This paper takes the position that interpretations of legal discourse are invariably taken in the context of socio-pragmatic realities to which a particular instance of discourse applies. What makes this process even more complicated is the fact that social realities themselves are often negotiated within the mould of one’s subjective conceptualisations of reality. Institutions and organisations, including people in power, often represent socio-political realities from an ideologically fuelled perspective, engendering many ‘illusory’ categories often a result of contested versions of reality. (...) To substantiate this view, we discuss interpretations of a number of interesting contemporary and controversial laws, including America’s Patriot Act and Hong Kong’s proposed Article 23 of the Basic Law. Both laws can be seen as illustrative of the definitional conflict that abstract concepts such as democracy and human rights are subjected to in their own specific socio-political contexts. While America crowns itself with democracy and Hong Kong struggles to achieve it in effective synthesis with its unique political arrangement, the laws produced by both contrasting political systems are unexpectedly similar, aiming for the moderation of basic rights. The actions of both governments set against their beliefs and discourses, and furthermore set against one another and other media voices, particularly those of non-governmental organisations, political activists, and other socio-political groups, demonstrate contestation of realities, giving rise to ‘discursive illusions’, which seem to be interpreted not so much on the basis of their linguistic construction but more on the basis of socio-pragmatic factors, such as trust, belief, transparency, control and power. (shrink)

The classical theory of rational choice is built on several important internal consistency conditions. In recent years, the reasonableness of those internal consistency conditions has been questioned and criticized, and several responses to accommodate such criticisms have been proposed in the literature. This paper develops a general framework to accommodate the issues raised by the criticisms of classical rational choice theory, and examines the broad impact of these criticisms from both normative and positive points of view.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are increasingly widely used in psychology and neuroscience to predict how human minds and brains respond to visual images. Typically, CNNs represent these images using thousands of features that are learned through extensive training on image datasets. This raises a question: How many of these features are really needed to model human behavior? Here, we attempt to estimate the number of dimensions in CNN representations that are required to capture human psychological representations in two ways: (1) (...) directly, using human similarity judgments and (2) indirectly, in the context of categorization. In both cases, we find that low-dimensional projections of CNN representations are sufficient to predict human behavior. We show that these low-dimensional representations can be easily interpreted, providing further insight into how people represent visual information. A series of control studies indicate that these findings are not due to the size of the dataset we used and may be due to a high level of redundancy in the features appearing in CNN representations. (shrink)

There is something missing in existing discussions of domination. While republican theory, antisubordination theory, and critical legal theory each have contributed significantly to our understanding of domination, their focus on structural relationships and group subordination can leave out of focus the individual wrongs that make up domination, each of which is an unjustified exercise of power by one person over another. Private law (supported by private law theory) plays an important role in filling out our pictures of domination and the (...) role of the state in limiting it. Private law allows us to recognize domination in wrongs by one person against another, and it has the potential to articulate the state-enforced boundaries on domination as well as a framework for thinking through inevitable compromises between the aspiration to nondomination and other basic interests of a liberal state. We can understand employment law as continuous with private law, that is, attempting to vindicate a nondomination principle in the context of employment by regulating specific acts of employers. Alternatively, we might understand employment relationships to define group membership, commonly recognized along class lines. In that case, employment law is not about individual nondomination but about mitigating class subordination. It might do this in service of the antisubordination principle, or in order to ensure that employees are capable and ready to exercise the responsibilities of democratic citizenship. While these various purposes largely coincide, there are points of normative divergence which sometimes require that we prioritize one or other function of employment law over the others. (shrink)

