Source: Author: Eldar Sultanow, Sean Cox, Sebastian Homann, Philipp Koch, Olliver Franke Mass media initiated exhibitions of information and knowledge streams account for a significant factor of opinion-forming in modern digitalized nations and thus influence their country's political development. Within the framework of a globalized environment, this information has the ability to shape worldwide opinion and international policy decisions across geographical boundaries. Similarly, however, information and knowledge that does not flow freely has an impact on the behind the scenes (...) decisions of world affairs. Selective manipulation, consumed through hidden channels, is therefore a powerful tool for shaping both social and organizational environments. Currently no classification approaches exist in order to identify and evaluate this type of manipulation. Therefore, this article will discuss this type of manipulative communication and align each category into an assessment model. Forty-two varieties of manipulative arguments will be identified as well as classified along three-dimensions. A model has been developed which will serve as a tool to identify the degree and at which level manipulation was performed. ]]>. (shrink)

The paper addresses arguments in the recent philosophical and bioethical literature claiming that social and cultural benefits can justify non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. It rejects these claims by referring to the open future argument, according to which infant circumcision is morally unjustifiable because it violates the child’s right to an open future. The paper also addresses an important objection to the open future argument and examines the strength of the objection to refute the application of the argument to the circumcision (...) case. (shrink)

This article argues that bullshit is not an offense against truth but against reason. It maintains that bullshit occurs when speakers intentionally assert vague premises to make listeners accept their conclusions. This redefinition, I suggest, has consequences on the moral appraisal of bullshit.

The development of predictive brain implant (PBI) technology that is able to forecast specific neuronal events and advise and/or automatically administer appropriate therapy for diseases of the brain raises a number of ethical issues. Provided that this technology satisfies basic safety and functionality conditions, one of the most pressing questions to address is its relation to the autonomy of patients. As Frederic Gilbert in his article asks, if autonomy implies a certain idea of freedom, or self-government, how can an individual (...) be considered to decide freely if the implanted device stands at the inception of the causal chain producing his decisions? He claims that PBIs threaten persons’ autonomy by diminishing their post-operative experience of self-control. In this commentary, I wish to discuss this claim. Contrary to Gilbert, I will suggest that PBIs do not pose a significant threat to patient’s autonomy, as self-control, but rather to his/her sense of authenticity. My claim is that the language of authenticity, already introduced in the recent bioethical literature, may offer a better way to voice some of the concerns with PBIs that Gilbert recognized. (shrink)

National and international criminal law systems are continually seeking doctrinal and theoretical frameworks to help them impose individual liability on collective perpetrators of crime. The two systems move in parallel and draw on each other. Historically, it has been mostly international criminal law that leaned on domestic legal systems for its collective modes of liability. Currently, however, it is the emerging jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court that is at the forefront of innovation, with the doctrine of indirect co-perpetration taking (...) the lead in international prosecutions. The article assesses the potential contribution as well as the limits of this compound doctrine to domestic criminal law jurisprudence, particularly with regard to small-group criminality. Four modes of indirect co-perpetration are discussed, namely shared control, concerted control, controlling board, and flawed triangle perpetration. A doctrine of indirect co-perpetration would enable liability in these modes of perpetration, perhaps with the exception of the latter, which marks the limits of its applicability. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 86-102.

Should we congratulate runners who participate and finish a marathon without winning it? Although it might seem that all who muster the will to do so deserve praise, this article questions whether self-regarding virtues, such as running a marathon, deserve it.

In this paper, I offer a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating personal identity claims. I analyze ontological and political properties of personal identity separately, arguing that their conceptual (if not practical) separation is necessary for a proper evaluation of different identity claims. I use probability theory to bypass some of the logical difficulties in conceptualizing personal identity and discuss a case of transitional identification. Finally, I outline the guidelines for a justified liberal policy of recognition.

