"When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his seminal work Democracy in America (1835), he regarded democracy as the future of the West. Subsequent events, from the collapse of communism to the recent popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, seem to confirm his prescience. But a closer look at the history of democracy from the 1830s down to the present reveals a far more complicated picture. In fact, author Chilton Williamson Jr. concludes, the future appears rather unpromising (...) for democratic institutions around the world. After Tocqueville traces that history and examines that future. Williamson shows that in Europe democracy has tended toward socialism, in America toward nationalism. Indeed, the definitions and concepts of "democracy" have become so varied that the very term democracy is in effect meaningless--something upon which people have never been able to agree, and never will"--. (shrink)

Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a kind of mental stage sensitive to the knower's environment. It makes a major contribution to the debate between externalist and internalist philosophies of mind, and breaks radically with the epistemological tradition of analyzing knowledge in terms of true belief. The theory casts new light on such philosophical problems as scepticism, evidence, probability and assertion, realism and anti-realism, and the limits of what can be known. The arguments are (...) illustrated by rigorous models based on epistemic logic and probability theory. The result is a new way of doing epistemology and a notable contribution to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This paper studies Wittgenstein’s later observations on moral disagreements. First, it examines the practice of reason-giving and justification in moral disa-greement. It argues that, for Wittgenstein, moral reasons are descriptions which are used to justify a moral evaluation. Second, it explains that the adequacy and conclusiveness of moral reasons and justifications are dependent on their appeal to whomever they are given, not on how the world is. Third, it shows that Wittgenstein’s remarks on the inconclusiveness of moral reasons and jus-tification (...) do not entail a commitment to moral relativism. Lastly, it shows how Wittgenstein’s observations can be used in future investigations to develop a new picture of deep moral disagreements. (shrink)

Second-order logic and modal logic are both, separately, major topics of philosophical discussion. Although both have been criticized by Quine and others, increasingly many philosophers find their strictures uncompelling, and regard both branches of logic as valuable resources for the articulation and investigation of significant issues in logical metaphysics and elsewhere. One might therefore expect some combination of the two sorts of logic to constitute a natural and more comprehensive background logic for metaphysics. So it is somewhat surprising to find (...) that philosophical discussion of secondorder modal logic is almost totally absent, despite the pioneering contribution of Barcan. (shrink)

I. An argument is presented for the conclusion that the hypothesis that no one will ever decide a given proposition is intuitionistically inconsistent. II. A distinction between sentences and statements blocks a similar argument for the stronger conclusion that the hypothesis that I have not yet decided a given proposition is intuitionistically inconsistent, but does not block the original argument. III. A distinction between empirical and mathematical negation might block the original argument, and empirical negation might be modelled on Nelson''s (...) strong negation, but only on intuitionistically unacceptable assumptions. IV. Intuitionists may have to accept the original argument, and therefore be committed to a dubious view of time on which there cannot be merely inductive evidence for statements about the infinite future. (shrink)

The chapter argues that a model‐building methodology like that widespread in contemporary natural and social science already plays a significant role in philosophy. One neglected form of progress in philosophy over the past fifty years has been the development of better and better formal models of significant phenomena. Examples are given from both philosophy of language and epistemology. Philosophy can do still better in the future by applying model‐building methods more systematically and self‐consciously, with consequent readjustments to its methodology. Although (...) it is neither likely nor desirable for model‐building to become the sole or even main philosophical method, its use enhances the power and reliability of philosophical thinking. (shrink)

(1998). Constitutional conscience: Criminal justice and public interest ethics. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 33-41. doi: 10.1080/0731129X.1998.9992056.