Absent mistake or misrepresentation, most scholars assume that parties who agree to contract do so voluntarily. Scholars tend further to regard that choice as an important exercise in moral agency. Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller are right to question the quality of our choices. Where the fundamental contours of the transaction are legally determined, parties have little opportunity to exercise autonomous choice over the terms on which they deal with others. To the extent that our choices in contract do not (...) reflect our individual moral constitutions — our values, virtues, vices, the set of reasons we reject and the set of reasons we endorse — we are not justified in regulating contracts reluctantly. Contracts are entitled to the privilege of liberal regulatory deference only to the extent that they are the work product of individual autonomy. The assumption that contract is voluntary does enormous work in most normative theories of contract. This Article takes still more seriously the obstacles to autonomous choice that contracting parties face. The most important constraints are not in contract law itself but in the material and moral imperatives that dictate parties’ contracting preferences. Many contracts are driven by circumstantial considerations or actual background obligations. While these contracts are not wholly lacking in the element of voluntariness, we should distinguish them from those choices — and those contracts — which more fully realize our potential to self-consciously author our relations with others. Autonomous choice in contract requires more than Dagan and Heller imply, and it is likely beyond the power of contract law standing alone to deliver it. (shrink)

The premise of contract law is that the redistribution of entitlements that results from contract is justified by the process of agreement. But theories of contract differ importantly on how and when voluntary exchange justifies a resorting of entitlements. Pure theories regard the principles of contract as essentially derivative from some aspect of the principle of autonomy; contracting parties’ intent to assume legal obligation is in principle necessary and sufficient for its enforcement. Perfect theories do not view contract as self-justifying (...) but regard the process of agreement as reliable evidence that contracts are welfare-improving. This article demonstrates the limitations of pure and perfect views. It favours instead imperfect theories of contract, which would have judges self-consciously pursue the normative ends of contract law as they apply context-sensitive rules. (shrink)

Arguments for the expansion of formal schooling have long focused on individual outcomes from schooling, including increasing income, reducing poverty, delaying marriage, and improving health, particularly for girls and women. For nearly three decades now, global education agendas have supported girls’ education in an effort to achieve these outcomes. A large body of research analyzes girls’ individual empowerment from schooling, but less attention is given to how schooling is creating change in families and communities, particularly for lowered-caste girls in India. (...) This article places longitudinal data from a three-year qualitative interview study of schoolgirls in Rajasthan alongside qualitative life-history interviews of girls who completed secondary school in Uttarakhand to understand how schooling affects social changes for lower castes. The analysis, using an intersectional and relational approach, illustrates how girls’ schooling shifts kin and caste relations connected to marriage and work but in ways that do not transform the stickiness of caste and gender norms. We argue that educational policies and programs must attend to the ways in which caste is implicated in achieving outcomes of delayed marriage and formal employment for lowered-caste girls in Indian communities if schooling is to create positive social change. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of virtues appropriate to a corporate actor's moral character. A model of corporate appetites is developed by analogy with animal appetities; and the pursuit of initially virtuous corporate tendencies to an extreme degree is shown to be morally perilous. The author thus refutes a previous argument which suggested that (1) corporate virtues, unlike human virtues, need not be located on an Aristotelian mean between opposite undesirable extremes because (2) corporations do not have appetites; and (3) (...) corporate virtues must serve the end of sustainable profit. If these disanalogies between corporate and human virtue no longer hold, then the stage is set for us to formulate a more adequate model of good corporate character that would encompass other-regarding virtues. (shrink)

Extending a nascent line of Asian philosophical research in music education, we mine Indian philosophies of music and education. Three key questions guide our project: What are Vedic philosophies of music? What are Vedic philosophies of education? Taken together, what insights can we draw for contemporary music education writ large? To address our questions, we analyze key passages from the Upanishads and synthesize ideas from these texts. A quartet of inter-related ideas emerge from our analysis: the guru, the shishya, vidya, (...) and moksha. In brief, the guru (teacher) is revered as one would god, for it is the teacher who leads the shishya (student) toward vidya (knowledge) and through that toward moksha (liberation of the soul), which can also be attained via making music, such as the singing of Om (the absolute sound). In addition to proffering insights for contemporary music education, particularly in terms of how the ancient Vedic guru-shishya parampara adds nuance to contemporary discussions on the master-apprentice model of music education, we imagine how music education philosophy might look like if it were to be sung. (shrink)

