Terrorism is a global phenomenon that constantly challenges human survival. Based on the social structure, human beings adopt different strategies to overcome its negative consequences on their mind and behavior. Coping strategies and those processes essential for adjustment and survival illustrate how individuals perceive, consider, deal with, and realize a stressful situation in the era of terrorism. The study focuses on exploring coping strategies and avoidance of terrorism impacts. This research study was qualitatively designed to explore the coping strategies adaptation (...) and their influence on the former FATA individuals during the wave of terrorism in the region. The study was undertaken in five districts of erstwhile FATA, including Dara Adam Khel, Orakzai Agency, Khyber Agency, and North and South Waziristan agency. A sample size of twenty-five (25) participants was purposively selected and interviewed, ten (10) focused group discussions (FGDs) were done from each district, and the other 50 participants were chosen for ten (10) FGDs. The collected data were analyzed via the thematic analysis technique. The findings revealed that coping strategies included four different phases: the welcome, resistance, acceptance, surrender, and flee phases for overcoming threats of terrorism. Furthermore, it was also found that fear of terrorism had strongly influenced the individuals’ physical, socio-economic, psychological, emotional stress and fear, education, and social integration. The study recommended that social integration and solidarity among the people, as well as their cooperation with the government, can eliminate the threat of terrorism. (shrink)

Textbooks play a strong part in constructing gender roles and status in society. Thus, the images, lessons, and stories of gender portrayed in textbooks affect the perception of prevalent masculine behavior. To develop an insight into the phenomena, this article analyzes the institutionalized patriarchy and patriarchal values embedded in the Urdu and English National Book Foundation textbooks for grades 5, 6, and 7. The study used content analysis techniques to decode the tone, juggling of meanings, pictorial representation, topic selection, word (...) selection, number of pages devoted to each topic, and gender placement of Urdu and Social Studies textbooks. The study explored whether women are portrayed as followers of men and men as having a leadership role. The mother is predominantly presented as a housewife who stays at home, cleaning and cooking all day. While the father goes to work every day and comes home and relaxes after a hard day’s work. Such placement of gendered roles has an effect on the thinking of young students and they internalize the idea that such roles are a natural part of their personality. Moreover, the books reflect a reality which is more male-oriented, while female representations are lacking in the dominant reality. (shrink)

In philosophy happiness occupies a dominant position. From the beginning of philosophy, we find the scholarly engagement of philosophers in search of happiness for human being. It is actually a perennial search of mankind throughout history. My attempt in this paper is to become a part of that august journey. I will try to focus some points in my paper. At first, I will try to give an analytic presentation about the nature of happiness with references to different philosophers and (...) philosophical schools. In this part I will attempt to find out the root causes of the changing patterns of happiness by maintaining a chronological order. In the next part I will try to depict some significant debates regarding the pursuit of happiness. The question of enigma and reality will be dealt here in a comparative fashion. And finally, I will try to give some recommendations and suggestions for a happy life.As this is a qualitative work, here I confine myself within some relevant textbooks of philosophy and recent research articles on the pursuit of happiness. Content analysis, comparative discussion with a critical outlook and philosophical speculation will be within the research methodology of the paper. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#71-72; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2022 P 129-151. (shrink)

This study looks at how discourses of corruption in Bangladesh are discursively constructed within the official documents of Transparency International (TI), a non-profit organization that monitors corruption worldwide. It explores how an orientalist notion regarding Bangladesh is appropriated in neoliberal global discourse through TI’s corruption surveillance process. A postcolonial analysis of TI’s publications demonstrates a symbiotic relation between orientalism and neoliberalism. TI sets up a binary of ‘corrupt’ global South vs. ‘clean’ global North, reinforcing the uneven power relations between nation-states (...) that can be seen as a neocolonial move for maintaining Western hegemony and enabling neoliberal ideology over non-Western territories. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#67-68; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2020 P 49-76. (shrink)

