This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law and medicine, (...) truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

Treatment of diseases of the brain by drugs or surgery necessitates an understanding of its structure and functions. The philosophical neurosurgeon soon encounters difficulties when localising the abstract concepts of mind and soul within the tangible 1300-gram organ containing 100 billion neurones. Hippocrates had focused attention on the brain as the seat of the mind. The tabula rasa postulated by Aristotle cannot be localised to a particular part of the brain with the confidence that we can localise spoken speech to (...) Broca's area or the movement of limbs to the contralateral motor cortex. Galen's localisation of imagination, reasoning, judgement and memory in the cerebral ventricles collapsed once it was evident that the functional units-neurones-lay in the parenchyma of the brain. Experiences gained from accidental injuries (Phineas Gage) or temporal lobe resection (William Beecher Scoville); studies on how we see and hear and more recent data from functional magnetic resonance studies have made us aware of the extensive network of neurones in the cerebral hemispheres that subserve the functions of the mind. The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain. When the deeper parts of the brain came within the reach of neurosurgeons, the brainstem proved exceptionally delicate and vulnerable. The concept of brain death after irreversible damage to it has made all of us aware of 'the cocktail of brain soup and spark' in the brainstem so necessary for life. If there be a soul in each of us, surely, it is enshrined here. (shrink)

Individuals of some animal species have been taught simple versions of human language despite their natural communication systems failing to rise to the level of a simple language. How is it, then, that some animals can master a version of language, yet none of them deploy this capacity in their own communication system? I first examine the key design features that are often used to evaluate language-like properties of natural animal communication systems. I then consider one candidate animal system, bird (...) song, because it has several of the key design features or their precursors, including social learning and cultural transmission of their vocal signals. I conclude that although bird song communication is nuanced and complex, and has the acoustic potential for productivity, it is not productive – it cannot be used to say many different things. Finally, I discuss the debate over whether animal communication should be viewed as a cooperative information transmission process, as we typically view human language, or as a competitive process where signaler and receiver vie for control. The debate points to a necessary condition for the evolution of a simple language that has generally been overlooked: the degree of to which the interests of the signaler and receiver align. While strong cognitive and signal production mechanisms are necessary pre-adaptations for a simple language, they are not sufficient. Also necessary is the existence of identical or near-identical interests of signaler and receiver and a socio-ecology that requires high-level cooperation across a range of contexts. In the case of our hominid ancestors, these contexts included hunting, gathering, child care and, perhaps, warfare. I argue that the key condition for the evolution of human language was the extreme interdependency that existed among unrelated individuals in the hunter-gatherer societies of our hominid ancestors. This extreme interdependency produced multiple prosocial adaptations for effective intragroup cooperation, which in partnership with advanced cognitive abilities, set the stage for the evolution of language. (shrink)

مداخلة مترجمة عن الفرنسية للفيلسوف الفرنسي جيل دولوز.

This collection is a festschrift prepared for Williams on his retirement from the White’s Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. The topics covered include equality, consistency, comparison between science and ethics, integrity, moral reasons, the moral system, and moral knowledge. Most of the chapters combine exegetical and critical ambitions. With contributions by J. E. J. Altham, Jon Elster, Nicholas Jardine, Ross Harrison, Christopher Hookway, John McDowell, Martin Hollis, Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, and Charles Taylor, and replies by Bernard Williams.

Much of ecotheology and environmental philosophy has moved deductively from theological and ethical constructs to questions of how we should relate to the natural world. Such approaches are limited in their ability to guide us toward appropriate environmental action for they do not necessarily fit the way the natural world actually functions. Niebuhr's ethic of response, on the other hand, begins with the concrete situation and is inherently ecological for it focuses on interrelationships in an on-going community. It is inductive (...) in character and open to being informed by new findings in the natural and social sciences; thus it is exceptionally well suited to environmental problems, which involve complex scientific, social, and economic questions. (shrink)

