The purpose of the present paper is to unveil whether the power distance/textual complexity duality attributed ordinarily to legal language applies to two different documents which are widely deployed, interpreted and applied in the global scope of commercial trade and communications, namely Lloyd’s Institute Cargo Clauses and the London International Court of Arbitration Rules. In choosing two texts which are the direct product of the law-making machinery of the Common law system, but which are used internationally, we (...) ultimately undertake to research whether opacity is really inherent to legal texts in English with an international scope of implementation. To scrutinise, illustrate and argue on the degree of difficulty and power distance in such legal instruments, the perspective of genre has been chosen as the most effective of instruments provided by current Applied Linguistics. Genre analysis permits to identify the genre or genres of a specialised professional community connected to the communicative group it comes from, the audience that receives it, the historical and cultural background and the extra-textual reality it aims to represent. The goal of our study, carried out through different levels: formal, discursive and, mainly, pragmatic, is to discern whether there exists any possible equation between power and textual complexity, and the consequences this entails for the understanding of the nature of these major international texts. (shrink)

The utopian energy of the liberal social-democratic state, which is unable to answer the great questions of today's world, is now spent. The way forward will involve a struggle, not against the institutions, but for the emergence of a new rationality, corresponding not only to a new organisation of society, but also to a strategic and multidimensional concept of class.

In summary, the creation and maintenance of the Wistar Rats as standardized animals can be attributed to the breeding work of Helen Dean King, coupled with the management and husbandry methods of Milton Greenman and Louise Duhring, and with supporting documentation provided by Henry Donaldson. The widespread use of the Wistar Rats, however, is a function of the ingenuity of Milton Greenman who saw in them a way for a small institution to provide service to science. Greenman's rhetoric, as captured (...) in his Director's Reports, prepared annually from 1905 until his death in 1937, shows that he was unusually sensitive to his times and to the economics of science and of society. In the era when biology was being defined, he recognized in the rat the potential to be a living analog to the pure chemicals that legitimated experimental science. From management literature he extracted the ideals of uniformity of product, standards of quality, and efficiency of production, applying them to scientific practice to generate an animal model that thrives as standard equipment in laboratories throughout the world today.I will close with a quote from Frederick W. Taylor that is a cogent statement of the contribution to science and scientific progress made by standardized tools and their creators. Equating the surgeon and the workman, Taylor wrote: [He is given] the finest implements, each one of which has been the subject of special study and development ... [and] the very best knowledge of his predecessors; and, provided with standard implements and methods which represent the best knowledge of the world up to date, he is able to use his own originality and ingenuity to make real additions to the world's knowledge, instead of reinventing things which are old.Standardized tools, whether surgeons' implements or laboratory-bred rats, are one of the vehicles for carrying scientific knowledge forward from generation to generation. In this sense, Greenman's Wistar Rats have done their job, in his words, of “providing service to science.”. (shrink)

Healthcare organizations and workers are under pressure to produce increasingly complete and accurate data for multiple data-intensive endeavors. However, little research has examined the emerging occupations arising to carry out the data work necessary to produce “improved” data sets, or the specific work activities of these emerging data occupations. We describe the work of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists, an emerging occupation that focuses on improving clinical documentation to produce more detailed and accurate administrative datasets crucial for evolving data-intensive forms of (...) healthcare accountability, management, and research. Using ethnographic methods, we describe the core of CDIS’ work as a translation practice in which the language, interests, and concerns of clinicians and clinical documentation are translated via real-time “nudging” and ongoing education of clinicians into the language, interests, and concerns of medical coders, structured administrative datasets, and the various stakeholders of these datasets. Further, we show how the institutional context of CDIS’ work shapes the occupational virtues that guide CDIS’ translation practice, including financial reimbursement, quality measures, clinical accuracy, and protecting clinician’s time. Despite the existence of these multiple virtues, financial reimbursement is the most prominent virtue guiding CDIS’ limited attention. Thus, overall clinical documentation is “improved” in specific, partial ways. This research provides one of the first studies of the emergent data work occupations arising in the wake of digitization and big data opportunities, and shows how local data settings shape large scale data in specific ways and thus may influence outcomes of analyses based on such data. (shrink)

Money has come a long way from the substances and shapes it had in antiquity and early modernity to the ever more ephemeral forms it took on in the last decades. A further step in this direction to an increasingly virtual world of finance is digital money. Amongst digital currencies, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the many hundred altcoins created lately, stand out because of the challenge they pose to the conventional contour and conception of monetary systems. In addition to private (...) banks and the public hand, via cryptocurrencies now also individuals emerge as emitters of currency. Whereas formerly the sovereignty over the issuance of money was anchored locally or nationally, backed by tangible private or public institutions, cryptocurrencies immediately surface globally within the intangible cyberspace of the worldwide web. In this novel realm of money, the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ripple stand for two different approaches to the question as to which impact money ought to have in people’s lives, and as to how individuals in turn can influence the nature and future of money. The article discusses the moral claims of these rivaling conceptions. (shrink)

This book deals with the role of international standards for corporate governance in the context of corporate social responsibility. Based on the fundamentals of moral theory, the book examines governance and CSR in general, addressing questions such as: Is "good governance" not affected by moral concerns? How do the principles and practices of CSR standards adhere to or conflict with insights from business ethics and moral theory? To what extent do the standards and governance models provide normative guidance? Do the (...) standards and governance guidelines provide an adequate means of benchmarking and auditing? Are these standards a help or a hindrance to stakeholder engagement and transparency? The book provides insightful and thought-provoking answers to these and many other important questions concerning CSR standards, and offers a valuable resource for practitioners, academics and students at business schools and other institutions. (shrink)

