A number of philosophers argue that the moral value of national identity is sufficient to justify at least a prima facie right of a national community to create its own independent, sovereign state. In the literature, this argument is commonly referred to as the identity argument. In this paper, I consider whether the identity argument successfully proves that a national group is entitled to a state of its own. To do so, I first explain three important steps in the argument (...) and then consider whether they lead to the desired conclusion. My examination reveals that the identity argument relies on the Optimal Protection Principle; however, this principle does not apply to the case of a national community. As a result, the identity argument fails to justify even a prima facie right of a national community to establish its own state. (shrink)

Public health ethics is a subfield of bioethics that focuses on population health. This study aims to conform the principles of biomedical ethics to Islamic values in the context of public health. It culturally helps to optimize health care delivery. The approach is based on the method of immanent critique. The principle of the common good in Islam has a rational justification to draw public interests and ward off harms. The rule of “no harm”, with an emphasis on the (...) preferability of preventing harm to increase benefits, is consistent with the principle of utility, intending to produce a maximum balance of benefit over harm in the context of public health. Thus, on the one hand, the government is obliged to prevent harm and improve public benefits and, on the other hand, as a steward of health and with reference to the article “limitation of the ownership dominance”, it has the right to protect public health with the least justifiable harm. Islam attention to human dignity, individual justice and good will in the rule of goodness implies that Islam, beyond distributive justice, knows that human flourishing and the cultivation of moral virtues are a requisite for the realization of social justice. The present study discusses about the adjustment of the principles of PHE to the principles of the Islamic jurisprudence and, at the same time, it explains why the optimal PH in Muslim societies requires research in order to define accurate indicators of benefit and harm based on the teachings of revelation and reason. (shrink)

“Public health practice” consists of activities and Programs managed by public health agencies to promote health and prevent disease, injury, and disability. Some of these activities might be deemed to fit within the broad definition of “research” under federal regulations, known as the Common Rule, designed to protect human research subjects. The Common Rule defines research as “a systeniatic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” Public health activities that might under some (...) circumstances be considered research include disease reporting, review of medical records, surveys, interviews, focus groups, specimen collection, and laboratory testing.There are questions about the extent to which the Common Rule applies or was intended to apply to public health practice: and it has been suggested in any case that Common Rule regulation of public health practice may not be socially optimal for both practical and principled reasons. (shrink)

“Public health practice” consists of activities and Programs managed by public health agencies to promote health and prevent disease, injury, and disability. Some of these activities might be deemed to fit within the broad definition of “research” under federal regulations, known as the Common Rule, designed to protect human research subjects. The Common Rule defines research as “a systeniatic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” Public health activities that might under some (...) circumstances be considered research include disease reporting, review of medical records, surveys, interviews, focus groups, specimen collection, and laboratory testing.There are questions about the extent to which the Common Rule applies or was intended to apply to public health practice: and it has been suggested in any case that Common Rule regulation of public health practice may not be socially optimal for both practical and principled reasons. (shrink)

The background of this paper (section 1) consists in a new account to foundation‐theoretic epistemology characterized by two features: (i) All beliefs are to be justified by deductive, inductive or abductive inferences from a minimalistic class of unproblematic (introspective or analytic) basic beliefs. (ii) Higher‐order justifications for these inferences are given by means of the novel method of optimality justifications. Optimality justifications are a new tool for epistemology (section 2). An optimality justification does not attempt todemonstratethat a cognitive method is (...) reliable (which is impossible), but pursues the more modest goal of demonstrating that the method isoptimalamong all accessible alternative methods for the given epistemic goal. The reasoning from the established optimality of a method to the acceptability of a particular belief generated by the method is accomplished by so‐called optimality principles. In sections 3–5, the method of optimality justifications is carried out in detail for three fundamental problems: justifying induction, logic, and theory‐generating abduction. (shrink)

Existing ethics guidelines, influential literature and policies on ethical research generally focus on real-time data collection from humans. They enforce individual rights and liberties, thereby lowering need for aggregate protections. Although dependable, emerging public health research paradigms like research using public health data raise new challenges to their application. Unlike traditional research, RUPD is population-based, aligned to public health activities, and often reliant on pre-collected longitudinal data. These characteristics, when considered in relation to the generally lower protective ethico-legal frameworks of (...) the Global South, including Africa, highlight ethical gaps. Health and demographic surveillance systems are examples of public health programs that accommodate RUPD in these contexts. We set out to explore the perspectives of professionals with a working knowledge of these systems to determine practical ways of appropriating the foundational principles of health research to advance the ever growing opportunities in RUPD. We present their perspectives and in relation to the literature and our ethical analysis, make context relevant recommendations. We further argue for the development of a framework founded on the discussions and recommendations as a minimum base for achieving optimal ethics for optimal RUPD in the Global South. (shrink)

