Ross Cameron proposes to reconcile presentism and truth-maker theory by invoking temporal distributional properties, instantiated by present entities, as the truth-makers for truths about the past. This chapter argues that Cameron's proposal fails because objects can change which temporal distributional properties they instantiate and this entails that the truth-values of truths about the past can change in an objectionable way.

Presentists face a challenge from truthmaker theory: if you hold both that the only existing objects are presently existing and that truth supervenes on being, then you will be hard pressed to identify some existent on which a given true but traceless claim about the past supervenes. One reconciliation strategy, advocated by Cameron (2011), is to appeal to distributional properties so to serve as presently existing truthmakers for past truths. I argue that a presentist ought to deny that (...) distributional properties can serve as truthmakers. (shrink)

According to presentism, everything that exists is present. According to the truthmaker principle, for every true proposition there is a truthmaker – an entity that suffices for the truth of that proposition. According to realism about the past, there are true propositions about the past. Together these claims necessitate presently existing truthmakers for truths about the past (presentist truthmakers). Cameron (2010) argues that temporal distributional properties (TDPs) can play the role of presentist truthmakers. Corkum (2014) argues that they (...) cannot. I argue against Corkum’s objections. In §2, I introduce and outline the motivation for TDPs. In §3, I show that unless TDPs are stipulated to be fundamental, as Cameron does, they can be reduced to temporal non–distributional properties, which are unable to play the role of presentist truthmakers. In §4, I argue against Corkum’s two objections to Cameron’s stipulation. Corkum’s first objection is that Cameron has no grounds on which to stipulate that TDPs are fundamental, and that the reducibility of TDPs to temporal non–distributional properties (as discussed in §3) shows that they are not. I argue that the burden of proof is not on Cameron to argue that TDPs are fundamental, but on Corkum to argue that they are not, and that to argue from the reducibility of TDPs to their non–fundamentality is to beg the question against Cameron: the reduction is only possible once their non–fundamentality is assumed. Corkum’s second objection is that if Cameron is allowed to stipulate that TDPs are fundamental in order to escape objections, then Bigelow's (1996) account is allowed to make the same move, rendering Cameron’s account redundant. I argue that the cases are asymmetric: the alternative account faces a legitimate objection whilst Cameron’s account does not. (shrink)

A new continuous version of the inverse flexible Weibull model is proposed and studied. Some of its properties such as quantile function, moments and generating functions, incomplete moments, mean deviation, Lorenz and Bonferroni curves, the mean residual life function, the mean inactivity time, and the strong mean inactivity time are derived. The failure rate of the new model can be “increasing-constant,” “bathtub-constant,” “bathtub,” “constant,” “J-HRF,” “upside down bathtub,” “increasing,” “upside down-increasing-constant,” and “upside down.” Different copulas are used for deriving (...) many bivariate and multivariate type extensions. Different non-Bayesian well-known estimation methods under uncensored scheme are considered and discussed such as the maximum likelihood estimation, Anderson Darling estimation, ordinary least square estimation, Cramér-von-Mises estimation, weighted least square estimation, and right tail Anderson Darling estimation methods. Simulation studies are performed for comparing these estimation methods. Finally, two real datasets are analyzed to illustrate the importance of the new model. (shrink)

The extended reduced Kies distribution, which is an asymmetric flexible extension of the reduced Kies distribution, is the subject of this research. Some of its most basic mathematical properties are deduced from its formal definitions. We computed the ExRKD parameters using eight well-known methods. A full simulation analysis was done that allows the study of these estimators’ asymptotic behavior. The efficiency and applicability of the ExRKD are investigated via the modeling of COVID-19 and milk data sets, which demonstrates that (...) the ExRKD delivers a better match to the data sets when compared to competing models. (shrink)

Due to the advance computer technology, the use of probability distributions has been raised up to solve the real life problems. These applications are found in reliability engineering, computer sciences, economics, psychology, survival analysis, and some others. This study offers a new probability model called Marshall–Olkin Extended Gumbel Type-II which can model various shapes of the failure rate function. The proposed distribution is capable to model increasing, decreasing, reverse J-shaped, and upside down bathtub shapes of the failure rate function. Various (...) statistical properties of the proposed distribution are derived such as alternate expressions for the density and distribution function, special cases of MOEGT-II distribution, quantile function, Lorenz curve, and Bonferroni curve. Estimation of the unknown parameters is carried out by the method of maximum likelihood. A simulation study is conducted using three different iterative methods with different samples of sizes n. The usefulness and potentiality of the MOEGT-II distribution have been shown using three real life data sets. The MOEGT-II distribution has been demonstrated as better fit than Exponentiated Gumbel Type-II, Marshall–Olkin Gumbel Type-II, Gumbel Type-II, Marshall–Olkin–Frechet, Frechet, Burr III, Log Logistic, Beta Inverse Weibull, and Kumaraswamy Inverse Weibull distributions. (shrink)

