Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic ideal (...) of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen’s private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework’s justificatory potential. (shrink)

Most political liberals argue that only rules, policies and institutions that are part of society’s basic structure need to be justified with so-called public reasons. Laws enacted outside this set are legitimate if and when public reasons can justify the procedure that selects them. I argue that this view is susceptible to known problems from social choice theory. However, there are resources within political liberalism that could address them. If the scope of public reason is extended beyond the basic structure (...) it could order people’s preferences in a way that circumvents the identified issues. (shrink)

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions (...) that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)

Kevin Vallier has recently argued that the ideals of public justification and public deliberation should be separated. The link between the two, Vallier suggests, has been assumed without being properly defended. Once examined, the connection falls apart. In this paper, I argue that there is, in fact, a clear and convincing story available for why the two ideals should be treated as mutually reinforcing. Drawing on recent empirical evidence, I argue that the deliberative behaviour of citizens can have a clear (...) and positive impact on the behaviour and policy choices of public officials. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism demands that political decisions be publicly justified to the citizens who are subjected to them. Much recent literature emphasises the differences between the two main interpretations of this requirement, justificatory and political liberalism. In this paper, I show that both views share structural democratic deficits. They fail to guarantee political autonomy, the expressive quality of law, and the justification to citizens, because they allow collective decisions made by incompletely theorised agreements. I argue that the result can only (...) be avoided by changing public reason’s role in collective decision-making. Instead of incompletely theorised agreements, we should demand agreement both on the public reasons themselves and on the other premises that justify political decisions. In this way, it is always possible to point to a procedure-independent reason that justifies democratic decisions, and the reasoning of the state is public and contestable. Finally, I explain how this, in turn, implies that only political liberalism can be rescued—by accepting what I will call strong political liberalism. Modifying justificatory liberalism in the necessary way will inevitably open the door to an objectionable form of perfectionism. (shrink)

John Rawls is turning into a historical figure, with scholarship investigating the origins and foundations of his philosophy. 1 Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice is the most recent contr...

A common objection to political liberalism is that since reasonable citizens agree that some ways of life are worse than others – for instance that the life of a drug addict is less worthwhile than the life of a person who spends her time with family and philosophy – political liberals must concede that the state can sometimes permissibly use perfectionist reasons. I argue in this paper that this challenge is mistaken, because the comparison only tells us something about relative, (...) not absolute, value. And because the real question concerns what the right justificatory constituency looks like, not what counts as reasonable in some other sense, the implication is that perfectionists and political liberals could construct equally plausible idealised constituencies. This stalemate gives us reason to develop arguments in favour of our preferred justificatory constituency. We cannot view local comparative judgements in isolation. (shrink)

Social norms regulating carework and social reproduction tend to be inegalitarian. At the same time, such norms often play a crucial role when we plan our lives. How can we criticise objectionable practices while ensuring that people can organise their lives around meaningful and predictable rules? Gerald Gaus argues that only ‘publicly justified’ rules, rules that everyone would prefer over ‘blameless liberty,’ should be followed. In this paper, we uncover the inegalitarian implications of this feature of Gaus's framework. We show (...) that because a society without clear social norms for how social reproduction and care work ought to be organised would be so unattractive, inegalitarian rules would pass Gaus's test. They would pass this test since they would nevertheless be better than ‘blameless liberty.’ Those who are disproportionately burdened by a rule are faced with the daunting task of showing that they would be better off under no rule, instead of merely having to show that they would be better off with a different rule. (shrink)