Plant protection problems are simulated by a system of ordinary differential equations with given initial conditions. The sensitivity and resistance of pathogen subpopulations to fungicide mixtures, fungicide weathering, plant growth, etc. are taken into consideration. The system of equations is solved numerically for each set of initial conditions and parameters of the disease and fungicide applications. Optimization algorithms were investigated and a computer program was developed for optimization of these solutions. 14 typical cases of the disease were simulated and (...) optimized in order to determine optimal fungicide treatments. The optimized strategy for fungicide application differs considerably from the commonly used method and seems to be an important new principle in plant protection. The approach developed in this study may be useful for a wide spectrum of purposes in the simulation of leaf diseases. It may also help the biologist to decrease or pinpoint experimental work and analyze its results and is perspective for plant disease control. (shrink)

What I dub the “worst-result” principle is a criterion that identifies civil war and tyranny as the worst evils that could befall a state, and prescribes their prevention. In this thesis, I attempt to define the worst-result principle’s concrete prescriptions and institutional arrangements to meet these. To do so, I explore different understandings of the worst-result principle, that each contributes to the general argument. Montesquieu’s crucial insight concerns the separation of powers to prevent the state from collapsing (...) into despotism. Judith Shklar shows that ‘damage control’ needs to be constantly performed so as to minimize chances of governmental brutality. Roberto Unger points at the importance of encouraging citizens’ involvement in the political process to safeguard freedom. I finally argue, in the light of historical evidence, that it would be unreasonable to think that the task of preventing tyranny can be effectively performed in the absence of courts entrusted with checking powers. (shrink)

The excessive and unsustainable exploitation of our marine resources has led to the promotion of marine reserves as a fisheries management tool. Marine reserves, areas in which fishing is restricted or prohibited, can offer opportunities for the recovery of exploited stock and fishery enhancement. This study examines the impact of the creation of marine protected areas, from both economic and biological perspectives. The consequences of reserve establishment on the long-run equilibrium fish biomass and fishery catch levels are evaluated. We include (...) reserve size as control variable to maximize catch at equilibrium. A continuous time model is used to simulate the effects of reserve size on fishing catch. Fish movements between the sites is assumed to take place at a faster time scale than the variation of the stock and the change of the fleet size. We take advantage of these two time scales to derive a reduced model governing the dynamics of the total fish stock and the fishing effort. Simulation results suggest that the establishment of a protected marine reserve will always lead to an increase in total fish biomass, an optimal size of a marine reserve can achieve to maximize the catch at equilibrium. (shrink)

There are a number of candidate rationales for the settlement of Mars. These are considered in Sect. 10.1. At least one of them is economically plausible: its use as a base of operations for asteroid mining in the Main Belt. This rationale suggests that environmental protection on Mars needs to be considered in a broader context than that of the planet alone. More specifically, the authors argue in Sect. 10.2 that planetary environmental protection is partly a matter of (...) containment and so requires a framing principle. Section 10.3 supplies such a principle for protection, “the 1/8 principle”: while economic growth in space remains exponential and comparable to historical patterns on Earth, we should use no more than 1/8 of the available resources, in order to secure a reasonable ‘breaking distance’ before we reach a point of super-exploitation. Section 10.4 examines the difficulties of applying such a principle to Mars, the need for trade-offs and special weighting for special strategic resources such as uncollapsed lava tubes. Section 10.5 points out the ease with which the principle can be turned into policy options and its good matchup with human practices of valuing and use. The latter considerations may not be decisive, but they do count strongly in its favour. (shrink)

The all-affected principle is a widely accepted solution to the problem of constituting the demos. Despite its popularity, a basic question in relation to the principle has not received much attention: why does the fact that an individual is affected by a certain decision ground a right to inclusion in democratic decision-making about that matter? An answer to this question must include a reason that explains why an affected individual should be included because she is affected. We identify (...) three such reasons in the literature – to wit, interest protection, self-government and welfare – and show why they all fail. We then propose two alternative reasons, equal relations and fairness, and show why they are also deficient. Surprisingly, the all-affected principle then appears groundless, which supports withholding belief in the all-affected principle or(/and) investing future research in identifying the thus-far unidentified reason why being affected grounds a claim to inclusion. (shrink)