Personal data protection is an ethical issue. In this study we analyzed how research ethics committees (RECs) and data protection officers (DPOs) handle personal data protection issues in research protocols. We conducted a mixed-methods study. We included heads (or delegated representatives) of RECs and DPOs from universities and public research institutes in Croatia. The participants provided information about data protection issues in research and their mutual collaboration on those issues through structured interviews that contained closed and open-ended questions. Qualitative description (...) was used to analyze open-ended questions. The results showed that 55% of the REC representatives were not aware who was DPO in their institution. Among RECs, 65% never contacted the DPO. There were 61% of RECs who reported that they received no training from the organization on personal data protection. When asked about barriers to personal data protection in their institutions, 26% of REC members highlighted the lack of a clear protocol for assessing personal data protection issues, while 30% of DPOs mentioned lack of knowledge among researchers about personal data. In conclusion, we found that when it came to protecting personal data in research protocols, RECs and DPOs hardly ever worked together. When developing future personal data protection policies for academic and scientific research institutions, it is essential that RECs and DPOs should collaborate and both continue to expand/update their knowledge on personal data protection procedures. (shrink)

The paper starts by exploring the negative contingencies that are associated with the core institution of capitalist societies, the labour contract: unemployment, poverty, and denial of autonomy. It argues that these are the three conditions that basic income schemes can help prevent. Next, the three major normative arguments are discussed that are raised by opponents of basic income proposals: the idle should not be rewarded, the prosperous don’t need it, and there are so many things waiting to be done in (...) the world. After demonstrating that proponents of basic income stand in no way empty-handed when facing these objections, a third part considers basic income in functional terms: would its introduction help to resolve problems of social and economic order that are unlikely to be resolved in more conventional ways? (shrink)

In this article I explore some ancient issues of political theory in the light of some contemporary social and cultural issues. After developing a check list of the virtues and vulnerabilities of constitutional democracy (Section I), I go on to discuss some types and symptoms of difference, conflict, fragmentation and heterogeneity (Section II). I then proceed to a critical review of a particular set of strategies and institutional solutions—political group rights—that are often thought promising devices for strengthening the virtues and (...) overcoming the vulnerabilities of the constitutional democratic form of regime (Section III). Much of the contemporary philosophical and political discussion of these issues is enchanted by the post‐modern spirit of “multiculturalism,”“diversity” and “identity.” It tends to neglect issues of citizenship and social justice. It also tends to fixate on North American examples, neglecting some of the less benign West European and, in particular, Central East European varieties of identity politics. The discussion here, while mostly raising questions rather than claiming to provide definitive answers, nevertheless tries to overcome some of these biases. (shrink)

The Cistercian Jaume Janer († after 1506) was the most prolific student of Pere Daguí, the first professor in the Lullist Studium on Majorca, and became himself, by royal privilege from the Crown of Aragon, the leader of a similar institution in Valencia. Janer’s and Daguí’s brand of Lullism embraced elements from Scotism. In particular, Janer in three of his works discussed the system of distinctions put forward by Peter Thomae, one of Duns Scotus’s early followers. This preoccupation with Scotist (...) distinction theory remained a doctrinal centerpiece of eclectic Lullism at least until the second half of the seventeenth century. (shrink)

In West Germany, there is a good deal of disagreement among leading political groups, economic decision makers and scientific experts concerning both the future of the labor market and the role of labor in society. This disagreement bears on all of the three relevant points: the prognosis of the likely future development, the policy most suited to this development, and the criteria and objectives that determine whether, in fact, a development could be judged as positive or indeed desirable. In this (...) discussion, the first of these three points is the least controversial. Quite a number of contemporary publications in Germany feature the famous graph, developed in 1982 by the Federal Labor Agency's Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research, which depicts labor market trends for the years 1965 to 2000. (shrink)

This article presents an overview of the institutional architecture and the organizing principles of the German welfare state, which is widely and rightly considered to be the model case of North West European Continental welfare states. The author's ambition is to be both systematic and historical in his presentation, emphasizing the process in which different layers of the historically evolved structure serve certain functions, such as poor relief, the protection of workers at work, the protection of workers outside of work, (...) the determination of wages, and the level of employment. In the second part of the essay, the question under discussion is of what happens to this structure under the impact of German unification, European integration, economic `globalization', and lasting labor market disequilibrium. The third and final part outlines a policy proposal that aims at the strengthening of social citizenship rights which replace the `worker' as the reference unit of social protection with the `citizen'. (shrink)

This paper reports on a preliminary investigation of the pedagogical uses and possibilities of interactive ethics audit simulations. We want to foster experience-based learning in business ethics and examine how simulated social audits of corporations can be useful supplements to traditional textbook-oriented pedagogy. We argue that social audit simulations may offer many benefits for business ethics instruction, especially when it comes to developing ethical literacy for institutionally complex and morally complicated multi-stakeholder scenarios. We conclude that ethics education based on broadly (...) accepted standards of social accountability should be advanced through audit-simulation technology. Thus certain decision-making problems, which students might encounter in the real world, can be studied in the classroom. Our research contributes to the field in several ways. It describes a new avenue for self-directed learning that encourages critical thinking about ethical issues and complex stakeholder scenarios in an enjoyable, interesting and safe way. Moreover, it emphasizes “soft” skill development, and empowers students to advance their skills through exploration, practice, and learning from their mistakes. By advancing the pedagogical toolkit of educators, this new interactive technology can improve awareness of how codes of business ethics should work in the real world and inspire further scholarly debate and research. (shrink)