We prove the Finite Model Property (FMP) for Distributive Full Lambek Calculus ( DFL ) whose algebraic semantics is the class of distributive residuated lattices ( DRL ). The problem was left open in [8, 5]. We use the method of nuclei and quasi–embedding in the style of [10, 1].

According to robert nozick's theory of distributive justice, We are forced to choose between a commitment to the kantian principle that no one may be used as a means to the purposes of others and the socialist view that the benefits of land and natural resources should be distributed on the basis of an end-State standard of equity. However, We face no such dilemma. A careful look at nozick's argument reveals that the kantian imperative does not clearly entail the right (...) of individuals to own land and natural resources. Indeed a very plausible application of the imperative is compatible with the doctrine that land and resources are communal property. Therefore, Nozick's theory fails to justify economic distributions produced by a system in which natural resources are privately owned. (shrink)

While it is often taken for granted that the concepts of property and of distributive justice are capable of working together to generate norms which can enhance positive social and political relations, in particular the value of community, this Article argues otherwise. Relying on critical tools deriving from Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Marx’s notion of fetishism, the author claims that the Rawlsian conception of distributive justice fetishizes the institution of property, and claims to "distribute" participation in society amongst its (...) members as if this amounted to a distribution of so many objects. Taken in this way, the concept of distributive justice has no respectable content. What social justice requires is a means to ensure that people are not "socially excluded," which requires each individual’s participation in the social and cultural enterprise. This sort of participation can no more be "distributed" than can life itself, and the realization of this point undermines the cogency of most discussions of distributive justice. (shrink)

Usually a relational approach, such as one appealing to care or love, is contrasted with an account of justice. In this chapter, however, I argue that distributive justice is well conceived as itself a matter of honouring people in virtue of their capacity to love and to be loved. After spelling out a familiar conception of love, I explain how treating people with respect in light of this capacity provides a plausible basis for human rights, one that rivals influential individualist (...) foundations such as Kantian respect for autonomy and Catholic honor of human life. I also articulate an egalitarian conception of how to allocate wealth that I argue is also a function of treating people's ability to love as special and that can compete against views salient in Anglo-American political philosophy such as cost-benefit analysis and John Rawls’ difference principle. (shrink)

The notion of a conditionally distributive lattice was introduced by B. Wolniewicz while formally investigating the ontology of situations . In several of this lectures he has appealed for a study of that class of lattices. The present abstract is a response to that request.

There is an increasing interest in expanding the one-parameter Lindley distribution to two-parameter, three-parameter, and five-parameter. The univariate one-parameter Lindley distribution is still one of the most applicable distributions in data analysis especially in lifetime data. Modeling dependent random quantities required bivariate parametric probability distributions. This study presents a new bivariate three-parameter probability distribution called bivariate modified Lindley distribution. The one-parameter modified Lindley distribution is used as a base line to construct the new model. Its statistical properties including cumulative (...) function, density function, marginals, moments, conditional distributions, and copula are discussed. Simulation is constructed to declare theoretical properties, to show the flexibility of the new model and to investigate the goodness of fit. Two sets of real data, financial data and UEFA Champion’s League data, are used to show the applicability of the proposed model for different types of data. (shrink)

Fichte's definitions of property appear to diverge from modern common linguistic usage, especially his identification of leisure as the object of an absolute right of property, and they may even appear arbitrary. I argue that these definitions are not in fact arbitrary. Rather, any divergence from common linguistic usage can be explained in terms of a conceptual innovation which consists in expanding or modifying a concept by thinking it through, thereby generating new content. In the case of Fichte's theory of (...) property, this content turns out to be leisure as the primary object of a theory of distributive justice. The conceptual innovation found in Fichte's theory of property invites a reconceptualization of the relation between work and freedom. (shrink)

Distributed cognition refers to processes which are (i) cognitive and (ii) distributed across multiple agents or devices rather than performed by a single agent. Distributed cognition has attracted interest in several fields ranging from sociology and law to computer science and the philosophy of science. In this paper, I discuss distributed cognition from a social-choice-theoretic perspective. Drawing on models of judgment aggregation, I address two questions. First, how can we model a group of individuals as a distributed cognitive system? Second, (...) can a group acting as a distributed cognitive system be ‘rational’ and ‘track the truth’ in the outputs it produces? I argue that a group’s performance as a distributed cognitive system depends on its ‘aggregation procedure’ – its mechanism for aggregating the group members’ inputs into collective outputs – and I investigate the properties of an aggregation procedure that matter. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Indictment Background Institutions for Distributive Justice A Non‐Capitalist Property‐Owning Democracy Economic Democracy ED Versus POD POD Modified References.

