The 2010 Nagoya Protocol is an international framework for access and benefit sharing (ABS) of the use of genetic and biological resources, with particular focus on indigenous communities. This is especially important in Africa, where local communities have a close reliance on environmental resources and ecosystems. However, national legislation and policies commonly lag behind international agreements, and this poses challenges for legal compliance as well as practical applications. This study reviews the academic literature on the Nagoya Protocol and ABS applications, (...) and then considers the implications of this analysis for research in Africa. Results show that there is uneven engagement with the principles of the Nagoya Protocol across different academic disciplines; local communities are sometimes sidelined in these studies; and only 8% of researchers in the literature analysed are located in Africa. Future developments should focus on ensuring national compliance with the Nagoya Protocol, and that researchers and industry work in partnership with local African communities on ABS issues. (shrink)

In this work, the author has fashioned out of the logical and linguistic theses of his earlier books a full-scale but readily intelligible account of moral argument.

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

Are fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes real? What can fiction tell us about the nature of truth and reality? In this excellent introduction to the problem of fictionalism R. M. Sainsbury covers the following key topics: what is fiction? realism about fictional objects, including the arguments that fictional objects are real but non-existent; real but non-factual; real but non-concrete the relationship between fictional characters and non-actual worlds fictional entities as abstract artefacts fiction and intentionality and the problem of irrealism (...) fictionalism about possible worlds moral fictionalism. R. M. Sainsbury makes extensive use of examples from fiction, such as Sherlock Holmes, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary and examines the work of philosophers who have made significant contributions to the topic, including Meinong, David Lewis, and Bas Van Fraassen. Additional features include chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms, making _Fiction and Fictionalism_ ideal for those coming to the issue for the first time. (shrink)

Scholars of Plato are divided between those who emphasize the literature of the dialogues and those who emphasize the argument of the dialogues, and between those who see a development in the thought of the dialogues and those who do not. In this important book Russell Dancy focuses on the arguments and defends a developmental picture. He explains the Theory of Forms of the Phaedo and Symposium as an outgrowth of the quest for definitions canvassed in the Socratic dialogues, by (...) constructing a Theory of Definition for the Socratic dialogues based on the refutations of definitions in those dialogues, and showing how that theory is mirrored in the Theory of Forms. His discussion, notable for both its clarity and its meticulous scholarship, ranges in detail over a number of Plato's early and middle dialogues, and will be of interest to readers in Plato studies and in ancient philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This book is divided into three parts: in Part I, R. M. Hare offers a justification for the use of philosophy of language in the treatment of moral questions, together with an overview of his moral philosophy of ‘universal prescriptivism’. The second part, and the core of the book, consists of five chapters originally presented as a lecture series under the title ‘A Taxonomy of Ethical Theories’. Hare identifies descriptivism and non‐descriptivism as the two main positions in modern moral philosophy. (...) The former he divides into Naturalism and Intuitionism, and the latter into Emotivism and Rationalism. Hare argues that all forms of descriptivism tend to lead to Relativism because the truth conditions of moral statements are culturally variant. Of the positions discussed, only Hare's own position, a form of Rationalism, which he calls Universal Prescriptivism, meets all of the requirements that an adequate ethical theory should meet. Part III consists of Hare's previously published essay ‘Could Kant have been a Utilitarian?’ (Utilitas 5, 1993). Here, Hare puts forward the controversial thesis that Kant's moral philosophy is, in its basic principles, compatible with utilitarianism. (shrink)

Tüm dünyayı etkisi altına alan koronavirüs pandemisinin siyasi tutumlarla ilişkisini öğrenmek ve siyasetin kriz durumlarında halkın tutum ve davranışlarını yönlendirip yönlendirmediğini öğrenmek amacıyla 767 kişiyle çevrimiçi anket yapılmıştır. Yapılan nicel araştırma sonucunda, alınan önleyici tedbirlere uymanın, bu tedbirlerin yerinde oluşuna/haklılığına olan tutumun, aşı olma niyetinin ve aşının koruyuculuğuna olan inancın siyasi görüşlere göre farklılaştığı bulunmuştur. Ayrıca katılımcıların yapılan Covid-19 açıklamaları bakımından siyasi partilerine, parti temsilcilerinden daha çok güvendikleri, alınan önlem ve tedbirleri kısmen yerinde/haklı buldukları ve çok büyük çoğunluğun bu önlemlere (...) uyduğu görülmüştür. Araştırma sonucunda virüsün kökenine yönelik inançlar bakımından virüsün gerçek olduğuna inanıldığı, ortaya çıkış nedeni bakımından ise ülkelerin ekonomilerini kötüleştirmek ve dünya nüfusunu azaltmak için ortaya çıktığına inanıldığı görülmüştür. Araştırmadan çıkan bir başka sonuç ise katılımcıların televizyon, dergi ve gazetelerin ideolojik nedenlerle ve siyasi yanlılıklarına bağlı olarak virüs haberlerini halka farklı yansıttığını düşündükleridir. Sosyal medyadaki haberlerin ise yanıltıcı, yanlış olduğu görüşündelerdir. Bu çalışma sonucunda salgın hastalık, afet, savaş, ekonomik krizler gibi olağanüstü durumlarda siyasetin, siyasi görüşlerin dikkate alınmasının hem krizin üstesinden gelmede hem de toplumun tüm üyelerini kapsamada önemli bir rol oynayacağı vurgulanmaktadır. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Politics and religion certainly ride together throughout the Dune saga. Rationales were given to support twentieth century dictator ships, whose citizens were encouraged to see their leaders as infallible. In this way, politics in a totalitarian state resembled a religion, with a community of faithful followers and its own special theology to justify the dictator's authority. This chapter, draws parallels between the religious dimensions of politics in Frank Herbert's Dune novels and some philosophers’ views on tyranny and justice here on (...) Earth. Even in democratic countries, leaders still tend to think of themselves as in service to some higher, impersonal standard, like a set of principles, a tradition, a flag, or a constitution. Plato's readers have sometimes described the relation between the higher plane of reality of universals and the world of everyday experience in terms of the relation between heaven and earth in the Abrahamic religions. (shrink)