This paper reports on a preliminary investigation of the pedagogical uses and possibilities of interactive ethics audit simulations. We want to foster experience-based learning in business ethics and examine how simulated social audits of corporations can be useful supplements to traditional textbook-oriented pedagogy. We argue that social audit simulations may offer many benefits for business ethics instruction, especially when it comes to developing ethical literacy for institutionally complex and morally complicated multi-stakeholder scenarios. We conclude that ethics education based on broadly (...) accepted standards of social accountability (SA8000, GRI, ISO 26000, SOX 404) should be advanced through audit-simulation technology. Thus certain decision-making problems, which students might encounter in the real world, can be studied in the classroom. Our research contributes to the field in several ways. It describes a new avenue for self-directed learning that encourages critical thinking about ethical issues and complex stakeholder scenarios in an enjoyable, interesting and safe way. Moreover, it emphasizes “soft” skill development, and empowers students to advance their skills through exploration, practice, and learning from their mistakes. By advancing the pedagogical toolkit of educators, this new interactive technology can improve awareness of how codes of business ethics should work in the real world and inspire further scholarly debate and research. (shrink)

How can advocates of global democracy grapple with the empirical conditions that constitute world politics? I argue that flexibility mechanisms - commonly used to advance international cooperation - should be employed to make the institutional design project of global democracy more tractable. I highlight three specific reasons underpinning this claim. First, flexibility provisions make bargaining over different institutional designs more manageable. Second, heightened flexibility takes seriously potential concerns about path-dependent institutional development. Finally, deliberately shortening the time horizons of agents by (...) employing flexibility provisions has cognitive benefits as it forces designers to focus specifically on issues of feasibility as well as desirability. I discuss a range of flexibility mechanisms and highlight the utility of sunset provisions and escape clauses. From this analysis, I build an argument for the usage of small-scale democratic experiments through which citizens have a say in global policy making. (shrink)

A grandfather clause is a provision whereby an old rule continues to apply to some existing situation while a new rule applies to all future cases. This paper focuses on the use of grandfather clauses in health technology appraisals (HTAs) issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the United Kingdom. NICE provides evidence‐based guidance on healthcare technologies and public health interventions that influence resource allocation decisions in the National Health Service (NHS) and the (...) broader public sector in England and Wales. In this context, a grandfather clause is included when NICE does not recommend treatment with a given technology. The grandfather clause provides an exemption from the general recommendation for patients who have already started treatment with the technology in question, before the publication of the NICE guidance. In this paper we first lay out the contexts in which grandfather clauses occur in NICE guidance, and then consider ethical arguments against and in support of grandfather clauses and the continuation of treatment. We argue that NICE’s current practice of automatic inclusion of a grandfather clause is ethically problematic and unfair. While the inclusion of a grandfather clause may be appropriate and justified in specific cases, we argue that inclusion of such a clause should be considered as part and parcel of the decision making process on a case by case basis, rather than adopted as the default. (shrink)

We develop an abstract proof calculus for logics whose sentences are ‘Horn sentences’ of the form: $(\forall X)H \Rightarrow c$ and prove an institutional generalization of Birkhoff completeness theorem. This result is then applied to the particular cases of Horn clauses logic, the ‘Horn fragment’ of preorder algebras, order-sorted algebras and partial algebras and their infinitary variants.

