This paper presents a case study of the South African operation of a logistics company, operating in a context of short-termism and under-performance. Frustration with managing in this context, and concern that this environment might erode the customer value proposition, prompted an exploration of the question: “How can the business prioritise its investment in intangibles to support sustainable growth in an environment of short-termism and sub-par business performance?” The study followed an inductive grounded theory approach and began with an exploration (...) of the system of short-termism as it was being experienced by the management team. This evolved in an iterative process to include an exploration of the customer value proposition, the organisation’s capabilities and the system of investment in intangibles. Data were collected over a period of 6 months, across a series of four stages as the management team grappled with the short-term financial objectives imposed on them. The data categories were used to develop 214 propositions across all stages. Through the four stages, four artefacts were developed from the propositions a causal loop diagram of the system of short-termism; a documented value proposition; an assessment of the health of the business’ capitals; and a multi-year intangibles investment programme. The findings indicate that a focus on investment in intangible assets can play a vital role in stimulating sustainable value creation in an environment of historically poor returns on investment and pressure for short-term financial results. It is suggested that investment in intangibles can be introduced as a multi-year capabilities investment plan. The study succeeded in getting investment in intangibles approved and the implication is that long-term decision-making can co-exist in an environment of short-termism and low growth. (shrink)

Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said toexpress open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled.This paper addresses the question what is the linguistic content ofthese expressions, what information they can be said to provide to ahearer, and in what sense the information of a speaker can be said tosupport their utterance. We present and motivate first order notions ofcontent, update and support. The three notions are each defined in acompositional fashion and brought together within a (...) single and coherentframework. (shrink)

In this article some of the presuppositions that underly the current ideas about decision making capacity, autonomy and independence are critically examined. The focus is on chronic disorders, especially on chronic physical disorders. First, it is argued that the concepts of decision making competence and autonomy, as they are usually applied to the problem of legal (in)competence in the mentally ill, need to be modified and adapted to the situation of the chronically (physically) ill. Second, it is argued that autonomy (...) and dependence must not be considered as two mutually exclusive categories. It is suggested that decision making may take on the form of a more or less conscious decision not to be involved in making all kinds of explicit and deliberate decisions. Elaborating on Agich's distinction between ideal and actual autonomy, the concept of Socratic autonomy is introduced. (shrink)

For a few decades, patients with Parkinson's disease have been treated with intracerebral transplantations of fetal mesencephalic tissue. The results of open trials have been variable. Double blind, placebo-controlled studies have recently been started in order to further investigate the efficacy of this new medical technique. In this paper we challenge the need for sham surgery in neurotransplantation research on PD patients. Considerations regarding the research subjects' informed consent, therapeutic misconception, the integrity of the human body, and the assessment of (...) risks and benefits argue against sham surgery for patients with PD. Moreover, there is an alternative, less harmful mode of research that can provide the same or comparable scientific evidence. A plea is made for intrapatient research based on quantitative measurements of the patient's pre- and post-operative condition combined with similar research on a reference group of patients who have received the standard treatment. (shrink)

Suppose that you prefer A to B, B to C, and C to A. Your preferences violate Expected Utility Theory by being cyclic. Money-pump arguments offer a way to show that such violations are irrational. Suppose that you start with A. Then you should be willing to trade A for C and then C for B. But then, once you have B, you are offered a trade back to A for a small cost. Since you prefer A to B, you (...) pay the small sum to trade from B to A. But now you have been turned into a money pump. You are back to the alternative you started with but with less money. This Element shows how each of the axioms of Expected Utility Theory can be defended by money-pump arguments of this kind. The Element also defends money-pump arguments from the standard objections to this kind of approach. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Medicine does not usually consider the human body from an aesthetic point of view. This article explores the notion of the lived body as aesthetic object in anthropological medicine, concentrating on the views of Buytendijk and Straus on human uprightness and gracefulness. It is argued that their insights constitute a counter-balance to the way the human body is predominantly approached in medicine and medical ethics. In particular, (1) the relationship between anthropological, aesthetic and ethical norms, (2) the possible danger of (...) a naturalistic fallacy, (3) the implications for the care of disabled people and (4) the intrinsic aesthetic quality of the human body are dealt with. (shrink)

Enacting an AI system typically requires three iterative phases where AI engineers are in command: selection and preparation of the data, selection and configuration of algorithmic tools, and fine-tuning of the different parameters on the basis of intermediate results. Our main hypothesis is that these phases involve practices with ethical questions. This paper maps these ethical questions and proposes a way to address them in light of a neo-republican understanding of freedom, defined as absence of domination. We thereby identify different (...) types of responsibility held by AI engineers and link them to concrete suggestions on how to improve professional practices. This paper contributes to the literature on AI and ethics by focusing on the work necessary to configure AI systems, thereby offering an input to better practices and an input for societal debates. (shrink)