Presentists face a familiar problem. If only present objects exist, then what 'makes true' our true claims about the past? According to Ross Cameron, the 'truth-makers' for past and future tensed propositions are presently instantiated Temporal Distributional Properties. We present an argument against Cameron's view. There are two ways that we might understand the term 'distribute' as it appears. On one reading, the resulting properties are not up to the task of playing the truth-maker role; on the (...) other, the properties are incompatible with presentism. (shrink)

Morphophonological alternations, such as the voicing alternation that arises in a morphological paradigm due to final-devoicing in Dutch, are notoriously difficult for children to acquire. This has previously been attributed to their unpredictability. In fact, the presence or absence of a voicing alternation is partly predictable if the phonological context of the word is taken into account, and adults have been shown to use this information ( Ernestus and Baayen, 2003 ). This study investigates whether voicing alternations are predictable from (...) the child’s input, and whether children can make use of this information. A corpus study of child-directed speech establishes that the likelihood of a stem-final obstruent alternating is somewhat predictable on the basis of the phonological properties of the stem. In Experiment 1 Dutch 3-year-olds’ production accuracy in a plural-elicitation task is shown to be sensitive to the distributional statistics. However, distributional properties do not play a role in children’s sensitivity to mispronunciations of voicing in a Preferential Looking Task in Experiment 2. (shrink)

_Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations,_ first published in 1977, comprehensively examines the general justifications for systems of private property rights, and discusses with great clarity the major arguments as to the rights and responsibilities of property ownership. In particular, the arguments that hold that there are natural rights derived from first occupancy, labour, utility, liberty and virtue are considered, as are the standard anti-property arguments based on disutility, virtue and inequality, and the belief that justice in distribution must take precedence over (...) private ownership. Lawrence Becker goes on to contend that there are four sound lines of argument for private property that, together with what is sound in the anti-property arguments, must be co-ordinated to form the foundations of a new theory. He therefore expounds a concise but sophisticated theory of property that is relevant to the modern world, and concludes by indicating some of the implications of his theory. (shrink)

DCPS is a connectionist production system interpreter that uses distributed representations. As a connectionist model it consists of many simple, richly interconnected neuron‐like computing units that cooperate to solve problems in parallel. One motivation for constructing DCPS was to demonstrate that connectionist models are capable of representing and using explicit rules. A second motivation was to show how “coarse coding” or “distributed representations” can be used to construct a working memory that requires far fewer units than the number of different (...) facts that can potentially be stored. The simulation we present is intended as a detailed demonstration of the feasibility of certain ideas and should not be viewed as a full implementation of production systems. Our current model only has a few of the many interesting emergent properties that we eventually hope to demonstrate: It is damage‐resistant, it performs matching and variable binding by massively parallel constraint satisfaction, and the capacity of its working memory is dependent on the similarity of the items being stored. (shrink)

Various arguments have been provided for drawing non-humans such as animals and artificial agents into the sphere of moral consideration. In this paper, I argue for a shift from an ontological to a social-philosophical approach: instead of asking what an entity is, we should try to conceptually grasp the quasi-social dimension of relations between non-humans and humans. This allows me to reconsider the problem of justice, in particular distributive justice . Engaging with the work of Rawls, I show that an (...) expansion of the contractarian framework to non-humans causes an important problem for liberalism, but can be justified by a contractarian argument. Responding to Bell’s and Nussbaum’s comments on Rawls, I argue that we can justify drawing non-humans into the sphere of distributive justice by relying on the notion of a co-operative scheme. I discuss what co-operation between humans and non-humans can mean and the extent to which it depends on properties. I conclude that we need to imagine principles of ecological and technological distributive justice. (shrink)