This article aims to investigate and analyze Yusuf b. Muhammad Jān al-Karabāghī's (d. 1035/1626) treatise in which he discusses some issues related to existence (wujūd) and the Necessary Being (wājib al-wujūd). This study aims to bring this treatise of al-Karabāghī, which has not been studied yet, into the literature of the history of Islamic thought by investigating and analyzing its content. There is no information about Yusuf al-Karabāghī's birthplace and education in bio-bibliographical sources. It is known that he wrote works (...) in the fields of tafsīr and theology (kalām). Some of his works are Erbau' Ta'līkātin fi't-Tafsīr, Risāla fi'l-Mubāḥasa allatī waka'at fī surat al-Fath bayna al-ulamā, Hāshiya 'alā Sharhi'l-Aqā'id al-Adudiyya, Sharḥ Risāla Ithbāt al-wājib li al-Dawwānī. Three copies of this treatise, which is the subject of this study, have been identified in manuscript libraries. The first of these copies is listed as MS 791 in Selimiye Manuscript Library, the second is listed as MS 1210 in Suleymaniye Library, Carullah Efendi Collection, and the third is listed as 1960 in Suleymaniye Library, Manuscript Donations Collection. Among the mentioned copies, the copy registered in Selimiye Library ms. no 791 was preferred as the main one in the analysis both because it is very clear and readable, and because of the scribes’s collation note in the ferağ record. This is because the scribe wrote this copy in correspondence with other copies that existed in his period but have not survived to the present day. The author does not explicitly mention the name of this treatise in the introduction. In the introductory part of the treatise, he states that he has collected topics that will serve as a remedy for finding the right thought. When its content is analyzed, it is understood that the treatise includes some issues related to existence (wujūd) and especially the Necessary Being (wājib al-wujūd). It is seen that the author followed a different method in the treatise. Yusuf al-Qarabāghī divided the treatise into seven chapters, which he called "halwa". He also added subheadings to each section, sometimes one and sometimes two, which he called "waqf". In these sub-headings he added to each section, he included the views of a thinker who is an authority on the subject he examined. In the treatise, the author examines the methods of demonstration such as burhān al- tatbīq, burhān al- tazāyuf, burhān al-sullamī and concepts such as revolution, succession, wujūd, wājib al-wujūd, possible, qadīm, hadīth, cause, ma'lūl, complete cause, nūr, zulm, al-ālam al-misālī, berzāh, and juz al lā yetajjazā (jawhar al-fard). In this framework, he discusses Karabāğī's proof of the existence of the Necessary Being through the cancellation of the vicious circle and infinite regression (tasalsul), the unity of the Necessary Being (tawḥīd), the relation between essence and attribute, and the attribute of knowledge of the Necessary Being. As a result, in this treatise, Yusuf al-Karabāghī analyzed some debates and views on existence (wujūd) and the concept of Necessary Being, which is an important issue in the tradition of Islamic thought, employing his unique methodological approach. (shrink)

This paper develops axiomatic foundations for a probabilistic-interventionist theory of causal strength. Transferring methods from Bayesian confirmation theory, I proceed in three steps: I develop a framework for defining and comparing measures of causal strength; I argue that no single measure can satisfy all natural constraints; I prove two representation theorems for popular measures of causal strength: Pearl's causal effect measure and Eells' difference measure. In other words, I demonstrate these two measures can be derived from a set of plausible (...) adequacy conditions. The paper concludes by sketching future research avenues. (shrink)

This book provides the reader with an analysis of backward causation. The notion of backward causation faces many different paradoxes that threaten to make the notion inconsistent or incoherent. The book denies that these pose a real threat. It developed a theory of causation according to which the orientation of causation is not dependent on the direction of time. In this process it takes issues with David Lewis' contrafactual analysis of causation, and denies that the direction of time is determined (...) by irreversible processes . Likewise the book argues that the conceptual possibility of backward causation requires that the future is just as real as the past and present. Finally the book considers what the physical processes may look like if backward causation not only a a conceptual possibility but also a physical possibility. The conclusion is that no normal matter can possibly participate in backward causal processes. Instead objects moving backwards in time seem to posses negative mass and energy, a kind of objects that would be different from both ordinary objects and hypothetical tachyons. (shrink)

