Every person has his/her own unique signature that is used mainly for the purposes of personal identification and verification of important documents or legal transactions. There are two kinds of signature verification: static and dynamic. Static(off-line) verification is the process of verifying an electronic or document signature after it has been made, while dynamic(on-line) verification takes place as a person creates his/her signature on a digital tablet or a similar device. Offline signature verification is not efficient and slow for a (...) large number of documents. To overcome the drawbacks of offline signature verification, we have seen a growth in online biometric personal verification such as fingerprints, eye scan etc. In this paper we created CNN model using python for offline signature and after training and validating, the accuracy of testing was 99.70%. (shrink)

Biobanking is a relatively new concept in Egypt. Building a good relationship with different stakeholders is essential for the social sustainability of biobanks. To establish this relationship, it is necessary to assess the attitude of different groups towards this concept. The objective of this work is to assess the knowledge, attitude, and opinions of Egyptian patients towards biobanking issues. We designed a structured survey to be administered to patients coming to the outpatient clinics in 3 university hospitals in Egypt. The (...) survey included questions estimating the level of knowledge about the term “Biobank”, together with questions about the attitudes and opinions about related issues. Two hundred and fifty-nine patients participated in the survey. Eighty-one percent of participants reported that they never heard about the term before. About 85% expressed that they would be willing to donate their samples for research and about 87% thought that sample donation did not contradict their religious beliefs. Fifty eight percent were willing to participate in a genetic research project, 27.8% supported sharing their sample with pharmaceutical companies, and 32.4% agreed to share their samples with institutions abroad. Although there is limited knowledge about biobanking among Egyptian patients, many had a positive attitude towards sample donation and didn’t show religious concerns against it. However, they showed concerns regarding participation in genetic research and with sharing their samples across borders or with pharmaceutical companies. Public education about biobanking is possible, taking into consideration the specific cultural and legal framework in Egypt. (shrink)

Although informed consent is an integral part of clinical practice, its current doctrine remains mostly a matter of law and mainstream ethics rather than empirical research. There are scarce empirical data on patients’ perceived purpose of informed consent, which may include administrative routine/courtesy gesture, simple honest permission, informed permission, patient-clinician shared decision-making, and enabling patient’s self decision-making. Different purposes require different processes.

Twitter is a virtual social network where people share their posts and opinions about the current situation, such as the coronavirus pandemic. It is considered the most significant streaming data source for machine learning research in terms of analysis, prediction, knowledge extraction, and opinions. Sentiment analysis is a text analysis method that has gained further significance due to social networks’ emergence. Therefore, this paper introduces a real-time system for sentiment prediction on Twitter streaming data for tweets about the coronavirus pandemic. (...) The proposed system aims to find the optimal machine learning model that obtains the best performance for coronavirus sentiment analysis prediction and then uses it in real-time. The proposed system has been developed into two components: developing an offline sentiment analysis and modeling an online prediction pipeline. The system has two components: the offline and the online components. For the offline component of the system, the historical tweets’ dataset was collected in duration 23/01/2020 and 01/06/2020 and filtered by #COVID-19 and #Coronavirus hashtags. Two feature extraction methods of textual data analysis were used, n-gram and TF-ID, to extract the dataset’s essential features, collected using coronavirus hashtags. Then, five regular machine learning algorithms were performed and compared: decision tree, logistic regression, k-nearest neighbors, random forest, and support vector machine to select the best model for the online prediction component. The online prediction pipeline was developed using Twitter Streaming API, Apache Kafka, and Apache Spark. The experimental results indicate that the RF model using the unigram feature extraction method has achieved the best performance, and it is used for sentiment prediction on Twitter streaming data for coronavirus. (shrink)

