The global economy is battling financial crisis and recession on an unprecedented scale. Reisman's book Democracy and Exchange reviews the contributions of a number of thinkers including Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter to the task of making ordinary people feel tolerably happy with the outcomes that affect their lives. The article argues that although Smith is viewed as the principal figure in the Scottish political economy tradition, there are other writers, notably John Rae whose ideas may have more contemporary relevance (...) than those of Smith. A return to the ideas of Rae and Schumpeter, particularly on fiscal policy, may provide important insights into the financial crisis. (shrink)

John Rae made a wide-ranging contribution to economics, in particular through his work on Capital Theory and Technical Change. Although Rae was held in high esteem by some of the great names of the past who have openly acknowledged his originality and their indebtedness to him, he has not yet received all the attention he deserves. In _The Economics of John Rae_, respected economists, redress the general neglect of Rae as a classical economist and examine his role as a political (...) economist. (shrink)

Quantum physics is believed to be the fundamental theory underlying our understanding of the physical universe. However, it is based on concepts and principles that have always been difficult to understand and controversial in their interpretation. This book aims to explain these issues using a minimum of technical language and mathematics. After a brief introduction to the ideas of quantum physics, the problems of interpretation are identified and explained. The rest of the book surveys, describes and criticises a range of (...) suggestions that have been made with the aim of resolving these problems; these include the traditional, or 'Copenhagen' interpretation, the possible role of the conscious mind in measurement, and the postulate of parallel universes. This new edition has been revised throughout to take into account developments in this field over the past fifteen years, including the idea of 'consistent histories' to which a completely new chapter is devoted. (shrink)

What is the point of language? If we begin with that abstract question, we may be tempted towards a high-minded answer: “People say things to get other people to come to know things that they didn't know before” (Stalnaker, 2002, 703). The point is truth, knowledge, communication. If we begin with a concrete question, “What has language to do with race?” we find a different point: to attack, spread hatred, create racial hierarchy. The mere practice of racial categorization is controversial: (...) are race terms natural or social kind terms? What does categorization do to the categorized? (Outlaw, 1990; Omi and Winant, 1994; Appiah, 1996; Andreason, 1998; Kitcher, 1999; Zack, 2002; Haslanger, 2008; Glasgow, 2009). But there is worse than mere categorization to contend with. (shrink)

Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question of whether extraterrestrials will be altruistic has become increasingly important in recent years as SETI scientists have begun contemplating transmissions from Earth to make contact. Technological civilizations that transmit signals for the benefit of others, but with no immediate gain for themselves, certainly seem to be altruistic. But does this make biological sense? Should we (...) expect altruism to evolve throughout the cosmos, or is this only wishful thinking? Is it dangerous to send messages to other worlds, as Stephen Hawking has suggested, or might humankind benefit from an exchange with intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy? Would extraterrestrial societies be based on different ethical principles, or would we see commonalities with Earthly notions of morality? Extraterrestrial Altruism explores these and related questions about the motivations of civilizations beyond Earth, providing new insights that are critical for SETI. Chapters are authored by leading scholars from diverse disciplines—anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, cosmology, engineering, history of science, law, philosophy, psychology, public policy, and sociology. The book is carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Foreword is by Frank Drake. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand whether evolution and ethics are unique to Earth, or whether they are built into the fabric of the universe. (shrink)

There are two alternative approaches to accommodating an agent-centered restriction against, say, φ-ing. One approach is to prohibit agents from ever φ-ing. For instance, there could be an absolute prohibition against breaking a promise. The other approach is to require agents both to adopt an end that can be achieved only by their not φ-ing and to give this end priority over that of minimizing overall instances of φ-ing. For instance, each agent could be required both to adopt the end (...) of minimizing their own promise-breakings and to give this end priority over that of minimizing promise-breakings overall. The former is what I’ll call the side-constraint approach, and the latter is what I’ll call the teleological approach. In this chapter, I argue that, when it comes to accommodating restrictions, we should (1) favor the teleological approach over the side-constraint approach, (2) favor an act-consequentialist approach over a non-consequentialist, teleological approach (such as Rossian pluralism), and (3) favor a Kantsequentialist approach over other act-consequentialist approaches, where Kantsequentialism is a version of act-consequentialism that holds that persons are ends-in-themselves who are inherently and unconditionally valuable and are, thus, owed our respect. (shrink)