The philosophical relevance of experimental psychology is hard to dispute. Much more controversial is the so‐called negative program's critique of armchair philosophical methodology, in particular the reliance on ‘intuitions’ about thought experiments. This chapter responds to that critique. It argues that, since the negative program has been forced to extend the category of intuition to ordinary judgments about real‐life cases, the critique is in immediate danger of generating into global scepticism, because all human judgments turn out to depend on intuitions. (...) Recently, some proponents of the negative program have tried to demarcate the target of their critique more narrowly. However, their attempts are still far too indiscriminate, and over‐generate scepticism. Nevertheless, once experimental philosophy has refined its own methodology, it may contribute to the refinement of the methodology of mainstream philosophy, by filtering out the effects of cognitive bias, although it offers no prospect of doing without judgments on real or imaginary cases. (shrink)

Is it possible for the churches to take a joint stand on human dignity, even though they hold different positions in certain ethical questions? This study paper by the (Roman-Catholic) German Bishops' Conference and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, which is available in English for the first time, explores new paths in the ecumenical handling of ethical questions. Using the methodology of "differentiated consensus", the authors outline the theological similarities of the churches' teaching of anthropology, whilst still doing (...) justice to their differences in the ethical assessment of individual issues of human conduct. In this way, Catholics and Lutherans adopt a common position and make a theologically responsible contribution to ethical judgement. (shrink)

Experiences of embodied remembering are familiar and diverse. We settle bodily into familiar chairs or find our way easily round familiar rooms. We inhabit our own kitchens or cars or workspaces effectively and comfortably, and feel disrupted when our habitual and accustomed objects or technologies change or break or are not available. Hearing a particular song can viscerally bring back either one conversation long ago, or just the urge to dance. Some people explicitly use their bodies to record, store, or (...) cue memories. Others can move skilfully, without stopping to think, in complex and changing environments thanks to the cumulative expertise accrued in their history of fighting fires, or dancing, or playing hockey. The forms of memory involved in these cases may be distinct, operating at different timescales and levels, and by way of different mechanisms and media, but they often cooperate in the many contexts of our practices of remembering. (shrink)

Operational epistemology is, to a first approximation, the attempt to provide cognitive rules such that one is in principle always in a position to know whether one is complying with them. In Knowledge and its Limits, I argue that the only such rules are trivial ones. In this paper, I generalize the argument in several ways to more thoroughly probabilistic settings, in order to show that it does not merely demonstrate some oddity of the folk epistemological conception of knowledge. Some (...) of the generalizations involve a formal semantic framework for treating epistemic probabilities of epistemic probabilities and expectations of expectations. The upshot is that operational epistemology cannot work, and that knowledge-based epistemology has the right characteristics to avoid its problems. (shrink)

Metaphysical modalities are definable from counterfactual conditionals, and the epistemology of the former is a special case of the epistemology of the latter. In particular, the role of conceivability and inconceivability in assessing claims of possibility and impossibility can be explained as a special case of the pervasive role of the imagination in assessing counterfactual conditionals, an account of which is sketched. Thus scepticism about metaphysical modality entails a more far-reaching scepticism about counterfactuals. The account is used to question the (...) significance of the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why a Politics of Property‐Owning Democracy Is Needed Property‐Owning Democracy and Public Opinion Property‐Owning Democracy Versus the Welfare State, Revisited The Viability of Property‐Owning Democracy The Core Issue: The Morality of Large‐Scale Taxation of the Very Rich From Moral Critique to Mobilization: Who Would Be For Property‐Owning Democracy? Conclusion: Going Public With Property‐Owning Democracy References.