A straightforward way to handle moral uncertainty is simply to follow the moral theory in which you have most credence. This approach is known as My Favourite Theory. In this paper, I argue that, in some cases, My Favourite Theory prescribes choices that are, sequentially, worse in expected moral value than the opposite choices according to each moral theory you have any credence in. In addition this, problem generalizes to other approaches that avoid intertheoretic comparisons of value, such as My (...) Favourite Option, the Borda Rule, Variance Normalization, and the Principle of Maximizing Expected Normalized Moral Value. (shrink)

Spinoza and Education offers a comprehensive investigation into the educational implications of Spinoza’s moral theory. Taking Spinoza’s naturalism as its point of departure, it constructs a considered account of education, taking special care to investigate the educational implications of Spinoza’s psychological egoism. What emerges is a counterintuitive form of education grounded in the egoistic striving of the teacher to persevere and to flourish in existence while still catering to the ethical demands of the students and the greater community. -/- In (...) providing an educational reading of Spinoza’s moral theory, this book sets up a critical dialogue between educational theory and recent studies which highlight the centrality of ethics in Spinoza’s overall philosophy. By placing his work in a contemporary educational context, chapters explore a counterintuitive conception of education as an ethical project, aimed at overcoming the desire to seek short-term satisfaction and troubling the influential concept of the student as consumer. This book also considers how education, from a Spinozistic point of view, may be approached in terms of a kind of cognitive therapy serving to further a more scientifically adequate understanding of the world and aimed at combating prejudices and superstition. -/- Spinoza and Education demonstrates that Spinoza’s moral theory can further an educational ideal, where notions of freedom and self-preservation provide the conceptual core of a coherent philosophy of education. As such, it will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education, critical thinking, philosophy, ethics, and Spinoza studies. (shrink)

Periodic attacks of uncertain origin, where the clinical presentationresembles epilepsy but there is no evidence of a somatic disease, arecalled Pseudo-Epilepsy or Pseudo-Epileptic Attack Disorder (PEAD). PEADmay be called a `non-disease', i.e. a disorder on the fringes ofestablished disease patterns, because it lacks a rationalpathophysiological explanation. The first aim of this article is tocriticize the idea, common in medical science, that diseases are realentities which exist separately from the patient, waiting to bediscovered by the doctor. We argue that doctor and (...) patient construct adisease, and that the construction of the disease PEAD includes manynormative evaluations. The second aim is to provide insight into thesuffering of patients with PEAD. We focus on three aspects of thepatient, identity, autonomy and responsibility. We present somecharacteristic descriptions of (pseudo-)epileptic attacks by FjodorDostoevsky, Gustave Flaubert and Thomas Mann. We argue that diagnosingPEAD reduces a meaningful life event into an insignificant, thoughintriguing, medical phenomenon, and that the patient will not benefitfrom being diagnosed as having PEAD. (shrink)

One might think that money pumps directed at agents with cyclic preferences can be avoided by foresight. This view was challenged two decades ago by the discovery of a money pump with foresight, which works against agents who use backward induction. But backward induction implausibly assumes that the agent would act rationally and retain her trust in her future rationality even at choice nodes that could only be reached if she were to act irrationally. This worry does not apply to (...) BI-terminating decision problems, where at each choice node backward induction prescribes a move that terminates further action. For BI-terminating decision problems, it is enough to assume that rationality and trust in rationality are retained at choice nodes reachable by rational moves. The old money pump with foresight was not BI-terminating. In this paper, we present a new money pump with foresight, one that is both BI-terminating and considerably simpler. (shrink)

