In jurisprudential circles the year 1981 might well be dubbed the year of Hans Kelsen, with no fewer than three symposia celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. The Association for Legal and Social Philosophy in the United Kingdom held a conference on Kelsen in Edinburgh in April, giving special attention to “legal epistemology” in the Pure Theory of Law. A symposium of the Austrian Association for Legal and Social Philosophy, held in the Schloss Retzhof near Graz in May, was (...) devoted to Kelsen's political theory and critique of ideology. And the Hans Kelsen Institute in Vienna sponsored a symposium in September on Kelsen's posthumously published work, the Allgemeine Theorie der Normen. All three events were marked by significant international participation, and they point to continuing widespread interest in Kelsen and the Pure Theory of Law. (shrink)

In this important volume Habermas outlines the views which form the basis of his critical theory of modern societies. The volume comprises five interlocking essays, which together define the contours of his theory of communication and of his substantive account of social change. ′What is Universal Pragmatics?′ is the best available statement of Habermas′s programme for a theoryof communication based on the analysis of speech acts. In the following two essays Habermas draws on the work of Kohlberg and others to (...) develop a distinctive account of moral consciousness and normative structures. ′Toward a Reconstruction of historical Materialsim′ takes these issues further, offering a wide–ranging reconstruction of Marx′s historical materialsim understood as a theory of social evolution. The final essay focuses on the question of legitimacy and on the legitimation problems faced by modern states. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the key questions of social and political theory today. (shrink)

Jherings Rechtsdenken ist ein noch nicht ausgeschöpftes Guthaben der deutschen Rechtskultur. Erst in jüngerer Zeit konnte es von schweren Mißverständnissen befreit und in seiner kulturanthropologischen, die menschliche Zivilisation als Ganzes erfassenden Weite deutlich gemacht werden. Okko Behrends beleuchtet Jhering als Schriftsteller, Rechtstheoretiker und Juristen. Er verfolgt die Wirkung seines realistischen, aber an der Idee des rechtsethischen Fortschritts festhaltenden Denkens in Europa (Deutschland, Rußland, Schweden, Italien), Ostasien (Japan und Korea) sowie Nord- und Südamerika.

In this article, I articulate and respond to an epistemological challenge to meta-normative realism. The challenge has it that, if realism about the normative is correct, and if evolutionary forces have significantly influenced our normative judgments, then it would be a remarkable coincidence if the content of the normative facts and our normative judgments were aligned. I criticize David Enoch's recent attempt to meet this challenge, but provide an alternative response that is structurally similar. I argue that if realism is (...) correct, then it would be remarkable if the content of our normative judgments and the normative facts were not significantly aligned. (shrink)

This paper argues against two prominent accounts of what it is to "promote a desire," found in the work of Stephen Finlay and Mark Schroeder.

Promotion is the relation between an act and a desire that obtains when the act advances or serves the desire. Under what conditions does an act promote a desire? Probabilistic accounts of promotion, the most prominent accounts, analyze promotion in terms of an increase in the probability of the desire’s satisfaction. In this paper, we clarify the promotion relation and explain why probabilistic accounts are attractive. Then we identify two questions probabilistic accounts must answer: the Baseline Question and the Interpretation (...) Question. We discuss and reject the three answers to the Baseline Question found in the literature, and explain the challenge future attempts at answering this question will face. Proponents of probabilistic accounts have not adequately addressed the Interpretation Question. We survey three answers to this question, finding each unsatisfactory. We conclude that no satisfactory probabilistic account has yet been offered, and that there are significant hurdles to providing one in the future. (shrink)

