Inhabitants of low-lying islands flooded due to anthropogenic climate change will lose their territory and thereby their ability to exercise their right to political self-determination. This paper addresses the normative questions which arise when climate change threatens territorial rights. It explores whether the loss of statehood supports a claim to territorial compensation, and if so, how it can be satisfied. The paper concludes that such claims are well founded and that they should be met by providing compensatory territories. After introducing (...) a differentiation between land rights and territorial rights, previous theoretical responses to the problem of sinking islands are criticized. It is argued that states may be required to give up parts of their territory as compensation. The paper develops criteria of sufficiency for compensatory territories and proposes to base their selection process on a negative auction. Since it is unlikely that unsettled compensatory territories that meet the specified requirements are available, the rights of their original inhabitants are discussed. (shrink)

The secession of prosperous regions may negatively affect the redistributive scheme of an established state. As a consequence, the capacity of its welfare system to support the inhabitants of poorer regions may be significantly reduced. Some authors assert that affluent groups who opt for full political independence violate duties of solidarity. This objection to the secession of prosperous regions can be based on different views of distributive justice. Here, following a distinction that has been introduced by Allen Buchanan, ‘subject centred’ (...) and ‘justice as reciprocity’ theories are explored. It is argued that both theories fail to support the case against the secession of wealthy groups. ‘Subject centred’ theories cannot explain special duties toward compatriots, whereas ‘justice as reciprocity’ theories cannot justify restrictions on exit rights. However, this does not mean that separatists have no moral duties vis-à-vis their fellow citizens. They are obliged to dissolve the political union in a fair way, e.g., by accepting responsibility for some share of the public debts. (shrink)

The child’s right to an open future aims at protecting the autonomy of the mature person into which a child will normally develop. The justification of state interventions into parental decisions which unduly restrict the options of the prospective adult has to address the problem that the value of autonomy is highly contested in modern pluralist societies. The article argues that the modern majority culture provides young adults with many more options than traditionalist religious communities. However, the options that can (...) be chosen in faith groups, such as the Amish, do not constitute a subset of the options available in the wider society. Therefore, state policies which pursue the goal of providing every child with the greatest possible set of options cannot be based on a neutralist version of political liberalism. The advocates of a child’s right to an open future must rely on a perfectionist version of liberalism which draws on the ideal of leading an autonomous life. Since liberal perfectionism has problematic implications, the article defends a neutralist position that largely refrains from state interference with the educational authority of fundamentalist religious communities. (shrink)

In modern democracies, moral experts play an increasingly important role in law-making. Apart from the question of which competences characterize moral experts, their influence on the legitimacy of democratic procedures must be discussed. On the one hand, the contribution of moral experts promises to improve the quality of decision making. On the other hand, however, moral experts cannot claim to represent the will of the people. In this essay, at first a concept of the moral expert will be sketched which (...) does without the assumption of a privileged access to 'moral truths'. Then a procedural understanding of democratic legitimacy without epistemic components will be defended. Finally there will be a distinction between the purely consultative and the quasi-legislative tasks of ethics committees. Whereas councelling by moral experts does not influence the legitimacy of democratic procedures, giving them quasilegislative functions is connected to risks in this respect. (shrink)

On 17 February 2008, the province of Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia. The most important normative theories of secession*choice theories and just cause theories* appear to justify the creation of a second Albanian state on the Balkans. Kosovo’s independence reflects the will of the vast majority of its inhabitants and can be seen as a remedy for grave human rights violations in the era of Slobodan Milos?evic´. Two problems, however, need to be thoroughly discussed. Firstly, the secession of (...) Kosovo may establish a precedent for other separatist conflicts and contribute to the destabilization of south-east Europe and other world regions. Secondly, the new political authorities in Pristina may not be capable to protect the Serb minority against discrimination and repression. It is argued that both problems give no conclusive reasons to reject Kosovo’s claim for independence. However, some aspects of the secession, for instance the maintenance of the provincial borders, are considered to be illegitimate. Keywords: drawing of borders; independence; majority decision; minority protection; primary right theories; remedial right theories; self-determination; sovereignty; territorial integrity Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2010, pp. 123-142. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i2.1983. (shrink)