The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H!1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H!1lffding Relationship Reconsidered", published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment (...) I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H!1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H!1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological mediations like X-ray and fMRI images, and by actualizing embodied skills tacitly they are determining the identity of objects in the perceptual field. The initial phase of human interpretation of visual objects takes place during the moments of visual perception before we are consciously aware of the perceived. What facilitate this innate ability to interpret are experiences, learning and training that become humanly embodied skills. These embodied (...) skills are actualized during the moments of visual perception. My argument is that biology, society and instruments constitute unique individual ontologies influencing specialist readings of the technological output, in other words, putting limits on the ‘‘truth-to-nature’’ relation, which is so much sought for in science. (shrink)

Liberty is what libertarians advocate. Both because of the inherent value of human liberty and because of the increasing wealth and welfare it brings to all. They see the aggressive coercion of the state as the main enemy of liberty. The solution is to roll back the state until there is little or no state left. Libertarianism has been rapidly growing since the 1970s. But it is still not commonly understood or even given a proper hearing. However, you will increasingly (...) come across it. Often it will be through state enthusiasts disingenuously claiming to be libertarians . At other times it will be through state enthusiasts attacking libertarianism as an extremist ideology. And very occasionally it will be real libertarians explaining and defending their views. J C Lester is a libertarian philosopher who has been writing about why liberty is preferable to politics for many years. This book contains many of his shorter writings on the subject. These range from the populist to the philosophical. Together they function as a miscellaneous introduction to libertarianism. The various different topics and approaches should give the reader a good cross-reference grasp of the subject. (shrink)

Since the turn of the millennium, the major development agencies have been promoting “knowledge for development,” “ICT for development,” or the “knowledge economy” as new paradigms to prompt development in less-developed countries. These paradigms display an unconditional trust in the power of Western technology and scientific knowledge to trigger development—they taste of epistemic and technological determinism. This article probes, by means of a genealogy, how and when development cooperation began adhering to epistemic and technological determinism, and which forms this adhesion (...) has taken over time. The genealogy shows, first, that knowledge and technology have always been integrally part of the very “development” idea since this idea was shaped during enlightenment. Second, while the genealogy reveals that epistemic and technological determinism were embedded in the development idea from the very beginning, it also illustrates that the determinism has always been challenged by critical voices. (shrink)

We study Kim-independence over arbitrary sets. Assuming that forking satisfies existence, we establish Kim's lemma for Kim-dividing over arbitrary sets in an NSOP1 theory. We deduce symmetry of Kim-independence and the independence theorem for Lascar strong types.

The ability to anticipate the future is of great benefit to any organism. Whenever such a foreseeing takes place, it typically happens because an organism has been able to learn about some regularity in the past and then uses this information to expect some happenings in the future. Modern human beings have perfected this capacity far beyond any other animal by getting to know the laws by which nature operates. But it is still based on past experience that even human (...) beings are able to say something about the future. So every form of anticipation of the future relies on inductive reasoning based on knowledge of causal processes in the past. Both these processes and the processes by which we learn to anticipate the future are common in the sense that it is always an earlier cause that brings about a later effect. The ability to anticipate depends on the fact that our cognitive faculties only work on information that stems from the past. Had it been possible for us to receive reliable information about the future, the ability of anticipation might not have existed or might have been less faulty than it sometimes is. (shrink)

Software systems play an ever more important role in our lives and software engineers and their companies find themselves in a position where they are held responsible for ethical issues that may arise. In this paper, we try to disentangle ethical considerations that can be performed at the level of the software engineer from those that belong in the wider domain of business ethics. The handling of ethical problems that fall into the responsibility of the engineer has traditionally been addressed (...) by the publication of Codes of Ethics and Conduct. We argue that these Codes are barely able to provide normative orientation in software development. The main contribution of this paper is, thus, to analyze the normative features of Codes of Ethics in software engineering and to explicate how their value-based approach might prevent their usefulness from a normative perspective. Codes of Conduct cannot replace ethical deliberation because they do not and cannot offer guidance because of their underdetermined nature. This lack of orientation, we argue, triggers reactive behavior such as “cherry-picking,” “risk of indifference,” “ex-post orientation,” and the “desire to rely on gut feeling.” In the light of this, we propose to implement ethical deliberation within software development teams as a way out. (shrink)