As a solution to the boundary problem, the question of who should take part in making democratic decisions, the all-affected principle has gained widespread support. An unexplored issue in relation to the all-affected principle is whether there is an asymmetry between being affected negatively and positively. Is it the case that only being negatively affected, and not positively affected, by a decision generates a claim to inclusion under the all-affected principle? I call this the question of asymmetry. (...) Some answer the question of asymmetry affirmatively. I believe they are wrong and argue, instead, that we must answer this question by looking at the reasons underlying the all-affected principle. I identify two main reasons that have been proposed to underlie the all-affected principle—(1) the opportunity for interest protection and (2) self-government—and show why both of them entail that answering the question of asymmetry affirmatively is unfounded. The upshot is that both being affected negatively and positively by a decision should generate a claim to inclusion on the all-affected principle. This makes a difference for democratic decision making on contemporary issues such as immigration, climate, and welfare policy. (shrink)

On the question of whether gambling behavior can be changed as result of teaching gamblers the mathematics of gambling, past studies have yielded contradictory results, and a clear conclusion has not yet been drawn. In this paper, I bring some criticisms to the empirical studies that tended to answer no to this hypothesis, regarding the sampling and laboratory testing, and I argue that an optimal mathematical scholastic intervention with the objective of preventing problem gambling is possible, by providing the (...) principles that would optimize the structure and content of the teaching module. Given the ethical aspects of the exposure of mathematical facts behind games of chance, and starting from the slots case – where the parametric design is missing, we have to draw a line between ethical and optional information with respect to the mathematical content provided by a scholastic intervention. Arguing for the role of mathematics in problem-gambling prevention and treatment, interdisciplinary research directions are drawn toward implementing an optimal mathematical module in cognitive therapies. (shrink)

This chapter situates John Rawls’ just savings principle in a discussion about how much a nation-state should save. The main question addressed is whether this principle is a viable alternative to the dominant utilitarian theory of optimal growth. Rawls certainly gives savings a different aim (i.e., to create and maintain just institutions) and introduces additional permissibility conditions on reaching this goal (i.e., the necessary burdens should be fairly shared between generations). He thereby gives rise to the field (...) of research now known as intergenerational justice. To assess the relative merits of the just savings principle, however, more details are needed; and this chapter aims to supply some of them. First, the principle of just savings is given a more determinate form whereby it is understood as a two-stage combination of a priority principle at the stage of institutional development and a difference principle at the maintenance stage. Second, some of its practical bearings are explored (i.e., its implications for real-life savings decisions). Among other things, the idea that the principle leads to a steady-state economy is problematized, and its relevance to concrete problems, such as climate change and the design of pension schemes, is assessed. (shrink)

This paper reports on an experimental test of the Principle of Optimality in dynamic decision problems. This Principle, which states that the decision-maker should always choose the optimal decision at each stage of the decision problem, conditional on behaving optimally thereafter, underlies many theories of optimal dynamic decision making, but is normally difficult to test empirically without knowledge of the decision-maker's preference function. In the experiment reported here we use a new experimental procedure to get round (...) this difficulty, which also enables us to shed some light on the decision process that the decision-maker is using if he or she is not using the Principle of Optimality - which appears to be the case in our experiments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention (...) on behalf of animals is much more difficult – and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationsh... (shrink)

As understood today, political correctness aims at preventing social discrimination by curtailing offensive speech and behaviour towards underprivileged groups of individuals. The core proponents of political correctness often draw on post-modernism and critical theory and are notorious for their scepticism about objective truth and scientific rationality. Conversely, the critics of post-modern political correctness uphold Enlightenment liberal principles of scientific reasoning, rational truth-seeking and open discourse against claims of relativism and oppression. Yet, both the post-modern proponents and their Enlightenment liberal critics (...) make up two sides of the same phenomenon of political correctness. Both sides intend to protect a liberal value system from illiberal truth-claims, which is the function of politically correct regulation. While post-modern advocates attempt to promote liberating tolerance, Enlightenment liberals place liberal values above the open-ended search for truth. Despite appearances to the contrary, this socio-academic debate is not about two sides favouring and opposing political correctness. In fact, it is a debate about the type of politically correct regulation that can better guard liberal values. (shrink)