This book brings together in one place the work of one of our most respected economic theorists, on a field in which he has played a large part in originating: the New Institutional Economics. Transaction cost economics, which studies the governance of contractual relations, is the branch of the New Institutional Economics with which Oliver Williamson is especially associated.Transaction cost economics takes issue with one of the fundamental building blocks in microeconomics: the theory of the firm. Whereas orthodox economics (...) describes the firm in technological terms, as a production function, transaction cost economics describes the firm in organizational terms, as a governance structure. Alternative feasible forms of organization--firms, markets, hybrids, bureaus--are examined comparatively. The analytical action resides in the details of transactions and the mechanisms of governance.Transaction cost economics has had a pervasive influence on current economic thought about how and why institutions function as they do, and it has become a practical framework for research in organizations by representatives of a variety of disciplines. Through a transaction cost analysis, The Mechanisms of Governance shows how and why simple contracts give way to complex contracts and internal organization as the hazards of contracting build up. That complicates the study of economic organization, but a richer and more relevant theory of organization is the result. Many testable implications and lessons for public policy accrue to this framework. Applications of both kinds are numerous and growing.Written by one of the leading economic theorists of our time, The Mechanisms of Governance is sure to be an important work for years to come. It will be of interest to scholars and students of economics, organization, management, and law. (shrink)

The article focuses on Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech and its recontextualisation 50 years later in view of the rising anti-immigration sentiment and Brexit campaign. Having discussed the dynamics of the threat construction process and its role in shaping public attitudes to migration and policies related to it across time and space, we proceed to analyse Powell’s speech in terms of lexical, grammatical, and discursive fear-inciting devices and strategies. While doing so we draw on the insights from neuroscientific research (...) on the role of lexis in fear stimulation and functional-cognitive models of grammatical structure. The second part of our analysis is meant to demonstrate how the semiotic potential of cyberspace and social media, along with multimodal integration of various forms, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity they enable, endow fear-inciting discourse with new spatiotemporal and affective qualities. To this end we examine one of the most popular YouTube videos making “Rivers of Blood” speech part of its anti-immigration stance. (shrink)

The need to evaluate the performance of clinical ethics services is widely acknowledged although work in this area is more developed in the United States. In the USA many studies that assess clinical ethics services have utilized empirical methods and assessment criteria. The value of these approaches is thought to rest on their ability to measure the value of services in a demonstrable fashion. However, empirical measures tend to lack ethical content, making their contribution to developments in ethical governance unclear. (...) The steady increase of clinical ethics committees in the UK must be accompanied by efforts to evaluate their performance. As part of this evaluative work it is important to examine how the practice of clinical ethics committees can be informed by empirical measures. (shrink)

This paper explores how a regime recognizable as a Rawlsian property-owning democracy might be enshrined constitutionally in the context of the U.S. Five specific constitutional amendments are proposed: establishing an equal right to education, establishing a guaranteed social minimum, clarifying the legitimacy of regulating corporate political speech for the sake of political equality: establishing an individual right to a share of society’s productive wealth, and assuring communities of significant size the right to remain economically viable over time. The substance and (...) reasoning behind each proposal is discussed in length, and the paper also briefly discusses why a focus on constitutional amendments may be helpful both in clarifying how a property-owning democracy might be realized in practice and in establishing clear goals for social movements motivated by the aim of establishing a more equitable distribution of wealth, power, and opportunity in the United States. (shrink)

Kant stated that there are three mental faculties: cognition, feeling, and desire. The faculty of feeling has received the least scholarly attention, despite its importance in Kant's broader thought, and this volume of new essays is the first to present multiple perspectives on a number of important questions about it. Why does Kant come to believe that feeling must be described as a separate faculty? What is the relationship between feeling and cognition, on the one hand, and desire, on the (...) other? What is the nature of feeling? What do the most discussed Kantian feelings, such as respect and sublimity, tell us about the nature of feeling for Kant? And what about other important feelings that have been overlooked or mischaracterized by commentators, such as enthusiasm and hope? This collaborative and authoritative volume will appeal to Kant scholars, historians of philosophy, and those working on topics in ethics, aesthetics, and emotions. (shrink)

Being social creatures in a complex world, we do things together. We act jointly. While cooperation, in its broadest sense, can involve merely getting out of each other’s way, or refusing to deceive other people, it is also essential to human nature that it involves more active forms of collaboration and coordination (Tomasello 2009; Sterelny 2012). We collaborate with others in many ordinary activities which, though at times similar to those of other animals, take unique and diverse cultural and psychological (...) forms in human beings. But we also work closely and interactively with each other in more peculiar and flexible practices which are in distinctive ways both species-specific and culturally and historically contingent: from team sports to shared labour, from committee work to mass demonstrations, from dancing to reminiscing together about old times. (shrink)

