Recently, there have been attempts at offering new justifications of the Rawlsian idea of public reason. Blain Neufeld has suggested that the ideal of political autonomy justifies public reason, while R.J. Leland and Han van Wietmarschen have sought to justify the idea by appealing to the value of political community. In this paper, I show that both proposals are vulnerable to a common problem. In realistic circumstances, they will often turn into reasons to oppose, rather than support, public reason. However, (...) this counterintuitive result can be avoided if we conceive of autonomy and community differently. (shrink)

ARISTOTLE'S Ethics are not focused on a group of moral principles; they are developed from the affirmation of an end which subordinates all human activities. This end is sought for itself and is called "the good and the best".

The Aristotelian discussion of this theme has focused the attention of researchers and commentators on the question of practical reason. The main problem has been to determine if the end is fixed by moral virtue alone while practical reason is concerned only with the deliberation on the "means" that contribute to the end, or if practical wisdom plays a role as well in the determination of the end.

The introduction of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) in controlled donation after circulatory determination of death (cDCDD) protocols is by some regarded as controversial and ethically troublesome. One of the main concerns that opponents have about introducing NRP in cDCDD protocols is that reestablishing circulation will negate the determination of death by circulatory criteria, potentially resuscitating the donor. In this article, I argue that this is not the case. If we take a closer look at the concept of death underlying the (...) circulatory criterion for determination of death, we find that the purpose of the criterion is to show whether the organism as a whole has died. I argue that this purpose is fulfilled by the circulatory criterion in cDCDD protocols, and that applying NRP does not negate the determination of death or resuscitate the donor. (shrink)

The vital status of patients who are a part of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is widely debated in bioethical literature. Opponents to currently applied cDCD protocols argue that they violate the dead donor rule, while proponents of the protocols advocate compatibility. In this article, we argue that both parties often misinterpret the moral implications of the dead donor rule. The rule as such does not require an assessment of a donor’s vital status, we contend, but rather an assessment (...) of whether procurement of organs in cDCD cause the death of the donor or not. We then argue that commonly practiced cDCD protocols do not violate the dead donor rule, since the donation does not trigger or cause the death of the donors. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In ita original form the present paper was presented to the American Mathematical Society, April 2k,, as a companion piece to the writer's ...

Emotion suppression has been found to have negative psychological and social consequences in Western cultural contexts. Yet, in some other cultural contexts, emotion suppression is less likely to have negative consequences; relatedly, emotion suppression is also more common in those East-Asian cultural contexts. In a dyadic conflict study, we aim to conceptually replicate cultural differences found in previous research with respect to the prevalence and consequences of emotion suppression,and extend previous research by testing whether cultural differences are larger for some (...) than for other types of negative emotions. We postulate that cultural differences in suppression are less pronounced for socially engaging emotions than socially disengaging emotions, because the former foster the relationship, whereas the latter emphasize individual goals. Belgian and Japanese couples engaged in a 10-min conflict interaction followed by video-mediated recall, during which participants rated their emotions and emotion suppression every 30 s. As predicted, Japanese participants reported more suppression than their Belgian counterparts, but the cultural difference was more pronounced when participants experienced more socially disengaging emotions than when they experienced more socially engaging emotions. These results suggest that the type of emotion should be considered when describing cultural differences in emotion suppression. Finally, and consistent with previous research, emotion suppression was negatively associated with interaction outcomes in Belgian couples, but not in Japanese couples. (shrink)

Investigates the assumptions of such philosophers as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Sartre regarding Jewish existence.

In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals , Emile Durkheim outlined the core of his theory of morality and social rights which was to dominate his work throughout the course of his life. In Durkheim's view, sociology is a science of morals which are objective social facts, and these moral regulations form the basis of individual rights and obligations. This book is crucial to an understanding of Durkheim's sociology because it contains his much-neglected theory of the state as a moral institution, (...) and it provides an understanding of his critique of anomie and egoistic individualism. The growing interest in cultural revolution and moral regulation make this edition of Durkheim's classic work especially timely. The new preface by Bryan Turner sets the book in its intellectual and historical context, and illustrates the relevance of this work to present day debates on the state, society, and moral regulation. (shrink)

Normative economics and a hermeneutic approach to interpretation of legal norms are only compatible if - and this is the exception - such legal norms have the goal of accomplishing economic efficiency. But economic analysis of law as a positive approach may be used in the legal interpretation process in order to evaluate different options of norm interpretations. In fields of law where economic issues are at stake such a methodological evaluation of interpretative variants are superior to common sense analysis (...) and should be applied. But even in fields where non-economic issues play a major role an economic analysis is a helpful tool in order to get aware of the opportunity costs of economically sub-optimal solutions. Economic analysis of law thus becomes an integral part of the norm interpretation process without colliding with the autonomy of the legal decision enhancing the rationality of the endeavour. (shrink)

Along with the Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Straits, the Strait of Hormuz is arguably the most important bottleneck in international navigation because a large part of the global oil production needs to be shipped through this passage, which is only a few kilometers wide. In the context of the dispute about Iran’s nuclear program and new sanctions, Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz for international shipping, effectively cutting off many Western countries from important oil imports. (...) In this article, the legality of such action as well as the legality of the mere threat to close the Strait of Hormuz are investigated. In addition to the International Law of the Sea, general rules of international law and the international law of armed conflict are taken into consideration. Particular emphasis is put on the sovereignty of other states, which is infringed upon by such threats on the part of the Iranian leadership. First, the question has to be answered whether a passage through these waters would be transit passage through a Strait or normal passage through the coastal state’s territorial sea. The authors of the article conclude that the regime of transit passage applies qua lex specialis, as far as the part of the Strait of Hormuz, which is included in Iran’s territorial waters, is concerned. The next step is to ask the question whether preventing such a passage as well as threatening to prevent such a passage are permissible for Iran. In this context, the potential abuse of otherwise permitted traffic separation schemes is highlighted. Traffic separation schemes are of particular importance in narrow but highly frequented bodies of water, such as the Strait of Hormuz. In addition, the contemporary Iranian state practice has received some attention. One issue to be considered in more detail is the requirement that foreign warships receive authorization from the coastal state prior to entry into the territorial sea. This approach might be incompatible with the right to innocent passage under both the Law of the Sea Convention and customary international law, as there is no clear legal source, which provides for this requirement. Finally, the authors look at the question of the legality of the mere threat to close the Strait of Hormuz as opposed to actually closing the Strait. The sovereignty of other states may be affected to such an extent that such threats already amount to a violation of international law. In light of the historic precedents during the Iran-Iraq War, these threats should not be dismissed lightly. Iran would be well advised to refrain from such rhetoric. (shrink)

Selections from Durkheim's writings focus on the nature of his conception of society and its moral context.

We investigate the computational complexity of deciding whether a given inference rule is admissible for some modal and superintuitionistic logics. We state a broad condition under which the admissibility problem is coNEXP-hard. We also show that admissibility in several well-known systems (including GL, S4, and IPC) is in coNE, thus obtaining a sharp complexity estimate for admissibility in these systems.

A detailed exploration of Jewish thought and how it compares with the ideas of modern philosophy.

We develop approximate counting of sets definable by Boolean circuits in bounded arithmetic using the dual weak pigeonhole principle (dWPHP(PV)), as a generalization of results from [15]. We discuss applications to formalization of randomized complexity classes (such as BPP, APP, MA, AM) in PV₁ + dWPHP(PV).