This article suggests that criminality in leaders might best be understood by ethicists as a matter of degree. Leaders may take without legitimate claim a variety of tangible or intangible goods including ideas and personal health. The extent to which any such act should be disfavoured is subject to debate. Moreover, both theft and control may be understood as continuous phenomena. Kleptocratic regimes within workplace or family may foster in people a habit of accepting similar treatment from economic and political (...) leaders at all levels. Forms of governance may be arranged on a continuum from those that serve to those that exploit their subjects. Responses to kleptocratic regimes range from acceptance through unconscious and conscious resistance to violent revolt. (shrink)

1. Over the last 50 years or so, and especially over the last few decades, the U.S. and many other societies have undergone a large, rapid, and broad decline in anti-gay attitudes. The magnitude, s...

Retribution? Restitution? Reconciliation? “Justice” comes in many forms as witnessed by the spike in war crimes tribunals, Truth & Reconciliation Commissions, hybrid tribunals and genocide trials. Which, if any form is appropriate should be influenced by the culture of the people affected. It took Cambodia over three decades to finally address the ghosts of its Khmer Rouge past with the creation of a hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal. But how meaningful is justice to the majority of survivors of the Khmer Rouge (...) auto-genocide when only a handful of top officials are tried? Further, given the persistent abuse of political and economic rights in post-conflict Cambodia, we are skeptical that justice or reconciliation is presently possible. (shrink)

The months preceding and following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States have incited furious debate about the authenticity of media discourse in the shaping of reality, including in particular the reporting of refugees from predominantly Muslim regions and their resettlement in Western nations. Much of this debate is rooted in how opposing discourse clans, such as liberal and conservative ideologies, construct a narrative of nationhood around contested views of refugees. Examining mainstream and alternative (...) media from a critical discourse analytic perspective, the article uncovers how two key narratives about the Syrian refugee crisis emerge when the media attempt to orient their respective audiences to government policy through the discursive formation of the American Dream. Drawing on aspects of historicity, linguistic and semiotic action, and social impact, the analysis of the data reveals a discursive fracas between a humanistic perspective on the crisis that exploits a banal understanding of the American Dream and a more dichotomous narrative that homogenises refugees as a threat to the American way of life. These observations add to the growing body of literature that questions the ways in which the media discursively shapes, and is shaped by, political ideologies. (shrink)

A huge bestseller in Europe, Frederic Lenoir’s Happiness is an exciting journey that examines how history’s greatest philosophers and religious figures have answered life’s most fundamental question: What is happiness and how do I achieve it? From the ancient Greeks on—from Aristotle, Plato, and Chuang Tzu to the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad; from Voltaire, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer to Kant, Freud, and even modern neuroscientists—Lenoir considers the idea that true and lasting happiness is indeed possible. In clear language, Lenoir concisely surveys (...) what the greatest thinkers of all time have had to say on the subject, and, with charming prose, raises provocative questions: · Do we have a duty to be happy? · Is there a connection between individual and collective happiness? · Is happiness contagious? · Is there a difference between pleasure and happiness? · Can unhappiness and happiness coexist? · Does our happiness depend on our luck? Understanding how civilization’s best minds have answered those questions, Lenoir suggests, not only makes for a fascinating reading experience, but also provides a way for us to see us how happiness, that most elusive of feelings, is attainable in our own lives. (shrink)

The rise of modern natural sciences was based on the belief that knowledge about nature would increase steadily and that sooner or later it would prove useful for people and society. How these expectations shaped the self-image and the development of the natural sciences is the subject of this book. It turns out that expectations have repeatedly changed: from the universal ideal of utility of the 17th and 18th centuries to the promise of technical progress that is decisive today. The (...) unshakable belief in the usefulness of the natural sciences has always been accompanied by the insight that progress in knowledge can only be guaranteed if research is not based solely on short-term needs. In her story of the modern understanding of science, Désirée Schauz draws a bow from early modern natural research to the natural sciences of the 20th century. With its long-term perspective and its conceptual historical instruments, this book not only makes an important contribution to the modern history of science, but also provides a historically sound basis for current debates on science and innovation policy."-- publisher's website. (shrink)