Education and Free Will critically assesses and makes use of Spinoza’s insights on human freedom to construe an account of education that is compatible with causal determinism without sacrificing the educational goal of increasing students’ autonomy and self-determination. Offering a thorough investigation into the philosophical position of causal determinism, Dahlbeck discusses Spinoza’s view of self-determination and presents his own suggestions for an education for autonomy from a causal determinist point of view. -/- The book begins by outlining the free will (...) problem in education, before expanding on a philosophical understanding of autonomy and how it is seen as an educational ideal. It considers Spinoza’s determinism and discusses his denial of moral responsibility. Later chapters consider the relationship between causal determinism and autonomy, the educational implications of understanding free will and how free will can be utilised as a valuable fiction in education. -/- This book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, especially those with an interest in moral education and philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to those in the fields of philosophy and psychology and specifically those focusing on the free will problem, on Spinoza studies, and on the relation between moral psychology and external influence. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical enquiry into the educational consequences of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza’s political theory is of particular interest for educational thought as it brings together the normative aims of his ethical theory with his realistic depiction of human psychology and the ramifications of this for successful political governance. As such, this book aims to introduce the reader to Spinoza’s original vision of civic education, as a project that ultimately aims at the ethical flourishing of individuals, while being (...) carefully tailored and adjusted to the natural limitations of human reason. -/- Readers will benefit from a succinct introduction to Spinoza’s political philosophy and from an account of civic education that is based on careful exegetical work. It draws conclusions only hinted at in Spinoza’s own writings. (shrink)

According to Longtermism, our acts’ expected influence on the expected value of the world is mainly determined by their effects in the far future. There is, given total utilitarianism, a straightforward argument for Longtermism due to the enormous number of people that might exist in the future, but this argument does not work on person-affecting views. In this paper, we will argue that these views might also lead to Longtermism if Prudential Longtermism is true. Prudential Longtermism holds for a person (...) if and only if our acts’ overall influence on that person’s expected well-being is mainly determined by the acts’ effects in the far future. We argue that (due to a small chance of anti-ageing and uploading) there could be an enormous amount of prudential value for some contemporary person in the far future and that value may be so large that it dominates their overall expectation of lifetime well-being. (shrink)

Given reductionism about people, personal persistence must fundamentally consist in some kind of impersonal continuity relation. Typically, these continuity relations can hold from one to many. And, if they can, the analysis of personal persistence must include a non-branching clause to avoid non-transitive identities or multiple occupancy. It is far from obvious, however, what form this clause should take. This paper argues that previous accounts are inadequate and develops a new proposal.

A standard liberal claim is that freedom of choice is not only instrumentally valuable but also intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable for its own sake. I argue that each one of five conditions is plausible if freedom of choice is intrinsically valuable. Yet there exists a counter-example to the conjunction of these conditions. Hence freedom of choice is not intrinsically valuable.

Is an outcome where many people are saved and one person dies better than an outcome where the one is saved and the many die? According to the standard utilitarian justification, the former is better because it has a greater sum total of well-being. This justification involves a controversial form of moral aggregation, because it is based on a comparison between aggregates of different people's well-being. Still, an alternative justification—the Argument for Best Outcomes—does not involve moral aggregation. I extend the (...) Argument for Best Outcomes to show that any utilitarian evaluation can be justified without moral aggregation. (shrink)

This article develops a new measure of freedom of choice based on the proposal that a set offers more freedom of choice than another if, and only if, the expected degree of dissimilarity between a random alternative from the set of possible alternatives and the most similar offered alternative in the set is smaller. Furthermore, a version of this measure is developed, which is able to take into account the values of the possible options.

This book is a philosophical enquiry into the educational consequences of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza’s political theory is of particular interest for educational thought as it brings together the normative aims of his ethical theory with his realistic depiction of human psychology and the ramifications of this for successful political governance. As such, the book aims to introduce the reader to Spinoza’s original vision of civic education, as a project that ultimately aims at the ethical flourishing of individuals, while being (...) carefully tailored and adjusted to the natural limitations of human reason. This author-meets-critics includes scholars in philosophy, education and Spinoza studies. (shrink)

This paper analyses the use of strategies and instruments for organising ethics by small and large business in the Netherlands. We find that large firms mostly prefer an integrity strategy to foster ethical behaviour in the organisation, whereas small enterprises prefer a dialogue strategy. Both large and small firms make least use of a compliance strategy that focuses on controlling and sanctioning the ethical behaviour of workers. The size of the business is found to have a positive impact on the (...) use of several instruments, like code of conduct, ISO certification, social reporting, social handbook and confidential person. Also being a subsidiary of a larger firm has a significant positive influence on the use of instruments. The most popular instrument used by small firms is to let one member of the board be answerable for ethical questions, which fits the informal culture of most small firms. With respect to sectorial differences, we find that firms in the metal manufacturing and construction sectors are more actively using formal instruments than firms in the financial service sector and retail sector. The distinction between family and non-family firms hardly affects the use of instruments. (shrink)

