Fueled by ever-growing amounts of (digital) data and advances in artificial intelligence, decision-making in contemporary societies is increasingly delegated to automated processes. Drawing from social science theories and from the emerging body of research about algorithmic appreciation and algorithmic perceptions, the current study explores the extent to which personal characteristics can be linked to perceptions of automated decision-making by AI, and the boundary conditions of these perceptions, namely the extent to which such perceptions differ across media, (public) health, and judicial (...) contexts. Data from a scenario-based survey experiment with a national sample (N = 958) show that people are by and large concerned about risks and have mixed opinions about fairness and usefulness of automated decision-making at a societal level, with general attitudes influenced by individual characteristics. Interestingly, decisions taken automatically by AI were often evaluated on par or even better than human experts for specific decisions. Theoretical and societal implications about these findings are discussed. (shrink)

English summary: The blooming of ancient thought throughout the Renaissance and the Early Modern Age took place mainly in the shape of late antique philosophy. Many of its characteristic main features have influenced modern thought in a defining manner. In the present book, Theo Kobusch addresses those features which still determine our thinking today. Although this intellectual heritage, both in its ancient and modern forms, has largely been forgotten, it is however worth remembering that modern thought is indebted to an (...) intellectual transformation on a large scale. The author shows how this becomes evident by focusing on key aspects such as the concept of philosophy, universal Christendom, the inner man, awareness, rational faith, creatio ex nihilo, the concept of god, practical metaphysics, univocity of morality, and the theory of mind and will. German description: Das Denken der Antike ist, vor allem in der Gestalt der spatantiken Philosophie, der paganen wie der christlichen, in Renaissance und Neuzeit wieder aufgebluht. Es sind charakteristische Grundzuge der spatantiken Philosophie, die bestimmend auf das Denken der Moderne gewirkt haben. Theo Kobusch befasst sich im vorliegenden Band mit diesen Grundzugen, die unser Denken bis heute bestimmen. Dieses geistige Erbe, sei es in seiner modernen oder in der spatantiken Form, haben wir jedoch grosstenteils vergessen. Doch es ist der Erinnerung wurdig, dass das Denken der Neuzeit sich einer Transformation grossen Stils verdankt. Der Autor verdeutlich dies, indem er unter anderem die Schwerpunkte Philosophiebegriff, das universale Christentum, den inneren Menschen, die Aufmerksamkeit, den Vernunftglauben, die Schopfung aus Nichts, den Gottesbegriff, praktische Metaphysik, Univozitat des Moralischen und die Geist- und Willenslehre herausarbeitet. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article considers the economic case for so-called sweatshop wages and working conditions. My goal is not to defend or reject the economic case for sweatshops. Instead, proceeding from a broadly pluralist understanding of value, I make and defend a number of claims concerning the ethical relevance of economic analysis for values that different agents utilize to evaluate sweatshops. My arguments give special attention to a series of recent articles by Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski, which represent the latest and (...) best defense of the economic case for sweatshops. In the process, I challenge Zwolinski’s “non-worseness claim” (NWC), and the idea that opposition to sweatshop wages and working conditions fails to respect that the autonomy of would-be sweatshop workers. Ultimately, I conclude that even if the economic case for sweatshops rests on a solid empirical foundation, agents possess good reason to advocate for better wages and working conditions for sweatshop workers, and to prefer less exploitative or coercive relationships. Sweatshop labor undermines a compelling vision of free markets, according to both Kantian and republican conceptions of freedom, and the relationships formed by those who participate in such markets. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article considers the economic case for so-called sweatshop wages and working conditions. My goal is not to defend or reject the economic case for sweatshops. Instead, proceeding from a broadly pluralist understanding of value, I make and defend a number of claims concerning the ethical relevance of economic analysis for values that different agents utilize to evaluate sweatshops. My arguments give special attention to a series of recent articles by Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski, which represent the latest and (...) best defense of the economic case for sweatshops. In the process, I challenge Zwolinski’s “non-worseness claim”, and the idea that opposition to sweatshop wages and working conditions fails to respect that the autonomy of would-be sweatshop workers. Ultimately, I conclude that even if the economic case for sweatshops rests on a solid empirical foundation, agents possess good reason to advocate for better wages and working conditions for sweatshop workers, and to prefer less exploitative or coercive relationships. Sweatshop labor undermines a compelling vision of free markets, according to both Kantian and republican conceptions of freedom, and the relationships formed by those who participate in such markets. (shrink)