The intuition holding that an organized crime leader should be punished more severely than a subordinate who directly commits an offence is commonly reflected in legal literature. However, positing a direct relationship between the severity of punishment and the level of seniority within an organizational hierarchy represents a departure from a more general idea found in much of the substantive criminal law writings: that the severity of punishment increases the closer the proximity to the physical commission of the offence. This (...) paper presents an analysis of the said intuition and attempts to ascertain its roots. Rejecting both retribution and deterrence theory as valid explanations, it will be inferred that the imposition of harsher punishment on organized crime leaders is properly based on the multiplicity of offences for which they are responsible, and not the nature of their involvement in any specific offence. (shrink)

Courts and commentators do not differentiate between defendants who perpetrate crimes by means of inanimate weapons or trained animals and those who perpetrate crimes by means of other human beings used as innocent agents. I argue that this widely accepted comparability is grossly insensitive to the violation of the human dignity of the person whom the perpetrator has turned into an instrument to an offence. Identifying the innocent agent as a possible second victim of the offence alongside the intended victim (...) raises several issues of both morality and law. First, the question of moral pertinence: do the scenarios that the law recognises as cases of innocent agency involve a violation of the dignity of the innocent agent? Second, the question of criminalisation: is it appropriate to invoke criminal law to protect the dignity of the innocent agent? Third, the question of the protected interest: assuming that both the dignity of the innocent agent and their autonomy are compromised, which of these violations is graver? I argue that there is a strong connection between the doctrine of innocent agency and the violation of the dignity of the innocent agent; that the violation of the innocent agent’s dignity is severe enough to warrant criminalisation and that this is simple enough to enforce; and that the injury to the innocent agent’s dignity is more significant than the injury to their autonomy. The operative proposal of this article is that the law should recognise perpetration by means of innocent agents as an aggravated mode of commission or an aggravating factor in punishment. (shrink)

The paper tries to examine the effects of economic crisis on philosophical considerations of distributive justice. It tackles the problem of a radical increase in scarcity as a condition of justice. Instead of assuming a relatively fixed (“moderate”) level of scarcity as a background against which justice in distribution obtains, the paper examines what happens when this level risks falling below and how does that change our views of distributive justice. It takes upon the recent events in the United States (...) to construe a specific philosophical model and ask how crisis distribution, where that favors wealthier actors, can be justified. By analyzing the crisis distribution principle, it ultimately aims to suggest that moderate scarcity should not be seen as a mere condition, but an important and vital object of justice. As such it falls within, not beyond legitimate obligations of democratic governance. (shrink)

Despite the fundamentally binary character of justification , an upsurge in recent Anglo-American scholarship offers some highly sophisticated and widely diverging conceptions of in criminal law. In the present article we identify eight distinct conceptions of partial justification. We find, however, that each of them is predicated on a different conceptual fallacy. Any sound concept of partial justification in criminal law ought to meet the dual challenge of utility and consistency: it should usefully convey a message that advances the conduct-guiding (...) function of criminal law and retain some consistency with the key attributes of complete justification, particularly its allowing function and the implications of its typically universal nature. We maintain that none of the conceptions offered to date meets this challenge. The different meanings attached to partial justification do not further the guiding function of criminal law beyond what is achieved by the scalar concept of wrongfulness; indeed, they undermine the guiding utility of criminal law by obscuring the distinction between the permissible and the impermissible, thereby also diminishing the expressivity of the criminal conviction. Furthermore, extending partial universality to the proposed notions of partial justification implausibly marks retaliating victims and intervening third parties, who react to allegedly partially justified conduct, as partly blameworthy, whereas present legal doctrine rightly affords them a full defense. (shrink)

In this paper, I question the view that liberal perfectionism and neutrality are mutually exclusive doctrines. I do so by criticizing two claims made by Jonathan Quong. First, I object to his claim that comprehensive anti-perfectionism is incoherent. Second, I criticize his claim that liberal perfectionism cannot avoid a paternalist stance. I argue that Quong’s substantive assumptions about personal autonomy undermine both of his arguments. I use the discussion of Quong to argue that the standard assumption in liberal theory about (...) mutual exclusivity of liberal perfectionism and neutrality needs to be reconsidered, and I show why the argument about the convergence of perfectionism and neutrality makes conceptual sense. (shrink)

When I was a child, my parents had me circumcised. I was too young to have any recollection of it, but their intervention in my body is now a permanent part of my identity. They did it for cultural reasons: we come from a Muslim tradition, in which infant circumcision is one of the most important identity markers. This identity was etched in my body even before I was able to speak.Infant circumcision is one of the many ways parents shape (...) their children's bodies for cultural reasons. Parental interventions range from less invasive, such as haircuts and ear piercing, to more invasive and permanent, such as surgeries to reshape some parts of the child's body, like the nose, eyelids, or genitals.The current moral... (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper critically examines Alan Patten’s theory of neutrality of treatment. It argues that the theory assumes an inadequate conception of personal autonomy that undermines its plausibility. Because of this assumption the theory is unable to account for various configurations of power that work against personal autonomy. However, I suggest that the theory can resolve the problem by developing and reinterpreting its conception of autonomy and introducing an additional strategy for addressing the power misbalances that result from the market-based interactions (...) between individuals and their conceptions of the good. (shrink)

