We propose and test a model of loyalty in games. Players can mutually maintain loyalty by working towards a common goal that is pareto-superior to any Nash equilibrium without it. Loyalty imposes a psychological cost on defecting in an ongoing cooperation, which is thus sustained. We distinguish loyalty from reciprocity and explain how it complements guilt aversion with two dynamic games from a field experiment conducted in a Pakistani factory. The evidence supports the validity of loyalty, which has a stronger (...) effect within than between groups. (shrink)

This paper investigates Western professional bankers’ perceptions of Islamic finance. Exploiting data from an original survey, we carry out a principal component analysis to characterize the main dimensions on which financial agents diverge. The PCA extracts five dimensions—accounting for 61 % of the variance in the agents’ answers—that we interpret with the help of a pilot field survey. In addition to confirm the increased association of Islamic financial values with ethical practices in the West, our results allow us to understand (...) how the observed growth of the industry has been conceptualized by conventional agents. The five dimensions identified shed light on the multitude of constructs that have informed the diffusion of Islamic financial ideas to international markets. This supports the fact that Islamic finance cannot be seen as a single movement but is characterized by opposing and concurrent logics in global markets. (shrink)

Interview with Renaud Barbaras, conducted on May 18, 2011.

In this article, I seek to make sense of the oft-invoked idea of 'public emergency' and of some of its (supposedly) radical moral implications. I challenge controversial claims by Tom Sorell, Michael Walzer, and Giorgio Agamben, and argue for a more discriminating understanding of the category and its moral force.

La philosophie de Souriau a pour objet ce qu’il appelle les existences virtuelles, un mode d’existence fragile et précaire qui concerne tout processus d’instauration. Ces virtualités sont en état d’abaliété, elles existent « en et par autre chose », de manière relationnelle et indéterminée. Ces particularités ontologiques posent un problème de connaissance : celui de connaître de telles singularités, aussi appelées « âmes ». De nouveaux outils, issus de l’esthétique, accompagnent la connaissance. La fiction et la dramatisation viennent jouer un (...) rôle épistémique. Les êtres de fiction, qui existent selon un mode spécifique d’existence, font naître un sentiment esthétique, qui devient la base créatrice de la philosophie et de la connaissance. (shrink)

The Being of the Phenomenon opens European post-structuralism to further study and is certain to inspire new thinking about the origins of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.

What are emergencies and why do they matter? In this chapter (in its penultimate version), I seek to outline the morally significant features of the concept of emergency, and demonstrate how these features generate corresponding first- and second-order challenges and responsibilities for those in a position to do something about them. In section A, I contend that emergencies are situations in which there is a risk of serious harm and a need to react urgently if that harm is to be (...) averted or minimized. These conceptual features matter morally, since it is precisely to them that those who invoke emergencies to justify otherwise impermissible actions tend to appeal. The basic first-order challenge facing emergency responders is two-fold. It is, first, to identify how these features shape circumstances of action in ways that affect (or do not affect) which reasons for action and which corresponding courses of conduct are justifiably available to them. In situations when emergency responders are compelled to make authoritative determinations due to significant contestability and indeterminacies in the contours or materialization of the said features, their challenge is then also to make these determinations legitimately. In section B, I argue that second-order challenges having to do with the foreseeability of emergencies, the value(s) of exposure to them, and their preventability further compound the predicament of emergency responders. I conclude, in section C, by saying a few words about one last morally salient feature shared by many, though not all, emergencies considered in the chapter — namely, their public dimension. (shrink)

This is a review essay of Gardner, John. 2007, Offences and Defences: Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Criminal Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 288 pp.

In this article, I seek to make sense of the oft-invoked idea of ‘public emergency’ and of some of its radical moral implications. I challenge controversial claims by Tom Sorell, Michael Walzer, and Giorgio Agamben, and argue for a more discriminating understanding of the category and its moral force.