This book presents a collection of essays on institutional theory written by the German sociologist and Weber-expert M. Rainer Lepsius. Based on Weber's work, the author develops concepts of institutional theory, which he subsequently applies to topics such as National Socialism, democratization processes, German unification, and the institutionalization of the European Union. By showing how charismatic leadership can under certain circumstances threaten democratic structures and curtail individual freedoms, and by analyzing the structural and cultural conditions under which people develop trust (...) in political and social structures and ultimately come to support and comply with them, the author provides a sound analytical understanding of the development of democratic institutions and a democratic political culture. This collection of essays was edited, translated and commented on by Claus Wendt. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate concerning the identification of politically relevant cases of corruption in a democracy by sketching the basic traits of an original liberal theory of institutional corruption. We define this form of corruption as a deviation with respect to the role entrusted to people occupying certain institutional positions, which are crucial for the implementation of public rules, for private gain. In order to illustrate the damages that corrupt behaviour makes to liberal democratic institutions, we discuss the (...) case of health care professionals’ abuse of their right to conscientious objection to abortion services. We show that the conscience clause can be instrumentally abused to sabotage democratically established public rules and thus exert undue private influence on their implementation. In this sense, from a liberal democratic perspective, institutional corruption is problematic because it is disruptive of such fundamental liberal ideals as the impartiality of public institutions and citizens’ political equality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Organizational Ethics and Health Care: Expanding Bioethics to the Institutional Arena **Laura Jane Bishop (bio), M. Nichelle Cherry (bio), and Martina Darragh* (bio)In 1995, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) expanded its patient rights standards to include requirements for assuring that hospital business practices would be ethical. Renamed “Patient Rights and Organization Ethics,” these standards are based on the realization that a hospital’s obligation to its (...) patients is derived from two relationships: the patient-provider relationship governed by “clinical ethics,” and the customer-supplier relationship governed by “business ethics.” “[This] boundary between ‘clinical’ ethics and ‘business’ ethics is not clear and in many cases is nonexistent. While marketing and admission practices are seen as issues related to ‘business’ ethics, they can lead to unneeded admissions or demand for unneeded services, both of which can unnecessarily expose the patient to the risk of side effects or complications. Likewise, underutilization of needed services is likely to lead to less than optimal health outcomes” (I. Schyve 1996, p. 17). “These new standards arose out of well-publicized concerns about abuses in which patients were admitted to hospitals unnecessarily and were discharged or transferred only after their insurance expired” (I. Schyve 1996, pp. 15–16).These abuses also sparked eloquent protests against threats to patient well-being and to the nature of the patient-provider relationship in the bioethics literature. The fiduciary responsibility of the provider to inform and to protect the patient was fragmented by insurer business practices such as gag clauses and economic credentialing of providers (VII. Scope Note 31, 1996). The background role that the institution plays, though poorly articulated historically, has been brought sharply into focus by the explosive growth of the managed practice of medicine. The context of medical ethics is no longer limited to the resolution of individual cases, but instead encompasses the adoption of institutional structures to protect and promote patient welfare (IV. Emanuel 1995, p. 335). In this new configuration, the institution and the providers are co-fiduciaries for populations [End Page 189] of patients, and the medicine that is practiced is “appropriately economically disciplined.” The expression “My patient always comes first” is no longer “... intellectually serious or morally responsible.” But, “... to be sure, both conceptually and in practice, being an economically disciplined fiduciary professional or institution is ethically unstable.... The task is to identify the boundaries outside of which institutional policy and behavior will not count as an ethically defensible form of being... [a] fiduciary.” (IV. McCullough 1997, pp. 143–44). This process of delimiting and enforcing boundaries requires the development of “... a language for talking about the ethical values of the organization. If such a language does not exist, discussions about ethics become cumbersome and unlikely to occur” (IV. Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1998, p. 2).As with bioethics generally, the literature addressing organizational ethics is multidisciplinary. JCAHO’s compliance guide for its revised standards, Ethical Issues and Patient Rights, draws on a wealth of ideas from both clinical ethics and business ethics. This is often an awkward alliance. “Because the study of organizational ethics is in its infancy compared to other areas of healthcare ethics, discussions about it often seem like hot air with no palpable payoff” (I. Boyle 1998, p. 2). The fact that “... there is an ancient history that reflects widespread doubt about the moral probity of business” (II. Frederick 1995, p. 209) does not help. To begin, “Aristotle had rude things to say about business” (II. Jackson 1998, p. 401). A brief review of introductions to several of the business ethics textbooks cited in this bibliography reveals that a rebuttal of “business ethics as an oxymoron” is the standard opening paragraph. This stigma is unfounded, and “increased stability” has characterized the state of business ethics literature during the 1990s (II. Beauchamp and Bowie 1997, p. ix). Significant attention has been given to elaborating two often overlapping theories—stakeholder and social contractarian.Originating in the 1960s as a pun on “stockholder,” proponents of stakeholder theory claim that a corporation’s fiduciary responsibility extends beyond increasing its profitability to protecting the rights of individuals or groups affected by its actions. Popular as a strategic planning tool in the... (shrink)

InWorkers, Unions, and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India, Rohini Hensman maintains that globalisation has afforded workers new opportunities for confronting capitalist exploitation. Using India as a point of departure, Hensman highlights globalisation as paradoxical, challenging anti-globalisers and the globalisation-as-imperialism thesis, to argue that capital’s toilers are now becoming its gravediggers. This analysis also explains why the World Trade Organization is so appealing to Hensman: a quintessence of capitalism’s contradictions. Hensman argues for both transnational solidarity and independent trade unions, embodied in (...) the ‘employees’ unions’ of India, as well as in favour of thewto’s ‘social clause’ amendment, in which the global exploiter is transformed into an arbiter of workers’ rights. The review maintains that the terms of Hensman’s twin position are impossible to reconcile. It evinces an underlying contradiction between opportunistic statism and a conception of revolutionary strategy predicated on action ‘from below’. (shrink)

Since 2016, drones have been deployed in various development projects in sub-Saharan Africa, where trials, tests, and studies have been rolled out in countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The use cases of drones vary, ranging from imagery collection to transportation of vaccines, lab samples, blood products, and other medical supplies. A wide range of stakeholders is involved, including governments, international organizations, educational institutions, as well as industry. Based on a field study (...) conducted in 2019, this article investigates how drones are used for medical supply delivery in Malawi-a country where the community is underserved for healthcare and related infrastructure underdeveloped, while airspace is largely open and regulations generally relaxed. The objective of presenting this case study is to contribute to the evidence regarding the rapid deployment of medical cargo drones across the African continent, and to spark critical reflections over the utility, suitability, and impacts of incorporating drones in the existing health supply chain systems in resource-poor settings. The discussion revolves around two aspects: 1) the emergent “African Drone Rise”-is it ok “as it is Africa”? and 2) the normative role of technology in the aid sector-is it “a solution looking for a problem”? In conclusion, a call for more structured guidance for the systematic examination and evaluation of the medical cargo drone case is raised. (shrink)

In contemporary positive law there are legal institutions, such as conscientious objection in the context of military service or “conscience clauses” in medical law, which for the sake of respect for judgments of conscience aim at restricting legal obligations. Such restrictions are postulated to protect human freedom in general. On the basis of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy, it shall be argued that human dignity, understood as the existential perfection of a human being based on special unity, provides a foundation for (...) imposing limitations on the scope of legal obligations in general. Human freedom plays a crucial role in understanding dignity as perfection based on the special individuality of a personal being, which in turn is based on the free choice to pursue a unique way of life. Therefore, Aquinas’ argumentation is, at its core, liberal – the perfection rather than the imperfection of a human being underlies the requirement to limit legal obligations. Dignity understood as the special unity of a person also provides the basis for limiting obligations in the case of conscientious objection; however, in that case, such limitations aim at safeguarding internal integrity rather than the individualisation of a given way of life. _This project was financed with funds from the National Science Centre allocated on the basis of the decision number DEC-2013/09/B/HS5/04232._. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on the Mesoamerican institution of community offices (cargo) to support the view that political authority should be based on both political legitimacy and political expertise. I argue that the Mesoamerican tradition of cargos allows for a notion of political expertise that one acquires by rendering a service to one’s community. This expertise could be made a prerequisite for political representation without being vulnerable to several charges that have been levelled against epistocracy.

