This exciting volume brings together leading figures across existential psychology in a clear-sighted guide to its current practice and therapeutic possibilities. Its accessible yet scholarly presentation dispels common myths about existential psychotherapy while demonstrating core methods and innovative techniques as compatible with the range of clinicians' theoretical orientations and practical approaches. Chapters review the evidence for its therapeutic value, and provide updates on education, training, and research efforts in the field, both in the US and abroad. Throughout, existential psychotherapy emerges (...) as a vital, flexible, and empirically sound modality in keeping with the current-and future-promotion of psychological well-being. Highlights of the coverage include: Emotion, relationship, and meaning as core existential practice: evidence-based foundations. · Meaning-centered psychotherapy: a Socratic clinical practice. Experience processing as an aspect of existential psychotherapy: life enhancement methodology. Structural Existential Analysis (SEA): a phenomenological method for therapeutic work. Experiencing change: an existential perspective. Creating the World Congress for existential therapy. Clarifying and Furthering Existential Psychotherapy will spark discussion and debate among students, therapists, researchers, and practitioners in existential psychology, existential psychotherapy, and allied fields as well as the interested public. It makes a suitable text for graduate courses in existential therapy, psychological theories, and related subjects. (shrink)

Vom Finden zum Machen bietet die erste ausführliche Diskussion über die Beziehung zwischen Marxismus und Pragmatismus. Diese beiden Philosophien der Praxis sind nicht unvereinbar, und eine Analyse ihrer Beziehung hilft, beide besser zu verstehen. Im Rahmen eines transatlantischen theoretischen Dialogs werden in diesem Buch Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen diesen Philosophien erörtert. Es handelt sich um eine interdisziplinäre Studie, die Philosophie, amerikanische und europäische Geistesgeschichte und Literaturwissenschaft zusammenführt. Schulenbergs Buch zeigt, dass der Versuch, die Dialektik von Marxismus und Pragmatismus zu erhellen, (...) ein guter Ausgangspunkt ist, wenn wir das unvollendete Projekt der Etablierung einer wirklich postmetaphysischen Kultur weiterführen wollen. Das Buch bietet detaillierte Diskussionen über Sidney Hook, Georg Lukács, Theodor W. Adorno, Fredric Jameson, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Dewey, Richard Rorty und Jacques Rancière. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Pragmatism is a humanist philosophy that tells an antifoundationalist and antirepresentationalist story of progress and emancipation. While most theoretical approaches since the 1960s have radically rejected the humanist legacy, in pragmatism a particular understanding of humanism has persisted. This persistence of humanism is of the utmost importance, since one can only grasp the unique contemporary significance of pragmatism when one appreciates how pragmatism, humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and postmetaphysics are interlinked, and how this link has gained in importance after the exhaustion of (...) antihumanist theories. This essay combines the endeavor to elucidate the idea of a pragmatist humanism with a discussion of the relationship between pragmatism and aesthetic form. The essay is divided into three parts. While the first part explains why pragmatism is a humanist philosophy, the second part discusses why most pragmatists have been unwilling to consider the significance of form. It develops the central idea that Dewey’s naturalist aesthetics does not offer a convincing conception of form. The final part advances the argument that a pragmatist humanism that refuses to historicize the concept of form and is reluctant to regard the act of form-giving as a kind of poetic agency weakens its own position. (shrink)

Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) aims to help people understand black box algorithms, particularly of their outputs. But what are these explanations and when is one explanation better than another? The manipulationist definition of explanation from the philosophy of science offers good answers to these questions, holding that an explanation consists of a generalization that shows what happens in counterfactual cases. Furthermore, when it comes to explanatory depth this account holds that a generalization that has more abstract variables, is broader in (...) scope and/or more accurate is better. By applying these definitions and contrasting them with alternative definitions in the XAI literature I hope to help clarify what a good explanation is for AI. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted in society, creating numerous opportunities but at the same time posing ethical challenges. Many of these are familiar, such as issues of fairness, responsibility and privacy, but are presented in a new and challenging guise due to our limited ability to steer and predict the outputs of AI systems. This chapter first introduces these ethical challenges, stressing that overviews of values are a good starting point but frequently fail to suffice due to the context (...) sensitivity of ethical challenges. Frequently, additional (ethical) values emerge for specific applications, as e.g. challenges with fraud detection are very different from those around language technologies. Second, methods to tackle these challenges are discussed. Main ethical theories (virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) are shown to provide a starting point, but often lack the details needed for actionable AI Ethics. Instead, mid-level philosophical theories coupled to design-approaches such as Design for Values, together with interdisciplinary working methods, offer the best way forwards. The chapter aims to show how these approaches can lead to an ethics of AI that is actionable and that can be proactively integrated in the design of AI systems. (shrink)