La notion d'espace sonore est devenue de plus en plus prégnante dans le domaine musical, plus particulièrement dans la musique électroacoustique. Mais comment la définir? Cette simple interrogation, dont la réponse semble évidente soulève cependant, lorsqu'elle est approfondie, une multitude d'ambiguïtés, sources de nouvelles réflexions. Comment l'écoute appréhende-t-elle l'espace? Comment s'immerge-t- elle en lui? Qu'appréhende-t-on lorsqu'on écoute? Et finalement, qu'est-ce qu'un son? Quelles en sont les limites spatiales et temporelles? Lorsque l'écoute se confronte à l'espace sonore, où se situe la (...) frontière entre perception et imagination? Tout au long du présent ouvrage, l'auteur essaie de mettre en évidence l'empreinte effective de l'écoute dans la structuration de l'espace. Il tente de montrer, en s'appuyant sur les théories esthétiques, pourquoi l'espace n'est pas pris en compte par les pensées sur la musique avant le XXe siècle. A partir de cette observation et des dernières recherches phénoménologiques de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, il met en lumière le rôle essentiel du corps de l'auditeur dans notre perception de l'espace. Ensuite, il témoigne de la façon dont les compositeurs, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle et jusqu'à aujourd'hui, n'ont cessé de développer une implication active de l'écoute, ce qui a progressivement favorisé l'émergence d'un espace musical dynamique et mouvant. Puis, au terme de sa réflexion, à l'aide des travaux sur l'énaction du neurobiologiste Francisco J. Varela, Renaud Meric s'emploie à reconstruire le lien esthétique étroit entre l'espace, l'écoute et l'imagination, lien encore peu examiné, pourtant fondamental pour comprendre notre relation complexe à la musique. (shrink)

This paper delves into the work of Clive L. Spash, a British radical ecological economist well-known in his field who currently holds a professorship at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. We start with an examination of the principles of his “social ecological economics.” We then critically evaluate his attack on economic growth and his perspective on the standard economic models of climate change. Lastly, we explore his approach to science as a theoretical pursuit and his policy recommendations. The (...) first version of this paper was given as a keynote lecture at the 7th Austrian Economics Meeting Europe, May 12-13, 2023, Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Angers, France, and a second version at the Summer University in Political Economy, July 20-22, 2023, Aix-Marseille University, France. I wish to thank the organizers of these conferences, and also the anonymous referees whose remarks have been taken into account to improve the paper. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo identify the ethical challenges associated with the development and implementation of new tuberculosis drugs and diagnostics.MethodsTwenty-three semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted between December 2015 and September 2016 with programme administrators, healthcare workers, advocates, policymakers, and funders based in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsDivergent interests and responsibilities, coupled with power imbalances, are a primary source of ethical challenges; the uncertain risk profiles of new drugs present an additional one. Although this challenge can be partially mitigated (...) through stringent pharmacovigilance, respondents highlighted that high-burden countries tend to lack the resources to facilitate safe implementation. Increased advocacy and community engagement are considered an ethical imperative for future TB development and implementation.ConclusionsThis project helps identify some of the ethical challenges of new TB technologies. It demonstrates that investigating ethical challenges through qualitative research is one way to apprehend the difficulty of implementing new TB technologies. Addressing this difficulty will require that those in positions of power reconsider their interests in relation to disempowered communities.Policy implicationsEfforts to build consensus regarding what values should underpin the global governance of TB research, prevention, and care are essential to facilitate the ethical implementation of new TB technologies. (shrink)

Peu à peu, tandis que Virgile achève la description ethnographique de la ruche, un glissement s’opère dans son propos : il célèbre d’abord la chasteté des abeilles, et le renouvellement de l’espèce par une miraculeuse génération spontanée ; il explique ensuite leur admirable organisation sociale par un lien privilégié avec la divinité, puisque les abeilles posséderaient une « parcelle d’intelligence divine » ; après ce bref aperçu d’une mystique panthéiste, i...

Can the state, as opposed to its individual human members in their personal capacity, intelligibly seek to avoid blame for unjustified wrongdoing by invoking excuses (as opposed to justifications)? Insofar as it can, should such claims ever be given moral and legal recognition? While a number of theorists have denied it in passing, the question remains radically underexplored. -/- In this article (in its penultimate draft version), I seek to identify the main metaphysical and moral objections to state excuses, and (...) begin to investigate their strength. I work from the ecumenical assumption that general understandings of modern states as group moral agents proper or as mere fictional points of imputation for individual behaviour are both plausible, and that the question of state excuses should be asked in terms of both paradigms. Issues addressed include: the lack of state consciousness/affect, the nature and relevance of developmental and executive defects in group agents, the value of state interests and how interests relate to plausible claims of excuses, the shortfall of responsibility argument for group responsibility and its interface with state excuses, the symbolic and consequential (dis)value that state excuses may have, as well as concerns that states are entities that should live up to outstandingly high virtuous standards of impartiality and equanimity. -/- I conclude that even if the range of excuses available to states does not overlap neatly with excuses available to ordinary individuals, some excuses may still be morally available to states. More generally, I emphasize the need for a systematic discussion of group excuses writ large, and of their relationship with the wider question of when group entities may legitimately be singled out to bear adverse normative consequences for wrongdoing. (shrink)

Some legal theorists deny that states can conceivably act extra-legally, in the sense of acting contrary to domestic law. This position finds its most robust articulation in the writings of Hans Kelsen, and has more recently been taken up by David Dyzenhaus in the context of his work on emergencies and legality. This paper seeks to demystify their arguments and, ultimately, contend that we can intelligibly speak of the state as a legal wrongdoer or a legally unauthorized actor.