What should sociologists make of nature? Pragmatism provides one possible answer to this question by centering the practical relations between humans and nonhuman nature. Stefan Bargheer’s Moral Entanglements offers perhaps the most ambitious effort to develop a pragmatist sociology of nature. The book’s polemical aim is to depose a family of theories that, Bargheer argues, dominate our way of thinking about the relationship between nature and culture. This essay constructs an alternative, more accommodating critical encounter between competing theories. It begins (...) by simultaneously granting Bargheer’s positive theoretical contributions while entertaining several virtues of opposing theories of nature and culture that the book largely overlooks. The results include three challenges for a pragmatist sociology of nature: the problem of depth; the problem of breadth, and the problem of differentiation. I argue that this accommodating critical encounter may result in a smaller distance between pragmatism and other sociological theories of nature and culture, and opens to more opportunities for synthetic conversations, rather than pointing to unbridgeable chasms. (shrink)

This is the first critical study of The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze's most important work on language and ethics, as well as the main source of his vital philosophy of the event.James Williams explains the originality of Deleuze's work with careful definitions of all his innovative terms and a detailed description of the complex structure he constructs. This reading makes connections to his ground-breaking work on literature, to his critical but also progressive relation to the sciences, and to his (...) controversial denial of the priority of standard logics, human values and 'meaning' in thinking.This book will open new debates and develop current ones around Deleuze's work in philosophy, politics, literature, linguistics, cultural studies and sociology. (shrink)

Multiple concepts of nature are at play in environmental theory and practice. One that has gripped several theorists is the idea of nature as referring to that which is independent of humans and human activity. This concept has been subject to forceful criticism, notably in the recent work of Steven Vogel. After clarifying problematic and promising ways of charac­terizing independent nature, I engage Vogel’s critique. While the critique is compelling in certain respects, I argue that it fails to appreciate what (...) I take to be an important motivating concern of those drawn to the concept of independent nature, or something like it. I offer a characterization of that concern—a worry about problematic instrumentalization of the nonhuman world—and suggest why this concern, and the idea of independent nature which helps to make it intelligible, should continue to inform environmental theory and practice. In offering a qualified defense of the concept of independent nature, and of its value, I assume that such a concept is only one possible tool in a multi-pronged approach to environmental theorizing, deliberation, action, and policy. (shrink)

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy (...) and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a new commentary on the text by A.W.Moore and a foreword by Jonathan Lear. (shrink)