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Pragmatist aesthetics has not yet reached its full potential. This is primarily due to the legacy of John Dewey’s aesthetics. In order to confront the shortcomings and insufficiencies of his aesthetics, pragmatist aestheticians ought to establish a dialogue with continental aesthetics. The attempt to clarify what pragmatist aesthetics can learn from Theodor W. Adorno’s materialist aesthetics is still a desideratum. This essay focuses on two aspects. First, it shows that pragmatist aestheticians can use Adorno’s modern aesthetics in order to gain (...) a deeper and more complex understanding of the social nature or register of form (of what might be termed “die Gesellschaftlichkeit der Form”). Second, the essay demonstrates that Adorno, in contrast to Dewey, is valuable for the endeavor to grasp the significance of the dialectics of harmony and dissonance or organicity and fragmentation when analyzing modern art and literature. (shrink)

Seit nunmehr vier Jahrzehnten beschäftigt die Renaissance des Pragmatismus Philosophen und Theoretikerinnen. In verschiedenen Fächern, von der Philosophie und den Literaturwissenschaften bis zur Soziologie und Jurisprudenz, haben die sich um den Pragmatismus zentrierenden Diskussionen zu interessanten neuen Einsichten geführt. Allerdings ist es bisher nicht gelungen zu erhellen, auf welch komplexe Art und Weise Pragmatismus, Humanismus, Antiautoritarismus und die Idee einer genuin post-metaphysischen Kultur zusammenhängen. Seine Version des Pragmatismus als Antiautoritarismus verstehend, sucht Richard Rorty den antiautoritären Gestus aus den praktischen Bereichen (...) der Ethik und Politik auf die Epistemologie zu übertragen. Sein Antiautoritarismus besagt, dass es keine nicht-menschliche Autorität gibt, deren Befehlen Menschen zu gehorchen hätten; weder die Wahrheit oder der Wille Gottes noch die Vorstellung einer objektiven Realität oder die Idee des wirklich Realen können als Autoritäten wirken. Die Vorstellung, es gäbe so etwas wie menschliche Verantwortlichkeit gegenüber etwas Nicht-Menschlichem, gilt es zu verabschieden. Dieser Aufsatz gliedert sich in drei Teile. Der erste sucht dazulegen, inwiefern der Pragmatismus als Antiautoritarismus zu verstehen ist. Der zweite Teil diskutiert die folgende Frage: Wie lässt sich innerhalb eines antiautoritären Rahmens, der bestimmt ist von Kontingenz, Antiessentialismus und der Praxis einer radikalen Historisierung, die Idee der Solidarität denken? Es wird argumentiert, dass die Literatur, und insbesondere der Roman, eine wichtige Rolle bei der Beantwortung dieser Frage spielt. Dieser Teil konzentriert sich auf Rortys Position. Ein kurzer abschließender Teil beschäftigt sich mit der Frage von Antiautoritarismus und ästhetischer Form. (shrink)

Examines widespread myths about transhumanism and explores the most pressing ethical issues in the debate over technologically assisted human enhancement.

Abstract:It is difficult to approach a phenomenon as complex as the renaissance of pragmatism without considering the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics. At the same time, however, one ought to note that pragmatist aesthetics has not yet reached its full potential. This is primarily due to the legacy of John Dewey's aesthetics. In pragmatist studies, the problematic consequences of Dewey's idealism in aesthetics have been insufficiently criticized. In order to confront this desideratum, pragmatist aesthetics ought to establish a dialogue with (...) continental aesthetics. This essay advances the argument that pragmatist aesthetics will profit from considering Nietzsche's radical insights and far-reaching suggestions. Concentrating on a comparison between Dewey and Nietzsche, the essay discusses three aspects: the relation between art and life; the question of art's noncognitivism; and the question of aesthetic form and its significance for modern art. (shrink)

This study defends the legitimacy of the Enlightenment project by way of its different realizations in the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Today, Enlightenment as a cosmopolitan project with a global claim is often considered synonymous with Western chauvinism. The assertion of a universally binding reason is all too obviously inconsistent with the much-cited recognition of cultural differences. In contrast, it is the conviction brought forward in this book that an adequately understood Enlightenment is an unconditional right (...) of every person taking an active interest in a self-determined way of life. Only the realization of this conception of Enlightenment can provide the required space for the reciprocal recognition of human differences to freely unfold. (shrink)

Schulenberg continues the thought-provoking argument he developed in his previous two monographs by advancing the idea that one can only grasp the unique contemporary significance of pragmatism when one realizes how pragmatism, humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and postmetaphysics are interlinked.

How do we get out knowledge of the natural numbers? Various philosophical accounts exist, but there has been comparatively little attention to psychological data on how the learning process actually takes place. I work through the psychological literature on number acquisition with the aim of characterising the acquisition stages in formal terms. In doing so, I argue that we need a combination of current neologicist accounts and accounts such as that of Parsons. In particular, I argue that we learn the (...) initial segment of the natural numbers on the basis of the Fregean definitions, but do not learn the natural number structure as a whole on the basis of Hume's principle. Therefore, we need to account for some of the consistency of our number concepts with the Dedekind-Peano axioms in other terms. (shrink)

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

This book presents pragmatist humanism as a form of anti-authoritarianism and sheds light on the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics and the revival of humanism.