Corrupt political institutions, lack of resources, and gang violence in Central America fuel the influx of asylum-seeking women and children to the United States. Yet, immigrant women and children are still at risk for poor health and violence in the US due to the lack of protection and support. Through a case study of a teenage girl from Honduras living in the US who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend who followed her to the US, we elucidate ways in which the (...) US and Honduras have violated the rights of women and children. As background, we describe the context of US foreign policy towards immigration and the market for illicit drugs; and, in Honduras, the lack of appropriate healthcare, education, and legal protections. We identify human rights–based solutions to protect the rights of women and children and provide recommendations for improvement for the US government and organizations in Honduras. (shrink)

International law lacks many of the standard features of domestic law. There are few legislative or judicial bodies with exclusive authority over particular jurisdictions or subject matters, the subjects regulated by international law typically must affirmatively consent to be bound by it, and supranational authorities with the power to coerce states to comply with international obligations are rare. How can a legal system with these features generate changes in state behavior? For many theories, the ability of international law to inform (...) and change individual preferences provides the answer. When voters care that treaty commitments be kept, or that international norms be honored, the theory goes, leaders are more likely to be able to make choices consistent with international obligations. Over the last decade, a literature has emerged testing these theories using surveys and experiments embedded in surveys. Multiple U.S. studies find that international law and international norm arguments shift public opinion in the direction of greater compliance by 4 to 20 percentage points. However, studies in foreign contexts are more mixed, with some backlash reported in countries in which international law is highly politicized. This Article describes the state of current knowledge about whether international law actually does change preferences, explains the limitations with existing research, and proposes avenues for future study. (shrink)

This work presents a new, alternative approach to studying the formation of political ideologies and attitudes, addressing a concern in political science that research in this area is at a crossroads. The authors provide an epistemologically grounded critique on the literature of belief systems, explaining why traditional approaches have reached the limits of usefulness. Following the lead of such continental theorists such as Jurgen Habermas and Anthony Giddens, who stress the importance of Jean Piaget to the development of a strong (...) theoretical perspective in political psychology, the authors develop a different epistemology, theory,and research strategy based on Piaget, then apply it in two emperical studies of belief systems, and finally present a third theoretical study of political culture and political development. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Redistributing Wealth, I: Taxing Large Estates and Incomes Redistributing Wealth, II: The Structure of Universal Assets Individual Assets versus Common Wealth Property‐Owning Democracy as an Incomplete Ideal Appendix: Accumulation of Capital Assets Over a 35‐Year Period References.

Lemmon and Scott introduced the notion of a modal system's providing the rule of disjunction. No consistent normal extension of KB provides this rule. An alternative rule is defined, which KDB, KTB, and other systems are shown to provide, while K and other systems provide the Lemmon-Scott rule but not the alternative rule. If S provides the alternative rule then either —A is a theorem of S or A is whenever A -> ΠA is a theorem; the converse fails. It (...) is suggested that systems with this property are appropriate for handling sorites paradoxes, where D is read as 'clearly*. The S4 axiom fails in such systems. (shrink)