The article addresses the issue of rationing health care services, a topic currently being hotly debated in many countries. The author argues that the aspect of causal responsibility ought to play a decisive role in the allocation of limited medical resources. Starting out from Ronald Dworkin's distinction between option luck and brute luck, the appropriate and meaningful uses of the term causal responsibility are clarified first. A discussion of the conditions which might justify giving lower priority to patients whose illnesses (...) are the result of unhealthy behavior, like e.g. alcohol abuse, follows. Causal responsibility is then viewed in the context of private health insurance and the club model of organ donation. It is argued that individuals themselves are basically responsible for their decisions regarding insurance coverage and membership in organ donors' clubs. Causal responsibility is shown to be a more suitable criterion for rationing scarce medical resources than other criteria which might alternatively be considered, such as patients' age. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die im Dezember 2022 in Kraft getretene Erweiterung des Infektionsschutzgesetzes sieht vor, im Fall einer Pandemie knappe intensivmedizinische Ressourcen nach dem Kriterium der Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeit zu priorisieren. Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, ob der Vorwurf, diese Regelung setze Menschen mit Behinderung einer erheblichen Diskriminierungsgefahr aus, berechtigt ist. Nach einer kurzen Darstellung des im Infektionsschutzgesetz festgelegten Zuteilungsverfahrens wird zunächst das vielschichtige Konzept der Diskriminierung erörtert. Im Kontext der Allokation knapper intensivmedizinischer Ressourcen besteht vornehmlich das Risiko einer nichtintendierten Diskriminierung, die in (...) direkter wie auch indirekter Form erfolgen kann. Die Regelungen, die das Infektionsschutzgesetz trifft, bieten Menschen mit Behinderung einen vergleichsweise hohen Schutz vor direkter Diskriminierung. Dennoch müssen Menschen mit bestimmten Behinderungen gravierende Nachteile hinnehmen, weil sie im Fall einer COVID-19-Infektion absehbar eine geringere Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeit als gesunde Menschen haben. Eine indirekte Diskriminierung liegt aber nur dann vor, wenn für die Auferlegung disproportionaler Nachteile keine hinreichende Rechtfertigung angeführt werden kann. In modernen pluralistischen Gesellschaften, die durch tiefgreifende Wertkonflikte gekennzeichnet sind, sollten unterschiedliche ethische Theorien – darunter auch konsequentialistische Positionen – als mögliche Grundlage einer Rechtfertigung anerkannt werden. Im Ergebnis erweist sich der Vorwurf, eine am Kriterium der Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeit orientierte Zuteilung knapper intensivmedizinischer Ressourcen bewirke eine Diskriminierung von Menschen mit Behinderung, als nicht stichhaltig. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

In his recent book One World one of Peter Singer's main concerns is the preferential treatment of compatriots. Two aspects of Singer's theoretical reflections on this issue are critically discussed: the use of an impartiality test as basis for the justification of special duties and the resulting condemnation of partial preferences for compatriots. Subsequently, an alternative way to justify special duties is outlined and applied to the case of fellow citizens. It is argued, that partiality to compatriots can be defended, (...) if special duties are regarded as a constitutive part of valuable relationships. (shrink)

This article examines the neoaristotelian theories of Martha Nussbaum and Douglas Rasmussen/douglas Den Uyl. Both sides give a similar account of good human living, which emphasizes the significance of individual autonomy. But they disagree sharply on the political institutions necessary to promote human flourishing; Nussbaum formulates a,social democratic' position; Rasmussen/den Uyl hold a,liberal‘ standpoint. The article explores both lines of reasoning. It is shown that neither Nussbaum nor Rasmussen/den Uyl present conclusive arguments for their political position.