This chapter sets forth a general theory of gender stratification. While both biological and ideological variables are taken into account, the emphasis is structural: It is proposed that the major independent variable affecting sexual inequality is each sex's economic power, understood as relative control over the means of production and allocation of surplus. For women, relative economic power is seen as varying-and not always in the same direction-at a variety of micro- and macrolevels, ranging from the household to the state. (...) A series of propositions links the antecedents of women's relative economic power, the interrelationship between economic and other forms of power, and the forms of privilege and opportunity into which each gender can translate its relative power. (shrink)

Kant argued that we have no knowledge of things in themselves, no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of things, a thesis that is not idealism but epistemic humility. David Lewis agrees (in 'Ramseyan Humility'), but for Ramseyan reasons rather than Kantian. I compare the doctrines of Ramseyan and Kantian humility, and argue that Lewis's contextualist strategy for rescuing knowledge from the sceptic (proposed elsewhere) should also rescue knowledge of things in themselves. The rescue would not be complete: for knowledge of (...) things in themselves would remain elusive. (shrink)

Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to (...) be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable. (shrink)

School psychologists often break confidentiality if confronted with risky adolescent behavior. Members of the National Association of School Psychologists ( N = 78) responded to a survey containing a vignette describing an adolescent engaging in risky behaviors and rated the degree to which it is ethical to break confidentiality for behaviors of varying frequency, intensity, and duration. Respondents generally found it ethical to break confidentiality when risky adolescent behaviors became more dangerous or potentially harmful, although there was considerable variability between (...) respondents. Significant gender effects were found between male and female respondents for alcohol use, and a significant Form Type (i.e., male or female vignette) Frequency/Duration interaction was observed for antisocial behaviors. School psychologists could benefit from further training in ethical decision making because these ethical dilemmas are not always clear-cut. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women in TibetRae Erin DachilleWomen in Tibet. Edited by Janet Gyatso and Hanna Havnevik. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 436 pp.Empowerment, transcendence, and the performance of identity are common themes in the study of gender and religion across cultures. As these themes are elucidated across cultures and in different historical moments, they are troubled by a persistent refusal of gender as a category of enduring symbolic and (...) real meaning by both historical and contemporary cultural actors. In the cases of Tibetan and Buddhist studies, the approach to womanhood as a category is repeatedly subsumed by concerns with religious or ethnic and political identity. This trend has forced many scholars to appeal to the symbolic realm of the iconic female or the construction of womanhood from sparse individual accounts as representative of an artificial subcultural entity. In response to the impasse created by these methods, the editors of Women in Tibet have chosen an approach that seeks to level the field. In doing so, they have produced a work that combines textual and anthropological projects aimed at recovering the specificities of lived womanhood across a range of historical moments. Allying themselves with a historical versus a feminist agenda, they succeed in laying the groundwork for a new approach to the study of womanhood.This approach surveys the vast artillery of historically embedded social dynamics available for Tibetan women to emulate, embody, or resist. In the diversity of their selections, Gyatso and Havnevik intentionally leave room for the possibility that women continue to perform as historical actors in spite of as well as because of their association with womanhood and the disempowering social and religious stereotypes attached to it. In leaving this issue open-ended, the editors sustain the tension between approaches that locate "specifically female" elements within traditions and those that posit the category of womanhood to be subservient to other cultural categories and phenomena. Exploring the participation of women in lineages as diverse as the oracular described by Hildegard Diemberger, the medical addressed by Tashi Tsering, and the imperial aristocratic presented by Helga Uebach, the essays in this volume represent an oscillation in the perceived relevance of femaleness. Inconsistency in the priority of the category of womanhood in historical interpretation reflects fluctuating attitudes on the part of Tibetans themselves as well as of European and American scholars as interpreters of the region's religious, social, and political realities.Asceticism in particular has been a highly charged site for the exploration of these themes in both Buddhist and Christian studies, along with determining the specific nature of female monasticism. As an instance of the deliberate embrace of a social category thriving upon the confluence of the ideal and the marginal, asceticism provides a lens for considering the ways in which women exploited opportunities to survive and excel spiritually and socially, often in spite [End Page 172] of female embodiment. Several of the authors in this volume address the tension between the socially sanctioned spaces for female asceticism within the nunnery or hermitage and the identities that individuals and communities of female ascetics strive to inhabit. Kurtis Schaeffer, for example, presents the tensions operating within acts of ascetic self-clarification in the autobiography of the medieval Tibetan hermitess Orgyan Chokyi. This account provides a rare glimpse of a historical woman defining her marginality and femaleness in relationship to Buddhist notions of suffering. Schaeffer reminds the reader that even from the hermetically sealed space of the cave, social, geographic, and historical elements play a fundamental role in constructing an individual's narrative identity and conditioning the terms of her self-realization.Charlene Makley's astute observations on the identity of nuns in contemporary Amdo taps into the various power dynamics at play in the social construction of nuns as parasitic, marginal, and dispensable members of the Labrang community. These acts of identification occur in the enduring and influential discursive field of gossip centered upon the "inappropriate otherness" of female monastics and their rumored failure to perfectly embody what Makley, following Charles Keyes, terms the "third gender" of celibate monasticism. Makley uncovers the powerful signifiers of the body of the nun in this geographical and historical context as... (shrink)