Independence is the condition that, if X is preferred to Y, then a lottery between X and Z is preferred to a lottery between Y and Z given the same probability of Z. Is it rationally required that one’s preferences conform to Independence? The main objection to this requirement is that it would rule out the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences. In this paper, I put forward a sequential dominance argument with fairly weak assumptions for a variant of (...) Independence (called Independence for Constant Prospects), which shows that Allais and Ellsberg Preferences are irrational. Hence this influential objection (that is, the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences) can be rebutted. I also put forward a number of sequential dominance arguments that various versions of Independence are requirements of rationality. One of these arguments is based on very minimal assumptions, but the arguments for the versions of Independence which are strong enough to serve in the standard axiomatization of Expected Utility Theory need notably stronger assumptions. (shrink)

Duurzaamheid: daar kun je niet tegen zijn, toch? Maar iets waar iedereen voor is, ontsnapt algauw aan een kritische bevraging. Waar hebben we het eigenlijk over? Er zijn vele definities van duurzaamheid en duurzame ontwikkeling en diverse duurzaamheidsmaten ontwikkeld. Dit artikel probeert duurzaamheid vanuit verschillende perspectieven te onderzoeken. Vanuit zo'n collage – of lappendeken – worden hoop ik contouren zichtbaar van mogelijke andere wijzen van omgaan met duurzaamheid, schaarste en overvloed.

_“Emotion as an element of contemporary Criticism in the intellectual Environment of the Weimar Republic – A contextual Reading of the Presentation of the Affective in Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt”_ This article examines a specific use of emotional concepts as well as a particular understanding of the affective in general in the work of Heidegger and Schmitt during the years 1919-1933. The general character of this idea of the affective is that it is developed as an element of a (...) critical engagement with discourses regarding institutional change. Thus, I will be reading the two thinkers in the light of institutional disputes present in the Weimar Republic. Heidegger is read in relation to the question of university reform, with which he was deeply involved in the 1920´s. Schmitt will be analyzed through the political situation of the newly established liberal democracy. In both cases, I will argue that a conception of the affective is developed that serves to attack a perceived relativism. This is seen in the fact that, for both thinkers, certain affective categories are linked to stable existential categories: being for Heidegger and the dichotomy between friend and foe for Schmitt. (shrink)

A dialogue, in three parts, on utilitarian vulnerability to exploitation.

Bayesian models are often criticized for postulating computations that are computationally intractable (e.g., NP-hard) and therefore implausibly performed by our resource-bounded minds/brains. Our letter is motivated by the observation that Bayesian modelers have been claiming that they can counter this charge of “intractability” by proposing that Bayesian computations can be tractably approximated. We would like to make the cognitive science community aware of the problematic nature of such claims. We cite mathematical proofs from the computer science literature that show intractable (...) Bayesian computations, such as postulated in existing Bayesian models, cannot be tractably approximated. This does not mean that human brains do not (or cannot) implement the type of algorithms that Bayesian modelers are advancing, but it does mean that proposing that they do by itself does nothing to parry the charge of intractability, because the postulated algorithms are as intractable (i.e., require exponential time) as the computations they try to approximate. Besides our negative message for the community, our letter also makes a positive contribution by referring to a methodology that Bayesian modelers can use to try and parry the charge of intractability in a mathematically sound way. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article aspires to make two original contributions to the vast literature on Hobbes’s account of the nature and person of the commonwealth: (1) I provide the first systematic analysis of his changing conception of ‘person’; and (2) use it to show that those who claim that the Hobbesian commonwealth is created by personation by fiction misconstrue his theory of the state. Whereas Elements/de Cive advance a metaphysics-based distinction between individuals (‘natural persons’) and corporations (‘civil persons’), from Leviathan onwards (...) Hobbes contrasts individuals acting in their own name (‘natural persons’) with representatives (‘artificial persons’). These changes notwithstanding, Hobbes retains the same corporate conception of the state throughout. On the prevailing ‘fictionalist’ interpretation, the sovereign brings the commonwealth into existence by representing it. I argue, rather, that as an incorporation of natural persons, the commonwealth becomes one person through the authorized (i.e. non-fictitious) representation of each constituent member singly by one common representative (‘the sovereign’). (shrink)

A synthesis of neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary, sociological, and historical coevolution ary models could be used for constructive technology assessment, aimed at the active management of the process of technological change. This article proposes a synthetic quasi-evolutionary model, in which variation and selection are neither independent nor coincidental processes. Variation and selection are linked by actors, resulting in the actor role labeled technological nexus. On the basis of the quasi-evolutionary approach, three constructive technology assessment strategies are proposed: stimulating alternative variations, changing the (...) selection environment, and creating or utilizing technological nexus. The usefulness of these concepts is demonstrated for the case of clean technolo gies. Ultimately, a conscious application of these strategies could result in a new actor role for government as a creative social regulator of technological change. (shrink)

