The publication of the Fraser Institute's Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity offers an occasion to review some of the practical and philosophical issues raised by affirmative action policy. Canadian affirmative action programs derive from the American context, which is here reviewed, but do not have the legal recourse available in the American system. Perhaps as a consequence, most Canadian programs have been carried out by governments acting in their role as employers. The Canadian Union of (...) Public Employees has been especially active in developing union perspectives on affirmative action programs, which do raise special concerns for organized labour. Affirmative action raises several basic questions: the importance of proportionality, merit, compensation and role models in determining who is entitled to opportunities in our society. Differences between the Fraser Institute's attitude about affirmative action and attitudes of other social groups, such as the labour movement, lie in their very different assumptions about what constitutes a free society. (shrink)

Recently I saw a corporate TV advertisement for the American television network ABC. It showed brief shots of people in other countries—France, Japan, Russia and so on. These people were doing all kinds of things, but they weren't watching television. Americans, the commentary told us, watch more TV than any of these people. Yet America is the richest, most innovative, most productive nation on the planet. ‘A coincidence’, concluded the wry, confident voice, ‘we don't think so’.

A common criticism of the use of algorithms in criminal justice is that algorithms and their determinations are in some sense ‘opaque’—that is, difficult or impossible to understand, whether because of their complexity or because of intellectual property protections. Scholars have noted some key problems with opacity, including that opacity can mask unfair treatment and threaten public accountability. In this paper, we explore a different but related concern with algorithmic opacity, which centers on the role of public trust (...) in grounding the legitimacy of criminal justice institutions. We argue that algorithmic opacity threatens the trustworthiness of criminal justice institutions, which in turn threatens their legitimacy. We first offer an account of institutional trustworthiness before showing how opacity threatens to undermine an institution’s trustworthiness. We then explore how threats to trustworthiness affect institutional legitimacy. Finally, we offer some policy recommendations to mitigate the threat to trustworthiness posed by the opacity problem. (shrink)

Norms, Values, and Society is the second Yearbook of the Vienna Circle Institute, which was founded in October 1991. The main part of the book contains original contributions to an international symposium the Institute held in October 1993 on ethics and social philosophy. The papers deal among others with questions of justice, equality, just social institutions, human rights, the connections between rationality and morality and the methodological problems of applied ethics. The Documentation section contains previously unpublished papers by (...) Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Charles W. Morris and Edgar Zilsel, and the review section presents new publications on the Vienna Circle. The Vienna Circle Institute is devoted to the critical advancement of science and philosophy in the broad tradition of the Vienna Circle, as well as to the focusing of cross-disciplinary interest on the history and philosophy of science in a social context. The Institute's Yearbooks will, for the most part, document its activities and provide a forum for the discussion of exact philosophy, logical and empirical investigations, and analysis of language. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity and critical importance of science and technology in international affairs, their role receives insufficient attention in traditional international relations curricula. There is little literature on how the relations between science, technology, economics, politics, law and culture should be taught in an international context. Since it is impossible even for scientists to master all the branches of natural science and engineering that affect public policy, the learning goals of students whose primary training is in the social (...) sciences should be to get some grounding in the natural sciences or engineering, to master basic policy skills, to understand the basic concepts that link science and technology to their broader context, and to gain a respect for the scientific and technological dimensions of the broader issues they are addressing. They also need to cultivate a fearless determination to master what they need to know in order to address policy issues, an open-minded but skeptical attitude towards the views of dueling experts, regardless of whether they agree with their politics, and (for American students) a world-view that goes beyond a strictly U.S. perspective on international events. The Georgetown University program in Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA) is a unique, multi-disciplinary undergraduate liberal arts program that embodies this approach and could be an example that other institutions of higher learning might adapt to their own requirements. (shrink)

This paper reports on a relationship between the University of Toronto and a non-profit, non-governmental (“third party”) certifying organization called Local Flavour Plus (LFP). The University as of August 2006 requires its corporate caterers to use local and sustainable farm products for a small but increasing portion of meals for most of its 60,000 students. LFP is the certifying body, whose officers and consultants have strong relations of trust with sustainable farmers. It redefines standards and verification to create ladders for (...) farmers, Aramark and Chartwells (the corporations that won the bid), and the University, to continuously raise standards of sustainability. After years of frustrated efforts, other Ontario institutions are expressing interest, opening the possibility that a virtuous circle could lead to rapid growth in local, sustainable supply chains. The paper examines the specificities of the LFP approach and of the Toronto and Canadian context. Individuals in LFP acquired crucial skills, insights, experience, resources, and relationships of trust over 20 years within the Toronto “community of food practice,” located in a supportive municipal, NGO and social movement context. (shrink)

