Drawing its strength from the UN Charter and UDHR, human rights ethics is a beacon of hope and a promise that requires continuous reaffirmation during these turbulent times. These two documents, with their unwavering faith in ‘fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,’ have shaped our understanding of human rights as global and universal ethics. However, this faith is now being severely (...) tested by four countercurrents: extremism, exclusionism, selectivism, and populism. These countercurrents pose significant and urgent human rights threats that activists, academics, and policymakers must confront by reasserting the basic core values of the UN Charter and UDHR. (shrink)

In most liberal democracies for example, the central bank is as independent as the supreme court, yet deals with a wide range of economic, social, and political issues. How do these public servants make these policy decisions? What normative principles inform their judgments? In The Machinery of Government, Joseph Heath attempts to answer these questions. He looks to the actual practice of public administration to see how normative questions are addressed. More broadly, he attempts to provide the outlines of a (...) "philosophy of the executive" by taking seriously the claim to political authority of the most neglected of the three branches of the state. (shrink)

At the end of World War II, Congress terminated the only national day care policy ever enacted to that point in the United States. It was nearly 20 years later, with the 1962 Public Welfare Amendments, that the American state launched the next national experiment in day care. This policy was constructed not in response to the needs of working women but rather to address rising concerns over the Aid to Dependent Children program. In this article, the author examines archival (...) data from the U.S. Women's Bureau, the U.S. Children's Bureau, and other agencies to explain the transformation of day care from an employment policy to an adjunct of ADC. She argues that maternalists within the state were able to redefine the content of maternalist ideology to occupy the discursive space produced by the emergent political crisis in the ADC program. This new maternalism provided the grounds for a new national commitment to day care provision but also created the institutional structures of its marginalization. (shrink)

The article analyzes the new conditions and institutions of socio-economic dynamics developing under the influence of COVID-19 and overcoming its consequences. New directions of the macro-management system are actualized by the economic recession that arose under the influence of COVID-19 and the previous depressive rates of economic growth. Social conditions and tensions have predetermined the growth of the state's participation in socio-economic development, the formation of new institutional trends. Transformation of public administration institutions is due to the long-term influence of (...) the characteristics of the information society and the conceptualization of modern sustainable growth in the areas of welfare, poverty reduction, and ecology. In the Russian Federation, a transition is underway to a new form of institutional regulation of socio-economic dynamics based on a system of medium-term strategic planning in the range from the development of key long-term development strategies to the operational management of specific projects. The modern national development goals and their indicators are presented, the existing risks of strategic planning are structured, which require consideration when developing subsequent system solutions. The current principles of the welfare state have been clarified, institutional innovations in the organization of social protection of the population are shown in the context of strategic planning, the interaction of federal and regional authorities in the problem field of social assistance and social insurance of the population. (shrink)

Research has shown a direct relationship between infertility-related stress and anxiety in infertile patients. The present study goes into this relationship in depth, testing the moderating role of coping strategies in the associations between specific infertility-related stress dimensions and State-Anxiety among male and female partners of infertile couples. Gender differences were also explored. Both members of 254 infertile couples completed a questionnaire consisting of Socio-demographics, Fertility Problem Inventory–Short Form, Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced–New Italian Version, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y. The (...) results revealed that Social Concern and Couple’s Relationship Concern, in both partners, and Need for Parenthood, in female partners, had positive correlations with State-Anxiety. Seeking Social Support and Avoidant coping were related to increasing levels of State-Anxiety in both partners, whereas Positive Attitude coping strategies were related to lower levels of State-Anxiety in female partners. Problem-Solving and Avoidant coping played moderating roles between specific infertility-related stress dimensions and State-Anxiety in unexpected directions. Problem-Solving exacerbated the negative effects of Social Concern, whereas Avoidant coping buffered the negative effects of several infertility-related stress dimensions in both partners. Interventions to improve stress management and psychological health in infertile couples should consider that the adequacy of coping strategies is inherently situation specific. It therefore follows that patient-centered clinical interventions should consider the potential inadequacy of promoting Problem-Solving strategies, and that even Avoidance can be an efficient strategy for dealing with specific infertility-related stress dimensions. (shrink)

What are the causes of war? Waltz probes the ideas that thinkers throughout the history of Western civilisation - including St. Augustine, Hobbes, Kant, & Spinoza - have offered to explain the reasons for men & related prescriptions for peace.

산스크리트본 아함경의 연구는 여러 가지 의미에서 새로운 국면을 맞이하고 있다. 중앙아시아에서 출토된 사본 단편들에 입각한 설일체유부의 아함 전적류의 연구성과가 꾸준히 증대되고 있는 한편, 최근에 들어 길기트 지역에서 발견된 아함경사본 단편들은 율전과 설화문학을 통해서 밖에 엿볼 수 없던 소위 근본설일체유부의 산스크리트본 아함 전적과의 상관관계를 일차적 자료에 입각하여 보다 구체적으로 해명함과 동시에 종래에 설일체유부의 전적으로 간주되는 한역 중아함경과의 관계를 새로운 각도에서 조명해 볼 필요가 있음을 시사하고 있다. 저자는 현재 추진중인 중아함경 관계 산스크리트 자료의 조사를 통하여 한역 중아함경과의 관계의 구체적인 제시를 시도하고 있다. (...) 그 일환으로 설일체유부의 산스크리트본 중아함경사본 단편들은 물론 한역 중아함경에 포함된 경들에 병행하는 단경류의 사본 단편들, 율장과 설화문학 그리고 아비달마 내지는 유가론 관계 전적중의 인용구절 그리고 설일체유부 전적일반에 보이는 정형구와 법수 등등을 체계적으로 조사하여 망라하고 있다. (shrink)

This book describes the major changes in state relations which have occurred this century and the sources from which they emerged. An invaluable introduction to the structures of modern international relations.