John O’Neill, Alan Holland, and Andrew Light usefully distinguish two ways of thinking about environmental values, namely, end-state and historical views. To value nature in an end-state way is to value it because it instantiates certain properties, such as complexity or diversity. In contrast, a historical view says that nature’s value is (partly) determined by its particular history. Three contemporary defenses of a historical view are explored in order to clarify: (1) the normatively relevant history; (2) how historical considerations are (...) supposed to instruct environmental decision making; and (3) the relative importance of historical and end-state considerations. There are multiple reasons for including historical considerations in an account of environmental values. For example, knowledge of a natural object’s history can add depth and texture to our appreciation of that object. Further, if we were blind to the relevant history, we could not adequately understand and defend environmental policy goals such as preserving the potentials of natural systems or maintaining ecological health, for these goals appear to have irreducibly historical aspects. While historical considerations are important, such considerations are insufficient to guide our normative thinking about nature and how it should be dealt with practically. But they succeed in broadening and deepening our understanding of the nature and sources of environmental value. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mind, Theaters, and the Anatomy of ConsciousnessDonald Beecher"All unified theories of cognition today involve theater metaphors."—Bernard J. BaarsAmong the most perplexing challenges for cognitive philoso-phers are those pertaining to representationalism, Gilbert Ryle's denial of the "ghost in the machine," the languages of cognition, and the "self" as the one-time audience and author of consciousness.1 Each of these topics can be discussed metaphorically in terms of the theater. The (...) mind is a kind of acting space in which thoughts and images are in some fashion prepared and represented in rapid sequence. Consciousness is a theatrical machine behind which there is a director who helps to determine how the narrative of the mind will play itself out. The discrete "I" is not only the prompter of consciousness, but its audience, receiving all that is played in the mind's theater. Or, in the words of C. S. Sherrington, "each waking day is a stage dominated for good or ill, in comedy, farce or tragedy by a dramatis persona, the 'self,' and so it will be until the curtain drops."2 The problem, however, is that in matters so difficult to comprehend as the workings of the human brain and the mind operations attached to it, metaphors develop vectors of their own that shade and nuance understanding in ways that obstruct the plasticity of analysis. For this reason, theater analogies in relation to consciousness have been widely endorsed in characterizing its distinctive operations, yet widely criticized for epitomizing the philosophical thinking in the past (and the present) that detaches consciousness from the emotions, the body, and the material world. For the latter reason, the metaphor of [End Page 1] the theater will generally be found wanting, as it is in Dennett's assault on what he labels "the Cartesian theater." And yet there are compelling reasons why this metaphor may persist for a time to come as the image of choice for illustrating the operations of consciousness.Arguably, the earliest intimations of mind as resembling a theater emerged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was not only an age that fostered a renewed interest in dramatized spectacle, but one that confronted, through theater metaphors, the illusory nature of human experience. The rise of the modern theater, and speculations upon reality in relation to happenings in the mind, are quite separate phenomena, but, arguably, a sense of the theater as a place of memory, of illusions projected as realities, and of experience provided the best "thought experiment" for dealing with the paradoxes of mentation. In fact, the emerging sense of reality as an illusion was tantamount to a major paradigm shift, one that has remained at the center of western philosophy from the time of Descartes to the present day. That there could be a disparity between the phenomena of mind and the world of extension was a watershed in epistemological thinking, and it followed, as a matter of course, that the illusions associated with perception would find expression in the illusions associated with theatrical representation. The result was that the medieval metaphor of the speculum, emphasizing the mind as the faithful reflection of reality, was replaced by the theater, in which the necessary conventions permitting belief came to bear on the understanding of the data which the mind represented to itself. In short, conventions are to the theater what adequate representation is to the mind—the necessary slippages whereby perceptions function as reality.Parallel insights into the mind as a theater came about through sixteenth-century inquiries into mnemonics techniques for the improvement of memory. This metaphor of mind came about by analogy with memory theaters of the kind epitomized in the Idea del Theatro (1550) of Giulio Camillo. He chose the theater simply as the most apt edifice in which to house his elaborate set of memory prompts. His goal was to devise an actual working machine for enhancing recall. He chose the theater because of its architectural complexity and multi-sectionality which he could in turn invest with information. Yet insofar as the theater functioned in relation to memory through the art of mnemonics, it became an extension of mind, and... (shrink)

An environmental ethic needs to have an answer to two basic questions: what nature should we care about, and why? A number of proposals have been made about how to answer these questions. In this paper, I consider in detail one such proposal, namely, biological or ecological integrity. Different characterizations of integrity can be found in the literature, but I will treat the following one as paradigmatic. Integrity refers to a property of landscapes that are relatively unmodified by human activity (...) and that have their native biota largely intact.1 By “native biota,” I mean the native plant and animal life in a particular place, and... (shrink)

Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy. Note.