The Quest to Understand Human Affairs presents fifty previously unpublished essays by Vincent Ostrom on the U.S. Government's environmental problems and resource governance and span the six decades of Ostrom's career in political science and public administration. Including everything from a 1947 essay on Western issues in national politics to ending with a 2004 manuscript on Constitutional foundations and federal institutional forms, these essays examine significant developments in administration, constitutional design, and the evolution of theory and practice in (...) the field of institutional analysis and development during the second half of the twentieth century and first decade of the new millennium. (shrink)

Most donated organs in the United States come from brain dead donors, while a small percentage come from patients who die in “controlled,” or expected, circumstances, typically after the family or surrogate makes a decision to withdraw life support. The number of organs available for transplant could be substantially if donations were permitted in “uncontrolled” circumstances–that is, from people who die unexpectedly, often outside the hospital. According to projections from the Institute of Medicine, establishing programs permitting “uncontrolled donation after (...) circulatory determination of death,” or uDCDD, throughout the United States has the potential to provide 22,000 more donation opportunities annually. In contrast, U.S. controlled donation after circulatory determination of death, or cDCDD, cases have increased progressively over the past decade from 87 to 848 donors, but currently account for only 10.6 percent of all deceased donors. Following the IOM recommendations, several projects exploring the feasibility of uDCDD were funded by the federal government, including a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration that supported a pilot project in New York City in which the authors of this article participated.A key feature of our protocol, and indeed of many uDCDD protocols, is the initiation of preservation methods such as chest compressions and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation shortly after death in order to perfuse and preserve the donor's organs. Critics of uDCDD argue that the means of determining death deviates from generally ascribed principles. They assert that reinstituting circulation in order to preserve organs has the effect of “undoing” the prior determination of death. The result is that cDCDD is widely accepted and practiced routinely even though it only marginally increases the number of organs available for transplantation, and uDCDD is widely considered unacceptable despite being ethically embraced and proven to significantly increase organ donation opportunities in other countries. This article explores the evolution of this counterintuitive state of affairs and calls for a policy that, in line with the IOM report, allows for both cDCDD and uDCDD protocols. (shrink)

The Quest to Understand Human Affairs presents fifty previously unpublished essays by Vincent Ostrom on the U.S. Government's environmental problems and resource governance and span the six decades of Ostrom's career in political science and public administration. Including everything from a 1947 essay on Western issues in national politics to ending with a 2004 manuscript on Constitutional foundations and federal institutional forms, these essays examine significant developments in administration, constitutional design, and the evolution of theory and practice in (...) the field of institutional analysis and development during the second half of the twentieth century and first decade of the new millennium. (shrink)

Due process is the means by which ethical constraints are placed on administrative decision-making. I have developed a model of variation in due process and use this model to explore the implementation of “due process” norms by three standard-setting bodies that are created, funded, and overseen by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants – the Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, and the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board. I conducted two analyses: a comparative analysis (...) of the implementation of due process norms based on differences among the three cases; and, a critique of the due process norms followed by these boards based on their internal logic and a set of best practices identified in other contexts for due process by standard setters. I have presented evidence that due process norms are more fully developed, where standards are enforced by the state and the heterogeneity of users is greatest. (shrink)

Researching the organization and management of international public affairs (IPA) in the then-new multinational enterprises (MNEs) started in the 1960s. At first, IPA studies kept fairly good pace with what was known about the MNEs' nonmarket environments, their structurings, and their processes. After 1980, a disconnect developed in our knowledge of these three interrelated topics. In particular, much of more recent IPA research (a) fails to reflect the true scope, real actors, and organizational location of the IPA function; (...) (b) remains focused on old issues (e.g., the hierarchical relationship between headquarters and subsidiaries); (c) is mired in complex statistical analyses of remote data; (d) uses relevant theories in rather marginal ways; and (e) overlooks the impact on IPA of such important developments as mergers, acquisitions, and divestments. Yet, investigators can stretch their research methodologies and refocus their studies on the organization and management of the two faces of public affairs—offensive and defensive—in the context of new nonmarket threats and opportunities. (shrink)

