We study the preservation of certain properties under products of classes of finite structures. In particular, we examine indivisibility, definable self-similarity, the amalgamation property, and the disjoint n-amalgamation property. We explore how each of these properties interacts with the lexicographic product, full product, and free superposition of classes of structures. Additionally, we consider the classes of theories which admit configurations indexed by these products. In particular, we show that, under mild assumptions, the products considered in this article do not yield (...) new classes of theories. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the notion of $${\textbf{K}} $$ -rank, where $${\textbf{K}} $$ is a strong amalgamation Fraïssé class. Roughly speaking, the $${\textbf{K}} $$ -rank of a partial type is the number “copies” of $${\textbf{K}} $$ that can be “independently coded” inside of the type. We study $${\textbf{K}} $$ -rank for specific examples of $${\textbf{K}} $$, including linear orders, equivalence relations, and graphs. We discuss the relationship of $${\textbf{K}} $$ -rank to other ranks in model theory, including dp-rank and (...) op-dimension (a notion coined by the first author and C. D. Hill in previous work). (shrink)

The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval ability. The associative account (...) was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between moral intensity and the use of different sensemaking strategies in military critical incidents. First, narratives of military personnel were used to select prototypical high/low moral intensity critical incidents. In a follow-up, a scenario study was conducted with active duty military personnel to examine the relationship between moral intensity and the use of sensemaking tactics. This study offers three main conclusions. First, the use of sensemaking tactics is strongly tied to the level of moral intensity (...) in the situation. In high-intense situations, the servicemen draw on previous experiences, prediction of consequences, and help of others to recognize and interpret the situation. Less attention goes out to higher level critical thinking. Thus, it seems that in these critical incidents, the servicemen react without giving room for thorough consideration and deliberation. Second, the number of deployments a serviceman experienced influences the perceived seriousness and harmfulness of the situation negatively in low-intense situations. Finally, and in line with earlier studies, the results indicate that the concept of moral intensity is formed out of three rather than the six dimensions originally proposed by Jones. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Im Jahr 2003 gingen Jürgen Baur und Ulrike Burrmann der Frage nach, inwieweit sich Sportengagements von Jugendlichen individualisiert haben. Die meisten Annahmen mussten verworfen werden. Vor dem Hintergrund aktueller gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen wird im vorliegenden Beitrag anhand von Zeitreihendaten dieser Frage erneut nachgegangen. Hinterfragt wird aber auch, ob sich der Einfluss vertikaler sozialstruktureller Merkmale auf die Beteiligung am Sport seit den 1970er Jahren abgeschwächt hat und ob dieser Zusammenhang in den letzten Jahren wieder enger geworden ist. Die Befunde werden diskutiert, (...) wobei zum einen auf methodische Probleme der Datenbasis und zum anderen auf Unschärfen der Individualisierungsthese eingegangen wird. (shrink)

We applaud Ray and Cooper (2024) for emphasizing environmental health as a bioethics issue. As a team of interdisciplinary pediatric researchers and providers who are part of an institutional clima...

In this paper, I begin by defending permissivism: the claim that, sometimes, there is more than one way to rationally respond to a given body of evidence. Then I argue that, if we accept permissivism, certain worries that arise as a result of learning that our beliefs were caused by the communities we grew up in, the schools we went to, or other irrelevant influences dissipate. The basic strategy is as follows: First, I try to pinpoint what makes irrelevant influences (...) worrying and I come up with two candidate principles. I then argue that one principle should be rejected because it is inconsistent with permissivism. The principle we should accept implies that it is sometimes rational to maintain our beliefs, even upon learning that they were caused by irrelevant influences. (shrink)

Building from an interactionist view of ethics, this study sought to integrate individual and contextual factors for understanding ethical perceptions in teams. Given the proximal nature of team members, this study specifically explored how individuals comparatively evaluate their own ethical behaviors and team members’ ethical behaviors to arrive at a perception of ethical person–group fit within a team. Grounding our theoretical arguments in relational schemas theory, we demonstrate that interpersonal ethical perceptions can have distal impacts on perceptions of team functioning. (...) The results support the hypotheses that a perceived ethical incongruence between the self and other team members negatively influenced perceptions of relationship conflict and ultimately information sharing. By exploring individual and team level aspects of ethics concurrently, we contribute to a deeper understanding of contextual forces in ethics through an interactionist approach. (shrink)