BackgroundBreaking bad news (BBN) to parents whose newborn has a major disease is an ethical dilemma. In Saudi Arabia, BBN about newborns is performed according to the parental preferences that have been reported from non-Arabic/non-islamic countries. Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN have not yet been studied. Therefore, we aimed to elicit the preferences of Saudi mothers about BBN concerning newborns.MethodsWe selected a convenience sample of 402 Saudi mothers, aged 18-50 years, who had no previous experience with BBN. We selected them (...) via a simple number-randomization scheme from the premises of a level III Saudi hospital between October of 2009 and January of 2011. We used a hypothetical situation (BBN about trisomy 21) to elicit their preferences about BBN concerning newborns via a structured verbal questionnaire composed of 12 multiple-choice questions. We expressed their preferences as percentages (95% confidence interval), and we used the Kendall's W test (W) to assess the degree of agreement in preferences.ResultsThe Saudi mothers preferred that BBN be conducted with both parents together (64% [60-69]), albeit with weak levels of agreement (W = 0.29). They showed moderate agreement in their preferences that BBN should be conducted early (79% [75-83], W = 0.48), in detail (81% [77-85], W = 0.52), in person (88% [85-91], W = 0.58), and in a quiet setting (86% [83-90], W = 0.53). With extremely weak agreement, they preferred to have a known person present for support during BBN (56% [51-61], W = 0.01), to have close bodily contact with their babies (66% [61-70], W = 0.10), and to have no another patients present (64% [59-68], W = 0.08). They showed moderate levels of agreement in their desires to detail, in advance, their preferences about process of BBN by giving a reversible, written informed consent that could be utilized for guidance, if needed (80% [76-84], W = 0.36).ConclusionsIn our experience, Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN concerning newborns are varied, suggesting that a "one-size-fits-all" approach is inappropriate. A reversible, written informed consent detailing their preferences about BBN that would be kept in their medical records and utilized for guidance, if needed, may be the best solution, given this level of diversity. These findings merit further study. (shrink)

The predictable rhythmic structure is important to most ecologically relevant sounds for humans, such as is found in the rhythm of speech or music. This study addressed the question of how rhythmic predictions are maintained in the auditory system when there are multiple perceptual interpretations occurring simultaneously and emanating from the same sound source. We recorded the electroencephalogram while presenting participants with a tone sequence that had two different tone feature patterns, one based on the sequential rhythmic variation in tone (...) duration and the other on sequential rhythmic variation in tone intensity. Participants were presented with the same sound sequences and were instructed to listen for the intensity pattern and press a response key to detected pattern deviants ; to listen to the duration pattern and make a button press to duration pattern deviants, and to watch a movie and ignore the sounds presented to their ears. Both intensity and duration patterns occurred predictably 85% of the time, thus the key question involved evaluating how the brain treated the irrelevant feature patterns while performing an auditory or visual task. We expected that task-based feature patterns would have a more robust brain response to attended standards and deviants than the unattended feature patterns. Instead, we found that the neural entrainment to the rhythm of the standard attended patterns had similar power to the standard of the unattended feature patterns. In addition, the infrequent pattern deviants elicited the event-related brain potential called the mismatch negativity component. The MMN elicited by task-based feature pattern deviants had a similar amplitude to MMNs elicited by unattended pattern deviants that were unattended because they were not the target pattern or because the participant ignored the sounds and watched a movie. Thus, these results demonstrate that the brain tracks multiple predictions about the complexities in sound streams and can automatically track and detect deviations with respect to these predictions. This capability would be useful for switching attention rapidly among multiple objects in a busy auditory scene. (shrink)

L'analogie chez Rahner tente d'agir en médiateur entre les positions de Barth et de Przywara radicalement différentes à ce sujet. Une analogie objective de l'émanation et du retour à toute réalité de et vers Dieu correspond à l'analogie subjective de la sensibilité, de l'abstraction et du jugement. Pour réaliser cette jointure entre les analogies objective et subjective, Rahner a développé une relation complexe entre l'esse commune et connu dans le jugement, le concept d'esse, le concept d'ens commune, et l'esse absolutum, (...) qui se trouve à la fois à l'horizon de l'esse commune tout en le remplissant. Pour mettre ensemble tous ces éléments divers, Rahner met en œuvre une analogie dialectique qui joint dynamiqueemnt, tout en les distinguant conceptuellement, matière et esprit, non-être et être, objectivité et subjectivité, concept et jugement, monde et homme, Dieu et homme. (shrink)