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, an international study (N = 1066) was conducted to explore the new bioterrorism conspiracy, faith in government, and compliance with public health guidelines related to COVID-19. Hierarchical regressions showed that while general belief in conspiracies decreased faith in government during COVID-19, it increased belief in bioterrorism regarding the coronavirus. Critical thinking was associated with decreased endorsement of biowarfare conspiracy. Higher levels of belief in bioterrorism, faith in government, and perceived risk positively facilitated compliance behavior (...) in public internationally. Interestingly, while people reported ‘worrying about others’ as their motivation to follow guidelines, ‘worrying about self’ was most strongly associated with compliance. The implications of these findings are discussed in the light of enhancing compliance with public health guidelines and effective ways of conveying them to an increasingly polarized society. (shrink)

In the present study, we examine the interactive effect of vowels on Mandarin fricative sibilants using a passive oddball paradigm to determine whether the HEIGHT features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence preceding consonants with unspecified features. The stimuli are two pairs of Mandarin words contrasting in vowel HEIGHT. Each word in the same pair was presented both as standard and deviant, resulting in four conditions. In line with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon model, asymmetric patterns of processing (...) were found in the [su] ∼ [ʂu] word pair where both the MMN and LDN components were more negative in /su/[ʂu] than in /ʂu/[su], suggesting the spreading of the feature [HIGH] from the vowel [u] to [ʂ] on the surface. In the [sa] ∼ [ʂa] pair, however, symmetric negativities were observed as there is no conflict between the surface feature [LOW] from [a] to [ʂ] and the underlying specified feature [LOW] of [s]. These results confirm that not all features are fully specified in the mental lexicon: features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence surrounding unspecified segments. (shrink)

The secure release of identity attributes is a key enabler for electronic business interactions. Users should have the maximum control possible over the release of their identity attributes and should state under which conditions these attributes can be disclosed. Moreover, users should disclose only the identity attributes that are actually required for the transactions at hand. In this paper we present an approach for the controlled release of identity attributes that addresses such requirements. The approach is based on the integration (...) of trust negotiation and minimal credential disclosure techniques. Trust negotiation supports selective and incremental disclosure of identity attributes, while minimal credential disclosure guarantees that only the attributes necessary to complete the on-line interactions are disclosed. (shrink)

We discuss the role of the notion of information in the description of physical reality. We consider theories for which dynamics is linear with respect to stochastic mixing. We point out that the no-cloning and no-deleting principles emerge in any such theory, if law of conservation of information is valid, and two copies contain more information than one copy. We then describe the quantum case from this point of view.

The logical structure of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and its relation to other fundamental principles of Nature has been for decades a subject of intensive research. In particular, the question whether the dynamical axiom of QM can be derived from other principles has been often considered. In this contribution, we show that unitary evolutions arise as a consequences of demanding preservation of entropy in the evolution of a single pure quantum system, and preservation of entanglement in the evolution of composite quantum (...) systems. 6. (shrink)

"Manuel DeLanda is a distinguished writer, artist and philosopher. In his new book, he offers a fascinating look at how the contemporary world is characterized by an extraordinary social complexity. Since most social entities, from small communities to large nation-states, would disappear altogether if human minds ceased to exist, Delanda proposes a novel approach to social ontology that asserts the autonomy of social entities from the conceptions we have of them." Editorial.