This article examines the issue of justification of government's intervention in the parental acts of child naming, a neglected topic in the recent philosophical literature. It questions the ability of some of the current theories in family ethics to respond to this problem, and argues that both permissive and restrictive theories fail to provide a plausible argument about the proper limits of government regulation of child naming practices. The article outlines an alternative solution that focuses on the child's right to (...) authenticity and suggests that only those names that infringe upon this right invite justified state intervention. (shrink)

Common law treats cases of misfire in which the actor has a valid defence in relation to either the intended victim or the victim actually harmed as particular instances of ‘transferred malice’. It is said that just as the actor’s intention is fictitiously ‘transferred’ from the intended victim to the victim harmed so are defences, meaning that any—and only—defences that would have been available to the actor had he harmed the intended victim will be granted to him with regard to (...) the harm caused to the actual victim. I argue that the blanket solution of transferring defences ‘as is’, without accounting for their differing rationales and their specific implications for cases of misfire, produces bad reasoning and oversimplified decisions—and should therefore be substituted by a separate examination of the actor’s liability with respect to each victim and each type of defence. However, I reject the more robust argument that commentators have made, that a conclusion against transferring defences entails a conclusion against transferred malice in general. I argue that the underlying logic of transferred malice—i.e., treating victims of equivalent wrongs alike—stays intact even if we excise from it the treatment of cross-victim defences. (shrink)

In the recently published collection, Criminal Law and the Authority of the State, two contributions allude to an analogy with parental authority as a means to a better understanding of the institution of criminal punishment, but reach different conclusions. Malcolm Thorburn uses the parental authority analogy to justify the institution of state punishment as an assertion of robust authority over offenders. Antje du Bois-Pedain uses the same analogy to advocate the idea of punishment as an inclusionary practice, designed to reintegrate (...) offenders into society. I argue that Thorburn’s theory of robust authority is inconsistent if not self-contradictory when it tries to assume a liberal posture, and that du Bois-Pedain’s reintegrative model provides a better account of the justification and objectives of state punishment. (shrink)

Criminal law doctrine fails to provide an adequate solution for imputing responsibility to organized crime leaders for the offenses committed by their subordinates. This undesirable state of affairs is made possible because criminal organizations adopt complex organizational structures that leave their superiors beyond the reach of the law. These structures are characterized by features such as the isolation of the leadership from junior ranks, decentralized management, and mechanisms encouraging initiative from below. They are found in criminal organizations such as the (...) American Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, and even outlaw motorcycle gangs. The paper offers a doctrine that may transcend this shortcoming. Referred to as “leaders’ liability,” this doctrine will be assessed and appraised through a comparison with competing theories such as accomplice liability, Organisationsherrschaft , and conspiracy. (shrink)

The article explores two recurring themes in the scholarly writings on ‘transferred malice’ the doctrine designed by Anglo-American law to allow full criminal responsibility where the defendant caused harm to a different object than the one he had in mind, due to either accident or mistake. First, in face of the diversity of views advocating the eradication of transferred malice, the article searches for the provinces in which that doctrine should still have relevance to our legal system. It is often (...) assumed that malice cannot transfer amongst different offences, which has led many scholars to conclude that the doctrine is superfluous. The analysis here offered counters both assumption and conclusion alike, as well as the common view that differentiates between the implications of accident and mistake. Second, reflecting on the different criteria proposed to restrict the implementation of transferred malice such as physical and immediate harm to the actual object, remoteness of the actual harm from the harm intended, and foreseeability as to the actual harm the article provides an analytical framework by which to assess these criteria and to determine which of them proves more persuasive. The result is a notion of transferred malice that strikes a favourable balance with the requirement of mens rea. (shrink)