The study to follow is concerned with the structure of romance in the ancient and Renaissance periods from the perspective of nostalgia, to be defined here as one of the most deeply engrained features of the human psyche. The argument in brief is that of all the literary genres of the early modern era, romance tells the story of homecoming with the greatest sense of imperative, constituting a tropism in the form of a literary motif that originates in the evolutionary (...) engineering of the species. But first to the genre itself. Invariably, these are tales not only of outbound adventure, whether by choice or destiny, but of the return to a place or community that constitutes refuge, family, origins, reunion .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SuspenseDonald BeecherSuspense is one of those workaday terms so integrated into the discussion of literature that definition would hardly seem necessary. It does receive pro forma entries in most literary handbooks, but never provokes more than a statement of the self-evident: that it is a "state of uncertainty, anticipation and curiosity as to the outcome of a story or play, or any kind of narrative in verse or prose,"1 (...) that such anticipations arise "particularly as they affect a character for whom one has sympathy," and that plot types vary in ways that affect the ethos of suspense: those situations in which the outcome is uncertain and readers are concerned with how they will be resolved, and those in which the outcome is inevitable and readers, in their fear, concentrate merely on knowing when the catastrophe will be complete.2 Indicatively, Roger Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms gives it a pass altogether.3 But even these generic representations of the concept must venture such quizzical terms as "state" and "sympathy," both of which are seen to inhere not in texts and narratives, but in spectators and readers. Suspense, then, must have two sides: that which is invested in the design of the story as an emotion prompt; and that which is a feature of mind.This critical divide can be stated in many ways. One could say that evaluating the emotionality embedded in a text is an act of literary criticism, while the study of the emotionality aroused by literature belongs to cognitive psychology. These are, of course, two sides to the proverbial coin worthy of critical alignment—namely that which authors know about organizing narratives to produce suspense, and that which readers "know" through the constitution of their brains about responding to situations of alarm or disorientation involving themselves or others, and the compelling limbic reinforcement that impels them toward ends [End Page 255] that will release them from incertitude or danger. The critical challenge at this juncture is to decide whether a study of suspense should begin in narratology or psychology, for without the récit of events in time there are no prompts, even though suspense as experience does not reside in texts but in psyches.Wolfgang Iser calls for a balanced approach to literary study in general that "lays full stress on the idea that, in considering a literary work, one must take into account not only the actual text, but also, in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that text."4 But that does not help in determining whether suspense should be defined according to a minimum prescription of narrative procedures and characteristics, or as a literary subset of a human, genetically-conditioned response mechanism selectively engineered to meet a range of stressors in the environment.The first question in the creation of a rapprochement between these domains must deal with the very capacity for mind states to be emotionally moved by literary configurations, insofar as literary suspense borrows from the vocabulary of limbic arousal responses. The second question pertains to what readers are brought to feel more particularly for make-believe persons in make-believe situations of danger. Are these also make-believe emotions, for then it must be determined what an exclusively literary emotion might be. Subsequent questions must deal with the range of suspense arousing situations, whether they involve only protagonists, their desires and prospects, or whether suspense applies to any motivated pursuit of information deemed vital to mental satisfaction. These distinctions and their relationship will prove critical.Almost universally, in the limited number of critical studies that exist, literary suspense entails liked characters under duress whose futures are perilous and uncertain—futures about which readers hold strong preferences. This perspective stands in opposition to potentially broader definitions that include curiosity, problem-solving sequences, cognitive jags, or pattern completion. One obstacle is that problem-solving activities appear to exceed the capacities of minds already absorbed in the events of fictive worlds, arriving merely as distractions from the conditions of high, dramatic suspense. They can be said to fall outside the fictive representation altogether, particularly as they pertain to the patterns of fiction, or a... (shrink)

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy (...) and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. (shrink)

2015 Reprint of 1956 Printing. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Cybernetics is here defined as "the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine"-in a word, as the art of steersmanship; and this book will interest all who are interested in cybernetics, communication theory and methods for regulation and control. W. Ross Ashby (1903-1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of complex systems. His two books, (...) "Design for a Brain" and "An Introduction to Cybernetics," were landmark works. They introduced exact and logical thinking into the nascent discipline and were highly influential. Contents include: What is new -- Change -- The Determinate Machine -- The Machine with Input -- Stability -- The Black Box -- Quantity of Variety -- Transmission of Variety -- Incessant Transmission -- Regulation in Biological Systems -- Requisite Variety -- The Error-controlled Regulator -- Regulating the Very Large System -- Amplifying Regulation. (shrink)

Cochrane has developed a linked data infrastructure to make the evidence and data from its rich repositories more discoverable to facilitate evidence-based health decision-making. These annotated resources can enhance the study and understanding of biomarkers and surrogate endpoints.