Philosophy journals and conferences have recently seen several attempts to argue that 'all-things-considered better than' does not obey strict transitivity. This paper focuses on Larry Temkin's argument in "Intransitivity and the Mere Addition Paradox." Although his argument is not aimed just at utilitarians or even consequentialists in general, it is of prticular significance to consequentialists. If 'all-things-considered better than' does not obey transitivity, there may be choice situations in which there is no optimal choice, which would seem to open (...) the door to a consequentialist account of moral dilemmas. Temkin's argument crucially appeals to what he calls "the Person-Affecting Principle (PAP)", which he roughly characterizes as follows, "On PAP, one outcome is worse than another only if it affects people for the worse" This paper argues that PAP, although plausible, does not hold in precisely those situations in which it would have to hold in order for Temkin's argument against transitivity to work. (shrink)

Libertarianism is a controversial political theory. But it is often presented as a resting upon a simple, indeed commonsense, moral principle. The libertarian “Non-Aggression Principle” (NAP) prohibits aggression against the persons or property of others, and it is on this basis that the libertarian opposition to redistributive taxation, legal paternalism, and perhaps even the state itself is thought to rest. This paper critically examines the NAP and the extent to which it can provide support for libertarian political theory. (...) It identifies two problems with existing libertarian appeals to the NAP. First, insofar as libertarians employ a moralized understanding of aggression, their principle is really about the protection of property rights rather than the prohibition of aggression. Second, the absolutist prohibition on aggression, which libertarians typically endorse and which is necessary to generate strongly libertarian conclusions, is grossly implausible. The paper concludes by setting forth a version of the NAP that does not suffer from these problems. It argues that this more moderate and defensible version of the NAP still has important libertarian implications, but that a full defense of libertarianism cannot rely upon appeals to non-aggression alone. (shrink)

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, most legacy airlines filed for bankruptcy protection as a way to cut costs drastically, with the exception of American Airlines. This article applies the Principle of Double-Effect to the act of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for reasons of management strategy, in particular, cost-cutting. It argues that the Principle can be a useful tool for discerning the ethicality of the action, and demonstrates the usefulness by proposing three (...) double-effect criteria that, when fulfilled, argues for the ethical justifiability the action in question. (shrink)

The All-Affected Principle has an important status in recent theoretical discussions on democracy. According to the principle, all who are affected by a decision should have a right to participate into making it. The principle is supposed to ground the right or optimal boundaries of democratic decision-making units. This paper is basically a critique of the principle. In the first parts of the paper, the All-Affected Principle is distinguished from some related principles. However, even (...) a more precise version of the principle is still troubled by ambiguities. It is argued that Robert Goodin’s expansive reading is the only coherent one. However, if it is accepted, the principle cannot be used for its original purpose. The last parts focus on some largely unexamined aspects of the principle. First, the principle also works as a means of exclusion, not only of inclusion. Second, if, as the principle says, participation rights are based on interests, it is by no means obvious that these rights should be equal. Third, the principle cannot provide us with a non-institutional starting point. Nevertheless, a much weaker form of the principle may be plausible. (shrink)

Philosophy journals and conferences have recently seen several attempts to argue that ‘all-things-considered better than’ does not obey strict transitivity. This paper focuses on Larry Temkin’s argument in “Intransitivity and the Mere Addition Paradox.” Although his argument is not aimed just at utilitarians or even consequentialists in general, it is of particular significance to consequentialists. If ‘all-things-considered better than’ does not obey transitivity, there may be choice situations in which there is no optimal choice, which would seem to open (...) the door to a consequentialist account of moral dilemmas. Temkin’s argument crucially appeals to what he calls “the Person-Affecting Principle (PAP)”. which he roughly characterizes as follows, “On PAP, one outcome is worse than another only if it affects people for the worse” This paper argues that PAP, although plausible, does not hold in precisely those situations in which it would have to hold in order for Temkin’s argument against transitivity to work. (shrink)

In classical electrodynamics, electromagnetic effects are calculated from solution of wave equation formed by combination of four Maxwell’s equations. However, along with retarded solution, this wave equation admits advanced solution in which case the effect happens before the cause. So, to preserve causality in natural events, the retarded solution is intentionally chosen and the advance part is just ignored. But, an equation or method cannot be called fundamental if it admits a wrong result (that violates principle of causality) in (...) addition to the correct result. Since it is the Maxwell’s form of equations that gives birth to this acausal advanced potential, we rewrite these equations in a different form using the recent theory of reaction at a distance (Biswaranjan Dikshit, Physics essays, 24(1), 4-9, 2011) so that the process of calculation does not generate any advanced effects. Thus, the long-standing causality problem in electrodynamics is solved. (shrink)