This paper investigates how and when pairs of terms such as “local–global” and “im Kleinen–im Grossen” began to be used by mathematicians as explicit reflexive categories. A first phase of automatic search led to the delineation of the relevant corpus, and to the identification of the period from 1898 to 1918 as that of emergence. The emergence appears to have been, from the very start, both transdisciplinary (function theory, calculus of variations, differential geometry) and international, although the AMS-Göttingen connection played (...) a specific part. First used as an expository and didactic tool (e.g. by Osgood), it soon played a crucial part in the creation of new mathematical concepts (e.g. in Hahn’s work), in the shaping of research agendas (e.g. Blaschke’s global differential geometry), and in Weyl’s axiomatic foundation of the manifold concept. We finally turn to France, where in the 1910s, in the wake of Poincaré’s work, Hadamard began to promote a research agenda in terms of “passage du local au general.”. (shrink)

Developing Global Health Programming: A Guidebook for Medical and Professional Schools , edited by Jessica Evert, Paul Drain, and Thomas Hall, is reviewed. In spite of some editorial shortcomings, the book is a terrific aggregation of resources and reflections on the state of global health education that leaves readers with a multitude of useful and diverse tools, as well as directions about where to find additional ones.

Historically, all societies have used comparison to analyze cultural difference through the interaction of religion, power, and translation. When comparison is a self-reflective practice, it can be seen as a form of comparatism. Many scholars are concerned in one way or another with the practice and methods of comparison, and the need for a cognitively robust relativism is an integral part of a mature historical self-placement. This volume looks at how different theories and practices of writing and interpretation have developed (...) at different times in different cultures and reconsiders the specificities of modern comparative approaches within a variety of comparative moments. The idea is to reconsider the specificities, the obstacles, and the possibilities of modern comparative approaches in history and anthropology through a variety of earlier and parallel comparative horizons. Particular attention is given to the exceptional role of Athens and Jerusalem in shaping the Western understanding of cultural difference. (shrink)

Although it was influential for several hundred years after it first appeared, doubts about the authenticity of the Platonic Alcibiades I have unnecessarily impeded its interpretation ever since. It positions itself firmly within the Platonic and Socratic traditions, and should therefore be approached in the same way as most other Platonic dialogues. It paints a vivid portrait of a Socrates in his late thirties tackling the unrealistic ambitions of the youthful Alcibiades, urging him to come to know himself and to (...) care for himself. François Renaud and Harold Tarrant re-examine the drama and philosophy of Alcibiades I with an eye on those interpreters who cherished it most. Modern scholars regularly play down one or more of the religious, erotic, philosophic or dramatic aspects of the dialogue, so ancient Platonist interpreters are given special consideration. This rich study will interest a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy. (shrink)

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life first defines the problem of life (...) phenomenologically, then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought. (shrink)

L'échec des printemps arabes et l'instauration d'un nouveau Califat de la terreur en Syrie et en Irak nous contraignent à repenser la place du religieux dans le monde contemporain. Rivés sur les questions sécuritaires, nous manquons encore néanmoins d'outils philosophiques pour comprendre la montée d'un nouveau totalitarisme millénariste et apocalyptique. Le présent ouvrage s'appuie sur les travaux d'Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), un philosophe américain d'origine allemande encore trop peu connu en France et dont toute l'oeuvre vise à mettre en lumière les (...) racines religieuses des totalitarismes qui ont ensanglanté le 20e siècle. Voegelin et l'Orient propose une relecture iconoclaste de ses écrits, souvent à rebours de la réception néoconservatrice dont ils ont fait l'objet outre-Atlantique. Renaud Fabbri nous fournit ainsi des clefs pour mieux comprendre les origines idéologiques de l'islamisme radical mais aussi du nationalisme hindou. Il montre aussi qu'une redécouverte des grandes traditions de la philosophie mystique peut nous aider à conjurer le spectre des "religions politiques" qui menacent aujourd'hui aussi bien les non-croyants que les croyants de toutes les confessions. (shrink)