Two new manuscripts have come to my attention since I made a study of the MS. tradition of Seneca's Natural Questions. The first is Munich, Bayerische Staats-bibliothek, Clm 18961, part ii , which I shall call Y, a late-ninth-century manuscript from Brittany or the lower Loire. It contains a short collection of theological and philosophical excerpts from a variety of authors, a collection emanating from the circle of Alcuin, probably from the generation after Alcuin himself. Included in the collection are (...) three extracts from the preface of Book 1 of Seneca's Natural Questions. Since the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Seneca work hitherto known are from the twelfth century, it is of considerable interest to see how the text of the Natural Questions in these excerpts relates to the later MS. tradition. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that expressivism in meta-ethics is to be criticized on grounds which do not themselves concern meta-ethics in particular, but which rather concern philosophy of language more generally. Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit (1998; see also Jackson and Pettit 1999, and Jackson 2001) have recently advanced a novel version of such an argument. They begin by noting that expressivism in its central form makes two claims—that ethical sentences are not truth evaluable, and that to assert an ethical (...) sentence is to express one’s desires or feelings rather than to report a fact. They then argue that, given some plausible premises in the philosophy of language emanating mainly from Locke, the two central claims of expressivism are contradictory: when combined with the plausible premises, they say, the second claim refutes the first. The purpose of this paper is to formulate Jackson and Pettit’s Lockean argument, and to suggest that it fails. (shrink)

Zitta once attended a course given by Lukács in Budapest. He has prepared an impressive partial bibliography of Lukács' pre-1958 writings, and he liberally scatters the sometimes erratic, often interesting notes of an undisciplined but voracious reader throughout his text. The book-beautifully printed, promising insight into a great but much-neglected thinker, its title replete with four of the most emotion-charged words in contemporary philosophical vocabularies—appears on the surface to emanate intellectual respectability. In fact, it is a clearer candidate than most (...) of those chosen by Lukacs himself to illustrate "die Zerstörung der Vernunft." Zitta's method takes its cue from an early phase in Harold Lasswell's thought, in which literary psychoanalysis was regarded as the key to scholarship concerning political writers. Zitta concentrates almost exclusively on Lukács' works through 1923, and devotes much of this "analysis" to expressing his profound personal contempt for his subject. In short, this book abounds with bad grammar and worse scholarship.—W. L. M. (shrink)

In 1792 Dugald Stewart published Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. In its section on abstraction he declared himself to be a nominalist. Although a few scholars have made brief reference to this position, no sustained attention has been given to the central role that it played within Stewart’s early philosophy of mind. It is therefore the purpose of this essay to unpack Stewart’s nominalism and the intellectual context that fostered it. In the first three sections I aver (...) that his nominalism emanated from his belief that objects of the mind—qualities, ideas and words—were signs that bore no necessary relation to the external objects that they were meant to represent. More specifically, it was these signs that were arranged into systems of thought by the ‘operations of the mind’. The next three sections suggest that his treatment of words as signs most probably originated in his views on language and medicine and that his nominalistic philosophy of mind could also be extended to systems that sought to classify the natural world. I conclude by suggesting several avenues of enquiry that could be pursued by future scholars interested in excavating Stewart’s thought. (shrink)

El ser en su riqueza se expresa en el lenguaje que emana también del ser. El lenguaje emergió de su olvido en la filosofía griega, gracias a las ideas cristianas de encarnación y trinidad que le hicieron más justicia. El mayor milagro del lenguaje no estriba en que la palabra aparezca en su ser externo, sino en el hecho de que lo que emerge y se manifiesta sea siempre palabra. La vuelta de Gadamer al final de Verdad y método, en (...) torno a la evidencia de que el ser de lo bello consiste en presentarse, ilustra la estructura universal del ser mismo. Apalabrar a lo que es el ser mismo. Lo que determina y hace posible la interpretación es el presentarse del ser de lo que es. Being in its richness expresses itself in language, which itself emanates from Being. Language emerged from its oblivion in Greek philosophy thanks to the Christian ideas of incarnation and trinity, which did it more justice. Language's greatest miracle does not rest on the fact that the word appears in its external being, but on the fact that that which emerges and manifests itself is always word. Gadamer's turn at the end of Truth and Method, regarding the evidence according to which beauty's being consists of presenting itself, illustrates the universal structure of Being itself. Bespeaking what is Being itself. What determines and make possible interpretation is the presentation itself of the being of what is. (shrink)