Human Action: a Comprehensive Proposal for Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Personality The need to categorize the personality is recurrent in philosophical, theological and, especially, psychological studies. However, the lack of dialogue between the different disciplines gives rise to analyzes that seem to divide human reality into 'parts', often incompatible with each other. In view of this problem, this article proposes the integral analysis of human action, seeking a psychological parameterization that is more adjusted to the complexity of the personality. Starting from (...) the integral vision of the action, the human behavioral and mental aspects commonly studied are seen as insufficient and the horizon is broadened with the reference to interiority. It is intended to achieve a more accurate vision of the complexity of human action. Interiority, parameterized as personal identity, relational intention, and existential positioning, calls for a renewed and related understanding of psychology, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

Greaves and Wallace argue that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. In this paper I show that their result only applies to a restricted range of cases. I then show that the update procedure that maximizes expected accuracy in general is one in which, upon learning P, we conditionalize, not on P, but on the proposition that we learned P. After proving this result, I provide further generalizations and show that much of the accuracy-first epistemology program is committed to KK-like iteration principles (...) and to the existence of a class of propositions that rational agents will be certain of if and only if they are true. (shrink)

This paper is about the connection between rationality and accuracy. I show that one natural picture about how rationality and accuracy are connected emerges if we assume that rational agents are rationally omniscient. I then develop an alternative picture that allows us to relax this assumption, in order to accommodate certain views about higher order evidence.

In recent years, permissivism—the claim that a body of evidence can rationalize more than one response—has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. But it is once again being threatened, this time by a host of new and interesting arguments that, at their core, are challenging the permissivist to explain why rationality matters. A version of the challenge that I am especially interested in is this: if permissivism is true, why should we expect the rational credences to be more accurate than the (...) irrational ones? My aim is to turn this challenge on its head and argue that, actually, those who deny permissivism will have a harder time responding to such a challenge than those who accept it. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply the accuracy based approach to epistemology to the case of higher order evidence: evidence that bears on the rationality of one's beliefs. I proceed in two stages. First, I show that the accuracy based framework that is standardly used to motivate rational requirements supports steadfastness—a position according to which higher order evidence should have no impact on one's doxastic attitudes towards first order propositions. The argument for this will require a generalization of (...) an important result by Greaves and Wallace for the claim that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. The generalization I provide will, among other things, allow us to apply the result to cases of self-locating evidence. In the second stage, I develop an alternative framework. Very roughly, what distinguishes the traditional approach from the alternative one is that, on the traditional picture, we're interested in evaluating the expected accuracy of conforming to an update procedure. On the alternative picture that I develop, instead of considering how good an update procedure is as a plan to conform to, we consider how good it is as a plan to make. I show how, given the use of strictly proper scoring rules, the alternative picture vindicates calibrationism: a view according to which higher order evidence should have a significant impact on our beliefs. I conclude with some thoughts about why higher order evidence poses a serious challenge for standard ways of thinking about rationality. (shrink)

The number of children with chronic critical illness (CCI) is a growing population in the United States. A defining characteristic of this population is a prolonged hospital stay. Our study assessed the proportion of pediatric patients with chronic critical illness in U.S. hospitals at a specific point in time, and identified a subset of children whose hospital stay lasted for months to years. The potential harms of a prolonged hospitalization for children with CCI, which include over treatment, infection, disruption of (...) family life, and the intensive utilization of resources—combined with the moral distress experienced by the clinicians who care for the children, suggest the need for ethical analysis of this growing issue to identify actions that could be taken at the clinical and health systems levels to reduce the harms associated with prolonged hospital stay.In this article we present three real cases from our study that involved a very long hospital stay. We applied a framework developed by Mackenzie, Rogers, and Dodds to analyze inherent, situational, and pathogenic vulnerabilities to examine the ways that interventions intended to remedy one source of harm for the children in our cohort inadvertently created other harms. We examined the complex ways that children with protracted hospitalization are vulnerable to the choices made by their family and clinicians, as well as by healthcare systems and communities. Finally, we used this analysis to summarize actions and ethical responses to this growing patient population. Such an understanding is essential to making clinical and ethical decisions that arise for children who are at risk for a very long stay in the hospital. (shrink)