Something could be round even if it were the only thing in the universe, unaccompanied by anything distinct from itself. Jaegwon Kim once suggested that we define an intrinsic property as one that can belong to something unaccompanied. Wrong: unaccompaniment itself is not intrinsic, yet it can belong to something unaccompanied. But there is a better Kim-style definition. Say that P is independent of accompaniment iff four different cases are possible: something accompanied may have P or lack P, something unaccompanied (...) may have P or lack P. P is basic intrinsic iff (1) P and not-P are nondisjunctive and contingent, and (2) P is independent of accompaniment. Two things (actual or possible) are duplicates iff they have exactly the same basic intrinsic properties. P is intrinsic iff no two duplicates differ with respect to P. (shrink)

Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified -- made subordinate and treated as things -- and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.

This paper suggests that Lenski's classification of agrarian societies into simple versus advanced, based on the use of iron in the latter, obscures important variations in the gender division of labor and the level of gender stratification. In particular, his categories lump the gender egalitarian irrigated rice societies of Southeast Asia with the great majority of agrarian societies, which are strongly patriarchal. Based on my general theory of gender stratification and experience coding and analyzing gender stratification in the ethnographic databases (...) and fieldwork in 39 countries worldwide, I propose a three-category alternative. First, agrarian societies are divided according to the technological criterion of irrigation into dry (rain-fed) and wet (irrigated rice) categories. This distinguishes two gender divisions of labor: a male farming system in dry agrarian and an "everybody works" system in labor-intensive rice cultivation, in which women are important in production. Second, irrigated rice societies are divided into patri-oriented-male advantage and those neutral to positive for women, based on the nature of the kinship system. This distinguishes the gender egalitarian Southeast Asian wet rice societies from the highly gender stratified majority of irrigated rice societies. Furthermore, these distinctions in gender equality are predicted by my gender stratification theory. (shrink)

We concur that basic research on the use of CNS grafts is needed. Two important model systems for functional studies of grafts are ignored by Stein & Glasier. In the first, reproductive function is restored in hypogonadal mice by transplantation of GnRH-synthesizing neurons. In the second, circadian rhythmicity is restored by transplantation of the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

We defend the view of some feminist writers that the notion of silencing has to be taken seriously in discussions of free speech. We assume that what ought to be meant by ‘speech’, in the context ‘free speech’, is whatever it is that a correct justification of the right to free speech justifies one in protecting. And we argue that what one ought to mean includes illocution, in the sense of J.L. Austin.