This book brings together in one place the work of one of our most respected economic theorists, on a field in which he has played a large part in originating: the New Institutional Economics. Transaction cost economics, which studies the governance of contractual relations, is the branch of the New Institutional Economics with which Oliver Williamson is especially associated.Transaction cost economics takes issue with one of the fundamental building blocks in microeconomics: the theory of the firm. Whereas orthodox economics (...) describes the firm in technological terms, as a production function, transaction cost economics describes the firm in organizational terms, as a governance structure. Alternative feasible forms of organization--firms, markets, hybrids, bureaus--are examined comparatively. The analytical action resides in the details of transactions and the mechanisms of governance.Transaction cost economics has had a pervasive influence on current economic thought about how and why institutions function as they do, and it has become a practical framework for research in organizations by representatives of a variety of disciplines. Through a transaction cost analysis, The Mechanisms of Governance shows how and why simple contracts give way to complex contracts and internal organization as the hazards of contracting build up. That complicates the study of economic organization, but a richer and more relevant theory of organization is the result. Many testable implications and lessons for public policy accrue to this framework. Applications of both kinds are numerous and growing.Written by one of the leading economic theorists of our time, The Mechanisms of Governance is sure to be an important work for years to come. It will be of interest to scholars and students of economics, organization, management, and law. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that religion is responsible for dictating and guiding moral behavior. This study investigated that claim and its relationship to monetary incentive, self-esteem, and gender within the context of academic dishonesty. A sample of 65 undergraduate students were assessed using a revision of Allport's Religious Orientation Scale and then monitored for cheating on a computerized version of the Graduate Records Exam under different experimental conditions. Self-esteem and monetary incentive were manipulated, and gender was selected to measure their (...) effect on cheating behavior. Results of this study found that: participants’ religious orientation was not related to their tendency to cheat in any way; participants cheated significantly more when receiving monetary incentive for their performance than when they did not; participants with induced low self-esteem cheated significantly more than those with induced high self-esteem; and men cheated more than women at a level that bordered on significance. Academic performance was not found related to academic cheating. Findings are discussed in the context of existing literature. (shrink)

Abstract This paper aims to describe an objective account of sexual perversion. That is, it seeks to characterize sexual perversion as something which is not simply a deviation from a statistical norm but rather as something which violates an objective naturalistic norm. The central point is that perversion consists in the introduction of a strange and extraneous loop in the aetiology of sexual sensations, and this extraneous loop makes it possible to characterize sexual perversion as an objective disorder which is (...) in need of therapy. (shrink)

Epistemic logics for subjects of bounded rationality are in effect nonnormal modal logics. Admissible rules are of interest in such logics. However, the usual methods for establishing admissibility employ Kripke models and are therefore inappropriate for nonnormal logics. This paper extends syntactic methods for a variety of rules and nonnormal logics. In doing so it answers a question asked by Chellas and Segerberg.

This editorial explains the scope of the special issue and provides a thematic introduction to the contributed papers.

This book examines a fundamental social paradox: although less equality certainly entrenches injustice, more equality may nevertheless protect the advantages that one group enjoys over fellow citizens. Their studies confront us with vivid cases where equality for some is preferred to equality for all.

The essays examine specimens of social intolerance drawn from a broad field of history and culture: Classical Greece, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and America. Themes include women’s legal rights; humanitarian law; legitimized child sacrifice; discrimination against racial and religious minorities; religious animosity; Just War morality; theological discord; philosophical antagonism.

In an important article, Chris Hart makes the case that CDA needs to draw on a wider range of theoretical sources in Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Science, giving particular attention to Evolutionary Psychology. While I support Hart’s case for this approach to CDA, and also support his argument, as a corrective to Chilton, that Evolutionary Psychology actually shows the need for something like CDA, this present article advances three further points, aimed to supplement the cognitive approach to CDA. The (...) first is that CDA could fruitfully draw on Cognitive Linguistics in a more detailed way than it has hitherto, and in particular on work that articulates Cognitive Linguistics with Cognitive Psychology of the kind developed by Tomasello. The second is that the insights of Habermas, much mentioned in CDA, need to be better integrated within a linguistic approach to CDA. The third and most important point is that the question of the underlying moral values of the critical stance in CDA now need to be explicated in view of the global context in which CDA operates. I also show, using Hart’s own data, how values are presupposed in many types of utterance. Hart is right to focus on evidentials in his data, as evidence of the critical abilities of human communicators. But there is something important missing for CDA to explore further: the presence of contestable values. (shrink)