The introduction of genomics and biobanking methodologies to the African research context has also introduced novel ways of doing science, based on values of sharing and reuse of data and samples. This shift raises ethical challenges that need to be considered when research is reviewed by ethics committees, relating for instance to broad consent, the feedback of individual genetic findings, and regulation of secondary sample access and use. Yet existing ethics guidelines and regulations in Africa do not successfully regulate research (...) based on sharing, causing confusion about what is allowed, where and when. In order to understand better the ethics regulatory landscape around genomic research and biobanking, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of existing ethics guidelines, policies and other similar sources. We sourced 30 ethics regulatory documents from 22 African countries. We used software that assists with qualitative data analysis to conduct a thematic analysis of these documents. Surprisingly considering how contentious broad consent is in Africa, we found that most countries allow the use of this consent model, with its use banned in only three of the countries we investigated. In a likely response to fears about exploitation, the export of samples outside of the continent is strictly regulated, sometimes in conjunction with regulations around international collaboration. We also found that whilst an essential and critical component of ensuring ethical best practice in genomics research relates to the governance framework that accompanies sample and data sharing, this was most sparingly covered in the guidelines. There is a need for ethics guidelines in African countries to be adapted to the changing science policy landscape, which increasingly supports principles of openness, storage, sharing and secondary use. Current guidelines are not pertinent to the ethical challenges that such a new orientation raises, and therefore fail to provide accurate guidance to ethics committees and researchers. (shrink)

La contribution de Michel Troper à la théorie générale du droit et à la théorie constitutionnelle est aujourd'hui reconnue et célébrée un peu partout dans le monde. Un talent d'architecte se tient à l'origine de cette audience rarement égalée dans la sphère francophone : celui qu'il faut pour accommoder toutes les exigences, quel que soit l'ordre de valeur dans lequel on les trouve : originalité, rigueur, souci de la fonction, esthétisme, solidité, adaptation, intelligence, inquiétude, esprit critique, renoncement, réalisme... A ces (...) mérites, on ajoutera une curiosité insatiable, un goût prononcé pour l'échange et le débat, un refus distingué de l'académisme, un sens exigeant de l'amitié et une méfiance profônde pour les adjectifs... C'est cet édifice de qualités que les élèves, collègues et amis de Michel Troper sont heureux de célébrer en lui offrant ces Mélanges. (shrink)

What is the role of cultural archives in creating and sustaining connections between diasporic communities? Through an analysis of an audiovisual archive that has sought to bring together representations of and by African, Caribbean and Asian people, this article discusses the relationship between diasporic film, knowledge production and feminist solidarity. Focusing on a self-curated, UK-based archive, the June Givanni Pan-African Cinema Archive, we explore the potentiality of archives for carving out spaces of diasporic connectivity and resistance. This archive assembles the (...) holdings of pan-African films and film-related materials, built over several decades by June Givanni, a Guyanese-born London-based film curator. Givanni’s archive embodies her long relationship with the intersecting worlds of African and Asian diasporic cinema, which hold deep connections to Black British heritage through global networks spanning across empire. In the making of this cultural analysis, we employ a co-produced, decolonial methodological approach by designing and producing the article in collaboration with Givanni over a two-year period. We aim to foreground the role of feminist labour (academic and practitioner) as agents of change who are reclaiming stories, voices and memory-making. The wider backdrop to this co-produced analysis is the ongoing resilience of a cultural amnesia that has pervaded the Black British experience and the current fragility of Black arts and cultural spaces in the UK. Our question is how might archives help us map the connections between racialised ideas of belonging, memory politics and the reconfiguration of colonial power whilst also operating as a site of feminist connectivity? (shrink)

Normativity concerns what we ought to think or do and the evaluations we make. For example, we say that we ought to think consistently, we ought to keep our promises, or that Mozart is a better composer than Salieri. Yet what philosophical moral can we draw from the apparent absence of normativity in the scientific image of the world? For scientific naturalists, the moral is that the normative must be reduced to the nonnormative, while for nonnaturalists, the moral is that (...) there must be a transcendent realm of norms. _Naturalism and Normativity_ engages with both sides of this debate. Essays explore philosophical options for understanding normativity in the space between scientific naturalism and Platonic supernaturalism. They articulate a liberal conception of philosophy that is neither reducible to the sciences nor completely independent of them—yet one that maintains the right to call itself naturalism. Contributors think in new ways about the relations among the scientific worldview, our experience of norms and values, and our movements in the space of reason. Detailed discussions include the relationship between philosophy and science, physicalism and ontological pluralism, the realm of the ordinary, objectivity and subjectivity, truth and justification, and the liberal naturalisms of Donald Davidson, John Dewey, John McDowell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)