Anxiety patients over-generalize fear, possibly because of an incapacity to discriminate threat and safety signals. Discrimination trainings are promising approaches for reducing such fear over-generalization. Here we investigated the efficacy of a fear-relevant vs. a fear-irrelevant discrimination training on fear generalization and whether the effects are increased with feedback during training. Eighty participants underwent two fear acquisition blocks, during which one face, but not another face, was associated with a female scream. During two generalization blocks, both CSs plus four morphs (...) were presented. Between these generalization blocks, half of the participants underwent a fear-relevant discrimination training with or without feedback and the other half a fear-irrelevant discrimination training with or without feedback. US expectancy, arousal, valence ratings, and skin conductance responses indicated successful fear acquisition. Importantly, fear-relevant vs. fear-irrelevant discrimination trainings and feedback vs. no feedback reduced generalization as reflected in US expectancy ratings independently from one another. No effects of training condition were found for arousal and valence ratings or SCR. In summary, this is a first indication that fear-relevant discrimination training and feedback can improve the discrimination between threat and safety signals in healthy individuals, at least for learning-related evaluations, but not evaluations of valence or arousal. (shrink)

This title opens the debate about what an ethics for the 21st century would look like and the role of corporations and how to work to ensure they produce results which benefit society as a whole.

Parents, peers, and teachers provide a powerful context for school students’ well-being. However, a detailed and systematic analysis of how parental, peer, and teacher support relate to students’ well-being, measured by the dimensions self-worth, psychological and physical well-being, is still missing. To address this research gap, the following study investigates 733 adolescent German students from grades 7 and 8 with respect to their perceived supportive relationships at home and within the school context. The study considers gender, socioeconomic status, and school (...) form as potential confounders. The results of the structural equation model, analyzed with the statistical software R, indicate that perceived teacher support was positively related to students’ self-worth and physical well-being, while peer support was related to psychological well-being. Students who perceived their parents as supportive reported higher well-being with respect to all three dimensions investigated. (shrink)

Bilder in Kunst und Wissenschaft sind Orte des Denkens und Forschens.

The paper aims to make a contribution to semiotic research on the future by bringing together various approaches that deal with the relationship humans have with the future. More specifically, the paper concentrates on anticipation viewed as an activity that is based on modelling the (un)desired future as suggested by Nikolai Bernstein. The model-based approach to anticipation allows drawing connections between the psychophysiological and semiotically mediated forms of anticipation on the one hand, and between individual and collective forms of anticipation (...) on the other hand. With these aims in mind, the paper offers a sketch of a semiotic approach to the future that is based on the framework of semiotic modelling systems, i.e. views the future in terms of models of it and the semiotic resources and processes involved in the model-building. As the semiotically mediated models of the future circulating in a culture can become collectively shared means of cognizing and anticipating some futures, it is possible to talk about a collective anticipation, analogous to Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotic notion of collective memory. Accordingly, premediation, a future-oriented media practice outlined by Richard Grusin, is viewed as an example of collective anticipation. In addition to tracing the mechanisms of anticipation from its individual organismic to semiotically mediated collective forms, the paper foregrounds also the two fundamental problems that run across the diverse theoretical perspectives brought together within the approach: the individual and collective agency in future-making and the affective dimension of anticipation. (shrink)

It has been claimed that, in response to certain kinds of evidence, agents ought to adopt imprecise credences: doxastic states that are represented by sets of credence functions rather than single ones. In this paper I argue that, given some plausible constraints on accuracy measures, accuracy-centered epistemologists must reject the requirement to adopt imprecise credences. I then show that even the claim that imprecise credences are permitted is problematic for accuracy-centered epistemology. It follows that if imprecise credal states are permitted (...) or required in the cases that their defenders appeal to, then the requirements of rationality can outstrip what would be warranted by an interest in accuracy. (shrink)