We argue that many optimization methods can be viewed as representatives of “forcing”, a methodological approach that attempts to bridge the gap between data and mathematics on the basis of an a priori trust in the power of a mathematical technique, even when detailed, credible models of a phenomenon are lacking or do not justify the use of this technique. In particular, we show that forcing is implied in particle swarms optimization methods, and in modeling image processing problems through optimization. (...) From these considerations, we extrapolate a principle for general data analysis methods, what we call ‘Brandt’s principle’, namely the assumption that an algorithm that approaches a steady state in its output has found a solution to a problem, or needs to be replaced. We finally propose that biological systems, and other phenomena that respect general rules of morphogenesis, are a natural setting for the application of this principle. (shrink)

The Enhanced Indispensability Argument appeals to the existence of Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena to justify mathematical Platonism, following the principle of Inference to the Best Explanation. In this paper, I examine one example of a MEPP—the explanation of the 13-year and 17-year life cycle of magicicadas—and argue that this case cannot be used defend the EIA. I then generalize my analysis of the cicada case to other MEPPs, and show that these explanations rely on what I will call (...) ‘optimal representations’, which are representations that capture all that is relevant to explain a physical phenomenon at a specified level of description. In the end, because the role of mathematics in MEPPs is ultimately representational, they cannot be used to support mathematical Platonism. I finish the paper by addressing the claim, advanced by many EIA defendants, that quantification over mathematical objects results in explanations that have more theoretical virtues, especially that they are more general and modally stronger than alternative explanations. I will show that the EIA cannot be successfully defended by appealing to these notions. (shrink)

Controversies about optimality models and adaptationist methodologies have animated the discussions of evolutionary theory in recent years. The sociobiologists, following the lead of E. O. Wilson, have argued that if Darwinian natural selection can be reliably expected to produce the best possible type of organism - one that optimizes the value of its genetic contribution to future generations - then evolution becomes a powerfully predictive theory as well as an explanatory one. The enthusiastic claims of the sociobiologists for the predictability (...) and applicability that the optimalist approach engenders have been met with severe criticism by Richard C. Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, and other biologists and philosophers of biology. These original essays take up both sides of the controversy over the role of optimality models in evolutionary biology, providing a refreshingly insightful and balanced discussion of optimality issues by an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers of biology, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and an economist. They focus on the current state of adaptationist and optimalist methodology in evolutionary theory, and on the possibility of extending such methodology to the human sciences, especially those of psychology and anthropology. Introduction / John Dupre -- Part 1. Methodological questions. Simple models of complex phenomena: the case of cultural evolution / Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd -- Natural selection and the null hypothesis / John Beatty -- Why not the best? / Philip Kitcher -- Part 2. Evolution and optimality. What is adaptationism? / Elliot Sober -- How to model evolution / John Maynard Smith -- Comments on Maynard Smith’s "How to Model Evolution" / Elliot Sober -- Reply to Sober / John Maynard Smith -- The shape of optimality / Richard C. Lewontin -- Part 3. Applications. Evolutionary ecology and the optimality assumption / John M. Emlen -- Optimality theory and behavior / John E.R. Staddon -- Part 4. Applications to human behavior. Optimization theory in anthropology: applications and critiques / Eric Alden Smith -- Evolution of a mesh between principles of the mind and regularities of the world / Roger N. Shepard -- From evolution to behavior: evolutionary psychology as the missing link / Leda Cosmides and John Tooby -- On the emotions as guarantors of threats and promises / Jack Hirschleifer -- Human kinds / John Dupre. (shrink)

"This book introduces Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Principle of Optimality and argues that it plays a central role his physics and philosophy, with profound implications for both. Each chapter begins with an introduction to one of Leibniz's ground-breaking studies in natural philosophy, paying special attention to the role of optimal form in those investigations. Each chapter then goes on to explore the philosophical implications of optimal form for Leibniz's broader philosophical system. Individual chapters include discussions of Leibniz's understanding (...) of teleology, the nature of bodies, laws of nature, and free will. The final chapter explores the legacy of Leibniz's physics in light of his work on optimal form"--. (shrink)