The article starts from the questions: what is it to be an inhabitant or citizen of a globalised world, and how are we to think of education in relation to such inhabitants? We examine more specifically the so–called ‘European area of higher education’ that is on the way to being established and that can be regarded as a concrete example of a process of globalisation. In the first part of the paper we try to show that the discursive horizon, and (...) the concrete techniques and strategies that accompany the establishment of this space of higher education, invite the inhabitants of that space to see themselves as entrepreneurial and autonomous entities. In the second part we show how this specific kind of subjectivation (this production of subjects), related as it is to this globalised space, involves what we call an immunisation that also affects our thinking and our ideas in and about education. To refer to this as a kind of immunisation implies that globalisation could in fact be considered a closing or enclosing rather than an opening up. We argue, therefore, that this immunisation needs to be refused in favour of the invention of other kinds of subjectivity, other ways of speaking and writing about the world and about education, such that we relate to ourselves in a different way. (shrink)

This collection of essays considers a variety of educational ideas and programs from the perspective of governmentality, integrating conceptual and theoretical insights and empirical investigation of policy documents, and government technologies. Considers different educational ideas of enlightenment, creativity, participation, inclusion, learning, and critique Offers an overview of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory on governmentality and how his ideas apply to current developments in society and education Investigates the intrinsic relationship between intellectual and practical educational technologies A study of how educational (...) practice and educational theory have played a constitutive role in practices of subjectivity which are crucial to ‘learning societies’. (shrink)

La recherche récente a régulièrement remis en cause la catégorie moderne de « lois sacrées » désignant des inscriptions grecques qui forment un ensemble mal défini. Cet article entend dépasser le corpus traditionnel des « lois sacrées » en présentant un projet de recueil alternatif de « Normes rituelles grecques » (CGRN pour l’acronyme anglais), qui s’appuie sur des critères plus sélectifs et sera publié en ligne.

The main aim of the paper is critical reflection of the ethics of social consequences. The reflection is based on two partially related positions. Ethics of social consequences is, on the one hand, characterized as a contemporary ethical theory and, on the other, as a specific form of consequentialism. Methodology of criticism is based on the works of a homogenous group of modern-day consequentialist authors (though these are of diverse platforms): Pettit, Singer, Sen, Shaw. The purpose of this paper is (...) to provide objective reflection on the ethics of social consequences which may possibly become the base for further development and / or improvement of this original Slovak ethical theory. (shrink)

Karl Löwith, den Hans-Georg Gadamer als »den zweifellos begabtesten Schüler Heideggers« bezeichnete, zählt zu den bedeutendsten Vertretern der philosophischen Anthropologie. Sein Denken umkreist die Frage nach dem Selbstverständnis des modernen Menschen in der säkularisierten Welt. Max Weber folgend bejaht Löwith die Situation des modernen Menschen, der ohne göttliche Autorität auskommen muss, sich aber den Spannungen einer modernen kapitalistischen Gesellschaft ebenso ausgesetzt sieht wie den ihm eigenen Widersprüchen. Neben einer Einführung überträgt Jan Schenkenberger Löwiths Philosophie - unter Verwendung von teils unveröffentlichten (...) Quellen - in neue Kontexte und denkt ihren ethischen Kern in die Gegenwart weiter. (shrink)