Although recent years have seen an increase in professional learning communities, use of video and lesson study groups, most teachers still work and learn in isolation. What they know is personal and remains private; little opportunity exists for most teachers to develop shared knowledge or language. The scale of the teaching force, and the rapid turnover of new teachers, makes this lack of shared knowledge an acute problem. This paper explores the potential of records of practice for developing collective professional (...) knowledge about teaching and learning. We define and illustrate what we mean by records of practice and elaborate the meaning of the term collective professional knowledge. Three concrete examples of records of practice, originating in different contexts and times, are presented and their special features are analyzed and discussed. The paper clarifies that records are not in themselves professional knowledge, but constitute a valuable and unique resource for the study of practice and the generation of knowledge originating in and useful for practice. To illustrate varied approaches for studying practice, possible uses of records of practice for the generation of collective professional knowledge are described and analyzed. The paper concludes with questions about records of practice and their uses. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to argue that, if a robust form of moral realism is true, then moral vagueness is ontic vagueness. The argument is by elimination: I show that neither semantic nor epistemic approaches to moral vagueness are satisfactory.

How is medical knowledge made? There have been radical changes in recent decades, through new methods such as consensus conferences, evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, and narrative medicine. Miriam Solomon explores their origins, aims, and epistemic strengths and weaknesses; and she offers a pluralistic approach for the future.

For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the (...) traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations. (shrink)

A defense of imprecise credences (and other imprecise doxastic attitudes).

Abstract: This paper defends a constraint that any satisfactory decision theory must satisfy. I show how this constraint is violated by all of the decision theories that have been endorsed in the literature that are designed to deal with cases in which opinions or values are represented by a set of functions rather than a single one. Such a decision theory is necessary to account for the existence of what Ruth Chang has called “parity” (as well as for cases in (...) which agents have incomplete preferences or imprecise credences). The problem with the all of the decision theories that have been defended to account for parity is that they are committed to a claim I call unanimity: when all of the functions in the set agree that an agent ought to do A, then an agent ought to do A. A decision theory committed to unanimity violates the constraint I defend in this paper. Thus, if parity exists, a new approach to decision theory is necessary. (shrink)

The Queen's College, Oxford, UK In his article `Facts and Principles', G.A. Cohen attempts to refute constructivist approaches to justification by showing that, contrary to what their proponents claim, fundamental normative principles are fact- in sensitive. We argue that Cohen's `fact-insensitivity thesis' does not provide a successful refutation of constructivism because it pertains to an area of meta-ethics which differs from the one tackled by constructivists. While Cohen's thesis concerns the logical structure of normative principles, constructivists ask how normative principles (...) should be justified . In particular, their claim that justified fundamental normative principles are fact-sensitive follows from a commitment to agnosticism about the existence of objective moral facts. We therefore conclude that, in order to refute constructivism, Cohen would have to address questions of justification, and take a stand on those long-standing meta-ethical debates about the ontological status of moral notions (for example, realism versus anti-realism) with respect to which he himself wants to remain agnostic. Key Words: John Rawls • normative justification • realism versus anti-realism • methodological versus substantive principles. (shrink)

The ArgumentMicroscopical consideration played a crucial role in German physiology in the period of, grosso modo, 1780–1830. Specifically, a conception of material change was established, according to which all life is grounded in the process of the generation of microscopical forms out of an amorphous, primitive generative substance. Embryological development, tissue growth, and the generation of microorganisms were all considered to be the manifestation of this fundamental developmental process. In contrast to the common historiography, I try to understand Theodor Schwann's (...) 1838 discovery of the cell theory in terms of the epistemological categories he applied to the prevailing conceptions of life and living matter. I argue that Schwann was able to discern cells not because of any superior microscopical methods, but rather as part of his wider investigative endeavor to explicate life processes according to specific causal agents. I argue that Schwann was able to demonstrate the existence of cells only when he considered animal tissues in terms of a causal relation between specific material agents and their effect, that is, the developmental history of tissue. (shrink)

