This collection of essays explore the long-standing,intricate relationship between law and faith. Faith in this context is to be read in the broadest sense, as extending beyond religion to embrace the knowledge, beliefs, understandings and practices which are at work alongside the familiar and seemingly more reliable, trusted and relatively certain content and conventionally accepted methods of law and legal reasoning. The essays deal with three broad themes. The first concerns the extent to which faith should be involved in legal (...) decision making. Ought decisions to aspire simply to right reason or ought faith-based models of decision-making to be incorporated into the legal system? If the latter, how is this best done? Ought faith to operate simply as a reason itself or ought it to help to structure the method by which legal decisions are reached? The second, and perhaps most familiar theme, stemming in part from rights discourse, is the extent to which law does, and ought to, respect the rights of those whose religious beliefs conflict with the dominant social norms and practices. Liberal democratic constitutions typically provide protection for religion and religious beliefs. Are these justified, and if so how? Can such protection as exists suffice from the perspective of the faithful, or does law's otherwise pervasive agnosticism make this impossible or illusory? Thirdly, questions of identity and difference arise. Assuming that most societies remain a mix of many faiths (religious and secular) and no faith, how should law and legal theory understand the varying and, it must be said, conflicting claims for recognition. Should we encourage conformity in the hope of reducing friction, or should we preserve and promote difference, seeking to understand others, whether groups or individuals, without removing that which makes them distinct? More radically and controversially, should we be more sceptical of individual and group claims to authenticity and see them rather as strategies in an ongoing power game? Faith after all, like reason and law, has never been far from politics and intrigue, especially in its institutional representation. Contributors: Zenon Bankowski, Anthony Bradney, Claire Davis, John Gardner, Adam Gearey, Tim Macklem, Maleiha Malik, Victor Tadros. (shrink)

Meister Eckhart might have liked it. Indeed, many-one thinking is the idea that there is the one ultimate origin, coherence, spirit of it all... but not without a multitude and diversity emerging within, which is the evolving universe with planets like Earth, with its biosphere and humankind, with you and me living in it. The Many-One is thought of as the whole of the cosmos complementing and entangled with all its parts, as beings inside Being and Being inside beings, as (...) the Creator and “his” co-creating creatures. The both-one-and-many idea takes a strong stance against any ultimate either-or-reduction, against isms of all sorts. Being unity and plurality and duality all at once, the Many-One is neither monistic nor pluralistic nor dualistic in any way. Inside this broad frame, it is open for many specific approaches, not least those represented in this volume, which are cosmic holism, cultural-spiritual-evolution thought, Higher-We, integral thinking, the Metaphysics of Adjacency, panentheism, process theology, and transpersonal-participatory thinking. However, the many-one idea also chimes in with approaches not sampled here, like Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism, Edgar Morin's Complex Thought, or metamodernism. (shrink)

On the face of things, the concept of 'profession' does not appear philosophically problematic: just survey the dozen or so occupations everyone calls professions and list their common attributes. Typically, it is said that law, medicine, teaching and other..

In this interview, professor Davis discusses the evolution of his career and research interests as a philosopher-economist and gives his perspective on a number of important issues in the field. He argues that historians and methodologists of economics should be engaged in the practice of economics, and that historians should be more open to philosophical analysis of the content of economic ideas. He suggests that the history of recent economics is a particularly fruitful and important area for research exactly (...) because it is an open-ended story that is very relevant to understanding the underlying concerns and concepts of contemporary economics. He discusses his engagement with heterodox economics schools, and their engagement with a rapidly changing mainstream economics. He argues that the theory of the individual is “the central philosophical issue in economics” and discusses his extensive contributions to the issue. (shrink)

pt. I. The world of reality.--pt. II. The world of make-believe.

Judith Thomson argues that a fetus may have a right to life yet lack the right to use its mother's body to stay alive. According to Kenneth Einar Himma, Thomson's argument applies only to cases where the parties meet two conditions. First, they must and, second, they must be Himma devises a case involving conjoined twins to show why the mother–fetus case does not meet these conditions.