According to influential accounts of scientific method, such as critical rationalism, scientific knowledge grows by repeatedly testing our best hypotheses. But despite the popularity of hypothesis tests in statistical inference and science in general, their philosophical foundations remain shaky. In particular, the interpretation of non-significant results—those that do not reject the tested hypothesis—poses a major philosophical challenge. To what extent do they corroborate the tested hypothesis, or provide a reason to accept it? Popper sought for measures of corroboration that could (...) adequately answer this question. According to Popper, corroboration is different from probability-raising, and grounded in the predictive success and testability of a hypothesis. As such, corroboration becomes an indicator of the scientific value of a hypothesis and guides our practical preferences over hypotheses that have been subjected to severe tests. This article proves two impossibility results for corroboration measures based on statistical relevance. The generality of these results shows that Popper’s qualitative characterization of corroboration must be misguided. I explore what a more promising and scientifically useful concept of corroboration could look like. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to mount a philosophical challenge to the currently highly visible research and discourse on empathy. The notion of empathetic perspective-shifting—a conceptually demanding, high-level construal of empathy in humans that arguably captures the core meaning of the term—is criticized from the standpoint of a philosophy of normatively accountable agency. Empathy in this demanding sense fails to achieve a true understanding of the other and instead risks to impose the empathizer’s self-constitutive agency upon the person empathized (...) with. Attempts to ‘simulate’ human agency, or attempts to emulate its cognitive or emotional basis, will likely distort their target phenomena in profound ways. Thus, agency turns out to be empathy’s blind spot. Elements of an alternative understanding of interpersonal relatedness are also discussed, focusing on aspects of ‘interaction theory’. These might do some of the work that high-level constructs of empathy had been supposed to do without running into similar conceptual difficulties. (shrink)

Friis and Crease illustrate the diversity of content and styles in postphenomenology, a burgeoning field that has attracted attention among scholars engaged in technology studies. Contributors to this edited collection seek to analyze, clarify, and develop postphenomenological language and concepts, expand the work of Don Ihde, the field's founder, and delve into areas that Ihde never tackled.

rationality has increasingly been a target of attack in contemporary educational research and practice and in its place practical reason and situated thinking have become a focus of interest. The argument here is that something is lost in this. In illustrating how we might think about the issue, this paper makes a response to the charge that as a result of his commitment to the ‘Enlightenment project’ Vygotsky holds abstract rationality as the pinnacle of thought. Against this it is argued (...) that Vygotsky had a far more sophisticated appreciation of reason and of its remit. The paper proceeds first by examining the picture of Vygotsky that is presented in the work of James Wertsch, and especially his claim that Vygotsky was an ambivalent rationalist, goes on to provide an account of Vygotsky that corrects this picture, and develops this in the light of the work of Robert Brandom, who shares Vygotsky’s inheritance of Hegel. The conclusion towards which this piece points is that the philosophical underpinnings of Vygotsky’s work provide a radically different idea of rationality and epistemology from that characterised as abstract rationality and that this has significance for education studies. (shrink)

Review text: "Es gibt Bücher, die durch ihre unprätentiöse, stille und sorgfältige Vorgehensweise auf den ersten Blick über die Sensation hinwegtäuschen, die sie bloßlegen und zur Diskussion anbieten. So ein Buch ist die "Wissenschaftphilosophie? von Jan C. Schmidt, die über die "Instabilität in Natur und Wissenschaft? handelt."Günter Altner in: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 9/2009.

The ongoing legal and bioethics debates on consent requirements for collecting, storing, and utilizing human biological material for purposes of basic and applied research—that is, genomic research biobanking—have already managed to pass through three ostensibly dissimilar stages.

This innovative book proposes a unique and original perspective on the nature of the mind and how phenomenal consciousness may arise in a physical world. From simple sentient organisms to complex self-reflective systems, Faye argues for a naturalistic-evolutionary approach to philosophy of mind and consciousness. Drawing on substantial literature in evolutionary biology and cognitive science, this book offers a promising alternative to the major theories of the mind-body problem: the quality of our experiences should not, as some philosophers have claimed, (...) be associated with subjectivity that is not open for scientific explanation, nor should it be associated with intrinsic properties of the brain. Instead, Faye argues that mental properties are extrinsic properties of the brain caused by the organism’s interaction with its environment. Taking on the explanatory gap, and rejecting the ontological pluralism of present naturalist theories of the mind, Faye thus proposes a unified view of reality in which it is possible to explain qualitative mental presentations as part of the physical world. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION This study arose from involvement with the works of Thomas Aquinas (/5-) that was not only intensive, but also extensive in the time devoted to ...