Un pan entier de l'activité des grandes entreprises consiste aujourd'hui à manipuler la science. Confrontés aux faits, les industriels utilisent le discours scientifique comme un instrument de propagande pour instiller le doute. Les fabricants de tabac sont les premiers à avoir recruté des faux experts, fait publier des études biaisées, organisé des fausses conférences scientifiques et corrompu des sociétés savantes afin de convaincre que le tabac n'était peut-être pas responsable du cancer du poumon. Les mêmes procédés ont été remis au (...) goût du jour pour dédouaner l'amiante de ses méfaits, pour relativiser ou nier le réchauffement climatique, pour faire du déclin des abeilles un " mystère " sans lien avec les nouvelles générations d'insecticides. Ils sont également à l'oeuvre dans l'affaire du bisphénol A, l'un des plus graves scandales sanitaires de ces dernières décennies. puant au " débat " sur les OGM, cela fait bien longtemps qu'il n'a plus rien à voir avec la science. Les intérêts en jeu sont trop colossaux pour laisser les chercheurs s'exprimer librement. Au-delà de tout militantisme, La Fabrique du mensonge décortique les mécanismes de ces manoeuvres et montre comment abîmer la science et détruire le savoir met nos vies en danger. (shrink)

Depuis son retour, j’étais rongé. J’abrégeais les conversations, évitais son regard. Malgré tous mes efforts pour paraître naturel, pour faire comme si de rien n’était, je sentais bien, piètre comédien, que chaque phrase sonnait faux, que chaque geste suintait la culpabilité. Dans ses yeux, la perplexité initiale fit bien vite place au soupçon, et ma feinte bonne humeur fut démantelée sans coup férir par d’éloquents silences, froids appels à cesser toute mascarade. Enferré comme je l’étais, a..

Comment se représenter sa propre vie ? Comment se figurer le déroulé des ans, tracer la ligne qui passe par tous les points saillants de notre mémoire et englobe les plages d’oubli qui nous firent, elles aussi, ce que nous sommes ? Plusieurs formes, plusieurs « patrons » sont à notre disposition. En premier lieu, le biologique : le compte des années superpose les visions d’un corps en croissance, puis en déclin, les mutations successives qui l’affectent, les marques qui s’y (...) inscrivent. S’y aj.. (shrink)

La première partie du livre IV met apparemment en œuvre le programme didactique des Géorgiques, Virgile multipliant les conseils à l’apiculteur, quant au choix du lieu pour la ruche, à la sélection des espèces, aux aliments à mettre à disposition, à la récolte du miel, mais surtout aux précautions à prendre pour éloigner les abeilles des nombreux dangers potentiels qui les menacent, qu’il s’agisse du climat trop rigoureux ou de prédateu...

Some legal theorists deny that states can conceivably act extralegally in the sense of acting contrary to domestic law. This position finds its most robust articulation in the writings of Hans Kelsen and has more recently been taken up by David Dyzenhaus in the context of his work on emergencies and legality. This paper seeks to demystify their arguments and ultimately contend that we can intelligibly speak of the state as a legal wrongdoer or a legally unauthorized actor.

In the last two decades, the philosophy of criminal law has undergone a vibrant revival in Canada. The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has given the Supreme Court of Canada unprecedented latitude to engage with principles of legal, moral, and political philosophy when elaborating its criminal law jurisprudence. Canadian scholars have followed suit by paying increased attention to the philosophical foundations of domestic criminal law. Because of Canada's leadership in international criminal law, both at the level of (...) the International Criminal Court and of specific war crimes tribunals, they have also begun to turn their attention to international criminal law per se. This collection seeks to bring all these Canadian voices together for the first time, and evidence the fact that criminal law theory is no longer to be associated exclusively with the older British, German and American traditions. The topics covered include questions of philosophical methodology, the legitimate scope of domestic and international criminalization, rationales for criminal law defences in both domestic and international law, the philosophical underpinnings of specific crimes and forms of joint responsibility, as well as the theorization of criminal procedure and evidence law. ENDORSEMENTS "In continental Europe, academic commentary on the criminal law has long manifested large philosophical ambitions. Less so in common-law countries, where the dominance of jury trial and the piecemeal development of case-law, together with the famously robust attitudes of common lawyers, have militated against detailed philosophical engagement with doctrine. Over the last 20 years or so, however, new generations of philosophically-literate lawyers and legally-informed philosophers have overcome the historic resistance. Nowhere more so, it seems, than in Canada, where the common law and civilian traditions meet. In 'Rethinking Criminal Law Theory', François Tanguay-Renaud and James Stribopoulos have joined with 14 talented Canadian colleagues to showcase the tremendous breadth and depth of their contemporary national contribution to the subject. Ranging across topics as diverse as emergency, obscenity, and insanity, these essays - without exception insightful and penetrating -set a high standard for the rest of us to aspire to.'' John Gardner, University of Oxford "'Rethinking Criminal Law Theory' is an excellent collection of essays demonstrating the vigour, creativity and range of Canadian criminal justice scholarship. It covers a wide range of problems and issues both in the domestic and the international context. Core questions are examined in depth and new questions are brought to the fore. I recommend it very highly to criminal lawyers and philosophers of the criminal law." Professor Victor Tadros, University of Warwick "'Rethinking Criminal Law Theory 'is packed with outstanding contributions from criminal law theorists who are among the best not only in Canada, but in the whole English-speaking world. Broad and deep in its coverage, the collection offers fresh approaches to a wide range of cutting-edge issues in the field. It provides a resource readers will come back to repeatedly." Stuart Green, Professor of Law and Justice Nathan L Jacobs Scholar, Rutgers University. (shrink)