The paper looks at the establishment of religion clause in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and cases, e.g. Brown v. Gilmore, followed by Croft v. Perry and Sherman v. Koch, cases that relate to the concept of the “moment of silence” in educational institutions in which it was claimed that such events constitute a breach of the establishment clause. Courts have been inconsistent in their decision-making, which may indicate a lack of transparency not only in the interpretation of (...) the relevant phrase in the Constitution but also in the judicial interpretation of the “three-pronged test” with regard to “excessive entanglement” as laid out in Lemon v. Kurtzman of 1971. The paper discusses the “moment of silence” within the framework of a model of silence in which this type of silence would be labeled as either textual or situational silence. (shrink)

Across a number of countries including Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, incumbent presidents in Latin America have recently sought to amend their constitutions to eliminate or weaken presidential term limits. In some cases, these efforts to extend terms have been part of broader projects to consolidate power, weaken other state institutions, and tilt the electoral playing field in favor of incumbents. From a legal perspective, these cases are interesting because they highlight the limits of tools limiting (...) constitutional change, such as eternity clauses and the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine, to constrain potentially anti-democratic or anti-liberal forms of constitutional change. Although constitutional texts in most of these cases gave courts ample ammunition to reject attempts to eliminate term limits or at least to force those changes down more demanding paths, courts did not stand in the way of most of these efforts and in some cases even used the doctrines to eliminate rather than protect term limits. The case studies highlight the extent to which the “superficial” spread of doctrines controlling constitutional change may fail to block, and indeed may promote, forms of constitutional change that threaten liberal democratic constitutionalism. It also suggests possibilities for deepening the effectiveness of transnational dialogue on these issues. (shrink)

This review article of Stumer (The presumption of innocence: evidential and human rights perspectives. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010) explores the concept, normative foundations and institutional implications of the presumption of innocence in English law. Through critical engagement with Stumer’s methodological assumptions and normative arguments, it highlights the narrowness of common lawyers’ traditional conceptions of the presumption of innocence. Picking up the threads of previous work, it also contributes to on-going debates about the legitimacy of reverse onus clauses and their (...) compatibility with European human rights law and general principles of criminal jurisprudence. (shrink)

This essay on law and religion appears in the second edition of the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, edited by Dennis Patterson. It is a revision of a similar entry in the book’s first edition. The essay opens by broadly discussing the complex relationships between law and religion writ large as movements in human history – social, cultural, intellectual, and institutional phenomena with distinct but often overlapping logics and concerns. It then hones in on the efforts (...) of secular law to make sense of religion and determine its place in the civil state. The essay argues that, while the questions raised by the American Bill of Rights’ religion clauses connect in some important respects to broader constitutional principles such as free expression and equality, the most interesting and theoretically excruciating conundrums involving religion need to be approached on their own unique terms. Two useful rubrics for such understanding are “separation” and “deference.” Any honest account must also admit, however, that there is an “intractable residue,” questions in the relation of religion and law to which there simply is no determinate or completely satisfactory answer. Finally, the essay emphasizes that the full texture of the legal imagination’s effort to grapple with religion only becomes apparent in the wider range of subconstitutional and nonconstitutional contexts beyond the standard litany of constitutional discourse. (shrink)

The literature on cosmopolitan justice has yet to address what principles to adopt when duties of global justice and duties of social justice are in conflict. In this paper, I address David Miller’s contention that some may fall into the justice gap since we need to prioritize duties of social justice in cases of conflict. I argue that Miller’s analysis depends on three stipulations: the incommensurability of the values underlying duties of social justice and those of global justice; the need (...) to justify duties of justice to their holders; and the need to consider the necessary institutions to realize and implement justice obligations. I argue against the incommensurability clause by showing that both conceptions of justice pursue moral equality as the underlying and commensurate value. Instead, I propose that the currencies of justice we employ in the two contexts of justice are different. Discussing the justifiability clause I agree with the stipulation that we have to justify decisions that affect the realization of justice to those who have to carry the burden of realizing them. This implies, however, that we may have to accept that some prioritize duties of global justice over duties of social justice. If this is the case, it seems as though the state has little recourse to prioritize duties of social justice. Finally, discussing Miller’s institutional clause I ask why the justice relevant institutions can only be those of the state. It is plausible to say that in our current world, institutions of humanitarian aid are effective means to satisfy duties of global justice. (shrink)

Meeting appropriate ethical standards for research involving human participants, mean ensuring confidentiality. It is assumed that the research participant will accept the safeguarding protocols necessary to ensure confidentiality. This assumption however oversimplifies the variation of motivations that goes into participants’ decisions to participate in research. Drawing on reflections from my fieldwork experience in Ghana, I answer the questions: Why do research participants reject confidentiality? What ethical position can one take when the researcher and the researched have conflicting perspectives about confidentiality? (...) I contend that participants with personal stake refuse confidentiality when they want to be acknowledged for their data. Rejecting confidentiality is however, embedded in the individual perspective, cultural, and political context of the study area. The ethical concerns of such refusal can be ameliorated if confidentiality is nuanced to include six categorically distinct but mutually non-exclusive stages: research-planning, ongoing-information, writing-up, reality-after-research, differential-disseminations, and no-confidentiality-clause. The paper further argues that whilst maintaining institutional allegiance in this matter is crucial, employing confidentiality should lie at the intersection of participants’ motivation for taking part in the research, the socio-cultural-specific-context of the study location and the nature of the topic being explored. (shrink)

