limited to such cases, however; it also has bite in cases such as the following: -/- Time a1: 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, ... a2: 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, ... -/- For although the cumulative utility of a1 up to and including the fourth time is only 4 utiles and a2's is 12, a1 starts catching up after that, ties a2 in the 12th time, and stays ahead after that. Thus, PMU* judges a1 as having better consequences than a2. I claimed that PMU* better captured the "spirit" of traditional utilitarianism than the usual sum total view -- on the grounds that almost anyone inclined to defend traditional utilitarianism would, upon reflection, want to hold, for example, that 2 utiles at every time is indeed better than 1 utile at each time. Two responses to my view have since been given in this journal. Luc Van Liederkerke has argued that PMU* violates an anonymity (neutrality, impartiality) condition that is central to utilitarianism. And James Cain has argued that PMU* is not person-centered, and that being so is central to utilitarianism. Here I will reply to the criticisms. Basically, I will acknowledge that each is right about an important point, but deny that this establishes that the core idea underlying PMU* is less plausible than the standard sum-ranking versions of utilitarianism. (shrink)

Utilitarians are attracted to the idea that an act is morally right iff it leads to the best outcome. But critics have pointed out that in many cases we cannot determine which of our alternatives in fact would lead to the best outcome. So we can’t use the classic principle to determine what we should do. It’s not “practical”; it’s not “action-guiding”. Some take this to be a serious objection to utilitarianism, since they think a moral theory ought to be (...) practical and action-guiding. In response, some utilitarians propose to modify utilitarianism by replacing talk of actual utility with talk of expected utility. Others propose to leave the original utilitarian principle in place, but to combine it with a decision procedure involving expected utility. What all these philosophers have in common is this: they move toward expected utility in order to defend utilitarianism against the impracticality objection. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on this way of replying to the objection. My central claim is that if utilitarians are worried about the impracticality objection, they should not turn to expected utility utilitarianism. That theory does not provide the basis for a cogent reply to the objection. (shrink)

Drawing on the built environment concept of “inclusive design” and its emphasis on creating accessible environments for all persons regardless of ability, I suggest that a central task for feminist disability theory is to redesign foundational philosophical concepts to present opportunities rather than barriers to inclusion for people with disability. Accounts of autonomy within liberal philosophy stress self-determination and the dignity of all individual persons, but have excluded people with intellectual disability from moral and political theories by denying their (...) capacity for individual autonomy, seen as a chief marker of moral personhood. This paper modifies and extends feminist theories of relational autonomy by arguing for the need to view autonomy as a feature of persons that is manifested only through relations of support, advocacy, and enablement. An “inclusively designed,” relational account negotiates the tensions encountered in attempts to apply autonomy to people with high support needs, and politicizes the concept as an advocacy tool for people with intellectual disability and their allies. (shrink)

A TRADITIONAL VIEW OF UTILITY AND RIGHTS According to a conventional view, no project could be more hopelessly misconceived than the enterprise of attempting a utilitarian derivation of fundamental rights. We are all familiar – too familiar, perhaps – with the arguments that support this conventional view, but let us review them anyway. We may begin by recalling that, whereas the defining value of utilitarianism – pleasure, happiness or welfare – contains no mention of the dignity or autonomy of (...) human beings, it is this value which utilitarianism in all its standard forms invokes as the criterion of right action. Worse, insofar as utilitarian policy must have as its goal the maximization of welfare conceived as an aggregate summed over the utilities of everyone affected, legal and political utilitarianism seems bound to have a collectivist bias, trading on the dangerous fiction of a social entity and ignoring the distinctness of separate selves with their several incommensurable claims. It seems that, if individuals can appear in the utilitarian calculus at all, it will only be as ciphers, abstract place-holders for units of welfare. For, as an aggregative value, utility must be indifferent to distribution, and insensitive to the preeminently distributive considerations marked by claims about rights. So, if whatever has utility can be broken down into units or elements which are subject to measurement or at least comparison by a common standard, then it will always be possible that a very great loss of welfare for one man or a few men can be justified if it produces a great many small increments of welfare for a vast multitude of men. (shrink)

Suppose that time is infinitely long towards the future, and that each feasible action produces a finite amount of utility at each time. Then, under appropriate conditions, each action produces an infinite amount of utility. Does this mean that utilitarianism lacks the resources to discriminate among such actions? Since each action produces the same infinite amount of utility, it seems that utilitarianism must judge all actions permissible, judge all actions impermissible, or remain completely silent. If the future (...) is infinite, that is, the prospects for utilitarianism look bleak. (shrink)

Using a basic theorem from mathematical logic, I show that there are field-extensions ofRon which a class of orderings that do not admit any real-valued utility functions can be represented by uncountably large families of utility functions. These are the lexicographically decomposable orderings studied in Beardon et al. (2002a). A corollary to this result yields an uncountably large family of very simple utility functions for the lexicographic ordering of the real Cartesian plane. I generalise these results to (...) the lexicographic ordering of \mathbb{R}^n, for every n > 2, and to lexicographic products of lexicographically decomposable chains. I conclude by showing how almost all of these results may be obtained without any appeal to the Axiom of Choice. (shrink)