Endangered species are objects of intense scientific scrutiny and political conflict. This article focuses on the interplay among human-nonhuman relations, knowledge production, and the politics of endangerment. Advancing a historical ontology of endangerment, it highlights the role of transforming the nonhuman world in the coming to be of new objects of environmental knowledge. Such knowledge can provide the basis for credible claims of endangerment, facilitating mobilizations against the very human-nonhuman relations that produced it. An in-depth case study of the delta (...) smelt, an endangered species of fish caught in the center of California’s “water wars,” shows how changes in the instrumentalization of the nonhuman environment can produce new knowledge of nature that allows actors to make claims and form coalitions that would be otherwise inconceivable. Because its sole habitat is the hub of California’s water delivery system, efforts to save the species from extinction have reduced flows to farms and cities, fomenting conflict between environmentalists and water users. This article demonstrates that the taxonomic classification of the delta smelt as a species and evidence of its decline arose directly from the reengineering of California’s rivers for extractive ends. Ironically, the knowledge on which environmental advocates relied was a product of the instrumental relation to nature that they sought to transform. (shrink)

A revised, expanded and fully up-to-date critical introduction to Deleuze's most important work of philosophyBy critically analysing Deleuze's methods, principles and arguments, James Williams helps readers to engage with the revolutionary core of Deleuze's philosophy and take up positions for or against its most innovative and controversial ideas.

Articulating an account of food justice in isolation from broader questions about sustainability would leave many important normative issues unaddressed. This chapter explores the reasons for thinking that questions of food justice need to be framed within the context of the broader set of social and environmental goals that comprise sustainability. An initial difficulty faced by this proposal is that many philosophers (among others) have viewed the concept and norm of sustainability with suspicion. Reasons for this range from concern about (...) sustainability being hopelessly vague and hence useless for policy, to concern that interest in sustainability is just the latest cover for business as usual and thus a kind of betrayal of the environmental cause. While I believe such concerns are unconvincing, there is no question that sustainability is a contested concept—one that needs careful specification and defense if it is to do any work helping to frame discussions of food justice. This chapter maps three types of sustainability view, ranging from a minimalist to a very demanding view. Depending on the view of sustainability one adopts, there can be significantly different implications for how we should think about, and try to realize in practice, food justice. Some of these implications are explored with respect to each type of sustainability view sketched. (shrink)

Inspired by the work of Wilfrid Sellars, Michael Williams launches an all-out attack on what he calls "phenomenalism," the idea that our knowledge of the world rests on a perceptual or experiential foundation.

Albert and Cederman couch the neorealist perspective in terms of ‘systems’ theorizing, Ferguson and Mansbach rhetorically discuss issues and non-issues which are readily addressed within the neoliberal perspective, and of course, Onuf is unabashedly a constructivist. Below, I discuss each theoretical perspective relative to the articles assigned, and, thereafter conclude with some observations on the three articles and theoretical frameworks.

This first volume contains discussions of the brain, methods for analyzing behavior, thought, consciousness, attention, association, time, and memory.

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on the (...) ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)

Lycan not only uses the numerous arguments against materialism, and functionalist theories of mind in particular, to gain a more detailed positive view of the ..

William Connolly presents a lucid and concise defense of the thesis of "essentially contested concepts" that can well be read as a general introduction to political theory, as well as for its challenge to the prevailing understanding of political discourse. In Connolly's view, the language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed but an institutionalized structure of meanings that channels political thought and action in certain directions. In the new preface he pursues the implications (...) of this perspective for a distinctive conception of ethics and democracy. (shrink)

After nearly 76 years following the UN Charter, the dominant feature of the multilateral international order has shifted from a focus on states’ sovereignty to the rights of the individual. It is now widely accepted that human rights are not the province of any one state’s domestic affairs, but of importance to the entire international community. The UN Security Council sits atop the supra-state order, and holds the ultimate authority to initiate consensus-based, collective action so as to limit or prevent (...) gross human rights violations. Yet, many times the Security Council is slow to act, and consensus is exceedingly rare. This begs the question: in the face of gross human rights violations and Security Council inaction, is unilateral humanitarian intervention justified? The present state of international law on the matter is unsettled and controversial to many. What follows is a discussion on the development of international law relating to unilateral humanitarian intervention, the permissibility of intervention for gross human rights violations, and justification for intervention under existing international law. I conclude that under the present multilateral regime, unilateral humanitarian intervention is legally justified, despite fears that the principle may be invoked for the purposes of cloaking acts of aggression. (shrink)