John Locke’s account of personal identity is usually thought to have been proved false by Thomas Reid’s simple ‘Gallant Officer’ argument. Locke is traditionally interpreted as holding that your having memories of a past person’s thoughts or actions is necessary and sufficient for your being identical to that person. This paper argues that the traditional memory interpretation of Locke’s account is mistaken and defends a memory continuity view according to which a sequence of overlapping memories is necessary and sufficient for (...) personal identity. On this view Locke is not vulnerable to the Gallant Officer argument. (shrink)

Kurt Gödel’s version of the Ontological Proof derives rather than assumes the crucial Possibility Claim: the claim that it is possible that something God-like exists. Gödel’s derivation starts off with a proof of the Possible Instantiation of the Positive: the principle that, if a property is positive, it is possible that there exists something that has that property. I argue that Gödel’s proof of this principle relies on some implausible axiological assumptions but it can be patched so that it only (...) relies on plausible principles. But Gödel’s derivation of the Possibility Claim also needs a substantial axiological assumption, which is still open to doubt. (shrink)

Immigration is often associated with a situation in which would-be migrants and their countries of origin are put at the mercy of others’ decisions. The main objective of this article is to theorize this ‘being at the mercy’ in light of a republican definition of what freedom is about: the absence of domination. Immigration policy represents instances of domination on a wide spectrum of individuals and political communities. This article focuses on the procedural discretion claimed by states of destination in (...) their relations with would-be migrants. On the basis of a definition of the concept of ‘jurisdiction’, the article distinguishes 4 paradigmatic situations of immigration, which all display situations of domination. In each situation, the state of destination arbitrarily interferes with important interests of individuals and political communities. In light of this argument, existing mechanisms in national, transnational and international settings can be identified and justified as anti-domination measures. The argument offers a blueprint on how to further develop them in preventing domination in immigration. (shrink)

Immigration is often associated with a situation in which would-be migrants and their countries of origin are put at the mercy of others’ decisions. The main objective of this article is to theorize this ‘being at the mercy’ in light of a republican definition of what freedom is about: the absence of domination. Immigration policy represents instances of domination on a wide spectrum of individuals and political communities. This article focuses on the procedural discretion claimed by states of destination in (...) their relations with would-be migrants. On the basis of a definition of the concept of ‘jurisdiction’, the article distinguishes 4 paradigmatic situations of immigration, which all display situations of domination. In each situation, the state of destination arbitrarily interferes with important interests of individuals and political communities. In light of this argument, existing mechanisms in national, transnational and international settings can be identified and justified as anti-domination measures. The argument offers a blueprint on how to further develop them in preventing domination in immigration. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the relationship between various Christian denominations and attitude and behavior regarding consumption of socially responsible products. Literature on the relationship between religiosity and pro-social behavior has shown that religiosity strengthens positive attitudes towards pro-social behavior, but does not affect social behavior itself. This seems to contradict the theory of planned behavior that predicts that attitude fosters behavior. One would therefore expect that if religiosity encourages attitude towards SR products, it would also increase the demand for (...) them. We test this hypothesis for four affiliations on a sample of 997 Dutch consumers, using structural equation modeling. We find that Christian religiosity, indeed, increases positive attitude towards SR products, except for the Orthodox Protestant affiliation. In accordance with the theory of planned behavior, attitude is found to increase the demand for SR products. We find no evidence of hypocrisy for any of the Christian denominations. (shrink)

Ontology and theology cannot be combined if ontology excludes non physical causes. This paper examines some possibilities for ontology to be combined with theology in so far as non physical causes are permitted. The paper builds on metaphysical findings that shows that separate ontological domains can interact causally indirectly via interfaces. As interfaces are not universes a first universe is allowed to be caused by an interface without violating the principle of causal closure of any universe. Formal theology can therefore (...) be based on the assumption that the (first) universe is caused by God if God is defined as the first cause. Given this, formal theology and science can have the same ontological base. (shrink)

In participatory activities in the workplace, employees are invited to raise problems and suggest improvements to the management. Although it is widely acknowledged that employees rarely control decisions in these settings, little is known about the interactional resources that employees and managers draw upon when negotiating consensus about which initiatives to pursue in the future. We analyse interactions from participatory meetings in an industrial setting in relation to the topic of work shoes, showing how the participants orient to both their (...) relative deontic rights and epistemic rights. The analysis suggests that besides their low deontic status, employees’ fragile epistemic status constitutes an important but overlooked challenge to achieving improved working conditions through the participatory activities. (shrink)