This paper reports on an experimental test of the Principle of Optimality in dynamic decision problems. This Principle, which states that the decision-maker should always choose the optimal decision at each stage of the decision problem, conditional on behaving optimally thereafter, underlies many theories of optimal dynamic decision making, but is normally difficult to test empirically without knowledge of the decision-maker's preference function. In the experiment reported here we use a new experimental procedure to get round (...) this difficulty, which also enables us to shed some light on the decision process that the decision-maker is using if he or she is not using the Principle of Optimality - which appears to be the case in our experiments. (shrink)

Drug regulatory bodies aim to ensure that patients have access to safe and effective drugs; however, no matter the quality of pre-licensure studies, uncertainty will remain regarding the safety and effectiveness of newly approved drugs until a large and diverse population uses those drugs. Recent analyses of Canada’s post-market drug surveillance system have found that Canada is not keeping pace with international requirements for PMDS, and have noted that efforts must be improved to monitor and address the safety and effectiveness (...) of approved drugs among vulnerable populations. Given the uncertainty that exists when drugs enter the market, some have suggested that the precautionary principle is relevant to guiding decision-making in this context. This paper responds to recommendations that the Canadian PMDS system should be responsive to the health needs of vulnerable populations by assessing the utility of deploying the precautionary principle to guide a post-market strategy for vulnerable populations. (shrink)

The living world is an exciting and inexhaustible source of high performance solutions to the multitude of biological problems, which were attained as a result of a natural selection, during the millions and millions years evolution of life on Earth. This work presents and comments some examples of high performances of living beings, in the light of the universal principle governing the realm of living matter: Optimal Design Principle. At the same time, the transfer of these (...) class='Hi'>optimal solutions, from living matter to the technologies, is also discussed. This transfer is offering new and fertile perspectives to future technologies, which must be more efficient, cheaper and in perfect harmony with the biosphere. (shrink)

We analyze the precise modal commitments of several natural varieties of set-theoretic potentialism, using tools we develop for a general model-theoretic account of potentialism, building on those of Hamkins, Leibman and Löwe [14], including the use of buttons, switches, dials and ratchets. Among the potentialist conceptions we consider are: rank potentialism, Grothendieck–Zermelo potentialism, transitive-set potentialism, forcing potentialism, countable-transitive-model potentialism, countable-model potentialism, and others. In each case, we identify lower bounds for the modal validities, which are generally either S4.2 or S4.3, (...) and an upper bound of S5, proving in each case that these bounds are optimal. The validity of S5 in a world is a potentialist maximality principle, an interesting set-theoretic principle of its own. The results can be viewed as providing an analysis of the modal commitments of the various set-theoretic multiverse conceptions corresponding to each potentialist account. (shrink)

Individual research protections provided by bioethical principles can be extended to group protections, particularly for place-based communities and cultural groups who may share a common harm or burden. In this article, an argument is made for the need to consider the group conditions of individual research subjects in the ethics of individual report-backs of human biomonitoring results. Human biomonitoring, the measuring of concentration of chemicals or their metabolites in blood, urine, breast milk, hair, and other biological samples, can provide an (...) assessment of an individual's exposure to a chemical and can integrate exposures from multiple pathways and sources. Biomonitoring studies have been increasing in the past decade for such purposes as measuring the levels of chemicals that are ingested by members of the general population and at what concentrations, to determine if exposure levels are higher in some groups vs. others, to track temporal trends to establish reference ranges for chemical exposures, and to investigate an association with health. (shrink)

The democratic boundary problem raises the question of who has democratic participation rights in a given polity and why. One possible solution to this problem is the all-affected principle, according to which a polity ought to enfranchise all persons whose interests are affected by the polity’s decisions in a morally significant way. While AAP offers a plausible principle of democratic enfranchisement, its supporters have so far not paid sufficient attention to economic participation rights. I argue that if one (...) commits oneself to AAP, one must also commit oneself to the view that political participation rights are not necessarily the only, and not necessarily the best, way to protect morally weighty interests. I also argue that economic participation rights raise important worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise must be constrained by a number of moral duties. (shrink)

Fichte founded a revolutionary philosophical movement and invented an entirely new kind of philosophy; and he did so knowingly and intentionally. Yet, paradoxically, he did all this merely in the course of attempting to complete the philosophical project of Kant and protect critical philosophy against the possibility of skeptical..