RESUMEN La formación de profesionales competentes y comprometidos con el ideal de justicia social y solidaridad humana es un reto para las universidades médicas en Cuba. El protagonismo estudiantil en este contexto contribuye a formar jóvenes autodeterminados, críticos, reflexivos, que se hagan cargo de su desarrollo profesional y participen de forma creadora en la transformación de la sociedad. Se realizó una investigación cualitativa en la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Camagüey, con el objetivo de valorar la visión que tienen (...) los líderes estudiantiles sobre el protagonismo estudiantil, los factores que lo limitan y acciones para perfeccionarlo. Se utilizaron las técnicas entrevista estructurada, entrevista grupal y observación participante a una muestra de once dirigentes estudiantiles. Se logró identificar que los dirigentes estudiantiles tienen una visión acertada sobre el protagonismo estudiantil y señalan factores que limitan el protagonismo, asociados a los propios estudiantes, los profesores, las autoridades universitarias y la institución. ABSTARCT The formation of competent and committed professionals with the ideal of social justice and human solidarity is a challenge for the medical universities in Cuba. The student-leading role in this context helps to form self-determined, critical, reflective young people, who take charge of his professional development and take part of creative form in the transformation of the society. A qualitative investigation was carried out in the University of Medical Sciences, with the objective to value the vision that the student leaders have on the student-leading role, the factors that limit it and actions to perfect it. There used the techniques structured interview, group interview and taking part observation to a sample of eleven student leaders. It was identified that the student leaders have an appropriate vision on the student-leading role and indicated factors that limit the leading role, associated with the proper students, the teachers, the university authorities and the institution. (shrink)

At times of general malaise and social breakdown, it is not uncommon for millenarian movements to arise to replace lost hopes by idle dreams: dreams of a savior who will lead us from bondage, or of the return of the great ships with their bounty, as in the cargo cults of South Sea islanders. Some may yearn for a lost golden age, or succumb to the blandishments of the new Messiahs who come to the fore at such moments. Those (...) more cognizant of the institutional causes of discontent may be attracted to an image of hope destroyed by dark and powerful forces that stole from us the leader who sought a better future. The temptation to seek solace, or salvation, is particularly strong when the means to become engaged in a constructive way in determining one's fate have largely dissolved and disappeared. (shrink)

In a long and many-sided career, William Hasledine Pepys contributed significantly to the advancement of the chemical and physical sciences during the first half of the nineteenth century. As an original investigator he determined, in collaboration with William Allen, the composition of carbon dioxide, and the density of ammonia, and elucidated the chemical phenomena of respiration in man, animals, and plants. The success of these researches was largely due to the use of ingenious apparatus of his own invention and design. (...) In the field of experimental physics, he investigated several aspects of the recently discovered Voltaic electricity: his 'Voltaic coil', consisting of only two plates, but of very large dimensions, was particularly suited for investigating electromagnetic phenomena and was so used in Davy's researches. Pepys was one of the co-founders of the Mineralogical and Geological Societies, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1808. As a prominent member of both the Royal and London Institutions, he held honorary office as Manager and Vice-President, contributing materially to the direction of the affairs of these bodies. Pepys was a friend of Humphry Davy and was acquainted with nearly all the leading scientists and medical men of the day. At the same time, he superintended a notable manufacture of surgical instruments in the City, and promoted by his active directorship the affairs of two public companies, both pioneers in their technological fields, namely the Imperial Continental Gas Association, which was active in introducing the new gas illumination to cities and towns across Europe, and the General Steam Navigation Company, which first maintained a regular passenger and cargo service to Continental ports by the exclusive use of steam-propelled vessels. Pepys' advice in scientific and technical matters was widely sought and freely given; he retained his mental powers to the end of his long life, fulfilling his professional commitments until a few days before his death. (shrink)

Jarvie links the search for rational explanation in anthropology to methodological individualism (MI) through the controversy around anthropological functionalism. The latter was a revolutionary new approach with roots in the sociology of Durkheim. Did it presuppose a group mind, teleological direction, or some other irreducible causal entity that contradicts the principles of MI? Jarvie had argued that it did and so must be used with caution. In this chapter he argues functionalism gives an irreducible role to institutions and that MI (...) merely smuggles them in as part of the agent’s situation. MI’s reductionist program must therefore be used with caution, not taken literally. Case studies of cargo cults and of the panics around the COVID-19 pandemic are used to show how rational explanation proceeds and the extent to which it is compatible (or not) with MI. (shrink)

Scientific misconduct includes the fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP) of concepts, data or ideas; some institutions in the United States have expanded this concept to include “other serious deviations (OSD) from accepted research practice.” It is the absence of this OSD clause that distinguishes scientific misconduct policies of the past from the “research misconduct” policies that should be the basis of future federal policy in this area. This paper introduces a standard for judging whether an action should be considered research (...) misconduct as distinguished from scientific misconduct: by this standard, research misconduct must involve activities unique to the practice of science and must have the potential to negatively affect the scientific record. Although the number of cases of scientific misconduct is uncertain (only the NIH and the NSF keep formal records), the costs are high in terms of the integrity of the scientific record, diversions from research to investigate allegations, ruined careers of those eventually exonerated, and erosion of public confidence in science. Existing scientific misconduct policies vary from institution to institution and from government agency to government agency; some have highly developed guidelines that include OSD, others have no guidelines at all. One result has been that the federal False Claims Act has been used to pursue allegations of scientific misconduct. As a consequence, such allegations have been adjudicated in federal courts, rather than judged by scientific peers. The federal government is now establishing a first-ever research misconduct policy that would apply to all research funded by the federal government regardless of which agency funded the research or whether the research was carried out in a government, industrial or university laboratory. Physical scientists, who up to now have only infrequently been the subject of scientific misconduct allegations, must nonetheless become active in the debate over research misconduct policies and how they are implemented since they will now be explicitly covered by this new federal wide policy. (shrink)