Despite the fundamentally binary character of justification, an upsurge in recent Anglo-American scholarship offers some highly sophisticated and widely diverging conceptions of “partial justification” in criminal law. In the present article we identify eight distinct conceptions of partial justification. We find, however, that each of them is predicated on a different conceptual fallacy. Any sound concept of partial justification in criminal law ought to meet the dual challenge of utility and consistency: it should usefully convey a message that advances the (...) conduct-guiding function of criminal law and retain some consistency with the key attributes of complete justification, particularly its allowing function and the implications of its typically universal nature. We maintain that none of the conceptions offered to date meets this challenge. The different meanings attached to partial justification do not further the guiding function of criminal law beyond what is achieved by the scalar concept of wrongfulness; indeed, they undermine the guiding utility of criminal law by obscuring the distinction between the permissible and the impermissible, thereby also diminishing the expressivity of the criminal conviction. Furthermore, extending partial universality to the proposed notions of partial justification implausibly marks retaliating victims and intervening third parties, who react to allegedly partially justified conduct, as partly blameworthy, whereas present legal doctrine rightly affords them a full defense. (shrink)

The cheater-detection (CD) hypothesis suggests that people who otherwise perform poorly on the Wason selection task perform well when the task is couched in cheater-detection contexts. We report three studies with new selection problems that are similar to the originals but that question the CD hypothesis. The first two studies document a pattern heretofore attributed to CD mechanisms, namely good performance with “regular” rules and inferior performance with “switched” rules, all in problems that lack a cheater-detection context. The final study (...) finds an interaction: not only is good performance elicited on non-CD problems, but poor performance is found in the context of CD problems. Performance on the selection task cannot be predicted based on the presence or absence of cheater-detection contexts, which brings into question the need to invoke a specialised cheater-detection module. (shrink)

Haḳdamah. Masekhet Taʻanit -- shel avotenu ṿe-shalanu -- Shaʻar 1. Ketsad medabrim ʻal birkat ha-ḥayim -- Shaʻar 2. Adam ṿe-adamah, ʻananim ṿe-heʻanut -- Shaʻar 3. ha-Homer ḥai u-medaber -- ha-ḥoḳ, ha-pele ṿeha-ʻanṿah -- Shaʻar 4. "Ka-mayim ha-panim la-panim ken lev ha-adam la-adam" -- normot ḥevratiyon u-reṿaḥat ha-adam -- Shaʻar 5. "Tefilah la-ʻani ki yaʻaṭof" -- ha-kisufim le-magaʻ -- Shaʻar 6. Nispaḥ ḥaṿayah ṿe-tiḳṿah.

This book considers the way that Cesare Beccaria's slim 1764 volume On Crimes and Punishments influenced policy developments worldwide and over decades, if not centuries, after its publication. For those who turn to Beccaria's work today, the encounter is shaped by that knowledge. Appreciative of his book's dual nature as historical document and repository of ideas, the contributions in this collection address different aspects of the criminal justice theory Beccaria offered his readers and face up to methodological questions raised by (...) meeting a historical text of this kind - unsystematic and by modern standards often under-argued - with modern scholarly conventions in mind. Contributions in the first part of the book engage with Beccaria's 'political theory of criminal justice' through the lenses of political and penal philosophy. How do we get from Beccaria's blending of social-contractarian foundations and proto-utilitarian policy analysis to the concrete set of criminal justice practices Beccaria presents as justified? This leads across to the second part where contributors approach Beccaria's ideas with present-day reforms and developments in mind. Many of his policy proposals and arguments remain significant from our contemporary perspective, their limitations and omissions proving as instructive for the contemporary scholar as their more prescient elements. The third part offers those looking at Beccaria's work today a glimpse into the practical difficulties facing the firebrand author turned public servant during his long career in the Habsburg-Lombardian administration. It puts his work into the broader context of pathways to criminal justice reform in northern Italy, Habsburgian Lombardy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Beccaria's day. (shrink)

The inverse compressibility, i.e., the change in the chemical potential as the number of particles in the sample is changed, is studied for a small quantum dot. It is found that the inverse compressibility behaves differently for different values of disorder and electron-electron interactions. For weak interactions or strong disorder one may understand this behavior in the framework of a random matrix theory.

Summary A large survey of German and Israeli younger and older adolescents was conducted to reveal their opinions and attitudes towards violence and aggression, their personal engagement in aggressive and violent behaviors in and outside the school environment, their attitudes toward physical activity, their engagement in physical activity, and the linkage between physical activity engagement and conductance of violence and aggression. The findings point out that there are more similarities than differences between German and Israeli adolescents concerning violence and aggression (...) in and outside schools. No linkage between physical activity involvement and the extent of violent and/or aggressive acts is found. The findings pertaining adolescents’ opinions and attitudes toward aggression and violence and their behaviors in and outside school are encouraging. (shrink)