In this article, an argument is made for extending bioethical principles to place-based community and cultural group protections when there are conflicting perspectives on reporting individual results of biomonitoring studies. Bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, respect for autonomy, and justice can incorporate participatory decision-making and understandings of the group conditions of individual research participants, particularly for research studies with vulnerable groups. Arguments for and against biomonitoring communication to individual participants are reviewed here. Assessments of risks and benefits of biomonitoring communication (...) can be improved by considering the contextual conditions of cultural groups and place-based communities. Providing participatory decision-making with all stakeholders about biomonitoring communication can provide more fair benefits than adopting a general, prescriptive clinical standard that favors only group report-backs when clinical utility is low and the scientific understandings of low dose exposures of chemical contaminants to humans are still uncertain. (shrink)

The ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ (Principles) that provide guidance for the implementation of the United Nations’ ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework (Framework) will probably succeed in making human rights matters more customary in corporate management procedures. They are likely to contribute to higher levels of accountability and awareness within corporations in respect of the negative impact of business activities on human rights. However, we identify tensions between the idea that the respect of human rights is a perfect (...) moral duty for corporations and the Principle’s ‘human rights due diligence’ requirement. We argue that the effectiveness of the ‘human rights due diligence’ is in many respects dependent upon the moral commitment of corporations. The Principles leave room for an instrumental or strategic implementation of due diligence, which in some cases could result in a depreciation of the fundamental norms they seek to promote. We reveal some limits of pragmatic approaches to coping with business-related human rights abuses. As these limits become more apparent, not only does the case for further progress in international and extraterritorial human rights law become more compelling, but so too does the argument for a more forceful discussion on the moral foundations of human rights duties for corporations. (shrink)

This symposium discusses J.-L. Dessalles's account of the evolution of language, which was presented in Why we Talk (OUP 2007).

In Child Abuse, Family Rights, and the Child Protective System: A Critical Analysis from Law, Ethics, and Catholic Social Teaching, Stephen M. Krason gathers essays by leading scholars and practitioners to comment through the prism of Catholic social thought, on the plight afflicting American families and the role of the child protective system. Here readers will find critical essays on the deleterious effect of the 1974 passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act; assessments of current American policies on (...) child abuse and neglect and the role of the CPS within the context of prevailing international human rights principles and Catholic social teaching; a survey of the enforcement of CPS policies from a legal and constitutional perspective; research data disputing the CPS principle that all parents are potential abusers and illustrating the greater prevalence of abuse and neglect in broken, “blended,” and “untraditional” families; and arguments for poverty and unemployment as the prime culprits in the mistreatment of children. Also included are the amicus curiae briefs that the Society of Catholic Social Scientists submitted in two U.S. Supreme Court cases on parental rights, the CPS, and state control over the family. (shrink)

The democratic boundary problem raises the question of who has democratic participation rights in a given polity and why. One possible solution to this problem is the all-affected principle, according to which a polity ought to enfranchise all persons whose interests are affected by the polity’s decisions in a morally significant way. While AAP offers a plausible principle of democratic enfranchisement, its supporters have so far not paid sufficient attention to economic participation rights. I argue that if one (...) commits oneself to AAP, one must also commit oneself to the view that political participation rights are not necessarily the only, and not necessarily the best, way to protect morally weighty interests. I also argue that economic participation rights raise important worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise must be constrained by a number of moral duties. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the history of the introduction and use of iterative algorithms in conservation biology in the 1980s and early 1990s in order to prioritize areas for protection as nature reserves. The importance of these algorithms was that they led to greater economy in spatial extent (“efficiency”) in the selection of areas to represent biological features adequately (that is, to a specified level) compared to older methods of scoring and ranking areas using criteria such as biotic “richness” (the (...) number of features of interest). The development of these algorithms was critical to producing a research program for conservation biology that was distinct from ecology and eventually led to what came to be called systematic conservation planning. Very similar algorithmic approaches were introduced independently in the 1980–1990 period in Australia, South Africa, and (arguably) the United Kingdom. The key rules in these algorithms were the use of rarity and what came to be called complementarity (the number of new or under-represented features in an area relative to those that had already been selected). Because these algorithms were heuristic, they were not guaranteed to produce optimal (most “efficient”) solutions. However, complementarity came to be seen as a principle rather than a rule in an algorithm and its use was also advocated for the former reason. Optimal solutions could be produced by reformulating the reserve selection problem in a mathematical programming formalism and using exact algorithms developed in that context. A dispute over the relevance of full optimality arose and was never resolved. Moreover, exact algorithms could not easily incorporate criteria determining the spatial configuration of networks of selected areas, in contrast to heuristic algorithms. Meanwhile metaheuristic algorithms emerged in the 1990s and came to be seen as a credible more effective alternative to the heuristic algorithms. Ultimately what was important about these developments was that the reserve selection problem came to be viewed a complex optimal decision problem under uncertainty, resource, and other constraints. It was a type of problem that had no antecedent in traditional ecology. (shrink)