Theorists who support the legalisation of active euthanasia usually base their arguments on the principle of autonomy. In their view the wish of a severely ill person not to continue his or her life must be respected. However, some opponents of the legalisation of active euthanasia refer to the principle of autonomy as well. They are concerned that patients may be held responsible for burdening others with the provision of care. Thus family members, physicians or nurses may exert pressure on (...) patients to opt for active euthanasia. In this article it is argued that these worries are justified; the occurrence of social coercion poses a real danger. However, neither the prohibition nor the permission of active euthanasia enables each individual to make an autonomous choice. Comparing the risks involved in both options, legalisation seems to be preferable to maintaining the status quo. (shrink)

Eingangs wird die Pflicht zum Rechtsgehorsam näher bestimmt und die Anforde-rungen, denen ihre theoretische Begründung zu entsprechen hat, dargelegt. Anschließend wird das Fairnessprinzip ausgehend von den Formulierungen, die sich in den Arbeiten von Hart und Rawls finden, erläutert. Im nächsten Schritt wird dann seine Anwendung auf die staatliche Gemeinschaft als Grundlage einer individuellen Pflicht zum Gesetzesgehorsam betrachtet. Darauf aufbauend wird die einflussreiche Kritik, die Robert Nozick an der Fairnesstheorie geübt hat, vorgestellt und erörtert. Danach gilt es den Versuch verschiedener zeitgenössischer (...) Vertreter der Fairnesstheorie, die Einwände Nozicks zu entkräften, einer eingehenden Prüfung zu unterziehen. Im letzten Abschnitt wird die Argumentation resümiert und die Begründung individueller Fairnesspflichten im Rahmen der staatlichen Gemeinschaft abschließend bewertet. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Das Internet bietet die Möglichkeit, eine beliebig große Anzahl von Personen durch unterschiedliche Formen der Deliberation und Beschlussfassung politisch einzubinden. Insbesondere im kommunalen Kontext wird die Online-Partizipation – etwa im Rahmen städtischer Bürgerhaushalte – bereits vielfach als Mittel erprobt, um die soziale Akzeptanz und Legitimität politischer Entscheidungen zu erhöhen. Die Legitimität demokratischer Verfahren hängt neben anderen Faktoren maßgeblich von der Konstitution des Demos und der damit festgelegten Allokation der Teilnahmerechte ab. In historischer Perspektive hat vor allem die Exklusion bestimmter (...) Gruppen, insbesondere von Frauen, Besitzlosen oder nichtweißen Personen, die Legitimität klassischer Offline-Verfahren, wie z. B. Parlamentswahlen, in Frage gestellt. Die neuen Formen der Online-Partizipation bergen hingegen – so die zentrale These des Aufsatzes – die Gefahr der Über-Inklusivität, weil sie häufig auf jegliche Zugangsbeschränkung verzichten. Selbst wenn die Verfahren, wie in der Praxis üblich, einen konsultativen Charakter haben und die politischen Entscheidungsträger formal nicht binden, führt ihre Offenheit zu Legitimationsproblemen. Daraus entsteht die Notwendigkeit, normative Kriterien für die Vergabe von Partizipationsrechten zu entwickeln, die den Besonderheiten der Online-Deliberation angemessen Rechnung tragen. (shrink)

In recent years theorists, such as Yael Tamir and David Miller, have proposed a liberal form of nationalism thereby combining two seemingly incompatible traditions of thought. Perhaps the most controversial element of their theories is the claim that national communities should be accorded with a right to political self-determination. In the article it is explained, firstly, why membership in a nation is seen as important for the individual’s well-being and, secondly, why statehood is deemed necessary for the thriving of the (...) nation. Subsequently, two problems of the liberal nationalists’ argument for political self-determination are discussed. It is argued, firstly, that national communities only need some form of regional autonomy to achieve their most important goals and, secondly, that non-national communities, e.g. religious groups, can base their demand for political sovereignity on the very same argument. (shrink)

Separatism has become an important issue in international politics, as events like the fall of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have demonstrated. This book investigates whether the secession of democratic states can be justified. Beginning with a critical analysis of current philosophical and people’s rights debates, the author develops his own legitimation theory. Drawing on the fundamental values of modern democracies, the author argues that a right of secession should be recognized.