Abstract. In this article two conceptions of what it means to say that all affected persons should be granted the right to vote in democratic elections are distinguished and evaluated. It is argued that understanding "affected" in legal terms, as referring to the circle of people bound by political decisions, has many advantages compared to the view referring to everyone affected in mere causal terms. The importance of jurisdictions in deciding rights to democratic influence should hence be recognized more clearly (...) than it currently is in democratic thinking. (shrink)

__ Inclusive education is complex, multi-faceted and ever-changing and to date there has been no fixed definition of what is meant by the term ‘inclusion’, leading to confusion about what inclusive education actually means in practice. This key text introduces readers to the underlying knowledge and wider complexities of inclusion and explores how this can relate to practice. Considering inclusion as referring to _all_ learners, it surveys the concept of inclusive practice in its broadest sense and examines (...) its implementation in a variety of educational institutions. Throughout the book, international contributors consider this broader concept to critically evaluate the realities of practically implementing inclusive objectives. Each chapter assesses key theories and concepts alongside a range of examples to encourage students to think critically and reappraise their own experience as learners. Key topics covered include: • studying the definition of inclusion • the relevance of pedagogy in inclusive practice • how to lead and manage for inclusion • the issue of inclusion in early years, primary, secondary and post-16 settings • inclusive practice for families • international perspectives on inclusive practice. Fully illustrated with tasks, case studies, discussion questions and recommended reading, _Inclusive Education_ is essential reading for second and third year students looking to extend their research and writing, and to develop their critical and reflective thinking. (shrink)

The relevance of the study is the need to reform the educational environment based on the values of inclusion to ensure the accessibility of quality education for all people. The purpose of the study is to justify the need an inclusive culture formation as a culture of acceptance of diversity and mutual understanding. The research problem is the lack of development of an inclusive organizational culture is a barrier to ensuring the availability of quality education in a variety (...) of health limitations and the educational needs of students. The study is based on the analysis of regulatory documents, comparison and generalization of the available approaches in international and Russian theory and practice on the inclusion values issue in the strategy of educational organizations and the formation of an inclusive organizational culture. Results: it was established that the inclusive agenda in education aggravates the problem of the formation of an inclusive organizational culture as a culture of accepting diversity as a value, advantage, significant educational, upbringing, developing resource; staged, the need for a proactive strategy of the formation of intercultural competencies are justified. -/- . (shrink)

Thomas Morris and Richard Swinburne have recently defended what they call the ‘two-minds’ model of the Incarnation. This model, which I refer to as the ‘inclusion model’ or ‘inclusionism’, claims that Christ had two consciousnesses, a human and a divine consciousness, with the former consciousness contained within the latter one. I begin by exploring the motivation for, and structure of, inclusionism. I then develop a variety of objections to it: some philosophical, others theological in nature. Finally, I sketch a variant (...) of inclusionism which I call ‘restricted inclusionism’ (RI); RI can evade many, but not all, of the objections to standard inclusionism. (shrink)

The paper provides a neurophilosophical assessment of a controversy between two neuroeconomic models that compete to identify the putative object of neural utility: goods or actions. We raise two objections to the common view that sees the ‘good-based’ model prevailing over the ‘action-based’ model. First, we suggest extending neuroeconomic model discrimination to all of the models’ neurophilosophical assumptions, showing that action-based assumptions are necessary to explain real-world value-based decisions. Second, we show that the good-based model’s presumption of introducing a (...) normative neural definition of economic choice would arbitrarily restrict the domain of economic choice and consequently of economics. (shrink)

The paper challenges the view that public justification sits well with emancipatory and egalitarian intuitions. I distinguish between the depth, scope and the purchase of the discursive standing that such justification allocates, and situate within this matrix Rawls’s view of public justification. A standard objection to this view is that public justification should be more inclusive in scope. This is both plausible and problematic in emancipatory and egalitarian terms. If inclusive public justification allocates discursive standing that is rich (...) in purchase, as seems desirable in emancipatory terms, it may be unable to allocate equal standing to all relevant people. And if it is to allocate equal standing, then the equality of that standing should be construed in terms that allow for unequal discursive purchase. (shrink)

Inclusive communitarianism focuses on the feeling of home as the source of personal identity and individual well-being. The feeling of home can be disrupted by moving to a new dwelling, community or nation, or by experiencing changes to one’s dwelling or community while remaining in place. Immigration can cause both a disruption to the feeling of home for immigrants and for those living in the community immigrants settle in. Traditional communitarianism seeks to protect current members from changes resulting from (...) immigration. Inclusive communitarianism seeks the construction of an inclusive narrative community identity in which all residents can feel at home. (shrink)