What contribution can political philosophers make to policy questions, such as the best configuration of the welfare state? On one view, political philosophers set out abstract theories of justice that can guide policy makers in their attempt to transform existing institutions. Yet it rarely seems the case that such a model is used in practice, and it therefore becomes unclear how political philosophy can contribute to policy debates. Following a suggestion from Margaret MacDonald, I consider the view that political philosophers (...) can contribute by drawing attention to relatively neglected values. I develop this view to add the possibility that political philosophers can try to correct a situation in which a particular value, though important, can come to be too highly emphasised. I illustrate the account by considering the rise of the value of ‘responsibility’ in the welfare state, and ultimately the damage that has been done to society to disadvantaged groups by the over-insistence on the importance of responsibility. (shrink)

Edith Stein (1891-1942), a philosopher, an author and a Catholic feminist wrote on spirituality and philosophical writings which hold spiritual treasures and mystery of Christianity while others are more directly related to the humanity, hermeneutics, philosophical anthropology and Christian vocation, sensation and inner events such as theological anthropology.

Given the high numbers of refugees from Syria entering Germany in the recent years, the social integration of refugee youth has become an increasingly important issue in Germany. Thus, the current study examines adolescents’ decisions and reasoning around the inclusion of Syrian peers in Germany. Using a hypothetical scenario, we assessed adolescents’ peer inclusion decisions and reasoning with attention to comparing inclusion of a Syrian refugee peer and a German peer. Given the importance of group norms for adolescents, we assessed (...) not only adolescents’ own inclusion decisions, but also what they would expect their peer group to decide and what they think their peer group should do. Moreover, adolescents’ underlying reasoning was assessed. The analyses revealed that adolescents thought they would be more inclusive of a Syrian peer than a German peer and that their peer group should be more inclusive of a Syrian peer than a German peer. These tendencies toward including refugees were justified with references to morality as well as social-conventions. In contrast to their own decisions and to what they think their peer group should, participants expected their group would be more inclusive toward a German peer than a Syrian peer. This was mainly justified by referencing aspects of group functioning and psychological information about the peers, whereas moral and prosocial reasoning was very rarely used for the expected group decision. In sum, these findings document that adolescents in Germany wish to be inclusive regarding refugee peers and that they balance attention to morality and other domains of social reasoning when thinking about inclusion decisions while they expect that their peers will not consider morally relevant information when making these decisions. These findings have important practical implications as they indicate the importance of interventions that focus on promoting inclusive peer group norms. (shrink)

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Since Oneself as Another, Ricœur placed the notion of capability or of “I can” at the center of the hermeneutics of the self. While exploring the range of capabilities, the notion of capability itself nevertheless remains under-determined from a point of view that one may call “technical.” The claim that I defend in this article is that the hermeneutics of the capable human being requires a development of its technical dimension, in other words, a reflection on the competence and means (...) related to the “I can.” To support this claim, five dimensions of incapability of the capable human being are examined, in order to assert that incapability is the practical horizon of the action of the capable human being. Subsequently, the tension between ability and inability is described as the originary finitude of the human agent. This conclusion makes it possible to demonstrate that the capable-incapable human being reveals the technicity of the human being over the entire range of social interactions. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE. (shrink)

One of the most important methods in dealing with the optimization of large, complex systems is that of hierarchical decomposition. The idea is to reduce the overall complex problem into manageable approximate problems or subproblems, to solve these problems, and to construct a solution of the original problem from the solutions of these simpler prob lems. Development of such approaches for large complex systems has been identified as a particularly fruitful area by the Committee on the Next Decade in Operations (...) Research (1988) [42] as well as by the Panel on Future Directions in Control Theory (1988) [65]. Most manufacturing firms are complex systems characterized by sev eral decision subsystems, such as finance, personnel, marketing, and op erations. They may have several plants and warehouses and a wide variety of machines and equipment devoted to producing a large number of different products. Moreover, they are subject to deterministic as well as stochastic discrete events, such as purchasing new equipment, hiring and layoff of personnel, and machine setups, failures, and repairs. (shrink)