The author sets out to explore the implications of the concept of "expression" with the intent of extricating it from its dependency on an external world which negates it as the "radical originality and irreducible internality of the mind" that it is. To be expressive is to "do something," and this calls for a spontaneity and creativity that emanate from a unique and autonomous self. This thesis is prefaced by an analysis into the varieties of expression found in works of (...) art, history, philosophy, science, and anything else using language as an expression of subjective factors that include not only external natural signs but emotions, attitudes, and states of mind. Any expression is ultimately an expression of the self as agent, and this affords Sircello an opportunity to provide us with some original reflections on causation in expression. "What do we mean when we think of expressions as causal?" The answer is developed in terms of an analogy with the Platonic Forms as participated universals causing their instantiations in particulars. The characteristic F of x’s is a particular in respect of a universal F, but the expression G is a particular in relation to x’s F. Because F is always x’s F, F unlike the Platonic Form enjoys no absolutely universal disembodied existence, and G is possible only because F is x’s F. Self expression as an activity by which the self discovers itself cannot be thought apart from the possibilities that the varieties of work afford. (shrink)

Abstract: Effects of globalization have amplified the magnitude and frequency of corporate abuses, particularly in developing economies where weak or absent rules undermine social norms and principles. Improving multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) ethical conduct is a factor of both the ability of firms to change behaviors in the direction of the moral good, and their willingness to do so. Constraints and enablers of a firm’s ability to act ethically emanate from the external environment, including the industry environment of which the firm (...) is a resident, and the host country environment in which it operates. A firm’s willingness to engage in ethical conduct is determined by the effective bundling of internal resources and the commitment of those resources to social ends. The interaction of external and internal conditions carves out categories of expected firm behaviors and suggests interventions that would push these behaviors in a more positive ethical direction. With reference to integrative social contracts theory (ISCT), these categories of firms are examined, and a conceptual model for analysis is developed to explain the drivers of corporate choices in the adoption and implementation of codes of conduct, and the relative power of relevant communities to the process. (shrink)

This article compares James M. Buchanan's and John Rawls's theories of democratic governance. In particular it compares their positions on the characteristics of a legitimate social contract. Where Buchanan argues that additional police force can be used to quell political demonstrations, Rawls argues for a social contract that meets the difference principle.

Stoffregen & Bardy's proposal that perceptual systems can use information defined across two or more sensory domains is valuable and urgent in its own right. However, their claim of exclusive validity for global-array information is superfluous and perpetuated for incorrect reasons. The seeming ambiguities of individual arrays emanate from failures to consider relevant ecological constraints and higher-order variables.

A reassessment of Aquinas’s doctrine of divine infinity, particularly in the light of the previous history of the concept within Western philosophy and theology. From the critical perspective provided by this history the central place which has been claimed for it in Aquinas’s thinking is questioned, as are also its originality and coherence. The notion that the doctrine of divine infinity was introduced to Western thought by Judaeo‐Christianity is rejected; from Anaximander onwards it had been a central concept in Greek (...) philosophy. Aristotle however had rejected it so effectively that, for several centuries afterwards, it seems to have led an ‘underground’ existence until it finally surfaces again in ‘Gnostic’ and related currents of thought. It is from these circles that it finally, and after some resistance, patchily entered orthodox Christian thinking. Likewise Plotinus was not the source of the doctrine, as some have claimed; historical precedence must be given to the Gnostics. Neoplatonism never, despite the prestige of Plotinus, fully accepted the doctrine; in Proclus it is a subordinate emanation from the One, which is beyond Infinity and Infinitude. Nor, because of the influence of Aristotle, does Islamic Neoplatonized Aristotelianism endorse the doctrine. Aquinas’s commitment to it seems to stem from the impact of John of Damascus’s stress upon the doctrine, the translation of whose work greatly influenced Western theology from the late twelfth century onward, together with his need to distance himself from the restrictions of the divine power and freedom found in the Arabic Aristotelian philosophers, whom, in general, he regarded as philosophical authorities. But his position on the doctrine is flawed by equivocation and self‐contradiction, flowing from his attempt to reconcile Christian personalist theism with Neoplatonized Aristotleain necessitarian monism. (shrink)