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) not only enable users to read or create content about brands, but also to easily pass along this content using information diffusion mechanisms such as retweeting or sharing. While these capabilities can be optimal for viral marketing, little is known, however, about how reading brand messages passed along by SNS contacts influences online brand communication outcomes. Results of a survey with active SNS users indicate that (1) message evaluation, (2) the relationship with the sender, and (3) (...) the receiver’s opinion leadership and opinion-seeking levels influence not only the receiver’s intention to pass along the message further, but also his or her attitude towards the brand. The implications of these findings are discussed, including how these capabilities brought on by SNSs change the brand-consumer relationship online. (shrink)

Responding to criticism by Gordon Sollars and Frank Englander, this paper highlights a significant tension in recent debates over the ethics of global supply chains. This tension concerns the appropriate focus and normative frame for these debates. My first goal is to make sense of what at first reading seems to be a very odd set of claims: that valuing free, autonomous, and respectful markets entails a “fetish for philosophical purity” that is inconsistent with a moral theory that finds no (...) wrong in harming workers, including the least advantaged among them. Sollars and Englander reach these conclusions, I believe, because their criticism assumes and relies upon the presumption of a global prioritarian frame, one which focuses individual welfare, and which they then apply at the level of individual political and economic actors. Much of Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski’s work, I continue, including their criticism of political and economic activism and Powell’s indictment of organized labor, relies on a similar frame—while expanding the harms to include the freedom and autonomy of would-be sweatshop workers. This prioritarian frame, I argue, is particularly poorly suited to discussion of the ethical responsibilities of individual economic and political actors. We ought to reject it. To make progress on debates over global sweatshops, and the ethics of global supply chains in general, we need a better frame, and better standards of freedom and autonomy, than those invoked by many prominent defenders of sweatshops. (shrink)

This book takes bold steps in forming much-needed philosophical foundations for restorative justice through deconstructing and reconstructing various models of thinking. It challenges current debates through the consideration and integration of various disciplines such as law, criminology, philosophy and human rights into restorative justice theory, resulting in the development of new and stimulating arguments. Topics covered include the close relationship and convergence of restorative justice and human rights, some of the challenges of engagement with human rights, the need for the (...) recognition of the teachings of restorative justice at both the theoretical and the applied level, the Aristotelian theory on restorative justice, the role of restorative justice in schools and in police practice and a discussion of the humanistic African philosophy of Ubuntu. With international contributions from various disciplines and through the use of value based research methods, the book deconstructs existing concepts and suggests a new conceptual model for restorative justice. This unique book will be of interest to academics, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. (shrink)

This article concerns freedom and financial markets. First, I consider the republican case for liberalization, extending Robert Taylor’s economic model of republicanism to financial markets. This case adopts what I call a “philosopher-king” approach to political theory, arguing by reference an ideal or first-best set of policies or reforms. Then, I investigate the negative externalities of several decades of financial market liberalization, including the erosion of political accountability and the growing concentration of political and economic power in the hands of (...) those best suited to profit from the rise of finance. From this “political economy” perspective, the impact of liberalization is clear: we paid for greater access to credit with political and economic domination. In republican terms, we traded freedom for credit. My analysis, moreover, has implications for republican debates on freedom and the market. In second-best worlds, where reforms will almost certainly be incremental, shaping the balance of power in ways that impact future policy, judging reforms by reference to a vision of domination-free markets will often suggest policies that make individuals less free. The political economy approach is far more relevant to debates about which economic institutions further or hinder freedom as non-domination. (shrink)