By the example of deafness the article examines the ethical problems that arise when preimplantation genetic diagnosis is used for the intentional heredity of genetic defects. In the first two sections the relevant rules of the German Embryo Protection Law and the motives of deaf couples to desire a handicapped child are explained. Subsequently, it is asked whether the positive selection of genetic defects can harm or otherwise wrong the future child. Moreover, a possible duty of prospective parents to prefer (...) an embryo which will most probably experience a higher quality of life is discussed. Finally, the question is raised whether parents have a right to refuse medical treatment that may alleviate their child's handicap. As a result, it is argued that neither a legal ban on the positive selection of handicapped embryos nor compulsory treatment of deaf children are ethically justified. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, auf welcher Grundlage sich territoriale Ansprüche, die von Staaten erhoben werden, rechtfertigen lassen. Zunächst werden vier Legitimationstheorien, die in der aktuellen Diskussion häufig vertreten werden, untersucht und aus verschiedenen Gründen zurückgewiesen. Als Basis der Rechtfertigung scheiden damit individuelle Eigentumsrechte, der Verlauf der Geschichte, die Gerechtigkeit der staatlichen Herrschaft sowie die Selbstbestimmung nationaler Gemeinschaften aus. Abschließend wird die Auffassung vertreten, die Legitimität der staatlichen Gebietshoheit gründe in dem – gegebenenfalls in einem Referendum zu klärenden (...) – Mehrheitswillen der ortsansässigen Bevölkerung. (shrink)

Für die Argumentation von Moralphilosophen, die die Legalisierung der aktiven Sterbehilfe befürworten, spielt das Autonomieprinzip eine wichtige Rolle. Ihrer Auffassung nach verlangt der Respekt vor der Autonomie, die Entscheidung eines schwer kranken Menschen gegen die Fortsetzung des Lebens vorbehaltlos anzuerkennen. Dagegen haben verschiedene Theoretiker auf Gefahren hingewiesen, die die rechtliche Zulassung der Tötung auf Verlangen für die individuelle Autonomie mit sich bringt. Sobald der Kranke über die Möglichkeit der aktiven Sterbehilfe verfüge, falle ihm die Verantwortung für die Inanspruchnahme von Pflegeleistungen (...) zu. In der Folge könne u. a. von Seiten der Familie die Forderung an ihn gestellt werden, den vom Gesetzgeber eröffneten Ausweg zu nutzen und sie von der Last seiner Pflege zu befreien. Die Bedenken erscheinen insofern berechtigt, als Formen sozialen Zwangs vorstellbar sind, die eine freie Entscheidung des Patienten verhindern. Allerdings vermag weder das Verbot noch die Zulassung der aktiven Sterbehilfe eine autonome Entscheidung aller Individuen zu gewährleisten. Die Abwägung der Risiken, mit denen beide Optionen behaftet sind, spricht im Ergebnis für die Legalisierung der Tötung auf Verlangen. (shrink)

Die {raquo}Revolution der Denkart{laquo} hat nicht nur den Anlauf genommen, welchem sie ihren Namen verdankt.! Gezahlt werden noch weitere Umstellungen der Theorie bildung als bloG die kopernikanische Kants. Hier interessieren gleich zwei. Die eine liefert den Gegenstand, die entsprechende, RevolutionPhanomenologie.

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this "beautiful question." With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek's groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe (...) embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry--harmony, balance, proportion--and economy. There are other meanings of "beauty," but this is the deep logic of the universe--and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. As he reveals here, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that "all things are number," to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. Yes: the world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.--From publisher description. (shrink)

One of our great contemporary scientists presents ten insights that illuminate what every thinking person needs to know about what the world is and how it works. Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek's Fundamentals is built around a simple but profound idea: the models of the world we construct as children are practical and adequate for everyday life, but they do not bring in the surprising and mind-expanding revelations of modern science. To do that, we must look at the world (...) anew, combining clear thinking with an openness to wonder. This "born again" world is in many ways larger, fuller, and much stranger than it appears. Through an exploration of space, time, matter, and ideas--and equipped with facts, questions, and brilliant speculations--Wilczek guides us through the past, present, and future of fundamental science. Readers will emerge with an expanded vision of our universe. Author Bio: Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a graduate student. He was among the earliest MacArthur fellows, and has won many awards both for his scientific work and his writing. He is the author of A Beautiful Question, The Lightness of Being, Fantastic Realities, Longing for the Harmonies, and hundreds of articles in leading scientific journals. His "Wilczek's Universe" column appears regularly in the Wall Street Journal. Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founding director of the T. D. Lee Institute and chief scientist at the Wilczek Quantum Center in Shanghai, China, and a distinguished professor at Arizona State University and Stockholm University. (shrink)