As these opening quotes acknowledge, the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) represents a core puzzle within the formal mathematics of game theory.3 Its rise in conspicuity is evident figure 2.1 above demonstrating a relatively steady rise in incidences of the phrase’s usage between 1960 to 1995, with a stable presence persisting into the twenty first century. This famous two-person “game,” with a stock narrative cast in terms of two prisoners who each independently must choose whether to remain silent or speak, each advancing (...) self-interest at the expense of the other and thereby achieving a mutually suboptimal outcome, mires any social interaction it is applied to into perplexity. The logic of this game proves the inverse of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: individuals acting on self interest will achieve a mutually suboptimal outcome. However, as this chapter illuminates, the assumptions underlying game theory drive this conclusion. (shrink)

This article employs an intersectional analysis of ethical discourse guiding the US context in the era of Trump. Illustrating the viability of intersectionality for the broader utility of Christian social ethics, this essay explores the contemporary development of surreality and sub-rosa morality indicative of the current political situation in the United States in the wake of Donald Trump’s political ascendancy from the reality TV boardroom of The Apprentice to the Oval Office of the White House. Faced with the escalating nature (...) of lies and deception emanating from the Trump administration, this article provides the moral rationale for civil disobedience as well as suggesting prescriptions for a redemptive ethic intended to remedy the legitimation crises which have become the defining ethos of our time. (shrink)

Since the Nuremberg trials (1947–1949), informed consent has become central for ethical practice in patient care and biomedical research. Codes of ethics emanating from the Nuremberg Code (1947) recognize the importance of protecting patients and research subjects from abuses, manipulation and deception. Informed consent empowers individuals to autonomously and voluntarily accept or reject participation in either clinical treatment or research. In some cases, however, the underlying mental or physical condition of the individual may alter his or her cognitive abilities and (...) compromise the informed consent process. This is particularly true in chronic psychiatric conditions such as Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD), where individuals may fail to respond to traditional antidepressant treatments (e.g., psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy). Moreover, it may raise further concerns for an individual’s motivation to consent and the level of understanding of the treatment or research procedure. This paper focuses on the informed consent process for Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) in the treatment of individuals diagnosed with TRD. Specifically, the paper addresses how depression may affect the decision-making capacity of an individual and the potential ethical and legal impact of failure to appreciate the seven elements of the consenting process (competence, voluntariness, disclosure, recommendation, understanding, decision, and authorization). To ensure the protection of vulnerable individuals with psychiatric disorders such as TRD and promote ethical behavior in biomedical research and patient care while avoiding potential legal pitfalls, we propose a paradigm that requires a stringent evaluation process of decision-making capacity for informed consent. (shrink)

This essay represents a novel contribution to Nietzschean studies by combining an assessment of Friedrich Nietzsche’s challenging uses of “truth” and the “eternal return” with his insights drawn from Indian philosophies. Specifically, drawing on Martin Heidegger’s Nietzsche, I argue that Nietzsche’s critique of a static philosophy of being underpinning conceptual truth is best understood in line with the Theravada Buddhist critique of “self ” and “ego” as transitory. In conclusion, I find that Nietzsche’s “eternal return” can be understood as a (...) direct inversion of “nirvana”: Nietzsche celebrates profound attachment to each and every moment, independent from its pleasurable or distasteful registry. (shrink)