"When a country legalizes active euthanasia, it puts itself on a slippery slope from where it may well go further downward." If true, this is a forceful argument in the battle of those who try to prevent euthanasia from becoming legal. The force of any slippery slope argument, however, is by definition limited by its reference to future developments which cannot empirically be sustained. Experience in the Netherlands—where a law regulating active euthanasia was accepted in April 2001—may shed light on (...) the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the slippery slope argument in the context of the euthanasia debate. This paper consists of three parts. First, it clarifies the Dutch legislation on euthanasia and explains the cultural context in which it originated. Second, it looks at the argument of the slippery slope. A logical and an empirical version are distinguished, and the latter, though philosophically less interesting, proves to be most relevant in the discussion on euthanasia. Thirdly, it addresses the question whether Dutch experiences in the process of legalizing euthanasia justify the fear of a slippery slope. The conclusion is that Dutch experiences justify some caution. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point the particular place of woman in the legal norms since Antiquity, including in sacred texts, especially in the legislation on marriage and adultery. We then present, from De Cive, the Hobbes’ theistic jusnaturalism as an original attempt to found in God and in reason the laws to which women are subjected. But at the moment of his exegesis of verses 5,31-32 of the Gospel of Matthew on repudiation, it seems that his conceptual arsenal (...) wavers : between temporal reign and divine authority, the figure of Jesus threatens the Hobbesian edifice with collapse. We conclude with the idea that it is still positive legislation around women that crystallizes the crucial problems of the anthropology of law and, more generally, of the relationship between the human and the divine. (shrink)

Peptidylprolyl‐isomerases (PPIases) comprise of the protein families of FK506 binding proteins (FKBPs), cyclophilins, and parvulins. Their common feature is their ability to expedite the transition of peptidylprolyl bonds between the cis and the trans conformation. Thus, it seemed highly plausible that PPIase enzymatic activity is crucial for protein folding. However, this has been difficult to prove over the decades since their discovery. In parallel, more and more studies have discovered scaffolding functions of PPIases. This essay discusses the hypothesis that PPIase (...) enzymatic activity might be the consequence of binding to peptidylprolyl protein motifs. The main focus of this paper is the large immunophilins FKBP51 and FKBP52, but other PPIases such as cyclophilin A and Pin1 are also described. From the hypothesis, it follows that the PPIase activity of these proteins might be less relevant, if at all, than the organization of protein complexes through versatile protein binding. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/A33la0dx5LE. (shrink)

There are two principles which bear the name Frege''sprinciple: the principle of compositionality, and the contextprinciple. The aim of this contribution is to investigate whether thisis justified: did Frege accept both principles at the same time, did hehold the one principle but not the other, or did he, at some moment,change his opinion? The conclusion is as follows. There is a developmentin Frege''s position. In the period of Grundlagen he followed to a strict form of contextuality. He repeatedcontextuality in later (...) writings, but became less strict. From 1914 on,pushed by the needs of research, he comes close to compositionality. Buthe could never make the final step toward compositionality forprincipled reasons, therefore he always would reject compositionality. (shrink)

(1983). The Educational Attitudes and Views about School of a Sample of Disadvantaged Fifteen‐year‐olds. Educational Studies: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 69-79.

This chapter claims that only rarely do critical youth studies and social policy include young people in a truly participatory way. The implications of and reasons for this failure are explored. Moreover, through evidence collected over a 3 year youth-led research programme, the chapter investigates how the tools found within the field of user-led, action research can be used for the construction of evidence-based youth policy and the development of new theoretical and methodological models for critical youth studies. A secondary (...) aim is to identify best practices that encourage true participation of young people in decision-making and democratic structures. -/- . (shrink)