Unnatural States is a radical critique of international theory, in particular, of the assumption of state agency--that states act in the world in their own right. Peter Lomas argues that since the universal states system is inequitable and rigid, and not all states are democracies anyway, this assumption is unreal, and to adopt it means reinforcing an unjust status quo. Looking at the concepts of state, nation, and agency, Lomas sees populations struggling to find an agreed model of the state, (...) owing to inherited material differences; and unsurprisingly, among theorists of the nation, only controversy and a great confusion of terms. Meanwhile, the functional incarnations of the state agent are caricatures: the mandarin state, the lawyer state, the landlord state, the heir-to-history state, and the patriot state. Yet recent developments in international theory (constructivism, scientific realism, postmodernism) sacrifice state agency only at the price of an unhelpful abstraction. The states system is dysfunctional and obsolete, Lomas contends, and international theory must be recast, with morality as central, to inspire and to guide historic change. He focuses in his conclusion on prescriptions for change, led by four moral concerns: human rights, weapons of mass destruction, relations between rich and poor societies, and the environment. "I begin this book," writes Lomas, "with the commonest commonplace of international theory, to expose it as a meaningless cliche. In the masterly hands of Hobbes, it was elaborated into a shock formula for organized society, a reading of history as civilization's failure. Kant sought to rescue morality from Hobbes and create the structures of modernity, but Kant's influence is coming to an end. In the Cold War, politicians disagreeing over another philosopher almost brought the world to an end. Hence the challenges of our time. These are primary and profound. Philosophers have done much to define the modern world. The point of international theory is to change it.". (shrink)

If we are looking for an Ur-explanation for the persistence of the Ur-myth, or any other myth, in our literature, could we not more directly find it in the structure of a mind which does not have to remember in order to imitate? The occasion of both myth and literature is the social life of the species which, in Starobinski's sense, is a history of continual eviction; but as regards the apparatus of thought by which this social life is reflected (...) in art it is more a history of assimilation and repetition. "The work of the brain," to cite a recent article in Scientific American, "is to create a model of a possible world rather than to record and transmit to the mind a world that is metaphysically true…Different worlds are presumably constructed by similar species."1 And, presumably, similar worlds are constructed by similar species. Weisinger hints briefly at something like this in his essay "The Mythic Origins of the Creative Process," but one has the clear impression, as his title suggests, that he would like to have the [myth/ritual] cart before the creative horse.2 However much this may satisfy our longing to crown our literature, if not creativity itself, with a mythic genealogy, it seems a wistful hypothesis. One might just as well look upon the remains of early man's shelters, marvel that they too had roofs, just like ours, and conclude that therefore our roofs have their origin in theirs.· 1. Harry J. Jerison, "Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind," Scientific American, January 1976, p. 99.· 2. Herbert Weisinger, The Agony and the Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth , p. 250.Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Irony and Drama: A Poetics and The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on "Waiting for Godot.". (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 4, Page 471-489, October 2022.

Among all the sorrows and anxieties of the present crisis in human affairs, none has caused so much consternation to thoughtful people as the open and scornful repudiation, by two of the most civilized nations of Europe, of all the moral principles, all the decent conventions, which for two thousand years have enabled human societies to live together in some degree of contentment and security. Almost all things which once seemed sacred and immutable have now become unsettled—truth and humanity, justice (...) and reason. An apprehension of impending doom, of the break up of a great civilization, has become general. (shrink)

The article analyzes the rise of civil society organizations and litigation related to environmental pollution and HIV/AIDS in China. China’s state has responded to pressure from civil society with regulations to limit civil society organizations’ contentiousness and ties to international groups, restricted access to the courts, and creation of GONGOs to vie with grassroots organizations over leadership of civil society. Against liberal theories of civil society, the author argues for a Gramscian model of civil society in which the state takes (...) an active role in constructing its hegemony in civil society. (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

In QALY-thinking, an activity that takes N people from a bad state (including 'dying') to the state of healthy for X years should have priority over an activity that takes N other people from the same bad state to a state of moderate illness for the same number of years (given equal costs). An empirical study indicates that this view may not be shared by the general public in Norway. Subjects tended to emphasise equality in value of life and in (...) entitlement to treatment rather than level of health after treatment. The relevance of costs per QALY in prioritising between different health care programmes in Norway is thereby brought in to doubt. While the sample in the study is too small to support firm policy conclusions, the results should contribute to an increased interest among health economists in actually measuring people's ethical preferences in matters of prioritising, rather than taking it for granted that their own values are shared by the general public. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically examine an important premise in theories of global distributive justice that, despite its widespread influence, has remained largely unexamined. This is the claim that state borders are morally arbitrary with respect to a just distribution of goods. I examine two common arguments for this claim, the argument that state borders are historically unjust and therefore morally arbitrary; and the argument first made by Charles Beitz that the conditions of a fair, hypothetical social contract would not (...) include knowledge of one's location with respect to the distribution of natural resources between state borders. I argue that there are good reasons to reject both arguments. Beitz's immense contribution to international justice can be gauged by the fact that it is difficult to find a contemporary work on global justice that does not reference his arguments in Political Theory and International Relations . Although some authors find Beitz's cosmopolitan theory objectionable, no author has, to my knowledge, criticized Beitz's pivotal arguments that our placement in the distribution of natural resources is morally arbitrary. The aim of this paper is to do just that. (shrink)