Even though it has been argued that scientific cognition is distributed, there is no consensus on the exact nature of distributed cognition. This paper aims to characterize distributed cognition as appropriate for philosophical studies of science. I first classify competing characterizations into three types: the property approach, the task approach, and the system approach. It turns out that the property approach and the task approach are subject to criticism. I then argue that the most preferable way to understand distributed cognition (...) in science is provided by the system approach that takes a distributed-cognitive system as the unit of analysis. I clarify this position by considering possible objections and replies. (shrink)

Distributional semantics is an area of corpus linguistics and computational linguistics that seeks to model the meanings of words by producing a semantic space that captures the distributional properties of those words within a corpus. In this paper, I provide an overview of distributional semantic models, including a broad sketch of how such models are constructed. I then outline the reasons for and against the claim that distributional semantic models can serve as a theory of (...) meaning, paying special attention to those within the field who have defended this claim. Finally, I conclude by arguing that despite the fact that such models are holistic, they nevertheless avoid the objections raised against holistic theories of meaning, particularly from Fodor & Lepore (1992) (Holism: a shopper’s guide. Blackwell, 1992) and Fodor & Lepore (1999). (shrink)

Much of the recent discussion in progressive circles [e.g., Stiglitz; Galbraith; Piketty] has focused the obscene mal-distribution of wealth and income as if that was "the" problem in our economic system. And the proposed redistributive reforms have all stuck to that framing of the question. To put the question in historical perspective, one might note that there was a similar, if not more extreme, mal-distribution of wealth, income, and political power in the Antebellum system of slavery. Yet, it should be (...) obvious to modern eyes that redistributions in favor of the slaves, while leaving the institution of owning workers intact, would not address the root of the problem. The system of slavery was eventually abolished in favor of the system we have today which differs in two important respects: the workers are only rented, hired, or employed ; and the rental relationship between employer and employee is voluntary. Today, the root of the problem is the whole institution for the voluntary renting of human beings, the employment system itself, not the terms of the contract or the accumulated consequences in the form of the mal-distribution of income and wealth. (shrink)

According to the standard story, there are two defensible theories of property rights: historical and institutional theories. The former says that you own something when you’ve received it via an unbroken chain of just transfers from its original appropriation. The latter says that you own something when you’ve been assigned it by just institutions. This standard story says that the historical theory throws up a barrier to redistributive economic policies while the institutional theory does not. In this paper, I argue (...) that the standard story is wrong in almost every detail. For a start, neither of these theories are defensible. Both generate absurd consequences when combined with our non-ideal circumstances. In actuality, no unbroken chains of just transfers stretch from original appropriation to what we now possess. And our actual institutions are very seriously unjust. So both theories imply that we actually own almost nothing. I revise these theories so that they avoid this absurd consequence. Yet, when we do this, their distributive implications flip. The institutional theory throws up serious barriers to redistribution while the historical theory tears them down. In our non-ideal circumstances, the distributive implications of these theories are the opposite of what is standardly presumed. (shrink)

In this paper we devise non-distributive relatives of Exactly true logic by Pietz and Riveccio and its dual Non-falsity logic by Shramko, Zaitsev and Belikov. We consider two pre-orders which are algebraic counterparts of the ETL’s and NFL’s entailment relations on the de Morgan lattice 4. We generalise these pre-orders and determine which distributive properties that hold on 4 are not forced by either of the pre-orders. We then construct relatives of ETL and NFL but lack such distributive (...) class='Hi'>properties. For these logics we also devise a truth table semantics which uses non-distributive lattice M3 as their lattice of truth values. We also provide analytic tableaux systems which work with sequents of the form \. We then prove correctness and completeness results for these proof systems and provide a neat generalisation for non-distributive ETL- and NFL-like logics built over a certain family of non-distributive modular lattices. (shrink)

Our prominent definitions of cognition are too vague and lack empirical grounding. They have not kept up with recent developments, and cannot bear the weight placed on them across many different debates. I here articulate and defend a more adequate theory. On this theory, behaviors under the control of cognition tend to display a cluster of characteristic properties, a cluster which tends to be absent from behaviors produced by non-cognitive processes. This cluster is reverse-engineered from the empirical tests that (...) comparative psychologists use to determine whether a behavior was generated by a cognitive or a non-cognitive process. Cognition should be understood as the natural kind of psychological process that non-accidentally exhibits the properties assessed by these tests (as well as others we have not yet discovered). Finally, I review two plausible neural accounts of cognition's underlying mechanisms?one based in localization of function to particular brain regions and another based in the more recent distributed networks approach to neuroscience?which would explain why these properties non-accidentally cluster. While this notion of cognition may be useful for a number of debates, I here focus on its application to a recent crisis over the distinction between cognition and association in comparative psychology. (shrink)