Traditionally, autoimmune disease has been considered to be a case of false recognition; the immune system mistakenly identifies 'self' tissues as foreign, attacking them thus causing damage and malady. Accordingly, the history of autoimmunity is usually told as part ot the history of immunology, that is, of theories and experiments relating to the ability of the immune system to discriminate between self and nonself. This paper challenges this view, claiming that the emergence of the notion of autoimmunity in the 1950s (...) must be considered as part of a long develolpment in thought about pathology throughout the twentieth century, namely the conceptualisaiton of disease as a reactive and self-destructive process. During the first part of the twentieth century this notion became one of the cornerstones of pathology and was increasingly employed for the explanation of the non-infections, slow-burning diseases. Thus, the category of chronic disease had been defined anew, now encompassing all those diseases characterised by a persistent inflammatory process. Inflammation, in turn, was conceived as double-eged physiological mechanism, which was usually the direct mediator of damage, of the essence of disease. The paper also shows how this kind of analysis could emable a unified historical discussion of autoimmunity and allergy, hitherto considered to have distinct conceptual origins. (shrink)

_The_ _Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine _is a comprehensive guide to topics in the fields of epistemology and metaphysics of medicine. It examines traditional topics such as the concept of disease, causality in medicine, the epistemology of the randomized controlled trial, the biopsychosocial model, explanation, clinical judgment and phenomenology of medicine and emerging topics, such as philosophy of epidemiology, measuring harms, the concept of disability, nursing perspectives, race and gender, the metaphysics of Chinese medicine, and narrative medicine. Each of (...) the 48 chapters is written especially for this volume and with a student audience in mind. For pedagogy and clarity, each chapter contains an extended example illustrating the ideas discussed. This text is intended for use as a reference for students in courses in philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science, and pairs well with _The_ _Routledge Companion to Bioethics_ for use in medical humanities and social science courses. (shrink)

Trust in the practice of rational deliberation is widespread and largely unquestioned. This paper uses recent work from business contexts to challenge the view that rational deliberation in a group improves decisions. Pressure to reach consensus can, in fact, lead to phenomena such as groupthink and to suppression of relevant data. Aggregation of individual decisions, rather than deliberation to a consensus, surprisingly, can produce better decisions than those of either group deliberation or individual expert judgment. I argue that dissent is (...) epistemically valuable, not because of the discussion it can provoke (Mill's and Longino's view about the benefit of dissent), but because dissenting positions often are associated with particular data or insights that would be lost in consensus formation. Social epistemologists can usefully pay attention to various methods of aggregation of individual opinion for their effectiveness at realizing epistemic goals. (shrink)

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) developed from the work of clinical epidemiologists at McMaster University and Oxford University in the 1970s and 1980s and self-consciously presented itself as a "new paradigm" called "evidence-based medicine" in the early 1990s. The techniques of the randomized controlled trial, systematic review and meta-analysis have produced an extensive and powerful body of research. They have also generated a critical literature that raises general concerns about its methods. This paper is a systematic review of the critical literature. It (...) finds the description of EBM as a Kuhnian paradigm helpful and worth taking further. Three kinds of criticism are evaluated in detail: criticisms of procedural aspects of EBM (especially from Cartwright, Worrall and Howick), data showing the greater than expected fallibility of EBM (Ioaanidis and others), and concerns that EBM is incomplete as a philosophy of science (Ashcroft and others). The paper recommends a more instrumental or pragmatic approach to EBM, in which any ranking of evidence is done by reference to the actual, rather than the theoretically expected, reliability of results. Emphasis on EBM has eclipsed other necessary research methods in medicine. With the recent emphasis on translational medicine, we are seeing a restoration of the recognition that clinical research requires an engagement with basic theory (e.g. physiological, genetic, biochemical) and a range of empirical techniques such as bedside observation, laboratory and animal studies. EBM works best when used in this context. (shrink)

The question of whether it is ever permissible to believe on insufficient evidence has once again become a live question. Greater attention is now being paid to practical dimensions of belief, namely issues related to epistemic virtue, doxastic responsibility, and voluntarism. In this book, McCormick argues that the standards used to evaluate beliefs are not isolated from other evaluative domains. The ultimate criteria for assessing beliefs are the same as those for assessing action because beliefs and actions are both products (...) of agency. Two important implications of this thesis, both of which deviate from the dominant view in contemporary philosophy, are 1) it can be permissible to believe for non-evidential reasons, and 2) we have a robust control over many of our beliefs, a control sufficient to ground attributions of responsibility for belief. (shrink)