This paper critically engages Philip Mirowki's essay, "The scientific dimensions of social knowledge and their distant echoes in 20th-century American philosophy of science." It argues that although the cold war context of anti-democratic elitism best suited for making decisions about engaging in nuclear war may seem to be politically and ideologically motivated, in fact we need to carefully consider the arguments underlying the new rational choice based political philosophies of the post-WWII era typified by Arrow's impossibility theorem. A distrust of (...) democratic decision-making principles may be developed by social scientists whose leanings may be toward the left or right side of the spectrum of political practices. (shrink)

The author shows Maritain's view of the place of political philosophy in the hierarchy of the speculative and practical sciences. Some criticisms of Maritain are also suggested, particularly in connection with democratic theory. --S. M. W.

Robots are now associated with various aspects of our lives. These sophisticated machines have been increasingly used in different manufacturing industries and services sectors for decades. During this time, they have been a factor in causing significant harm to humans, prompting questions of liability. Industrial robots are presently regarded as products for liability purposes. In contrast, some commentators have proposed that robots be granted legal personality, with an overarching aim of exonerating the respective creators and users of these artefacts from (...) liability. This article is concerned mainly with industrial robots that exercise some degree of self-control as programmed, though the creation of fully autonomous robots is still a long way off. The proponents of the robot’s personality compare these machines generally with corporations, and sporadically with, inter alia, animals, and idols, in substantiating their arguments. This article discusses the attributes of legal personhood and the justifications for the separate personality of corporations and idols. It then demonstrates the reasons for refusal of an animal’s personality. It concludes that robots are ineligible to be persons, based on the requirements of personhood. (shrink)

This study is concerned with certainty and examines the work of Dewey for the light he sheds on this problem. Hart concentrates on the process of verification, the final stage of inquiry in Dewey's theory. He does this because he believes that, according to Dewey, through the process of verification we may attain "flexible" certainty. The first chapter discusses the background of the problem. The second chapter, "A Dewey Dictionary," contains passages selected from Dewey's works on about sixty topics which (...) Hart considers important for his later discussion. In the third chapter, a chronological account of the development of Dewey's theory of inquiry and his views on verification is meticulously presented. The fourth chapter is devoted to a systematic presentation of the place of verification in Dewey's philosophy. In the fifth chapter are the author's critical reflections: Hart holds that the basic principles of Dewey's theory cannot be justified but must be taken on faith. Here Hart does not seem sufficiently appreciative of Dewey's pragmatism. Dewey could answer: such principles are adopted because they are fruitful and will be maintained only so long as they continue to be fruitful. An epilogue concludes the study.—F. S. M. (shrink)

In _Opposition to Philosophy in Safavid Iran_ Ata Anzali and S.M. Hadi Gerami offer a critical edition of what is arguably the most erudite and extensive critique of philosophy from the Safavid period. The editors’ extensive introduction offers an in-depth analysis that places the work within the broader framework of Safavid intellectual and social history.

Cohen states in the last sentence of his book that his analysis in no way presupposes the controversial labor theory of value. For him, the contradictions of capitalist production result from the fact that its function is to create exchange value. The statements themselves and the fact that they come very late in the book illustrate two distinctive characteristics of the work. First, Cohen espouses what he calls a technological interpretation of Marx. For him, the driving force of history is (...) the steady increase in the capacity of productive forces. Capitalism supersedes feudalism because of its ability to produce more. This technological interpretation of Marx is a theory of history because only certain production relations allow for the development and expansion of productive forces. For example, the levels of production attained by capitalism would be unthinkable within the context of lord and serf. Secondly, it is not really clear that Cohen is defending a theory of history until he formulates the primacy thesis in chapter 6 and elaborates upon it and the rise of capitalism in chapter 7. The primacy thesis states that the production relations of society are explained by the level of development of its productive forces. Cohen seems to dispense with what is often thought of as the philosophy of history in his discussion of the Hegelian roots of Marxism in the first chapter. He proceeds to analyze the distinction between productive forces and production relations and its consequences for the phenomenon of fetishism in chapters 2-5. These first chapters, and some later ones as well, seem to have the property of belaboring at great length elementary problems raised by the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, and Capital as well. For example, in his distinction between productive forces and production relations, Cohen says that the two must not be confused because relations hold between objects while forces are properties of objects. He says that a soldier who guards peasants tilling the soil is not part of the labor power because he fulfills a social rather than an economic need. Then he presents and elaborates upon a list of production relations. Cohen might have avoided the need for such involved analysis if he had clearly delineated the methodological import of his work in the introduction or the first chapter. I refer to his theory of functional explanation. It is, however, only after he has discussed the problem of base and superstructure in chapter 8 that he comes to examine functional analysis in chapters 9 and 10. Since functional explanation is the crux of his defence of Marxism as a theory of history, the reader deserves a more thorough preparation for it in an introduction. (shrink)