The distinction at the heart of Kant's philosophy is a metaphysical distinction: things in themselves are substances, bearers of intrinsic properties; phenomena are relational properties of substances. Kant says that things as we know them are composed "entirely of relations", by which he means forces. Kant's claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. Kant has an empiricist starting-point. Human beings are receptive creatures. (...) We must be affected by the things of which we come to have knowledge. Kant believes that humility follows from this fact of receptivity. Humility does follow from receptivity, once a further premise is supplied. Kant believes that relational properties, causal powers in particular, are not reducible to intrinsic properties, and that intrinsic properties are therefore causally inert. Receptivity implies that we can have knowledge only of what can affect us. Irreducibility implies, in Kant's view, that intrinsic properties cannot affect us. Humility follows from these. This interpretation finds support in a range of critical and pre-critical writings, but there is a special focus on an early anti-Leibnizian argument for irreducibility that has considerable philosophical merit. One advantage of this interpretation is that the following famous contradiction is dissolved: things in themselves exist, and are the causes of phenomena, and we have no knowledge of them as they are in themselves. Moreover Kant's scientific realism, surprising on an idealist interpretation, makes sense. It does not conflict with Kant's claim that he makes all the qualities secondary--he means that he makes them powers, or in Locke's terms, tertiary qualities. Kant's "primary"/secondary quality distinction is superior to widely accepted alternatives, and his application of the irreducibility argument to the primary qualities challenges some current orthodoxies. Kant's commitment to the unobservables of science is permitted by his understanding of receptivity: we can have knowledge of anything that can affect us. Kant's scientific realism, and his humility, thus have a common source. (shrink)

What, if anything, has faith to do with intention? By ‘faith’ I have in mind the attitude described by William James: Suppose … that I am climbing in the Alps, and have had the illluck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my aim, (...) and nerve my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible. But suppose that, on the contrary, the emotions of fear and mistrust preponderate; or suppose that…I feel it would be sinful to act upon an assumption unverified by previous experience,—why, then I shall hesitate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launching myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss.… There are then cases where faith creates its own verification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. (shrink)

In multicultural situations it is common for people to feel that their usual modes of coping are insufficient. They experience what is here called diversity stress. Today diversity stress is widely experienced in part because key management assumptions involving moral judgments are changing. Understanding diversity stress as a type of morality stress suggests particular patterns of causation, and of productive and counterproductive reactions on the part of individuals and organizations. – Deciding whom to appoint to a challenging new position in (...) Europe, a manager passes over an Asian employee and gives the job to a white male. He worries that there may be some prejudice in his own Judgment. – Because she wants to see more minorities in visible positions, a manager promotes a slightly less qualified minority candidate over a majority candidate, all the while feeling guilty. – A male manager hesitates to hug a longtime employee who has just lost her mother. (shrink)

If, as many suppose, pornography changes people, a question arises as to how.1 One answer to this question offers a grand and noble vision. Inspired by the idea that pornography is speech, and inspired by a certain liberal ideal about the point of speech in political life, some theorists say that pornography contributes to that liberal ideal: pornography, even at its most violent and misogynistic, and even at its most harmful, is political speech that aims to express certain views about (...) the good life, 2aims to persuade its consumers of a certain political point of view—and to some extent succeeds in persuading them. Ronald Dworkin suggests that the pornographer contributes to the ‘moral environment, by expressing his political or social convictions or tastes or prejudices informally’, that pornography ‘seeks to deliver’ a ‘message’ , that it reflects the ‘opinion’ that ‘women are submissive, or enjoy being dominated, or should be treated as if they did’, that it is comparable to speech ‘advocating that women occupy inferior roles’.3 Pornography on this view is political speech that aims to persuade its listeners of the truth of certain ideas about women, and of course ‘the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas’.4 Another answer offers a vision that is not grand and noble, but thoroughly reductive. Pornography is not politically persuasive speech, but speech that works by a process of psychological conditioning. This view seems common enough in the social science literature. Consider, for example, this description of an early experiment, from a time that pre-dates contemporary political debate. (shrink)

The growing discipline of feminist theology in Asia and in the world, which involves many Filipinas, entails an increasing attentiveness to gender diversity beyond heteronormative expectations and a broader sense of solidarity among women and others who have experienced exclusion due to gender. An analysis of writings by Philippine feminist theologians Mary John Mananzan, Judette Gallares, and Agnes Brazal, using a threefold schema of “inclusion/addition,” “deconstruct and transform,” and “critique, reject, and start again,” reveals heteronormative gender assumptions and a pattern (...) of moving beyond these. This shows that feminist theologizing is a very dynamic activity that adapts and responds to new ideas flexibly. One common theme that emerges out of feminist theologizing is the image of the babaylan, which provides an opportunity for greater solidarity with various gender identities as a vernacular resource and root metaphor. (shrink)