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The issues that Paul Standish alerts us to are significant since they situate McDowell's argument in reference to works lying outside the mainstream tradition o.

This paper argues that there are practical problems of such a kind that neither impartial morality nor rational choice theory can provide us with comfort and guidance in our attempt to make the right choice if confronted with such a problem. It argues that both morality and rational choice theory are bound to misconstrue problems of this kind. Appreciating the limits of both morality and rational choice theory, as currently discussed in the literature, enables us to identify the features of (...) these particular practical problems, and allows us to elaborate the idea of an alternative of oneself, which is crucial to a proper understanding of the kind of practical problem the paper draws attention to. (shrink)

The pragmatic theory of explanation is an attempt to see explanation as a linguistic response to a cognitive problem where the content of the response depends on the context of the scientific inquiry. The present paper draws on the rhetorical situation, as it is defined by Loyld Bitzer, in order to understand how the context may influence the content as well as the acceptability of the response.

Our aim in this study is to examine the attitude to violence expressed in the works of two leading figures in the history of Czech philosophical thought. Several scholars in the field of Comeniology have expressed the belief that not only clear parallels but also direct continuity can be traced between the views of Petr Chelčický and those of Jan Amos Comenius. To make a proper judgement as to whether Comenius and Chelčický shared identical attitudes to the question of the (...) legitimacy of violence, we focus first on Comenius’s climactic work, in which his point of view is most fully expressed. Subsequently we analyse Chelčický’s views and compare them with Comenius’s attitude. A comparison of the works of the two thinkers leads to the conclusion that on the one hand Comenius’s key opinions are much more comprehensively founded; on the other, he does not restrict himself to a critique of physical violence but also deals with the spiritual struggle. Any analogy between Chelčický and Comenius’s attitude to violence can therefore be related only to the early works of Comenius in which his concept of universal tolerance was not yet thoroughly thought through. The study therefore focuses on the issue of the development of Comenius’s concept of tolerance as well. (shrink)

Objectives To determine the frequencies and types of limitation of medical treatment performed by physician members of the German Society for Palliative Medicine and to analyse the findings with respect to clinical and ethical aspects of end-of-life practices. Design Cross-sectional postal survey. Setting Data collection via the secretary of the German Society for Palliative Medicine using the German language version of the EURELD survey instrument. Subjects All 1645 physician members of the German Society for Palliative Medicine. Main outcome measures Types (...) and frequencies of limitation of treatment and possible determinants. Results 901 physicians participated in the study (response rate 55.8%). Participants reported limitation of treatment in 69.1% of cases. These decisions most often affected artificial nutrition (19%), chemotherapy (14%), antibiotics (11%) and medication other than antibiotics (11%). In the majority of eligible cases, physicians estimated the life-shortening effect of limitation of treatment to be <7 days. However, estimations differ depending on the medical measures in question. Bivariate statistical analysis indicated that withholding of treatment was performed significantly more frequently for patients aged ≥65 years (p=0.019). In addition, there were significant associations between the incidence of limitation of treatment and the different diseases reported by respondents as the underlying cause of death. Conclusion The findings of this study provide information on the current state of an ethically and clinically challenging aspect of clinical practice and can serve as a starting point for further interdisciplinary research on normative and empirical aspects of treatment decision-making at the end of life. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are practical problems of such a kind that neither impartial morality nor rational choice theory can provide us with comfort and guidance in our attempt to make the right choice if confronted with such a problem. It argues that both morality and rational choice theory are bound to misconstrue problems of this kind. Appreciating the limits of both morality and rational choice theory, as currently discussed in the literature (Wolf, Morton, Pettit, Hollis & Sugden), enables (...) us to identify the features of these particular practical problems, and allows us to elaborate the idea of an alternative of oneself, which is crucial to a proper understanding of the kind of practical problem the paper draws attention to. (shrink)