Although training in self-regulated learning is effective in improving performance, human trainers can reach only a few people at a time. We developed a web-based training for potentially unlimited numbers of participants based on the process model of SRL by Schmitz and Wiese. A prior study observed positive effects on self-reported SRL and self-efficacy. In the present randomized controlled trial, we investigated an improved version of the web-based training, augmented by the application of peer feedback groups. Prospective university students in (...) an online mathematics preparation course were assigned randomly to one of four experimental conditions: Group D, group TD, group TDP, and group C. Complete data was obtained for 136 participants. The learning diary was intended to trigger goal setting, planning, and self-motivation in the morning and reflection in the evening. The web-based training consisted of three lessons with videos, presentations, self-tests, and exercises. In the peer feedback condition, participants were randomly assigned to groups of five persons each and used a bulletin board to discuss pre-defined topics related to the content of the web-based training. Outcome measures included a test of declarative SRL knowledge, an SRL questionnaire, a general self-efficacy scale, log file data, and a mathematics test. Results showed positive effects for the web-based training, particularly when combined with peer feedback on both SRL knowledge and SRL questionnaires, self-efficacy, and on objective time-investment, but not on the mathematics test. The learning diary did not exhibit positive effects. We conclude that additional peer-feedback seems to be a useful supplement to web-based trainings with comparably low organizational costs. (shrink)

Artiklen vil diskutere det pædagogiske paradoks primært ud fra D. Benner. Artiklen hævder, at det pædagogiske paradoks hviler på en forståelse af frihed, der hos Benner er underbelyst, og en idé om autenticitet, der ender i det isolerede Selv. Jeg foreslår her over for at studere appellens fænomen m.h.p. at indkredse en idé om frihed, der ikke udelukker enhver ydre indflydelse.

La théorie du pronostic est un des éléments les plus importants (et les plus discutés) de la théorie de la science du droit d'Alf Ross. Cet article veut montrer que cette théorie du pronostic est incompatible avec les propres fondements théoriques de Ross, et notamment avec sa théorie des sources du droit et de l'interprétation. Elle doit être comprise comme une tentative réductionniste de la validité normative, qui a échoué par son incapacité à fournir à la recherche juridique les concepts (...) qui lui sont nécessaires. (shrink)

Humanismens förfall.--Kunskapens träd.--Naturen, människan och den vetenskapligt-tekniska revolutionen.--Enhet och splittring i vetenskapen.--Människor, matematik och maskiner.--Om Marx och marxismen.--Humanismen som livshållning.

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, John Buridan (c. 1300–1361) presents his well-known rejection of final causality. The main problem he sees with it is that it requires the cause to exist before the effect. Despite this, he retains the terminology of ends. This has led to some difficulty interpreting Buridan’s view. In this article, I argue that one should not misunderstand Buridan’s terminology and think that he still retains some use or explanatory function for final causality in nature. To (...) make this point, I look first at Buridan’s text, but then also at three thinkers who discuss Buridan’s view in detail: Albert of Saxony (d. 1390), Paul of Venice (d. 1429), and Luis Coronel (d. 1531). They all have a very clear idea of what Buridan’s view was and understand that it entails a rejection of final causality, but they also all preserve his distinctive terminology. Paul of Venice especially discusses and criticizes Buridan’s view in detail. Besides confirming my interpretation of the rejection of final causality, this study also shows that the view was extremely influential well into the sixteenth century and attributed to Buridan throughout two centuries. (shrink)

Beauchamp and Childress have performed a great service by strengthening the principle of respect for the patient's autonomy against the paternalism that dominated medicine until at least the 1970s. Nevertheless, we think that the concept of autonomy should be elaborated further. We suggest such an elaboration built on recent developments within the neurosciences and the free will debate. The reason for this suggestion is at least twofold: First, Beauchamp and Childress neglect some important elements of autonomy. Second, neuroscience itself needs (...) a conceptual apparatus to deal with the neural basis of autonomy for diagnostic purposes. This desideratum is actually increasing because modern therapy options can considerably influence the neural basis of autonomy itself.Sabine MNeuroScienceAndNorms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging at Bonn University Hospital, Germany. Her main research interests are in neuroethics. She is coauthor of three German books about neuroethics and bioethics.Henrik Walter, M.D., Ph.D., is Full Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of Bonn, Germany, and vice-director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Clinic of Bonn. He is author of Neurophilosophy of Free Will and editor of the book From Neuroethics to Neurolaw?. His research fields are biological psychiatry, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, neurophilosophy, and neuroethics. (shrink)