Does it seem that with each reported state cyberattack, there comes an announcement of discovery, an attribution to one of a handful of usual suspects, some threatening language suggesting imminent retribution, and then nothing more? Increased incidence of cyberattack makes its occurrence seem simultaneously rampant in terms of publicity and minimal in terms of threat of war. If rampant, how can repeated deployment by the same actors carry no punitive consequences? How is such audaciousness tolerated? For some, a cyberattack by (...) a state is an act of war. Its prevalence suggests there must be a void somewhere that facilitates its use without consequence. Others think state cyberattack is like other internet novelties: digital malfeasance, amounting to a nuisance that naturally follows from a digital‐based existence, particularly since non‐state actors are typically involved. Yet, state‐on‐state hostilities are historically perilous on a vast scale, and there is a multilateral system for regulating the use of force in the context of war. Acts of war, even when seeming minimal in impact, are not by‐products of a digital fad, and cyberattack is now described as far more than ‘nuisance’. If anywhere, the place for clarity on hostile state cyberoperations use should be accounted for in International Humanitarian Law. Yet, in its present form, it is ambiguous if not silent on the subject, suggesting that cyberattack currently presents an advantage to perpetrating states. Does this void or these ambiguities make cyberattacks more legally advantageous to states than traditional, kinetic weaponry? I examine whether existing IHL is sufficiently adaptable to state cyberoperations through a mixed legal and theoretical approach and conclude that they do. (shrink)

Sections include: experiments and generalised causal inference; statistical conclusion validity and internal validity; construct validity and external validity; quasi-experimental designs that either lack a control group or lack pretest observations on the outcome; quasi-experimental designs that use both control groups and pretests; quasi-experiments: interrupted time-series designs; regresssion discontinuity designs; randomised experiments: rationale, designs, and conditions conducive to doing them; practical problems 1: ethics, participation recruitment and random assignment; practical problems 2: treatment implementation and attrition; generalised causal inference: a grounded theory; (...) generalised causal inference: methods for single studies; generalised causal inference: methods for multiple studies; a critical assessment of our assumptions. (shrink)

For the purposes of this enquiry—an account of what Equiano’sa modernity was, and which particular historical ‘demarcations’ of modernity provided for an enslaved man to achieve freedom through great fortune and great cunning, I will assume a definition of ‘modernity’ as defined by Kathleen Wilson: “. . . not one moment or age, but a set of relations that are constantly being made and unmade, contested and reconfigured, that nonetheless produce among their contemporaneous witnesses the conviction of historical difference.” By (...) adopting this definition, modernity in the times of Equiano refers to, “the cultural practices and representations that produced certain kinds of subjects and objects of knowledge, upheld widely-shared notions of space and time, or facilitated the formation of cultural identities that resulted in pluralities and contradictions as well as unities and coherences,” which provided for a slave to acquire freedom amidst eighteenth-century imperialism, slave-trade, and emerging abolitionist sentiments within bourgeois culture. (shrink)

For Rousseau, humankind is in a perpetual state of decay—decadency from an earlier, natural, primitive, and perfect state. For Rousseau, the natural man, or man in the state of beast, was of an era where humankind was unencumbered by that which is now entirely associated with society—that is, “. . . establishment of laws and of the right of property . . . the institution of magistracy . . . and the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power.” For Kant, humankind (...) is in its natural state. For Kant, nature brings about conditions that continually develop and refine humankind’s dispositions, purposefully setting about societies in order to facilitate a foundation within all civilized society, whereby all of humankind’s goals may be achieved. All matters have their place—placed there by nature, as though with purpose. For Kant, nature intended for humankind to employ reason, to acquiesce to coercion for social cohesion, and to strive to build a society that is ever-increasingly progressing towards perfection. Nature uses humankind’s dispositions, including ‘antagonistic’ behavior to gradually bring about a, “perfectly just civil constitution.” Humankind’s highest goal yet to be achieved is for that just civil constitution to emerge from trial and error (in the form of wars, revolutions, secessions, abdications), over time, ultimately providing for development of other dispositions within a perfect society. (shrink)