Internalists face the following challenge: what is it about an agent's internal states that explains why only these states can play whatever role the internalist thinks these states are playing? Internalists have frequently appealed to a special kind of epistemic access that we have to these states. But such claims have been challenged on both empirical and philosophical grounds. I will argue that internalists needn't appeal to any kind of privileged access claims. Rather, internalist conditions are important because of the (...) way in which we expect them to act as causal mediators between states of the world, on the one hand, and our beliefs and actions on the other. (shrink)

Im Angesicht der Klimakatastrophe häufen sich die Versuche, Autor*innen der frühen Kritischen Theorie in Debatten um das sogenannte Anthropozän einzubringen. Häufig wird eine produktive Auseinandersetzung mit anderen Theorietraditionen allerdings kategorisch verweigert. In diesem Beitrag wird Theodor W. Adornos Naturbegriff in ein Gespräch mit den Arbeiten der Wissenschaftstheoretikerin Donna J. Haraway gebracht. Er zeigt, dass die gemeinsame Diskussion einen wertvollen Beitrag zu einer Kritik an gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnissen leisten kann. Dafür werden zunächst Punkte der Überschneidung in den jeweiligen Naturbegriffen herausgearbeitet. Anschließend wird (...) die Differenz in der Frage danach, wie sich innerhalb der Logik der Naturbeherrschung dem Besonderen oder Nichtidentischen überhaupt genähert werden kann, ausgehend von dem Verhältnis von Kritik und Spekulation in beiden Ansätzen diskutiert. Es wird argumentiert, dass Adorno auch die spekulativen Momente unter die Identitätslogik der Naturbeherrschung subsumiert, während Haraway einige dieser Fallstricke vermeiden kann. Allerdings drohen ihre Spekulationen den Kontakt zum Gegenstand der Kritik zu verlieren. Zwischen den diskutierten Ansätzen lässt sich ein Verhältnis von Spekulation und Kritik anvisieren, das die Ausarbeitung eines Naturbegriffs ermöglichen kann, der auf ein herrschaftsfreies Zusammenleben aller abzielt. (shrink)

Epistemic diversity is widely approved of by social epistemologists. This paper asks, more specifi cally, how much epistemic diversity, and what kinds of epistemic diversity are normatively appropriate? Both laissez-faire and highly directive approaches to epistemic diversity are rejected in favor of the claim that diversity is a blunt epistemic tool. There are typically a number of diff erent options for adequate diversifi cation. The paper focuses on scientifi c domains, with particular attention to recent theories of smell.

Social liberals and liberal nationalists often argue that cosmopolitans neglect the normative importance of state sovereignty and self-determination. This paper counter-argues that, under current global political and socio-economic circumstances, only the establishment of supranational institutions with some (limited, but significant) sovereign powers can allow states to exercise sovereignty, and peoples? self-determination, in a meaningful way. Social liberals have largely neglected this point because they have focused on an unduly narrow, mainly negative, conception of state sovereignty. I contend, instead, that we (...) should more closely consider the positive aspects of sovereignty, understood as the capacity to maintain internal problem-solving capacities and make meaningful discretionary choices on a range of national issues. (shrink)

In Why Not Socialism?, GA Cohen defines socialism as the combined application of two moral principles: the egalitarian principle and the principle of community. The desirability of a social order organized around these two principles is illustrated by the ‘camping trip’ example. After describing the fundamental features of the camping trip scenario at reasonable length, Cohen argues that the desirability of such a social model is nearly self-explanatory, concluding therefore that the most significant challenges to socialism lie in its feasibility. (...) This article argues that the desirability of the camping trip model as an appropriate ideal for society is less obvious than Cohen acknowledges. To argue my point, I shall compare the camping trip with another social practice that is equally small sized and characterized by strong emotional ties among its members, but in which the conditions of what I shall call ‘goal-monism’ and discontinuity in time do not hold, namely, the family. (shrink)