La notion de mondes possibles chez Leibniz est souvent considérée comme un précurseur des théories contemporaines de la sémantique des mondes possibles. Or, cet article vise à montrer que cette lecture de Leibniz est fondamentalement erronée. Leibniz n'a jamais utilisé la notion de mondes possibles pour établir des conditions de vérité pour des phrases modales, mais le rôle de cette notion est strictement théologique, dans le sens où Leibniz l'emploie uniquement pour rendre compte du choix de Dieu dans la création. (...) Dans un premier temps, nous présentons une critique des tentatives d'interpréter les phrases modales chez Leibniz en termes de monde possibles. Dans un deuxième temps, nous nous proposons de montrer que les mondes possibles fonctionnent comme des raisons du choix divin, et que cette thèse est liée à la conception leibnizienne de la nature de la liberté. (shrink)

For a long time scholars ignored Anselm of Canterbury’s dialogue, De grammatico. It was not until D. P. Henry’s investigations in the 1960s and 70s that it was seriously studied. He showed that it was an important work, but his interpretation was peculiar. The main point of it was to show that Anselm thought traditional logic inadequate for analyzing logical problems and that he wanted to establish a new language that was better suited for the task. Henry also argued that (...) the logical system of the Polish logician, Lesniewski, best captured Anselm’s new logical language.It is only very recently that his interpretation has been challenged. In a paper from 2000, M. M. Adams argued that De grammatico should be seen as an introduction for students to Aristotle’s Categories . She is much closer to the truth than Henry, but Anselm’s work seems too sophisticated to be an introduction, even though the problem he is dealing with. (shrink)

During the first half of the nineteenth century, mathematical analysis underwent a transition from a predominantly formula-centred practice to a more concept-centred one. Central to this development was the reorientation of analysis originating in Augustin-Louis Cauchy's (1789–1857) treatment of infinite series in his Cours d’analyse. In this work, Cauchy set out to rigorize analysis, thereby critically examining and reproving central analytical results. One of Cauchy's first and most ardent followers was the Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) who vowed to (...) shed some light on the vast darkness in analysis.This paper investigates some important aspects of Abel's contribution to the reorientation in analysis. In particular, it stresses the role for critical revision in the process of rigorization. By critically examining past practice, the new practice sought to explain the relative success of the previous—now outdated—approach. This is illustrated by discussing a number of issues related to Abel's new proof of the binomial theorem (1826) including his reactions to the exception that he encountered to one of the central theorems of Cauchy's theory.Following this discussion, the formation of new concepts as the result of critical revisions is illustrated by analysing the early history of the concept of absolute convergence. Thereby, it is shown how a new concept was distilled, investigated, put to use and eventually superseded. (shrink)

Bokanmeldelse av DeGrazia, D., & Millum, J. (2021). _A Theory of Bioethics_. Cambridge University Press. 316 sider. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026710.

For a long time scholars ignored Anselm of Canterbury’s dialogue, De grammatico. It was not until D. P. Henry’s investigations in the 1960s and 70s that it was seriously studied. He showed that it was an important work, but his interpretation was peculiar. The main point of it was to show that Anselm thought traditional logic inadequate for analyzing logical problems and that he wanted to establish a new language that was better suited for the task. Henry also argued that (...) the logical system of the Polish logician, Lesniewski, best captured Anselm’s new logical language.It is only very recently that his interpretation has been challenged. In a paper from 2000, M. M. Adams argued that De grammatico should be seen as an introduction for students to Aristotle’s Categories . She is much closer to the truth than Henry, but Anselm’s work seems too sophisticated to be an introduction, even though the problem he is dealing with. (shrink)