Internalists about practical reasons maintain that all of an agent’s reasons for action derive their normative force via some relation in which they stand with that agent’s pro-attitudes, or the pro-attitudes that the agent would have in some idealized set of circumstances. One common complaint against internalism is that the view is extensionally inadequate – that it cannot render the correct verdicts about what reasons agents have in a range of important cases. In this paper, I examine that charge of (...) extensional inadequacy, taking as my starting point an argument that Derek Parfit has recently leveled against internalism. Through a close evaluation of that argument and potential replies to it, I attempt to show that internalists cannot accommodate important pre-theoretical intuitions about what reasons we have. However, I also argue that Parfit’s case is importantly overstated; I set out to show that his argument cannot establish, as he thinks it does, that no reasons derive their normative force in the way that internalists believe that all do. In doing so, I draw attention to the possibility of a hybrid position about practical reasons that, surprisingly, receives little attention in the existing literature. If the arguments of the paper succeed, I will have established a modest theoretical advantage for hybridism over internalism – namely, that it is not vulnerable to the charge of extensional inadequacy. My hope is that this goes some way toward establishing hybridism’s credentials as a serious alternative to its “pure” competitors. (shrink)

Source Hybridism about practical reasons is the position that facts that constitute reasons sometimes derive their normative force from external metaphysical grounds, and sometimes from internal. Although historically less popular than either Source Internalism or Source Externalism, hybridism has lately begun to garner more attention. Here, I further the hybridist's cause by defending Source Hybridism from three objections. I argue that we are not warranted in rejecting hybridism for any of the following reasons: that hybridists cannot provide an account of (...) normative weight, that hybridists are committed to implausible results concerning practical deliberation, or that Source Hybridism is objectionably unparsimonious. (shrink)

The ongoing explosion of interest in artificial intelligence is fueled in part by recently developed techniques in machine learning. Those techniques allow automated systems to process huge amounts of data, utilizing mathematical methods that depart from traditional statistical approaches, and resulting in impressive advancements in our ability to make predictions and uncover correlations across a host of interesting domains. But as is now widely discussed, the way that those systems arrive at their outputs is often opaque, even to the experts (...) who design and deploy them. Is it morally problematic to make use of opaque automated methods when making high-stakes decisions, like whether to issue a loan to an applicant, or whether to approve a parole request? Many scholars answer in the affirmative. However, there is no widely accepted explanation for why transparent systems are morally preferable to opaque systems. We argue that the use of automated decision-making systems sometimes violates duties of consideration that are owed by decision-makers to decision-subjects, duties that are both epistemic and practical in character. Violations of that kind generate a weighty consideration against the use of opaque decision systems. In the course of defending our approach, we show that it is able to address three major challenges sometimes leveled against attempts to defend the moral import of transparency in automated decision-making. (shrink)

In Hobbes's Theory of the Will, Jurgen Overhoff reveals the religious, ethical, and political consequences of Thomas Hobbes's doctrine of volition. The author gracefully describes how Hobbes's thought was governed by assumptions based firmly in Galilean natural philosophy and orthodox Protestant theology. Overhoff also demonstrates how his subject used materialist eschatology and an absolutist political theory to resolve the social and ethical predicaments that coincided with these assumptions. Finally, Overhoff provides a chronological study of the numerous philosophical, theological, religious and (...) political aspects of Hobbes's idea of the will and situates Hobbes's doctrine within the context of the most important responses and objections put forward by his critics. (shrink)

Die Wirkung der Schrift Erkenntnis und Interesse ging weit über die akademische Debatte hinaus und hatte auch unmittelbaren Einfluß auf den politischen Diskurs in den 70er Jahren. Denn die kritische Reflexion auf die vorgängig leitenden Interessen, die den Erkenntnisprozessen ihre Richtung geben, entzog der Kantischen Vorstellung den Boden, alle Erkenntnis beruhe allein auf der Selbstbestimmtheit des erkennenden Subjekts.