Medical Research Council, Capetown, South Africa Nasheen Naidoo Medical Research Council, Capetown, South Africa Shamagonam James Medical Research Council, Durban, South Africa Priscilla Reddy Medical Research Council, Capetown, South Africa * Corresponding author: 306 Arnold House, School of Public Health & Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. Tel.: (413) 545 1005; Email: Buchanan{at}schoolph.umass.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract The analysis presented here lays out the ethical warrants for requiring community oversight (...) of health research conducted in international settings. It reviews the inadequacies with the current standards of individual informed consent and research ethics committee review, and then, shows how a broader population-based public health perspective raises new demands on justice involving due consideration of the rights, harms and benefits to the community as a whole. As developed here, an ethical standard that requires community oversight of health research is justified on three principled grounds: respect for community autonomy and their right to self-determination; due consideration of the consequences of the research for the community as a whole; and, a more complete understanding of human autonomy. The paper concludes with practical recommendations regarding the composition of Community Advisory Boards to ensure that they have legitimate decision-making authority in diverse socio-cultural contexts. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

For almost 50 years, the Council of Europe through a series of documents has been helping to build up a set of rules, principles, and strategies related to culture, environment, ethics, and sustainable development. At the moment, one of the most important aims of the Council of Europe’s agenda deals with the elaboration of the General Principles for the Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development, as raised in document CO-DBP (2003)2 related to the environmental subject. The intention of (...) the Council of Europe is to encourage national authorities to implement these General Principles into their national environmental policies. These principles should have an important effect, especially in those countries which are new members of the European Union. The primary target of this paper is the study of these principles and the setting of their entailed implications in order to establish a relation between values and policy making. Quite often, the conclusions adopted by the agreements generated within the framework of the European Union are controversial. Therefore, a study aiming to lay the foundations of these principles will make the exchange of ideas easier, providing a wider and more detailed scope in the European environmental policy. (shrink)

The analysis presented here lays out the ethical warrants for requiring community oversight of health research conducted in international settings. It reviews the inadequacies with the current standards of individual informed consent and research ethics committee review, and then, shows how a broader population-based public health perspective raises new demands on justice involving due consideration of the rights, harms and benefits to the community as a whole. As developed here, an ethical standard that requires community oversight of health research is (...) justified on three principled grounds: respect for community autonomy and their right to self-determination; due consideration of the consequences of the research for the community as a whole; and, a more complete understanding of human autonomy. The paper concludes with practical recommendations regarding the composition of Community Advisory Boards to ensure that they have legitimate decision-making authority in diverse socio-cultural contexts. (shrink)

The least infringement principle has been widely endorsed by public health scholars. According to this principle, public health policies may infringe upon “general moral considerations” in order to achieve a public health goal, but if two policies provide the same public health benefit, then policymakers should choose the one that infringes least upon “general moral considerations.” General moral considerations can encompass a wide variety of goals, including fair distribution of burdens and benefits, protection of privacy and confidentiality, (...) and respect for autonomy.In this article, we argue that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's 2006 HIV screening recommendations may violate the least infringement principle. This is a concern because, although not legally binding, the Recommendations appear to have already influenced state laws and will likely continue to do so as legislative proposals continue to be passed. At a minimum, therefore, the Recommendations have important implications for HIV screening within the United States. (shrink)

One Rawlsian response to G. A. Cohen’s criticisms of justice as fairness which Cohen canvasses, and then dismisses, is the 'Freedom Objection'. It comes in two versions. The 'First Version' asserts that there is an unresolved trilemma among the three principles of equality, Pareto-optimality, and freedom of occupational choice, while the 'Second Version' imputes to Rawls’s theory a concern to protect occupational freedom over equality of condition. This article is mainly concerned with advancing three claims. First, the 'ethical solution' Cohen (...) advances against the First Version of the Freedom Objection does not grant a fair hearing to the Freedom Objection. Second, the distinction Cohen presses between the legal and moral right of occupational choice in his response to the Second Version cannot save him from worries about Stalinist coercion. Third, Cohen’s response to the First Version of the Freedom Objection is actually in tension with his response to the Second Version of the Freedom Objection. (shrink)