Le concept d’enseignement se trouve au centre des conférences faites par Levinas au Collège philosophique et récemment publiées. Cette notion est toujours présente dans Totalité et Infini, mais semble disparaître ensuite de la philosophie de Levinas. Le but de ce travail est de comprendre pourquoi cela a lieu. En faisant un détour par un texte de Levinas sur « Judaïsme et éducation » de la même période, il est possible de proposer que la notion d’éducation chez Levinas conduise à une (...) ambiguïté au regard de la position du soi responsable faisant qu’il oscille entre l’accusatif et le datif. Cette ambiguïté est la cause de son abandon plus tardif ou plutôt : elle est résolue par la transformation de l’éducation en une instruction non médiate pour laquelle la révélation de la loi est la figure paradigmatique. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved.Cell walls of grasses, including cereal crops and biofuel grasses, comprise the majority of plant biomass and intimately influence plant growth, development and physiology. However, the functions of many cell wall synthesis genes, and the relationships among and the functions of cell wall components remain obscure. To better understand the patterns of cell wall accumulation and identify genes that act in grass (...) cell wall biosynthesis, we characterized 30 samples from aerial organs of rice at 10 developmental time points, 3-100 d post-germination. Within these samples, we measured 15 cell wall chemical components, enzymatic digestibility and 18 cell wall polysaccharide epitopes/ligands. We also used quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to measure expression of 50 glycosyltransferases, 15 acyltransferases and eight phenylpropanoid genes, many of which had previously been identified as being highly expressed in rice. Most cell wall components vary significantly during development, and correlations among them support current understanding of cell walls. We identified 92 significant correlations between cell wall components and gene expression and establish nine strong hypotheses for genes that synthesize xylans, mixed linkage glucan and pectin components. This work provides an extensive analysis of cell wall composition throughout rice development, identifies genes likely to synthesize grass cell walls, and provides a framework for development of genetically improved grasses for use in lignocellulosic biofuel production and agriculture. (shrink)

© Ginn et al. 2016.The indexing methods currently used for serial femtosecond crystallography were originally developed for experiments in which crystals are rotated in the X-ray beam, providing significant three-dimensional information. On the other hand, shots from both X-ray free-electron lasers and serial synchrotron crystallography experiments are still images, in which the few three-dimensional data available arise only from the curvature of the Ewald sphere. Traditional synchrotron crystallography methods are thus less well suited to still image data processing. Here, a (...) new indexing method is presented with the aim of maximizing information use from a still image given the known unit-cell dimensions and space group. Efficacy for cubic, hexagonal and orthorhombic space groups is shown, and for those showing some evidence of diffraction the indexing rate ranged from 90% to 151%. Here, the indexing rate refers to the number of lattices indexed per image. (shrink)

Book Reviews in this ArticlePaul GochetMaurice BoudotKlaus‐Henrik JacobsenLèon BrunschvicgAndrè Bièler.

John and Curran have convincingly shown that Scanlonian contractualism is a valuable resource for evaluating pandemic response policies, and that we should reject cost–benefit analysis in favour of a contractualist framework. However, they fail to consider the part of contractualism that Scanlon constructed precisely to deal with the question of when the state can restrict individuals from making choices that are harmful to themselves and others: the value of choice view. In doing so, they leave it open for opponents of (...) lockdowns to misuse contractualism to justify mistaken policies. This is because the most powerful contractualist objections to locking down are likely to be based on the VoC. When we apply the value of choice view, we see that a lockdown policy’s justifiability depends on the extent to which particular values of choice are found to be threatened by the policy in question, and what safeguards policy-makers have put in place to increase the value of choice and protect people from the harmful consequences of lockdown. Without the VoC, it is harder to explain why lockdowns, to be non-rejectable, must have certain features. With the VoC, the case for contractualism over cost benefit analysis can be made even stronger. (shrink)

Pragmatism gained considerable attention in bioethical discussions in the early 21st century. However, some dimensions and contributions of pragmatism to bioethics remain underexplored in both research and practice. It is argued that pragmatism can make a distinctive contribution to bioethics through its concept, developed by Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, that ethical issues can be resolved through experimental inquiry. Dewey’s proposal that policies can be confirmed or disconfirmed through experimentation is developed by comparing it to the confirmation of scientific (...) hypotheses, with a focus on the objection that the consequences of following a moral view or policy do not provide guidance on choosing among competing ethical perspectives. As confirmation of scientific hypotheses typically relies on evidence gathered from observation, the possibility of ethically relevant observation is then explored based on Peirce’s views on feelings as emotional interpretants. Finally, the connection between Dewey’s experimental ethics and democracy is outlined and compared to unfettered ethical progressivism. (shrink)

In this book we present the first study of all of his philosophical works from logic and grammar to metaphysics and ethics. It contains a substantial introduction about Kilwardby's life and work as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

A set of moral problems known as The Trolley Dilemmas was presented to 3000 randomly selected inhabitants of the USA, Russia and China. It is shown that Chinese are significantly less prone to support utility-maximizing alternatives, as compared to the US and Russian respondents. A number of possible explanations, as well as methodological issues pertaining to the field of surveying moral judgment and moral disagreement, are discussed.