The concept of 'sustainable development' as used by the Brundtland Commission was meant to separate environmental policy from distributional conflicts. Increases in income sometimes are beneficial for the environment, but higher incomes have meant higher emissions of greenhouse gases, and higher rates of genetic erosion. In the aftermath of the Rio conference of June 1992, this article analyses some unavoidable links between distributional conflicts and environmental policy. Often, environmental movements have tried to keep environmental resources and services outside (...) the market, but there are now attempts to establish property rights on, and to give money values to environmental resources and services, such as agricultural genetic resources and the CO2 absorption facility provided by the oceans and new vegetation. European 'green' proposals to impose an 'eco-tax', and proposals from India to create a world market for CO2 emission permits are considered. The issue raised by the growing Third World agroecology movement, of payment of 'farmers' rights' for in situ agricultural biodiversity is discussed. The article includes a short discussion of the North American free trade agreement between Mexico and the USA, in so far as it involves so-called 'ecological dumping', i.e. trading at values which do not include environmental costs. In the last sections, the article asks how prices in ecologically-extended markets would be formed, how much such prices will depend on distribution, and how much such payments would change distribution of income. Environmental movements of the Poor are faced with the dilemma of keeping environmental resources and services out of the market, or else asking for property rights to be placed on them. (shrink)

Any system for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) has three main kinds of distributive effects. It will determine or influence: (a) the types of objects that will be developed and for which IPRs will be sought; (b) the differential access various people will have to these objects; and (c) the distribution of the IPRs themselves among various actors. What this means to the area of pharmaceutical research is that many urgently needed medicines will not be developed at all, (...) that the existing medicines will not be suitable for countries with a precarious health infrastructure or not target the disease variety that is prevalent in poorer regions. Such effects are commonly captured under the rubric of the “10/90 gap” in biomedical research. High prices will also restrict access to medicines as well endanger compliance to treatment schemes. IPRs are mainly held by multinational corporations situated in the developed world, which not only raises egalitarian concerns, but also severely limits the possibilities of companies in poorer countries to realize improvements on existing inventions, as they cannot financially afford to secure freedom to operate, which systematically shrinks the number of potential innovators. Those inequities lead to an enormous burden for the global poor and since no institution is willing to assume the responsibility to fulfil the right to health and the corresponding right of access to essential medicines, we have to analyse alternatives or additions to the actual intellectual property regimes in order to create new incentives to fill this gap. (shrink)

Liberalism and Distributive Justice discusses liberalism, capitalism, distributive justice, and John Rawls's difference principle. Chapters are organized in a narrative arc: from liberalism as the dominant political and economic system, to the laws governing interpersonal transactions in liberal society, to basic economic and political institutions that determine distributive justice.

For an ordinal \, I introduce a variant of the notion of subcompleteness of a forcing poset, which I call \-subcompleteness, and show that this class of forcings enjoys some closure properties that the original class of subcomplete forcings does not seem to have: factors of \-subcomplete forcings are \-subcomplete, and if \ and \ are forcing-equivalent notions, then \ is \-subcomplete iff \ is. I formulate a Two Step Theorem for \-subcompleteness and prove an RCS iteration theorem for (...) \-subcompleteness which is slightly less restrictive than the original one, in that its formulation is more careful about the amount of collapsing necessary. Finally, I show that an adequate degree of \-subcompleteness follows from the \-distributivity of a forcing, for \. (shrink)

This paper analyzes concepts of independence and assumptions of convexity in the theory of sets of probability distributions. The starting point is Kyburg and Pittarelli’s discussion of “convex Bayesianism” (in particular their proposals concerning E-admissibility, independence, and convexity). The paper offers an organized review of the literature on independence for sets of probability distributions; new results on graphoid properties and on the justification of “strong independence” (using exchangeability) are presented. Finally, the connection between Kyburg and Pittarelli’s results and recent (...) developments on the axiomatization of non-binary preferences, and its impact on “complete” independence, are described. (shrink)