This essay is my analysis of Eamonn Butler’s fine book, Public Choice: a Primer. I suggest that Butler’s book is especially useful for philosophers, most of whom are to this day unfamiliar with public choice theory. This body of economics studies the role that universal self-interest plays in politics. This is an unpleasant truth for many philosophers, who have the Hegelian view of government as the realm of disinterested charity. Butler reviews the history of public choice economics, (...) discusses the various schools of the theory, and the major areas of application. (shrink)

In this paper, we extend Michel Foucault’s final works on the ‘care of the self’ to an empirical examination of research practice in community-based research (CBR). We use Foucault’s ‘morality of behaviors’ to analyze interview data from a national sample of Canadian CBR practitioners working with communities affected by HIV. Despite claims in the literature that ethics review is overly burdensome for non-traditional forms of research, our findings suggest that many researchers using CBR have an ambivalent but ultimately productive (...) relationship with institutional research ethics review requirements. They understand and use prescribed codes, but adapt them in practice to account for the needs of participating community members, members of their research teams and the larger communities with whom they work. Complying with ethics protocols was seen as only the beginning, a minimum standard; our research suggests that the real ethical work happens in the field, where CBR practitioners encounter community members in diverse public roles and must forge ethical consensus across communities. CBR represents an ethical terrain in which practitioners challenge themselves to work differently, and as a result they care for themselves—and others—in ways that often resist the propensity for domination through public health research.‘…there are different ways to “conduct oneself” morally, different ways for the acting individual to operate, not just as an agent, but as an ethical subject of action.’ (Foucault, 1985: 26). (shrink)

This paper deploys historical analysis, conceptual analysis and critical reflection to examine the history of ethnicised politics in Kenya and its negative impact on the management of the country’s public affairs. It sets out with a conceptualisation of ‘ethnicised politics’. It then traces the growth of ethnicised politics in Kenya from the dawn of British colonialism to the present. Thereafter, it reflects on the five-pronged negative impact of ethnicised politics on the country, namely, the gross disparities in economic (...) development along ethno-regional lines, the disproportionately limited economic opportunities for ethnic minorities, the stunting of the growth of issue-based politics, the stoking of violent inter-ethnic conflicts, and the vulnerability of highly urbanised persons and/or those born out of mixed marriages with no strong ethnic loyalties. It concludes that contrary to the widely-held view that Kenyans ought to abandon their ethnic identities in pursuit of ‘nation-building’, respect for the right to cultural identity and the promotion of inter-ethnic equity would make political mobilisation along ethnic lines less attractive. (shrink)