RESUMEN El trabajo tiene como objetivo revelar la contribución social de médicos camagüeyanos negros a la educación católica, a partir de su relación con los colegios regentados por la Iglesia, en un contexto marcado por desigualdades raciales. Se utilizaron métodos teóricos como la revisión documental y bibliográfica, también fueron aplicadas historias de vida y entrevistas. La investigación se centra en el quehacer asistencial de médicos camagüeyanos, vinculados a las Hermanas Oblatas de la Providencia, en particular a los colegios a (...) class='Hi'>cargo de estas monjas negras, que educaban a niñas y niños de ese color de piel. Se pudo esclarecer quiénes fueron los doctores más vinculados a esas instituciones y establecer cuál fue su labor en ellas en las décadas del 40- 50 del siglo XX. Queda valorada su contribución social en la asistencia brindada a ese segmento poblacional y al significado de esta sin la mediación de prejuicios raciales. ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is reveal the social contribution of black Camagüey doctors to the Catholic education from it relation with the schools occupied by the church in a context marked by racials ineguality. It put in practical use theoric methods such as documentary an bibliographical revisión; it also were aplyed life history and entreviews. The research it focus in the assistance job of the Camaguey doctor linked to the Sisters Providence Oblates, especially the schools of these black nuns who give education to black girls and boys. The paper show who were the doctors most linked to these religious institution and to situate their Jobs in these schools in the ´40 and ´50 of the 20 th century. Their social contribution is valved in this type of population and the meaning of this contribution with out racial prejudice. (shrink)

"The main argument of this paper is that there are reasons for judges not only to evaluate the substantive merit of legislation, but to advert to the fact that the place of elected legislatures in our scheme of government gives legislation a standing, an entitlement to consideration, that may go beyond judicial estimates of its intrinsic merit." [Is this just a statement of procedural legitimacy?] "To answer the question [of who assigns rights], courts must take a view as to the (...) proper role of courts vis-a-vis legislatures; they must take a view about the allocation of power in our legal/political system. In drawing this line, courts can take one of two approaches. First, they can make decisions solely on the basis of considerations internal to the relevant clauses of the Constitution, perhaps by giving them a moral reading. Second, they can include in their thinking institutional considerations regarding the role of popular decision-making bodies in our governmental structure." Claims that Dworkin advocates the first [which is false], and that we should accept the second, which is advocated by advocates of judicial restraint. It is appropriate for a judge to give weight to the fact that a decision was reached by a legislature. "Specifically, I think it appropriate that courts presume the constitutionality of such laws, understanding that their own role demands that they overturn them if they are not merely different from what the judges might have decided on their own, but are beyond acceptability." Reasons for the presumption of constitutionality: value of compromise, allocation of power ), appropriateness of humility, integrity and community. (shrink)

The debate over Locke’s theory of slavery has focused on his involvement with the Royal African Company and other institutions of African slavery, as well as his rhetorical use of slavery in opposing absolutism. This overlooks Locke’s deep involvement with the Carolina colony, and in particular that colony’s Indian slave trade, which was largely justified in just-war terms. Evidence of Locke’s participation in the 1682 revisions to the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which removed the infamous “absolute power and authority” clause, (...) and his knowledge of colonial affairs, when examined alongside textual evidence of the timing of the composition of Locke’s theory of slavery, indicates a significant connection between the colony and Locke’s work. In light of this evidence, this article suggests an interpretation of Locke’s theory that stresses its character as a response to the conditions he encountered in Carolina. (shrink)

This book answers the question of how soft factors such as corporate cultures and individual and corporate values can be transparently steered. With its C4 management tool and reflecting the seven driving forces of corporate culture, the Values Cockpit is a powerful solution designed to steer all dimensions and processes of a company, pursuing a lean approach. The book links strategic approaches on how to steer a company towards excellence with insights into the driving forces of human thoughts and actions. (...) It subsequently introduces the Values Cockpit, which allows individual corporate cultures to be developed and controlled on the basis of a rational approach. "This intriguing book breaks new ground in suggesting that values can be managed quite as systematically as any other centrally important asset" Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur Professor, Harvard University "... a deeply articulate, profoundly relevant explication of the role played by the culture of commerce... rich with actionable tools, insights and clear examples..." Richard J Hill IV, Founder, Gabriel Consulting Group, LLC "One seldom sees practical advice on HOW strong values can be automatically practiced on a daily basis by all concerned. That is what makes this remarkable book so refreshing... his book is taking the seminal findings of Jim Collins on building great companies a step further..." Julian Clarke, Chartered Accountant and Management Consultant, European Business Ethics Network Ireland "... a brilliant yet succinct guide to teach the significance of values-development in sustainable business management..." Professor Dr. Haifeng Huang, Assistant Dean, Peking University HSBC Business School, Shenzhen, China "He admirably rejects the fatalist interpretation of the immoral might of markets and replaces it with a counter-narrative of why and how companies can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem." Professor Dr. Claus Dierksmeier, Director of the Global Ethic Institute, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen "The values cockpit gives readers a coherent and comprehensive toolkit to help them prepare their companies for lasting success." Dr. Kurt Schmalz, C.E.O and Managing Partner J. Schmalz GmbH, Glatten, Germany. (shrink)