Among industrialized nations the United States is relatively unique in relying on a mix of public and private financing and delivery of healthcare: federal and federal-state programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid; employment-based health insurance ; and state-subsidized insurance pools for high-risk individuals. In recent years, however, there have been efforts to apply the principles of private employment-based health insurance to the other forms of healthcare, and there is speculation that rising healthcare costs can only be addressed by further extending (...) capitated payment plans. This suggests that U.S. healthcare may increasingly be organized according to market principles. For some, this represents a historic departure from an emphasis on public responsibility for healthcare and a sacrifice of the value principles embodied in health relationships between patient and provider. But defenders of HMOs and a larger role for markets argue that managed care allows for a more rational allocation of scarce healthcare resources by minimizing inefficient low-benefit–high-cost care. More individuals receive essential care if inessential care is eliminated. HMOs are also said to encourage non-HMOs to provide lower priced healthcare. (shrink)

The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. The nine original (...) essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley Anne Williams, Ann Petry, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison. The authors discussed in this volume depict music as a mystical, shamanistic, and spiritual power that can miraculously transform the realities of the soul and of the world. Here, the musician uses his or her music as a weapon to shield and protect his or her spirituality. Written by scholars of English, music, women's studies, American studies, cultural theory, and black and Africana studies, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection ultimately explore the thematic, linguistic structural presence of music in twentieth-century African American fiction. (shrink)

Marshall's asset equilibrium model provides a way of explaining the identity of entrepreneurs. Keynes adopted this model but transformed it when he emphasized the short-period and volatile character of long-term expectations. This entails a view of entrepreneur identity in which radical uncertainty plays a central role. This in turn deepens the post Keynesian view of uncertainty as ontological in that entrepreneurs' survival plays into their behavior. This paper explores this role-based view of individual identity and uses the analysis to comment (...) on Keynes’s ideas for the socialization of investment and euthanasia of the rentier in the last chapter of The general theory. (shrink)

As part of an article symposium on Partha Dasgupta and Sanjeev Goyal’s “Narrow Identities”, John B. Davis reflects on the variety of social identities and the implications this variety has for social identity analysis.

The concept of the individual and his/her motivations is a bedrock of philosophy. All strands of thought at heart contain to a particular theory of the individual. Economics, though, is guilty of taking this hugely important concept without questioning how we theorize it. This superb book remedies this oversight. The new approach put forward by Davies is to pay more attention to what moral philosophy may offer us in the study of personal identity, self consciousness and will. This crosses the (...) traditional boundaries of economics and will shed new light on the distinction between positive and normative analysis in economics. With both heterodox and orthodox economics receiving a thorough analysis from Davies, this book is at once inclusive and revealing. (shrink)

Professor Davis's lecture is a contribution to the discussion of relations between social anthropology and history and archaeology. It is concerned with the ethnographic evidence about different concepts of time, and suggests that (together with other things) they affect the way people understand the past. Professor Davis argues that concepts of identity (which depend essentially on continuity) are highly variable.

Life-extension was the focus for the 10th annual Congress of the International Association of Biomedical Gerontology, held last September at Cambridge University. This scientific convention included a panel of several bioethicists, including Art Caplan, John Harris, and others. The presentations on the ethics of life-extension are reviewed here.

Frank Walbank, a scholar of ancient Greek history best known for his commentary on Polybios, held the Chair of Latin at Liverpool University and was active in university administration. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1953. Obituary by John Davies FBA.

An examination of the ethical issues raised by the possibility of human life extension, including its desirability, unequal access, and the threat of overpopulation. -/- Life extension—slowing or halting human aging—is now being taken seriously by many scientists. Although no techniques to slow human aging yet exist, researchers have successfully slowed aging in yeast, mice, and fruit flies, and have determined that humans share aging-related genes with these species. In New Methuselahs, John Davis offers a philosophical discussion of the (...) ethical issues raised by the possibility of human life extension. Why consider these issues now, before human life extension is a reality? Davis points out that, even today, we are making policy and funding decisions about human life extension research that have ethical implications. With New Methuselahs, he provides a comprehensive guide to these issues, offering policy recommendations and a qualified defense of life extension. -/- After an overview of the ethics and science of life extension, Davis considers such issues as the desirability of extended life; whether refusing extended life is a form of suicide; the Malthusian threat of overpopulation; equal access to life extension; and life extension and the right against harm. In the end, Davis sides neither with those who argue that there are no moral objections to life enhancement nor with those who argue that the moral objections are so strong that we should never develop it. Davis argues that life extension is, on balance, a good thing and that we should fund life extension research aggressively, and he proposes a feasible and just policy for preventing an overpopulation crisis. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance and psycho-physiological measures . This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task . The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the (...) task and a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed. (shrink)