Zakat is a monetary form of religious worship that establishes a bridge between a rich and a poor, helps those who are in need and contributes to peace and tranquillity within a society. When zakat is collected properly under a government control and transmitted to those who deserve, it helped to decrease the gap between the poor and the rich, supported activities of social solidarity and revived the economy as well. Malaysia after its independence in 1957 has developed an interest (...) in Islamic practices by drawing attention to a distinctive practice with the public zakat system. Even though a national- central system of zakat could not be established due to the federal structure of the country, the collection and distribution of zakat has been centralized on a state level. Parts of the practice are being criticized, reviewed and new regulations are introduced. Unlike Malaysia, the zakat practice in Turkey is out of state control, thus it hinders zakat from achieving its real purpose. There is a need to make use of the well-functioning zakat systems around the world and establish a public zakat system in our country so that we can make the most of the benefits that zakat has for individuals and societies. This article aims to be a step in that direction. -/- SUMMARY Zakat is one of the main forms of worship and is at the same time one of the main sources for the state budget in Islam. It aims at making sure that the rich –those with higher wealth and income– protects the poor and the powerless and through this it contributes to the peace in the society. In the Islamic creed wealth in reality belongs to Allah; therefore, those who live an affluent life should not attribute their wealth to themselves alone and help those who, for whatever reason, are unable to meet their needs. Because there is a social dimension to this form of worship, it is the duty of the head of state to collect the zakat and distribute it to the right people. Historically this duty has taken different forms and today, many Muslim countries sustain this collection and redistribution under state supervision. Malaysia is a country where zakat is collected and distributed officially at the state level. In each state, there is an Islamic council responsible for taking care of activities related to Islam and is semi-independent from the government that organizes the zakat process. Some of these do the collection and distribution together, some do it separately. In some states, the process has been totally privatized. Constitutionally, each state is dependent on its own sultan in religious affairs, thus each has its own mufti and partially different zakat practices and eac collect and distributes its zakat within that state. Because religious affairs have been codified as the privilege of the sultans of each state in the constitution during Malaysia’s foundation, there is no attempt at centralizing religious affairs and a centralization of zakat practices; the establishment of an institution to achieve this is not possible. Moreover, the secular character of the federation does not seem yet compatible with making zakat obligatory. However, due to the dominant Shafi‘i tradition and the convention in the country, people see it as imperative to hand over the charity and tithe to state institutions. Furthermore, there are local fatwas – which are considered as legal regulations in Malaysia – that require people with an income over a certain amount to pay zakat. Those who have the most are expected to give it voluntarily. In the 19th century, when wealth sources such as palm oil, cacao, rubber, tin were discovered, Malaysian officials were not able to extend the tithe to these; however, in the last twenty-five years, based on fatwas that income should be taxable under zakat has led to a boom in zakat. In all states, the largest portion of zakat is collected through income, usually automatically deducted from payroll. An influential factor in this outcome is that individually paid zakat can be deducted from income tax. From 2005 on, there have been other regulations to make it possible for legal personalities to deduct zakat from taxes. To increase zakat payment, especially publications have been produced to inform and encourage people, and modern opportunities to make payment easy have been developed. The most often used method is direct deduction from payroll. The second most common method is payment through zakat machines in different parts of the city by cash, check, Islamic credit card and, debit card. In addition to these, online, internet banking, telephone banking, ATM machines, post offices, kiosk machines, sms-zakat options are all available. The distribution of zakat differs from year to year and state to state. In general, there is an observable effort to pay all groups from zakat, but because there are no slaves in some states no payment is done under this category. There are both direct transfers and indirect transfers, such as through the construction of houses for poor people. There have been cases where poor people who had projects were supported with funds and those later returned in zakat. There is support for students in terms of scholarships through fuqarā’, fī sabīl allāh and ibn al-sabīl classes. For the muallafa al-qulūb class, there is a foundation to encourage local people to convert to Islam and help them for food, shelter, clothes and education. For Muslims who suffer as minorities in other countries help is provided through the riqāb, muallafa al-qulūb, fī sabīl allāh and ibn al-sabīl classes. In the ghārimīn class, especially victims of natural disasters such as flood and earthquake are supported. For those who have a right to receive zakat be able to receive it, the state has to side with the powerless and help zakat fulfill its social and individual functions. The way zakat is spent requires state policy and will. For this reason, zakat should be institutionalized and all activities should be organized by a single institution with state power behind it. Determining the recipients and the zakat-payers, and using the funds efficiently is easier with the coordination of state institutions. Extensive zakat councils that include state institutions should consider the ijtihāds in the area of zakat anew and make decisions to create a just and consistent zakat system. For these decisions to be applicable, the question of what kind of a system could be founded in our country should be on the agenda in these councils. Once an institution – official or autonomous but with state power behind it- is created, solutions can be found as they arise in the way. (shrink)

Openness of knowledge was in the Dutch Republic no more a natural state of affairs than in other parts of Europe at the time, but it became dominant there at an earlier date than elsewhere. This puzzling phenomenon is the subject of this essay. The article shows that tendencies to secrecy in crafts and trades in the Netherlands were by no means absent and that public authorities were not principled supporters of openness. Openness of knowledge did not prevail (...) because arguments in favour of a free exchange of knowledge won the day against a rhetoric in defense of secrecy or because a rapid change in methods of production and marketing rendered the maintenance of craft secrecy practically impossible. The weakness of secrecy in the early-modern Netherlands, this essay argues, can be explained by the relative tardiness of the growth of the corporate system and the typical features of the institutional structure of the Dutch Republic. Craft secrecy in the Dutch Republic, as far as it existed before the middle of the eighteenth century, was normally based on a contractual relationship between individual actors rather than on any form of enforcement by public agencies. (shrink)