I had a strange dream, or half-waking vision, not long ago. I found myself at the top of a mountain in the mist, feeling very pleased with myself, not just for having climbed the mountain, but for having achieved my life's ambition, to find a way of answering moral questions rationally. But as I was preening myself on this achievement, the mist began to clear, and I saw that I was surrounded on the mountain top by the graves of all (...) those other philosophers, great and small, who had had the same ambition, and thought they had achieved it. And I have come to see, reflecting on my dream, that, ever since, the hard-working philosophical worms have been nibbling away at their systems and showing that the achievement was an illusion. True, their skeletons, indigestible to worms, remained, and were surprisingly similar to one another. But I was led to think again about what one can, and what one cannot, achieve in this direction. (shrink)

This article aims to improve the understanding of corporate governance and environmental reporting literature by analyzing the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on environmental performance, environmental disclosure, and greenwashing behavior. The panel regression estimation technique with fixed effects was applied to Chinese firm data. As a result, it was found that more women who served on corporate boards enhanced the company's environmental performance and disclosures while limiting greenwashing behavior. The result indicated that women in top management play a constructive (...) role in establishing firms' active environmental initiatives. Furthermore, this relationship was nonlinear and exponentially increased when women's representation reached the threshold of 33.5% representation on board or higher. Based on the findings, no internal bias was found even after other governance and firm-level control factors and probable endogenies were considered and variable biases were omitted. Notably, the results present important implications for regulators and policymakers by highlighting the influential role of BGD in promoting environmentally responsible practices and reducing greenwashing. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, vol. 52, number 1, pp.44-63. R.M. Nugayev, Kazan State |University, USSR. -/- THE HISTORY OF QUANTUM THEORY AS A DECISIVE ARGUMENT FAVORING EINSTEIN OVER LJRENTZ. -/- Abstract. Einstein’s papers on relativity, quantum theory and statistical mechanics were all part of a single research programme ; the aim was to unify mechanics and electrodynamics. It was this broader program – which eventually split into relativistic physics and quantummmechanics – that superseded Lorentz’s theory. The argument of this paper is (...) partly historical and partly methodological. A notion of “crossbred objects” – theoretical objects with contradictory properties which are part of the domain of application of two different research programs – is developed that explains the dynamics of revolutionary theory change. (shrink)

In the early part of the paper, I attempt to explain a dispute between two parties who endorse the compositionality of language but disagree about its implications: Paul Horwich, and Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore. In the remainder of the paper, I challenge the thesis on which they are agreed, that compositionality can be taken for granted. I suggest that it is not clear what compositionality involves nor whether it obtains. I consider some kinds of apparent counterexamples, and compositionalist responses (...) to them in terms of covert indexicality and unspecific meanings. I argue that the last option is the best for most of the cases I consider. I conclude by stressing, as against Horwich and Fodor and Lepore, that the appropriate question concerns the extent to which compositionality obtains in a natural language, rather than whether it obtains or not, so that the answer is essentially messy, requiring detailed consideration of a wide range of examples. (shrink)

… the supreme end, the happiness of all mankind (Kr VA851/NKS 665).The law concerning punishment is a Categorical Imperative; and woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness, looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it (Rl.A196/B226, 6:331; Ladd, 100).

This article discusses the definition of slavery as a status in society and a relation to an owner. an imaginary case in which utilitarian arguments could justify slavery. this case, just because it is highly unlikely to occur in the actual world, does not provide an argument against utilitarianism. if it did occur, slavery would be justified in this case, but that is no reason for abandoning our intuitive principle condemning slavery. the adoption of this principle has in the actual (...) world a good utilitarian justification. slavery is wrong because in the world of men as they are it will almost always cause misery. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatives claim that seemings are sui generis mental states and can thus provide foundational non-doxastic justification for beliefs. Many of their critics deny this, claiming, instead, that seemings can be reductively analyzed in terms of other mental states—either beliefs, inclinations to believe, or beliefs about one’s evidence—that cannot provide foundational non-doxastic justification. In this paper, I argue that no tenable semantic reduction of ‘seems’ can be formulated in terms of the three reductive analyses that have been proposed by critics (...) of phenomenal conservatism. This is because Moore-paradoxical statements are generated when each of the reductive analyses is substituted for ‘seems’ in statements like ‘The stick is straight, but it does not seem to me that it’s straight.’ Since the latter statement is not Moore-paradoxical, the three proposed reductive analyses of ‘seems’ are unsuccessful. Absent a successful semantic reduction, however, there is no good reason to think a successful metaphysical reduction of seemings is forthcoming. Thus, there is an additional reason, unnoticed in the existing literature, to think that seemings are sui generis mental states. (shrink)