Der Übergang vom Verhältnisbewußtsein zum Selbstbewußtsein kann unmöglich nur vom Verhältnisbewußtsein aus gedacht werden, weil wir uns eine Welt, in der das Bewubtsein unserer selbst verteilt ist auf die Dimensionen der Handlung vor deren Zentrierung in uns, gar nicht vorstellen können. Jedes Tableau der Handlungsmöglichkeiten, so abstrakt es auch abgefaßt sein mag, ist gebunden an Vorstellungen möglicher Handlungssubjekte, denen wir Handlungsmöglichkeiten zuschreiben. Handlungstheorie ist daher notwendig Reflexion unserer Praxis, in der wir uns selbst als Selbstbewußtsein erfahren, das seinem Verhältnisbewubtsein enthoben (...) ist, ohne dieses dadurch selbst schon aufzuheben zu können. Daß uns Freiheit im Handeln unaufhebbar prekär und problematisch bleiben mub, ist die Grundvoraussetzung dafür, dab wir Handlungstheorien historisch und bereichsbezogen ständig neu entwerfen müssen. Das Verhältnis von Handlungsphilosophie zu Handlungstheorien kann daher so gefaßt werden, daß Handlungsphilosophie die Grundbegrifflichkeit in kritischer Absicht bereitstellt, die den bereichsorientierten, mehr oder weniger deskriptiven Handlungstheorien abgehen muß. Dazu muß die ontologische Differenz von Handlung und Interpretation methodologisch ernst genommen werden. Die radikale Andersheit der hier zu begründenden Konzeption liegt vor allem in der Ansicht, daß Handlungen nicht als isolierbare Ereignis-Entitäten aufgefaßt werden können, die gegenüber der »Welt der Tatsachen des Bewußtseins« eine kausale, d.h. von der Welt des Bewußtseins abgetrennte Rolle übernehmen. (shrink)

**** Reprint of the Indiana U. Press edition of 1966--which is cited in BCL3. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought. Indeed provocative new possibilities for thinking theologically open up precisely in the wake of the death of God. Already Hegel envisaged a revolutionary new realization of divinity emerging in and with the secular world through its establishment of (...) a total order of immanence. However, in postmodern times this comprehensive order aspired to by modern secularism implodes or cracks open towards the wholly Other. A hitherto repressed demand for the absolute difference of the religious, or for “transcendence”, returns with a vengeance. This difference is what could not be stated in terms of the Hegelian System, for reasons that poststructuralist writers particularly have insisted on: all representations of God are indeed dead. Yet this does not mean that they cannot still be powerful, but only that they cannot assign God any stable identity. Nietzsche’s sense of foreboding concerning the death of God is coupled with his intimations of the demise of representation and “grammar” as epistemologically bankrupt, but also with his vision of a positive potential for creating value in the wake of this collapse of all linguistically articulated culture. He points the way towards the emergence of a post-secular religious thinking of what exceeds thought and representation. (shrink)

The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics. The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as revealed in (...) Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Church as distinct from the secular world such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God's having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God's commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world. (shrink)

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this problem (...) generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

Behaviourism is the view that preferences, beliefs, and other mental states in social-scientific theories are nothing but constructs re-describing people's behaviour. Mentalism is the view that they capture real phenomena, on a par with the unobservables in science, such as electrons and electromagnetic fields. While behaviourism has gone out of fashion in psychology, it remains influential in economics, especially in ‘revealed preference’ theory. We defend mentalism in economics, construed as a positive science, and show that it fits best scientific practice. (...) We distinguish mentalism from, and reject, the radical neuroeconomic view that behaviour should be explained in terms of brain processes, as distinct from mental states. (shrink)

Computer-simulated scenarios have been part of psychological research on problem solving for more than 40 years. The shift in emphasis from simple toy problems to complex, more real-life oriented problems has been accompanied by discussions about the best ways to assess the process of solving complex problems. Psychometric issues such as reliable assessments and addressing correlations with other instruments have been in the foreground of these discussions and have left the content validity of complex problem solving in the background. In (...) this paper, we return the focus to content issues and address the important features that define complex problems. (shrink)