Discussions of life extension ethics have focused mainly on whether an extended life would be desirable to have, and on the social consequences of widely available life extension. I want to explore a different range of issues: four ways in which the advent of life extension will change our relationship with death, not only for those who live extended lives, but also for those who cannot or choose not to. Although I believe that, on balance, the reasons in favor of (...) developing life extension outweigh the reasons against doing so, most of these changes probably count as reasons against doing so. First, the advent of life extension will alter the human condition for those who live extended lives, and not merely by postponing death. Second, it will make death worse for those who lack access to life extension, even if those people live just as long as they do now. Third, for those who have access to life extension but prefer to live a normal lifespan because they think that has advantages, the advent of life extension will somewhat reduce some of those advantages, even if they never use life extension. Fourth, refusing life extension turns out to be a form of suicide, and this will force those who have access to life extension but turn it down to choose between an extended life they don't want and a form of suicide they may consider immoral. (shrink)

(2013). Introduction: Methodology, systemic risk, and the economics profession. Journal of Economic Methodology: Vol. 20, Methodology, Systemic Risk, and the Economics Profession, pp. 1-5. doi: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.774842.

A question that recent research on the global pandemic raises is: how do the assumptions underlying epidemiological models and economic models differ? Epidemiological models we now know have become quite sophisticated (see Avery et al., 2020). Debate among economic methodologists regarding the nature of modeling has generated a considerable literature as well (Reiss, 2012; Hands, 2013). Yet these two literatures are largely non-communicating. Perhaps this is because economics has produced relatively little research on pandemics (though see Boianovsky and Erreygers, 2021). (...) Yet it might still be asked, what might economic models be missing that epidemiological models capture? And might there be some sort of methodological bias in mainstream economics that plays a role in this? One way, then, one might begin to answer these questions is by identifying the main phenomenon in question, namely, in the case of the pandemic, a particular type of process, and ask what the nature of this type of process is. Then we may ask whether there is something about this type of phenomenon that places it out of bounds for current economic methodology. Thus, what sort of phenomenon is a pandemic? (shrink)

A “post-work world” can mean a couple of things. First, it can mean a world where we attach less importance to work, restructure work so that tasks and authority are distributed more equitably, and otherwise decenter and reform the world of work. Second, it can mean a world where people are no longer working because robots, artificial intelligence, and other forms of automation have replaced humans and there are no longer enough jobs for everyone. This paper is about the second (...) kind of world, and how to support the workers it leaves behind. -/- Automation has always eliminated jobs, but in the past new jobs have appeared to replace them. This may be changing. Thanks to recent advances in automation, machines and software can now do an increasingly large percentage of the tasks that humans do. “Technological unemployment” is what happens when automation can do so many different tasks that new jobs do not appear in sufficient numbers to employ everyone (Keynes 1932). In short, automation may soon leave a very large part of the potential workforce permanently unemployed, leading to a social, political, economic, and humanitarian crisis. For ease of reference, I refer to the technologically unemployed as being displaced from the economy. -/- The displaced need incomes. One obvious source of funds is the money saved through technological unemployment. On the scale of an entire economy, technological unemployment increases the labor savings from automation, for in addition to the usual labor savings from automation, there is less of a need to pay new workers, for there are fewer new jobs. I call this money the displacement gain. This is money that becomes available precisely because technological unemployment has occurred. It is important to understand that the displacement gain is not the same thing as the profit that results from gains in productivity. Automation does not necessarily produce displacement but it does produce gains in productivity, and the profits from gains in productivity occur even when no one is displaced. A productivity gain does not become a displacement gain until technological unemployment occurs. -/- The core of this paper is a set of arguments that the displacement gain is not the private property of businesses or those who have ownership interests in businesses (I refer to both groups as “capitalists”), nor is it the private property of those lucky enough to still have jobs. For these and additional reasons, the displacement gain is collective property in which every person has an equal interest. Moreover, it is a kind of collective property that has been largely overlooked. (Better-known forms of collective property include the natural world and “social capital.” ) As far back as Thomas Paine (1796), many thinkers have argued that, because we all have equal interests in collective property, it should be distributed to everyone, working or not, rich or poor, as equal and unconditional basic incomes. The displacement gain is a new kind of collective property which can fund basic incomes, and those incomes can support the displaced. That’s how to pay for a post-work world. -/- However, I will argue, in order to distribute those funds equally we must pay unequal basic incomes, for those who are technologically unemployed bear a larger share of the burden involved in creating that collective property, and therefore deserve larger basic incomes to offset their larger burdens. My discussion of this leads to a possible solution to a problem that bedevils basic income proposals: how to prevent businesses from, in effect, appropriating basic incomes from their employees by simply paying them less, using basic incomes as a payroll subsidy . (shrink)