In his multi-faceted attack on Rawls’s account of justice, G.A. Cohen has argued that the notion of basic structure is necessarily insensitive to the importance of informal social norms to social justice. The paper argues that the most plausible account of the basic structure is not blind to informal social norms in any meaningful sense. Whereas informal, non-legally coercive institutions are not part of the basic structure as such, their careful consideration is necessary for the assessment of whether the basic (...) structure itself is indeed just. This claim is based on an account of what it means for normative principle to apply to institutions, which I expound in detail throughout the paper. Principles apply to institutions, I argue, not in that they restrain their conduct, but in that they indicate which social conditions they should bring about. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Noble Impermanence of WaystationsMiriam Rowntree (bio)In the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (ABIA), adjacent to Gate 14, a screen announces that boarding to Equestria is on time. The description below this announcement includes transport “through a portal to a parallel dimension” and a “harmonious sparkly” atmosphere. An attractive destination. Esquestria’s capital, Canterlot, offers castles, dragons, and, of course, ponies. As the heart of the My Little Pony universe, Canterlot boasts (...) a fantastical utopia. Gate ∞, as it is called (because its erstwhile home, Gate 13, is an unlucky number), imaginatively whisks weary travelers away to other fantastical destinations. Using a commonplace ticket machine or kiosk, travelers answer a series of whimsical questions and receive a ticket to a utopian destination that the machine has personally matched to the traveler for their mythical utopia. Doesn’t everyone want to go to lands of unicorns, ponies, or other such magic?The installation titled “Interimaginary Departures” draws upon 120 destinations drawn from various media, literature, and games, including Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Wizard of Oz.1 Even the carpet is inspired by the rabbits of Watership Down. Artist Janet Zweig describes her art [End Page 570] installation as designed to “create generative situations in public settings” and Gate ∞ does invite possibility as it is situated in a portal askew to the portals of the real in the terminal. Gate ∞ boldly crosses a border wall at 7 degrees (fig. 1, p. 572), heightening the boundaries between the real and the unreal. The chairs, a trashcan, and a book are caught between worlds, a wall slicing through them. Although Zweig cites China Mieville’s The City and the City (2009) as inspiration for her art installation, for me, the juxtaposition of the “interimaginary” and the real calls to mind Olga Tokarczuk’s book Flights (2007).2 While Zweig’s kiosk personally recommends Equestria (fig. 2, p. 573), ABIA is itself merely a waystation on my own trip between Texas and Rome.Tom McAllister’s review of Flights in the Washington Post describes the book as “beautifully fragmented,” not unlike Zweig’s “Interimaginary Departures” which relies on structural fragmentation of a space to exemplify the interposition of the imaginary and the real.3 This book captivated me from the first strange narrative when I tried to read it several years ago. However, I found it difficult to finish the first time as the stories in each section (there are no chapters) moved rapidly from one place, person, idea, and time to the next. McAllister says that “the disconnectedness is part of the point; they are fragments of people’s lives, a patchwork of personal experience, secondhand observation and imagination. Each story appears, draws our attention and then fades as the narrator finds her way to a new hotel, a new airport.” Perhaps the disconnectedness is the point, but I have found that Tokarczuk also infuses the sections with a sense that “there exists in the world’s coordinate system a perfect point where time and space reach an agreement” (4). Like Zweig’s “Interimaginary Departures,” that agreement is found in movement and the waystations toward that right time and place.Destination: RomeI settle into my seat next to my two daughters. Our flight will land in Rome at 8:00 am tomorrow. I have prepared them for what this means for our bodies. Jet lag is no joke. We shuffle our things around, air pods in the seat pocket in front of us, our bags tucked into the overhead bins. I take out my book and open it to the first page as my girls turn on the tv screens nestled in the seat in front of them. “Here I am” it says in bold letters at the top of the first page of Tokarczuk’s book. The narrator announces their presence (here) with the imperative of existence (I am). I take out my pen as is my habit, but it falls to the side as I read the first [End Page 571] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.A view from the Interimaginary Departures exhibit at Gate 13, or Gate Infinity, in Austin-Bergstrom International... (shrink)