We introduce a “reason-based” framework for explaining and predicting individual choices. It captures the idea that a decision-maker focuses on some but not all properties of the options and chooses an option whose motivationally salient properties he/she most prefers. Reason-based explanations allow us to distinguish between two kinds of context-dependent choice: the motivationally salient properties may (i) vary across choice contexts, and (ii) include not only “intrinsic” properties of the options, but also “context-related” properties. Our framework can accommodate boundedly rational (...) and sophisticatedly rational choice. Since properties can be recombined in new ways, it also offers resources for predicting choices in unobserved contexts. (shrink)

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mah?y?na Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken (...) as representative of a Western view and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism. (shrink)

Which rules for aggregating judgments on logically connected propositions are manipulable and which not? In this paper, we introduce a preference-free concept of non-manipulability and contrast it with a preference-theoretic concept of strategy-proofness. We characterize all non-manipulable and all strategy-proof judgment aggregation rules and prove an impossibility theorem similar to the Gibbard--Satterthwaite theorem. We also discuss weaker forms of non-manipulability and strategy-proofness. Comparing two frequently discussed aggregation rules, we show that “conclusion-based voting” is less vulnerable to manipulation than “premise-based voting”, (...) which is strategy-proof only for “reason-oriented” individuals. Surprisingly, for “outcome-oriented” individuals, the two rules are strategically equivalent, generating identical judgments in equilibrium. Our results introduce game-theoretic considerations into judgment aggregation and have implications for debates on deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Called by Karl Barth the brilliant Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book is finally being recognized as Bonhoeffers magnum opus and one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century.

The widely discussed "discursive dilemma" shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential (...) quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path-dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path-independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy-proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision-making. (shrink)

Social sustainability plays a prominent role in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, but a proper analysis of the concept is still lacking. According to a widespread conception, a system is sustainable when it is preserved or developed in a robust manner. I argue, however, that social sustainability is best understood in explicitly normative terms. Formulating suitable development goals requires a conception of the kind of society that is worth sustaining. I propose that, for a system to be socially sustainable (...) is for it to secure a range of values, including justice. Furthermore, I argue that social sustainability is first and foremost a property of institutions. I go on to ask what it takes for an institution to secure values and why justice is so important for institutions. The answers culminate in a social sustainability framework, which explains why making institutions more sustainable is so challenging. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers of biology have endorsed views about random drift that, we will argue, rest on an implicit assumption that the meaning of concepts such as drift can be understood through an examination of the mathematical models in which drift appears. They also seem to implicitly assume that ontological questions about the causality of terms appearing in the models can be gleaned from the models alone. We will question these general assumptions by showing how the same equation (...) — the simple 2 = p2 + 2pq + q2 — can be given radically different interpretations, one of which is a physical, causal process and one of which is not. This shows that mathematical models on their own yield neither interpretations nor ontological conclusions. Instead, we argue that these issues can only be resolved by considering the phenomena that the models were originally designed to represent and the phenomena to which the models are currently applied. When one does take those factors into account, starting with the motivation for Sewall Wright’s and R.A. Fisher’s early drift models and ending with contemporary applications, a very different picture of the concept of drift emerges. On this view, drift is a term for a set of physical processes, namely, indiscriminate sampling processes. (shrink)

In the theory of judgment aggregation, it is known for which agendas of propositions it is possible to aggregate individual judgments into collective ones in accordance with the Arrow-inspired requirements of universal domain, collective rationality, unanimity preservation, non-dictatorship and propositionwise independence. But it is only partially known (e.g., only in the monotonic case) for which agendas it is possible to respect additional requirements, notably non-oligarchy, anonymity, no individual veto power, or implication preservation. We fully characterize the agendas for which there (...) are such possibilities, thereby answering the most salient open questions about propositionwise judgment aggregation. Our results build on earlier results by Nehring and Puppe (2002), Nehring (2006), Dietrich and List (2007a) and Dokow and Holzman (2010a). (shrink)

All existing impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation require individual and collective judgment sets to be consistent and complete, arguably a demanding rationality requirement. They do not carry over to aggregation functions mapping profiles of consistent individual judgment sets to consistent collective ones. We prove that, whenever the agenda of propositions under consideration exhibits mild interconnections, any such aggregation function that is "neutral" between the acceptance and rejection of each proposition is dictatorial. We relate this theorem to the literature.