In a recent article, ‘Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong’, Savulescu and Cameron argue that a selective lockdown of older people is not ageist because it would treat people unequally based on morally relevant differences. This response argues that a selective lockdown of older people living in long-term care homes would be unjust because it would allow the expansive liberties of the general public to undermine the basic liberties of older (...) people, and because it would discriminate on the basis of extrinsic disadvantages. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate how nurses are positioned in Canadian news stories regarding their salaries. While the image of nursing in mass media has been widely studied, few studies explore how nurses are constructed in news stories. Drawing on ideas from institutional ethnography together with discourse analysis, this discussion highlights public textual discourses about nurses’ salaries in Canadian news stories. The media discourse was found to distort the issues by focusing attention on nurses. (...) Recognizing how these textual distortions mediate and construct messages is important in understanding how nurses and their work are constructed in the media. This discussion seeks to inform readers about how nurses are situated within commonly circulated discourses in the media. It also seeks to contribute to the literature about the nurse's image and how nurses and their work are portrayed in the public realm. It concludes by recommending increased awareness about how nurses are talked about in mass communication and the need to disrupt these messages and their underlying assumptions. (shrink)

In this paper, we extend Michel Foucault’s final works on the ‘care of the self’ to an empirical examination of research practice in community-based research (CBR). We use Foucault’s ‘morality of behaviors’ to analyze interview data from a national sample of Canadian CBR practitioners working with communities affected by HIV. Despite claims in the literature that ethics review is overly burdensome for non-traditional forms of research, our findings suggest that many researchers using CBR have an ambivalent but ultimately productive (...) relationship with institutional research ethics review requirements. They understand and use prescribed codes, but adapt them in practice to account for the needs of participating community members, members of their research teams and the larger communities with whom they work. Complying with ethics protocols was seen as only the beginning, a minimum standard; our research suggests that the real ethical work happens in the field, where CBR practitioners encounter community members in diverse public roles and must forge ethical consensus across communities. CBR represents an ethical terrain in which practitioners challenge themselves to work differently, and as a result they care for themselves—and others—in ways that often resist the propensity for domination through public health research.‘…there are different ways to “conduct oneself” morally, different ways for the acting individual to operate, not just as an agent, but as an ethical subject of action.’ (Foucault, 1985: 26). (shrink)

At the mid-point of the twentieth century, many philosophers in the English-speaking world regarded political and moral philosophy as all but moribund. Thinkers influenced by logical positivism believe that ethical statements are merely disguised expressions of individual emotion lacking propositional force, or that the conditions for the validation of ethical statements could not be specified, or that their content, however humanly meaningful, is inexpressible. Philosophical Dimensions of Public Policy presents thirty-four articles written by research scholars numerous fields-philosophy, political theory, (...) medicine, law, biology, economics, ecology and sociology-treating a broad range of topics in practical philosophy. The Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs has been home for these ideas, pioneering a distinctive method of conducting inquiry into the moral dimensions of public life, and contributing to public discussion and deliberation. Members of the Institute reject the idea that public philosophy means reaching into the philosopher's tool-kit and "applying" prefabricated theories to particular problems. They set in motion a dialogue between the distinctive moral features of practical problems and the more general moral theories or considerations that seem most likely to elucidate these problems. The volume is divided into five areas: "Politics, Civic Life, and Moral Education"; "Diversity, Identity, and Equal Opportunity"; "Human Rights, Development Ethics, and International Justice"; "Biotechnology, Genetic Research, and Health Policy"; and "Natural Environment, Human Communities." Philosophical Dimensions of Public Policy presents empirical data and philosophical arguments with the intention of informing public policy and public deliberation. Scholars as well as graduate and undergraduate students are certain to find it useful to their research work. Verna V. Gehring is editor at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. She serves as editor of Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly, reviewer of ethics manuscripts for Oxford University Press, and moderator for the Aspen Institute. William A. Galston is director at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. He is a political theorist who both studies and participates in American politics and domestic policy. Galston is the author of nearly one hundred articles on moral and political theory, American politics, and public policy, and the author of five books, including Liberal Purposes. (shrink)

This collection of essays derives from a conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Centre of Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews. It brings together a number of prominent academics from the fields of philosophy and political theory along with politicians and social commentators. The subjects covered include liberalism, education, welfare policy, religion, art and culture, and cloning. The mix of contributors and the topicality of the subject matter should further (...) promote a serious engagement between philosophy and public life. (shrink)