This review essay of Economics Rules situates Dani Rodrik’s contribution with respect to the 2007–2008 global economic crisis. This financial meltdown, which the eurozone did not fully recover from before the Covid-19 pandemic, led to soul- searching among economists as well as a call for heterodox economic approaches. Yet, over the past decade, instead the economics profession has maintained its orthodoxy. Rodrik’s Economics Rules offers a critique of the economics profession that is castigating but mild. It calls for economists to (...) use more and diverse models without becoming wedded to any single model or an overarching vision. Yet Rodrik ratifies many of the benchmark models standard to orthodox economics and provides little ground for a fundamental rethinking of the discipline. This essay analyses the conservatism underlying Rodrik’s approach, which upholds general equilibrium theory and rational expectations underlying the efficient market hypothesis. It argues that the economics discipline’s scope-creep to maintain its applicability to all human decision-making, and its acceptance of all-inclusive utility functions, crowds out moral sentiments and civic virtue. Thus. it argues that rather than urging economists simply to be more cautious in their application of models to address particular social concerns, instead economists must recognise their discipline’s inherent limitations. (shrink)

This paper analyses the National Populist Challenges to Europe’s Center Right. It assesses the cases of the UK, Germany and France. It poses three questions for Europe: How will political integration be achieved and maintained? What policies will foster economic inclusion in the Eurozone? And, third, what are the best means to achieve economic solvency and growth. The paper make a case that neoliberal economic policies over the past decades have undermined some nations' public sector and have also contributed to (...) tensions between the geographical east and west of Europe. (shrink)

This paper examines how the concepts of utility, impartiality, and universality worked together to form the foundation of Adam Smith's jurisprudence. It argues that the theory of utility consistent with contemporary rational choice theory is insufficient to account for Smith's use of utility. Smith's jurisprudence relies on the impartial spectator's sympathetic judgment over whether third parties are injured, and not individuals' expected utility associated with individuals' expected gains from rendering judgments over innocence or guilt.

This book discusses how rational choice theory grew out of RAND's work for the US Air Force. It concentrates on the work of William J. Riker, Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan, Russel Hardin, and John Rawls. It argues that within the context of the US Cold War with its intensive anti-communist and anti-collectivist sentiment, the foundations of capitalist democracy were grounded in the hyper individualist theory of non-cooperative games.

Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination? Must bargainers abandon the no-harm principle? Prisoners of Reason recalls that classical liberal capitalism exalted the no-harm principle. Although imperfect and exclusionary, modern liberalism recognized individual human dignity alongside individuals' responsibility to respect others. Neoliberalism, by contrast, views life as ceaseless struggle. Agents vie for scarce resources in antagonistic competition in which every individual seeks dominance. This (...) political theory is codified in non-cooperative game theory; the neoliberal citizen and consumer is the strategic rational actor. Rational choice justifies ends irrespective of means. Money becomes the medium of all value. Solidarity and good will are invalidated. Relationships are conducted on a quid pro quo basis. However, agents can freely opt out of this cynical race to the bottom by embracing a more expansive range of coherent action. (shrink)