Under the UDHR, all persons have the right to "seek and to enjoy . . . asylum from persecution." From this designation as fundamental followed codification of the right in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating (collectively 'the Convention'), the "centrepiece" of treaties and customary norms that make up international refugee law. It defines and regulates the status and rights of refugees; its purpose is to safeguard the basic rights of persons "outside (...) their country of origin," who have fled due to a legitimate fear of persecution. Fundamentally, it guarantees that asylees and refugees enjoy rights without discrimination; without penalization for illegal territorial entry; and, without expulsion or return to "territories where . . . life or freedom would be threatened on account of . . . race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion," —or 'non-refoulement'. What follows is background on development of the principle of non-refoulement, evasive US Asylum Cooperative Agreements ('ACAs') and implementing legislation, and the resulting erosion to the right to asylum. (shrink)

Kant's formulae ought to effectively produce the same result when applied to the moral validity of any particular maxim; further, no valid maxim produces contradictory results when applied against Kant's Universal Law and Humanity formulae. Where one uses all formulae in the assessment of a maxim, one gains a more complete understanding of the moral law, thereby bridging principles of reason with intuition within the agent who has undertaken to evaluate the morality of a particular action. These formulae command without (...) regard to any particular interests, but are instead unconditional; further, these formulae effectively limit choice of action and therefore give rise to duty. Kant implies that the structure of all maxims requires different formulae of the same moral law, i.e., all maxims have a ‘form’ and a ‘matter’, which prompt reconfiguring of the categorical imperative into different formulae in order to test the morality of a maxim. (shrink)

Artykuł porusza problematykę buntu człowieka przeciwko ograniczeniom ludzkiej, ziemskiej kondycji i odnosi się do poświęconych temu zagadnieniu prac Hanny Arendt. Autor wychodzi od analizy przypadku niemal 200 tysięcy osób z całego świata, które w 2013 roku zgłosiły się do projektu „Mars One” i tym samym wyraziły chęć bezpowrotnego lotu na Marsa. Następnie omawia przemiany w sferze nauki, technologii i zbiorowych wyobrażeń, które mogły do tego doprowadzić, pisząc o narodzinach wizji Ziemi jako „więzienia” związanych z eksploracją naszej planety, a także o (...) ujednoliceniu obrazu wszechświata, które dokonało się za sprawą newtonowskiej fizyki. Dalej autor przedstawia koncepcję „kondycji ludzkiej” w rozumieniu Arendt i wskazuje na inne współczesne przykłady zmagania się człowieka ze stałymi ograniczeniami ludzkiej egzystencji, takimi jak nasza śmiertelność czy przymus pracy. Na koniec autor powraca do wyjściowego pytania o przyczyny tak powszechnej woli „ucieczki z Ziemi” i zastanawia się nad możliwymi konsekwencjami jej realizacji, przywołując tezę Arendt o obniżeniu rangi człowieka postępującym wraz z rozwojem nowożytnej nauki. (shrink)

Justiciability sets the boundaries of judicial review and the rule of law. A justiciable issue is that which is appropriate within a judicial forum. That is, where an "independent and impartial body" can remedy rights violations of identifiable claimants, the issue before it is justiciable. If it falls beyond what is judicially determinable, it is 'non-justiciable'. The principle is not fixed, as it does not permanently set the boundaries of that which is appropriate for judicial determination. Rather, it evolves "from (...) context to context," and expands and narrows along what falls within judicial competencies at a particular time. On an elementary level, it is distinct from jurisdiction, as it establishes boundaries of subject matter on policy or constitutional grounds, whereas jurisdiction is grounded in established legal rules. However, questions of jurisdiction can be subsumed under broader questions of justiciability. (shrink)