L’histoire des sciences est souvent comprise comme une succession de théories, les nouvelles supplantant les anciennes. Or cette conception de l’histoire des sciences ne rend pas justice à la complexité des dynamiques à l’œuvre dans le développement scientifique. Pour illustrer cela, nous nous intéressons à un type de phénomènes qui ne peut pas être décrit comme relevant d’une simple succession linéaire : la désuétude de certaines théories. Nous portons notre attention sur un cas particulier : la désuétude temporaire qui a (...) frappé la théorie de la neuroplasticité. Nous défendons l’idée que l’étude de cette théorie fait apparaître certaines des insuffisances de la conception linéaire de l’histoire des sciences. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard’s Lutheran existentialism represents a distinctively postmetaphysical philosophy of religion, focused in particular on a Christian vision of ethical authenticity. His philosophy continues to pose challenging questions for postmetaphysical philosophers in contemporary pluralistic settings. Focusing on specific works of Kierkegaard, this essay develops three such questions: (1) Can philosophy in a postmetaphysical vein still give advice for the pursuit of the good life, today’s diversity of life styles and values notwithstanding? (2) How can a postmetaphysical philosophy relate to the (...) ethical teachings and truth claims of religious doctrines? (3) Is postmetaphysical philosophy still capable of an “upbuilding and awakening” discourse that can induce and stabilize an ethical self-consciousness? (shrink)

Der Artikel behandelt die Problemstellung inwieweit der Klassik-Begriff als Periodenbegriff sinnvoll ist. Dabei wird herausgearbeitet, dass ein historisch-kritischer Zugang den Begriff als einen Wertungsbegriff aus einer jeweils gegebenen historischen Perspektive zu dechiffrieren vermag.

Methodenstreit in Economics. This essay offers an account of the Methodenstreit in economics between first Menger and Schmoller and later Max Weber and again Schmoller. It is argued that, for Schmoller, two issues were central; to use economics (widely conceived) as an instrument for economic policy and notably social policy: and to base the science empirically with all the modern methods available. In contrast, the Austrian position had a different view of economics as a science, seeing it more as a (...) system of ideas, which implies a radically different use of empirical evidence. (shrink)

Arming uninhabited vehicles (UVs) is an increasing trend. Widespread deployment can bring dangers for arms-control agreements and international humanitarian law (IHL). Armed UVs can destabilise the situation between potential opponents. Smaller systems can be used for terrorism. Using a systematic definition existing international regulation of armed UVs in the fields of arms control, export control and transparency measures is reviewed; these partly include armed UVs, but leave large gaps. For preventive arms control a general prohibition of armed UVs would be (...) best. If that is unattainable, several measures should be taken. An explicit prohibition of autonomous attack, that is without a human decision, should be added to IHL. Concerning armed UVs remotely controlled by a human soldier, recommendations differ according to type or mission. New kinds of uninhabited nuclear-weapon carriers should be banned. Space weapons should be prohibited in general. UVs smaller than 0.2–0.5 m should be banned. Bigger remotely controlled armed UVs not equipped with weapons of mass destruction should be subject to numerical limitations in various categories. For these the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe is an important precedent. (shrink)

In a case study Kuhn's morphology of scientific revolutions is put to the test in confronting it with the contemporary developments in physics. It is shown in detail, that Kuhn's scheme is not compatible with the situation in physics today.

Since the introduction of photography by commercial studio photographers and the colonial state in Kenya, this global medium has been intensely debated and contested among Muslims on the cosmopolitan East African coast. This book does not only explore the making, circulation, and consumption of popular photographs, but also the other side, their rejection and obliteration, an essential aspect of a medium's history that should not be neglected. It deals with various »social spaces of refusal« in the local Muslim milieu and (...) in that of »traditional« spirit mediums in which visibility was contested in various and creative ways. It focuses on the »aesthetics of withdrawal«: the various ways and techniques that process the photographic act as well as the photographic image to theatricalize the surface of the image in new ways by veiling, masking, and concealing. In a fragmented historical perspective, Heike Behrend seeks to complement, decenter, and counter the history of photography as it has been told by the West and to narrate another history beginning with preceding local media such as textiles and spirit possession. (shrink)

The history of science is often understood as a succession of theories. However, this conception of the history of science does not do justice to the complexity of the dynamics implemented in scientific development. To illustrate this, we focus on a type of phenomena that cannot be described as a simple linear succession : the desuetude of certain theories and particularly the temporary desuetude of the theory of neuroplasticity. We argue that studying this theory reveals some of the inadequacies of (...) the linear conception of the history of science. (shrink)