This study examines the three major Japanese multinational corporate governance cases of the past decade: Sumitomo Copper, Daiwa Bank, and Mitsubishi Motors. The analysis focuses on three particular matters: Does senior management and the board exhibit a form of “disaster myopia”? Were there clear signs of the impending problems that were ignored? Is there anything distinctive that makes these cases Japanese in character? The first two questions are answered in the affirmative for all three firms, but only the Mitsubishi case (...) exhibits a peculiarly Japanese characteristic. (shrink)

Esta pesquisa analisa alguns tópicos sobre a metodologia de acordo com a filosofia da ciência de Larry Laudan, além de examinar, na área da educação, esta proposta de interpretação filosófica. Trouxemos como elementos algumas considerações e definições sobre a metodologia em Laudan, isto é, da metodologia como um instrumento para a realização da axiologia (que são as metas e os valores cognitivos), porém, apresentando também interessantes relações para com as teorias específicas, como o de justificar as teorias específicas e de (...) ser restringida por elas. A metodologia é também, dentro do modelo reticulado de Laudan, justificada pela axiologia. Para além desta análise, há também uma defesa da metodologia enquanto o estudo dela própria, o que permite encontrarmos conexões interessantes em teorias da educação, como no caso da investigação-ação, onde vemos que estamos diante de uma tradição de pesquisa nos moldes defendidos pela filosofia da ciência de Laudan, por reconhecermos que temos um modelo reticular composto por teorias específicas, metodologias e axiologia também na área da educação. Veremos também que a metodologia em Laudan possui um caráter dinâmico, tensionando e sendo tensionada pelos componentes da tradição de pesquisa, caracterizando o modelo reticulado de racionalidade proposto pelo filósofo. Este debate em Laudan, juntamente com a tradição de pesquisa da investigação-ação da área da educação serão investigados neste artigo. Como base para a construção deste texto, utilizamos as seguintes obras de Laudan: The Progress and its problems: towards a theory of scientific growth (1977), Science and Values (1984a), Explaining the success of science: beyond epistemic realism and relativism (1984b), Methodology’s prospects (1986), Progress or Rationality? The Prospects for Normative Naturalism (1987a), Aim-less Epistemology? (1990a) e Normative Naturalism (1990b). (shrink)

Introduction; Aidos in Homer; From Hesiod to the Fifth Century; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Euripides; The Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle; References; Glossary; Index of Principal Passages; General Index.

Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (quangos) comprise a powerful organizational sector that has been criticized for its lack of accountability to governments and their citizens. These organizations are established to serve the public as a whole by targeting the needs of particular groups or fulfilling specific functions. Often they use practices adopted from the business sector, and sometimes they enter the marketplace as profitmaking enterprises. In light of the contribution of GSE Fannie Mae to the 2008 world economic (...) crisis, the impact of this sector on effective democratic government bears further examination. In this article, I present a systems model that suggests how researchers might comprehensively assess the accountability of organizations in this sector, here termed the "gray sector," with respect to their government missions. I focus on four systems dimensions: mission, organizational design, organizational outcomes, and the information feedback process. Organizational design and the nature of the sector population are cited as emerging issues of particular importance. (shrink)

First published in 1984, Cultural Analysis is a systematic examination of the theories of culture contained in the writings of four contemporary social theorists: Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. This study of their work clarifies their contributions to the analysis of culture and shows the converging assumptions that the authors believe are laying the foundation for a new approach to the study of culture. The focus is specifically on culture, a concept that remains subject (...) to ambiguities of treatment, and concentrates on questions concerning the definition and content of culture, its construction, its relations with social conditions, and the manner in which it may be changing. The books demonstrates how these writers have made strides towards defining culture as an objective element of social interaction which can be subjected to critical investigation. (shrink)

In this article, I approach some phenomena seen predominantly on social-media sites that are grouped together as cancel culture with guidance from two major themes in Plato’s thought. In the first section, I argue that shame can play a constructive and valuable role in a person’s improvement, just as we see Socrates throughout Plato’s dialogues use shame to help his interlocutors improve. This insight can help us understand the value of shaming people online for, among other things, their morally reprehensible (...) views. In the second section, I argue that it is required for the proper functioning of democratic institutions that some views be excluded from the public sphere, which follows some Platonic ideas from the Laws. In neither case do I argue that this approach is good in an unqualified sense or even ultima facie good. However, I maintain that these important insights from Plato’s dialogues illuminate crucial aspects of how we should think about cancel culture. (shrink)