The moral justification of intellectual property is often called into question when placed in the context of pharmaceutical patents and global health concerns. The theoretical accounts of both John Rawls and Robert Nozick provide an excellent ethical framework from which such questions can be clarified. While Nozick upholds an individuals right to intellectual property, based upon its conformation with Lockean notions of property and Nozicks ideas of just acquisition and transfer, Rawls emphasizes the importance of basic liberties, such as an (...) individuals right to health, superceding such secondary rights as intellectual property rights. From a policy perspective, patent protection for pharmaceutical products necessarily entails the balancing of corporate intellectual property interests and public interests in healthcare. The moral dilemma that occurs when these two interests clash is not easily resolved. Aside from corporate and public interests, the state maintains an interest in creating and preserving policies that regulate the moral dilemma itself. This paper analyzes the economic and ethical factors surrounding the production and distribution of the anti-HIV medication, AZT. Potential policy implications and recommendations are also discussed. (shrink)

The term ‘predistribution’ draws attention to the need for policies and institutions that are designed to improve the position of the least advantaged members of society by generating a fairer distribution of opportunities and benefits from the operation of the free market system, with less reliance on redistributive tax-and-transfer mechanisms. Although the idea of progressive predistribution has only recently begun to attract the attention of politicians and commentators in the mainstream media, there is an older and more philosophically grounded predistributive (...) approach that goes back to the idea of the property-owning democracy proposed by Economist James Meade and further developed by liberal political philosopher John Rawls. In this article, I argue that neither the Meadeian/Rawlsian POD model, nor the more recent analysis of the idea of progressive predistribution, provide a clear and convincing account of the distinction between predistributive and redistributive mechanisms. I then argue that a more promising account of this distinction is provided by the idea of the socialization of economic rent through taxation of the rental value of land, and that there are good reasons to think that a shift in the burden of taxation away from production and employment and on to the rental value of land might turn out to be both more genuinely predistributive and more effectively progressive than other possible predistributive mechanisms that have recently been proposed, most notably the aggressive taxation of private inheritances as a means to broaden the distribution of privately owned capital and productive property. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aimed to translate the negative and positive items of the Psychological Consequences Questionnaire into German, to adapt this version to the context of screening for cirrhosis and fibrosis of the liver, and to test its psychometric properties.Materials and methodsThe three subscales were translated into German using a forward-backward translation method. Furthermore, we adapted the wording to the context of liver diseases. In sum, the PCQ comprises twelve negative items and ten positive items. We tested the acceptability, distribution (...) properties, internal consistency, scale structure, and the convergent validity using an analysis sample of 443 patients who were screened for cirrhosis or fibrosis of the liver.ResultsWe found low non-response and non-unique answer rates on the PCQ items in general. However, positive items had higher non-response rates. All items showed strong floor effects. McDonald’s Omega was high for both the negative and the positive PCQ scale, as well as for the total PCQ scale. Confirmatory factor analysis could reproduce the three dimensions that the PCQ intends to measure. However, it suggests not summing up a total PCQ score and instead treat the subscales separately considering a higher order overall construct. Convergent validity with the short form of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was acceptable.ConclusionOverall, our study results report a successful adaptation of the German PCQ with good performance in terms of acceptability, internal consistency, scale structure, and convergent validity. Floor-effects limit the content validity of the PCQ, which needs to be addressed in future research. However, the German version of the PCQ is a useful measurement for both negative and positive screening consequences - even in a non-cancer setting. (shrink)

This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the distinctive features of quantum statistics are exclusively determined by the nature of the properties it describes. In particular, all statistically relevant properties of identical quantum particles in many-particle systems are conjectured to be irreducible, ‘inherent’ properties only belonging to the whole system. This allows one to explain quantum statistics without endorsing the ‘Received View’ that particles are non-individuals, or postulating that quantum systems obey peculiar probability distributions, or assuming that (...) there are primitive restrictions on the range of states accessible to such systems. With this, the need for an unambiguously metaphysical explanation of certain physical facts is acknowledged and satisfied. (shrink)

This paper considers the view that the basis of equality is the range property of being a moral person. This view, suggested by John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice (1971), is commonly dismissed in the literature. By defending the view against the criticism levelled against it, I aim to show that this dismissal has been too quick. The critics have generally failed to fully appreciate the fact that Rawls's account is restricted to the domain of distributive justice. On (...) Rawls's view distributive justice is a matter of the fair terms of cooperation among the participants of a system of social cooperation. I argue that this understanding of distributive justice can provide a compelling rationale for considering moral personality as the basis of equality for this domain of morality. That moral persons are indeed equal is further supported by an intuitive argument concerning the irrelevance of morally arbitrary factors, giving us reasons to believe that varying capacities among moral persons does not result in an unequal moral status. The dismissal of Rawls's account of equality has thus been premature, and it remains an important view to consider. (shrink)