The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty of the United Kingdom parliament is often presented as a unique legal arrangement, one without parallel in comparative constitutional law. By giving unconditional power to the Westminster parliament, it appears to rule out any comparison between the Westminster Parliament and the United States Congress or the German Bundestag, whose powers are limited by their respective constitutions. Parliament in the UK appears to determine the law unconditionally and without limit. Nevertheless, a fuller understanding of parliamentary sovereignty (...) as a legal and constitutional doctrine shows that this first impression is false. The nature of the British unwritten constitutional order is entirely similar to the written one prevailing in the United States or Germany. This is because the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, contrary to Dicey’s classic view, does not consist in a single dominant idea but in a number of related and mutually supporting principles that constitute higher law. The way in which these principles interact is parallel to the interaction of the main clauses of the United States Constitution or the German Basic Law. This analysis shows that the constitution, written or unwritten, never requires a ‘pouvoir constituent’. The constitution emerges from the law as the result of moral and political principles that breathe life into our public institutions. (shrink)

A pesar de que Max Horkheimer en Eclipse de la razón había analizado los límites de la razón subjetiva, atendien- do a las posibilidades de retornar a la razón objetiva y a su función después del eclipse, a Jay le parecían aún insuficientes estas respuestas. Por ello, regresó al estudio de las conceptualizaciones filosóficas de los fundadores de la teoría crítica y de quienes se quedaron a cargo del Instituto de Investigación Social en Frankfurt. En este sentido, este texto (...) podría verse en continuidad y a distancia respecto a su primer li- bro: Dialectical Imagination. A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950 (1973); producto de su trabajo de doctorado, enfocado en la formación del Instituto de Investigación Social; en sus principales integrantes: Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Leo Löwenthal, Walter Benjamin,Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Henryk Grossmann, Erich Fromm, Karl August Wittfogel; en la integra- ción del psicoanálisis; en su exilio a América; en los estudios empíricos sobre el autoritarismo, la estética y la industria cultural. (shrink)

I want to enquire into the relationship between the normative claims of a society and the normative stances of its members. I shall develop a contractarian perspective, as the only one available to persons who may neither expect nor require their fellows to share their own orientation to values and norms. Although I only touch on these matters here, I hope to contribute to an interpretation of the clauses on the establishment and exercise of religion in the First Amendment (...) to the United States constitution, and to suggest guidelines for determining rights and duties in becoming and being a parent. More generally, I offer answers to certain questions about how social practices and institutions may be justified in a democratic society. (shrink)

This study uses the Religion and State round 2 dataset to examine the presence of religious freedom in 177 countries. There are many different conceptions of the meaning of religious freedom but they can be divided into two categories, those which focus on the free exercise of religion—that is the right to practice religion and maintain religious institutions—and those which focus on treating all religions equally, also known as the level playing field model. The results show that neither form of (...) religious freedom is common even among democracies and states which have constitutional clauses protecting religious freedom. This finding has serious implications for our understanding of the nature of liberal democracy. (shrink)

Some centuries ago most moral philosophy was written by theologians, almost none of it by professional philosophers in our sense, and one of the questions most debated was whether morality could or could not be founded on “an independent bottom”, that is, on a basis other than that provided by revealed religion. This was a many-sided question and would be interesting to discuss in the sense or senses in which it was then taken. In a way, I assumed an affirmative (...) answer to part of it when I began with a definition of morality that makes no reference to the will of God as a ground for its normative judgments. Now I wish to say something more about it in terms rather different from those used by the theologians. I must do so because of what transpired in the previous lectures. In the first I began by assuming a material or nonformalist definition of morality as stated in Clauses 1 and 2, argued that such a definition does not entail either a teleological or a poietic view of morality, and put in a plug for a nonpoietic view such as was held by at least some Mainliners. In the second I contended that the Main Line in moral philosophy is essentially correct - that the Oughts or normative judgments of morality are not hypothetical or otherwise agent-referential, even if they are not institutional, thus confirming a nonpoietic theory of morality. What this points to on my present question is the position I should like to hold: that morality is bottomed on autonomous substantive normative judgments that are moral and noninstrumental, that is, that it rests on nonordinary and non-institutional normative judgments made from the moral point of view, or on moral grounds as defined by Clause 2. (shrink)

Some centuries ago most moral philosophy was written by theologians, almost none of it by professional philosophers in our sense, and one of the questions most debated was whether morality could or could not be founded on “an independent bottom”, that is, on a basis other than that provided by revealed religion. This was a many-sided question and would be interesting to discuss in the sense or senses in which it was then taken. In a way, I assumed an affirmative (...) answer to part of it when I began with a definition of morality that makes no reference to the will of God as a ground for its normative judgments. Now I wish to say something more about it in terms rather different from those used by the theologians. I must do so because of what transpired in the previous lectures. In the first I began by assuming a material or nonformalist definition of morality as stated in Clauses 1 and 2, argued that such a definition does not entail either a teleological or a poietic view of morality, and put in a plug for a nonpoietic view such as was held by at least some Mainliners. In the second I contended that the Main Line in moral philosophy is essentially correct - that the Oughts or normative judgments of morality are not hypothetical or otherwise agent-referential, even if they are not institutional, thus confirming a nonpoietic theory of morality. What this points to on my present question is the position I should like to hold: that morality is bottomed on autonomous substantive normative judgments that are moral and noninstrumental, that is, that it rests on nonordinary and non-institutional normative judgments made from the moral point of view, or on moral grounds as defined by Clause 2. (shrink)