Historical work on the emergence of sheaf theory has mainly concentrated on the topological origins of sheaf cohomology in the period from 1945 to 1950 and on subsequent developments. However, a shift of emphasis both in time-scale and disciplinary context can help gain new insight into the emergence of the sheaf concept. This paper concentrates on Henri Cartan’s work in the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables and the strikingly different roles it played at two stages of the (...) emergence of sheaf theory: the definition of a new structure and formulation of a new research programme in 1940–1944; the unexpected integration into sheaf cohomology in 1951–1952. In order to bring this two-stage structural transition into perspective, we will concentrate more specifically on a family of problems, the so-called Cousin problems, from Poincaré (1883) to Cartan. This medium-term narrative provides insight into two more general issues in the history of contemporary mathematics. First, we will focus on the use of problems in theory-making. Second, the history of the design of structures in geometrically flavoured contexts—such as for the sheaf and fibre-bundle structures—which will help provide a more comprehensive view of the structuralist moment, a moment whose algebraic component has so far been the main focus for historical work. (shrink)

Média a priori étranger à l’univers d’un cours universitaire en gestion des ressources humaines, la bande dessinée peut pourtant constituer un outil précieux permettant une distanciation et un décalage des représentations habituelles des étudiants. L’objectif de cet article est de décrire l’utilisation de l’album Obélix et Compagnie comme métaphore de la place du travail dans la société, et d’en discuter les apports et les limites.Although comic strips are, on the face of it, alien to the world of university classes in (...) human resources management, they can become a valuable tool in helping students to achieve the necessary distance from their usual representations. This article describes the use of the album “Obélix et Compagnie” as a metaphor of the workplace in society, and to discuss its contributions and limitations. (shrink)

In this article, I ask whether the state, as opposed to its individual members, can intelligibly and legitimately be criminalized, with a focus on the possibility of its domestic criminalization. I proceed by identifying what I take to be the core objections to such criminalization, and then investigate ways in which they can be challenged. First, I address the claim that the state is not a kind of entity that can intelligibly perpetrate domestic criminal wrongs. I argue against it by (...) building upon an account of the modern state as a moral agent proper, capable of both culpable moral and legal wrongdoing. I then consider objections to the intelligibility and legitimacy of subjecting states to domestic criminal processes, which primarily find their source in the assumption that such subjection would necessarily involve the state prosecuting, judging, and punishing itself. I argue that whether this (questionable) assumption is sound or not, it does not create the kinds of unsolvable quandaries its exponents think it does. I then move on to reject the distinct, yet related, objection that, at least in aspiring liberal jurisdictions, treating the state as a criminal objectionably involves extending to it various substantive and procedural guarantees that, given its nature and raison d’être, it should not have. Finally, I discuss three central objections to punishing the state. First, that organizations like states do not have the phenomenal consciousness required to suffer punishment. Second, that the constant possibility of dispersion of state punishment amongst individual members stands in the way of its justification. Lastly, that whatever justification there may be for making things harder for the state in response to its culpable wrongdoing, such treatment need not be understood as punishment. While partially conceding the strength of these objections, I strive to loosen their grip in ways that show that justified punishment of the state, meaningfully understood as such, remains a distinct possibility. I conclude by contrasting supposed alternatives to the criminalization of states, and by contending that my analysis leaves us with enough to keep the possibility of state criminalization on the table as a justifiable response to state wrongdoing. (shrink)