It is startling to realize that Canadian literature was canonized in fewer than twenty years. Here is how it happened.At the end of World War II, Canadian literature was not taught as an independent subject in Canadian schools. There was no canon. In 1957, the publishing firm McClelland and Stewart introduced its mass-market paperback reprint series entitled the New Canadian Library. It allowed teachers to discuss the work of many Canadian authors who had never been (...) the subject of formal academic study. This New Canadian Library was truly “new”: prior to its conception, there was no “library” in use. There were no Canadian classics. Northrop Frye recalls that at that time the notion of finding a classic Canadian writer remained but “a gleam in a paternal critic’s eye.”1Frye’s comment must be placed in context: he was remembering the efforts that produced the first Literary History of Canada in 1965. In T. D. MacLulich’s words, its publication “gave a definitive imprimatur of respectability to the academic study of Canadian writing.”2 It made a Canadian canon seem possible; to many, it made the canon seem real. With the advent of this history, the institution called Canadian literature was born.3 1. Northrop Frye, “Conclusion,” in Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English, 2d ed., ed. Carl F. Klinck et al., 3 vols. , 3:319.2. T. D. MacLulich, “What Was Canadian Literature? Taking Stock of the Canlit Industry,” Essays on Canadian Writing 30 : 19; hereafter abbreviated “WWCL.”3. My use of the term “Canadian literature” applies to English-Canadian literature; the canonization of French-Canadian, or Québecois literature, invokes another story and another set of political imperatives that cannot be adequately treated within the scope of this discussion.4. John Guillory, “Canonical and Non-Canonical: A Critique of the Current Debate,” ELH 54 : 483. Robert Lecker is professor of English at McGill University. He is the author of several critical studies, including On the Line , Robert Kroetsch , and An Other I , and coeditor of Essays on Canadian Writing, the multi-volume Canadian Writers and Their Works , and the eight-volume Annotated Bibliography of Canada’s Major Authors . Lecker is currently preparing a collection of essays on the Canadian canon. (shrink)

Money markets are at the heart of financialized capitalism, as those markets that provide the funding liquidity needed for credit creation and leveraged trading. How have these markets evolved, grown, and become critical for larger financial flows? To answer this question, I distinguish an early period of financial globalization marked by regulatory arbitrage, offshoring, deregulation, and informal trading practices from a period of regime-consolidation marked by formal institutionalization. Concentrating on repo markets as the key funding sources for market-based banking, I (...) demonstrate that new institutional arrangements for these markets were initiated by private sector associations, but supported and authorized by public authorities. Bond trader groups codified new contractual arrangements and these were validated via reforms of bankruptcy codes and changes in central banks’ policy frameworks in the United States and European Union. Through these modifications and re-articulations in institutional conditions, transactions and large exposures on money markets became routine affairs—for shadow banking actors like money market funds as well as for commercial banks. The article concludes by discussing the continuity of regime-consolidation efforts after the transatlantic financial crisis and hypothesizes that they reveal “neo-patrimonial” features. (shrink)

A former Prime Minister of Israel is alleged to have said that her country would never ascend to the status of authentic statehood until it possessed certain well-known social attributes — organized crime, prostitution, and corruption. These features, while obviously undesirable, were she felt, reliable indices of societal maturation. This anecdote is suggestive in understanding current events pertaining to the field of applied ethics.Philosophers have produced a massive body of opinion and argument on a diverse range of subjects under the (...) rubric of applied ethics. Moreover, they have assumed positions on various panels, commissions, governmental bodies and committees in the hope of making an informed contribution to the formulation of institutional and public policy. These accomplishments have begun to elicit the kinds of attributes commonly associated with philosophical maturation — exposées, debunkings, refutations, and ideologically informed critiques. (shrink)

Frugality refers on the one hand to a spiritual attitude of detachment and asceticism which renounces self-interest and directs the gaze to higher things; on the other hand, it also refers to a number of social and economic problems related to the responsible use of resources in order to bring about sustainable development and well-being. Before examining frugality as a spiritual and economic good, I will consider the following question: what does spirituality itself mean and to what extent could we (...) consider it to be a public good? The question is pertinent for two reasons: firstly, because there is a growing interest in spirituality in society; secondly, this interest is recognized but at the same time reduced to a purely private matter, thus requiring no public concern and protection.In the first part of this paper I will examine the more general questions concerning spirituality. In the second part I reflect on frugality as a way of life and a public good. The underlying concern in all these exploratory reflections is the complex relationship between spirituality and rationality. (shrink)

A former Prime Minister of Israel is alleged to have said that her country would never ascend to the status of authentic statehood until it possessed certain well-known social attributes — organized crime, prostitution, and corruption. These features, while obviously undesirable, were she felt, reliable indices of societal maturation. This anecdote is suggestive in understanding current events pertaining to the field of applied ethics.Philosophers have produced a massive body of opinion and argument on a diverse range of subjects under the (...) rubric of applied ethics. Moreover, they have assumed positions on various panels, commissions, governmental bodies and committees in the hope of making an informed contribution to the formulation of institutional and public policy. These accomplishments have begun to elicit the kinds of attributes commonly associated with philosophical maturation — exposées, debunkings, refutations, and ideologically informed critiques. (shrink)