Hume’s ethics is concerned not only with the metaphysical status of moral qualities but equally, if not more, with the problem of determining to what extent and under what conditions issues of moral disagreement and inquiry can be decided by rational argumentation. This paper argues that Hume’s solution to the second problem is a form of perspectivism: the rational decidability of moral issues depends on the existence of shared perspectives, or sets of assumptions and correlated dispositions to feelings, and is (...) largely independent of the metaphysical status of moral qualities. An issue of disagree- ment may thus be rationally decidable among people with certain dispositions to feeling but not among others. A similar perspectivist reading is suggested for Hume’s analysis of knowledge about causes and effects. (shrink)

Tracing increasing distrust of politicians and democratic institutions back to the negative idea of political power and freedom as always being a 'power over' and 'freedom from', this text examines Foucault's alternative conception of the politician as one who has the courage to tell people the truth about what has to be done in the face of the dangers they confront. Telling the truth is not sufficient, but must be complemented with empowering people to actively help in overcoming the dangers (...) themselves. Breaking with conceptions of politics as hierarchy and anarchy, Foucault contended that where there is obedience, there cannot be truth and genuine freedom. This book offers a redefinition of power and freedom within a circular logic of true authority and self-governance. It argues that democracy cannot survive without being innovated along these lines, and considers what can be done to reconnect politicians and laypeople in order to rebuild their mutual trust in each other's political capacities. (shrink)

Cinema and Agamben brings together a group of established scholars of film and visual culture to explore the nexus between the moving image and the influential work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Including two original texts by Agamben himself, published here for the first time in English translation, these essays facilitate a unique multidisciplinary conversation that fundamentally rethinks the theory and praxis of cinema. In their resourceful analyses of the work of artists such as David Claerbout, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Grandrieux, (...) Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and others, the authors put to use a range of key concepts from Agamben's rich body of work, like biopolitics, de-creation, gesture, potentiality and profanation. Sustaining the eminently interdisciplinary scope of Agamben's writing, the essays all bespeak the importance of Agamben's thought for forging new beginnings in film theory and for remedying the elegiac proclamations of the death of cinema so characteristic of the current moment. (shrink)

It is well known that Niels Bohr insisted on the necessity of classical concepts in the account of quantum phenomena. But there is little consensus concerning his reasons, and what he exactly meant by this. In this paper, I re-examine Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, and argue that the necessity of the classical can be seen as part of his response to the measurement problem. More generally, I attempt to clarify Bohr’s view on the classical/quantum divide, arguing that the relation (...) between the two theories is that of mutual dependence. An important element in this clarification consists in distinguishing Bohr’s idea of the wave function as symbolic from both a purely epistemic and an ontological interpretation. Together with new evidence concerning Bohr’s conception of the wave function collapse, this sets his interpretation apart from both standard versions of the Copenhagen interpretation, and from some of the reconstructions of his view found in the literature. I conclude with a few remarks on how Bohr’s ideas make much sense also when modern developments in quantum gravity and early universe cosmology are taken into account. (shrink)

A number of single- and dual-process theories provide competing explanations as to how reasoners evaluate conditional arguments. Some of these theories are typically linked to different instructions—namely deductive and inductive instructions. To assess whether responses under both instructions can be explained by a single process, or if they reflect two modes of conditional reasoning, we re-analysed four experiments that used both deductive and inductive instructions for conditional inference tasks. Our re-analysis provided evidence consistent with a single process. In two new (...) experiments we established a double dissociation of deductive and inductive instructions when validity and plausibility of conditional problems were pitted against each other. This indicates that at least two processes contribute to conditional reasoning. We conclude that single-process theories of conditional reasoning cannot explain the observed results. Theories that postulate at least two processes are needed to account for our findings. (shrink)