The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy has gained prominence as an agricultural R&D agenda of the European Union. Specific research policies are justified as necessary to create a KBBE for societal progress. Playing the role of a master narrative, the KBBE attracts rival visions; each favours a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and its remedies in agro-food innovation. Each vision links a technoscientific paradigm with a quality paradigm: the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology (...) with integral product integrity. From these divergent visions, rival stakeholder networks contend for influence over research policies and priorities, especially within the Framework Programme 7 on Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology, which has aimed to promote a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy. Although the FAFB programme has favoured a life sciences vision, agro-ecological approaches have gained a presence, thus overcoming their general lock-out from agricultural research agendas. In their own way, each rival paradigm emphasises the need for collective systems to gather information for linking producers with users, as a rationale for the public sector to fund distinctive research priorities. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that Hintikka's game theoreticalsemantics for Independence Friendly logic does not formalize theintuitions about independent choices; it rather is aformalization of imperfect information. Furthermore it is shownthat the logic has several remarkable properties (e.g.,renaming of bound variables is not allowed). An alternativesemantics is proposed which formalizes intuitions aboutindependence.

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like ‘having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children’. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent-relative ways of reason-giving. In this paper, I argue for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Such an account will reveal an important structural complexity of practical reasoning (...) in general. Christine Korsgaard relates the rational binding force of practical reasons to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that most of our identities are simply given. Perhaps, Harry Frankfurt is right in arguing that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that “the necessities of love” (in Frankfurt’s phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would lose their character as concerns, if there was a need for them to be cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that our deep concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons. It appears that this account can provide for a viable interpretation of Korsgaard’s argument about the foundational role of practical identities. (shrink)

In this article the Reformer Martin Luther is to be situated against the backdrop of his medieval theological context – considering especially Bernard of Clairvaux. It is well-known that he held in great esteem Bernard and the theology he represented. First of all, Luther's relationship to Bernard is to be investigated by way of a historiographic review of the research that was done in the past 150 years. How did one consider Luther’s attitude toward Bernard, and how did Luther research (...) specifically value this attitude? In this research, denominational positions appear to have played a important role. Secondly, the attempt is made here to sketch Bernard’s place in Luther’s own tradition. Next to the medieval scholastic theology, there were diverse other influences that became important for the young Luther. Bernard’s specific place within the complexity of medieval traditions is to be determined. This is being explained by presenting seven significant texts mainly from Luther’s works, which are added to this article. Finally, the attempt is made to determine more closely Bernard’s place in Luther’s theology between Scholasticism and Mysticism. If one wants to do justice to Bernard in Luther's works, one must take into consideration the way in which Luther has perceived him, namely as a theologian of the Scriptures, a theologian of experience and a preacher of Christ par excellence along the lines of monastic theology. (shrink)

This groundbreaking book revisits the current model for preventing and controlling violent radicalisation and extremism. It proposes a new, evidence-based model, using restorative justice and positive psychology. Using data collected through six international projects and pilots in several countries from 2017 to 2023, it presents the results of these pilots and recommends best practices that adopt successful and positive models for the prevention and control of extremist and hate attitudes. This book speaks to researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and human rights campaigners (...) from around the world looking for a new approach that can better serve harmed parties, their families, and communities. (shrink)

The successful decoding of human genome and subsequent advances in new life sciences innovation create technological presuppositions of a new possibility of justice i.e. the just distribution of both social and natural goods. Although Rawlsians attempt to expand their theory to include this new possibility, they fail to provide plausible metrics of social justice in the genomics and post-genomics era. By contrast, Senians seem to succeed to do so through their index of basic capabilities. This paper explores what might be (...) regarded as a Senian perspective of distributive justice in new life sciences innovation. The argument is that, by comparing freedoms instead of primary goods, the capability theory allows not only for the identification of injustices linked to natural lottery but also for their elimination through the use of new genomic technologies, including gene-based diagnostics, gene therapy, somatic cell engineering and germ-line engineering. These innovative technologies seem to have the potential to reduce variability in natural goods and therefore enable individuals to convert social goods into well-being or welfare. (shrink)