Do we have a genuinely Canadian bioethics – and not only a practice of bioethics in Canada? This question, and this paper, are about the connection between bioethics and the actual healthcare, research, and public health experiences of Canadians. In addressing it, I am inspired by the philosophy of pragmatism that stresses the importance of everyday experience as a starting point for ethics, and of human flourishing as a goal for ethics. Through this lens, an ideal Canadian (...) bioethics is one that is rooted in the lived experiences of Canadians; it reflects the ideal of flourishing projected by Canadian individuals, including their views on their political communities. However, it is unclear if a full-fledged Canadian bioethics has taken shape given increasingly uniform scholarship worldwide that sets expectations about the kinds of moral problems worth investigating and the kinds of solutions to be adopted. In the spirit of thinking about this question, I discuss aspects of Canadian society that could shape the development of a Canadian bioethics: the existence of competing Canadian political narratives, the distinctiveness of Canadian healthcare systems and healthcare experiences, the commitment of Canadians to certain values and aspirations, the institutional and procedural aspects of the Canadian public sphere, the challenges of increasingly uniform scholarship across geographic and national contexts, and the practical obstacles to developing a Canadian bioethics. These challenges that Canadian bioethics faces are likely relevant internationally for all contexts in which socially shaped moral problems are discussed and solutions envisioned. (shrink)

In the last decade many academic philosophers in the United States have "gone public." In television interviews, newspapers, and neighborhood meetings they have discussed misuse of animals, whistle-blowing, and world hunger. Philosophers sit on presidential commissions on medical experimentation, on scientific research review boards, on committees to draft codes of conduct for trial lawyers, social workers, and senators. They consult with town planners, prison officials and inmates, generals, corporation executives, and hospitals staffs. They run for political office, serve as (...) congressional legislative aides, cruise in police cars. They write for law journals and new philosophy journals on environmental issues, privacy, vegetarianism, energy policy, population control, and other topics of public concern and debate. (shrink)

As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay focuses on the “Kindleberger trap,” a term coined by Joseph Nye Jr. referring to the situation in which no country takes the lead to maintain international institutions in the international system. President Trump's destructive policies toward many international institutions seem to push the current international order to the brink of the Kindleberger trap. Ironically, China has pledged, at least rhetorically, to support and even save these existing international institutions. (...) Based on an institutional-balancing perspective, we suggest that the worry about the Kindleberger trap is unwarranted because the international institutional order will not easily collapse after the decline of U.S. hegemony. Institutional competition among great powers and institutional changes within the institutional order have become two remedies to maintain international institutions and to avoid the Kindleberger trap during the international order transition. What states, including the United States and China, should do is to reembrace and reinvigorate the role of multilateralism in world politics so that the dynamics of institutional balancing and consequential institutional changes in the context of U.S.-China competition do not deprive international society of the public goods and normative values of international institutions. The future international order should not be led by a single country, but by dynamic and balanced international institutions. (shrink)

The contentious, topical debate about whether faith-based health care organizations should be granted accommodation on the basis of institutional conscientious objection to medical assistance is dying is addressed through a comparative analysis of arguments on both sides of the issue that references such relevant considerations as: claimed ‘moral-authority’, competing rights-based claims, obligations arising from patient welfare principles, formal justice, dissimilarity in consequences, and two illustrative arguments from analogy. The analysis leads to the conclusion that nonconditional accommodation on the basis of (...) institutional conscientious objection to MAiD is not ethically acceptable in Canada. A compromise mechanism, consisting of a suggested set of pragmatic conditions, is proposed that could effectively balance the competing moral responsibilities that arise from this conclusion and a core assumption of the paper, i.e., that some dominant faith-based health institutions can legitimately request, and expect, that provincial/territorial governments pay them a measure of respect in their operational, health-care-delivery decision making because of these institutions’ long history of providing high quality, health care in Canada. It is further suggested that provincial/territorial governments only allow large, publicly funded, faith-based health care organizations to enact a conditional version of accommodation on the basis of institutional conscientious objection to MAiD in circumstances where the organization has entered into a formal agreement with the relevant health department to meet the proposed, compromise conditions. (shrink)