Romanticism and Pragmatism offers a new and original perspective by elucidating how pragmatism, humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and postmetaphysics are linked and is the first monograph to offer a detailed discussion of Richard Rorty's idea of a literary or poeticized culture. It argues that pragmatism's use of Romanticism is an integral part of a modern antifoundationalist story of progress, and that it can help us appreciate the significance of Romanticism in the twenty-first century. It also analyses the relation between pragmatism and race (...) (and cosmopolitanism), and approaches the question of a pragmatist literary ethics. (shrink)

In the following paper we provide a personal definition of the existential philosophy and the existential subject. Before that we explore other historical definitions of existentialism. We were mainly interested in the relation between existentialism and nihilism, the focus of existential philosophy on the individual and the situation of the studied philosophical trend on the 1950's zeitgeist. The definition of existentialism as a form of trans-rationalism and its capacity to become a practical alternative to contemporary academic philosophy were also emphasized.

Can concepts be acquired by testing hypotheses about these concepts? Fodor famously argued that this is not possible. Testing the correct hypothesis would require already possessing the concept. I argue that this does not generally hold for mathematical concepts. I discuss specific, empirically motivated, hypotheses for number concepts that can be tested without needing to possess the relevant number concepts. I also argue that one can test hypotheses about the identity conditions of other mathematical concepts, and then fix the application (...) conditions based on those hypotheses—under the assumption that the neo‐logicist view on abstraction principles is correct. (shrink)

The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a system that allows us to distinguish between collections based on the number of items, though only if the ratio between numbers is high enough. One of the questions that has been raised is what the representations involved in this system represent. I point to two important constraints for any account: (a) it doesn’t involve numbers, and (b) it can account for the approximate nature of the ANS. Furthermore, I argue that representations of pure (...) magnitude with vehicles that have an imprecision in the value of the unit of measurement (further clarified through a formal model from measurement theory) fit both these requirements. (shrink)

We provide a number of simplified and improved separations between pairs of Resolution-with-bounded-conjunction refutation systems, Res, as well as their tree-like versions, Res⁎. The contradictions we use are natural combinatorial principles: the Least number principle, LNPn and an ordered variant thereof, the Induction principle, IPn.LNPn is known to be easy for Resolution. We prove that its relativization is hard for Resolution, and more generally, the relativization of LNPn iterated d times provides a separation between Res and Res. We prove the (...) same result for the iterated relativization of IPn, where the tree-like variant Res⁎ is considered instead of Res.We go on to provide separations between the parameterized versions of Res and Res. Here we are able again to use the relativization of the LNPn, but the classical proof breaks down and we are forced to use an alternative. Finally, we separate the parameterized versions of Res⁎ and Res⁎. Here, the relativization of IPn will not work as it is, and so we make a vectorizing amendment to it in order to address this shortcoming. (shrink)

Process reliabilist accounts claim that a belief is justified when it is the result of a reliable belief-forming process. Yet over what range of possible token processes is this reliability calculated? I argue against the idea that _all_ possible token processes (in the actual world, or some other subset of possible worlds) are to be considered using the case of a user acquiring beliefs based on the output of an AI system, which is typically reliable for a substantial local range (...) but unreliable when all possible inputs are considered. I show that existing solutions to the generality problem imply that these cases cannot be solved by a more fine-grained typing of the belief-forming process. Instead, I suggest that reliability is evaluated over a range restricted by the content of the actual belief and by the similarity of the input to the actual input. (shrink)

The desideratum of semantic interoperability has been intensively discussed in medical informatics circles in recent years. Originally, experts assumed that this issue could be sufficiently addressed by insisting simply on the application of shared clinical terminologies or clinical information models. However, the use of the term ‘ontology’ has been steadily increasing more recently. We discuss criteria for distinguishing clinical ontologies from clinical terminologies and information models. Then, we briefly present the role clinical ontologies play in two multicentric research projects. Finally, (...) we discuss the interactions between these different kinds of knowledge representation artifacts and the stakeholders involved in developing interoperational real-world clinical applications. We provide ontology engineering examples from two EU-funded projects. (shrink)

This article shows how activists in the open data movement re-articulate notions of democracy, participation, and journalism by applying practices and values from open source culture to the creation and use of data. Focusing on the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and drawing from a combination of interviews and content analysis, it argues that this process leads activists to develop new rationalities around datafication that can support the agency of datafied publics. Three modulations of open source are identified: First, by regarding (...) data as a prerequisite for generating knowledge, activists transform the sharing of source code to include the sharing of raw data. Sharing raw data should break the interpretative monopoly of governments and would allow people to make their own interpretation of data about public issues. Second, activists connect this idea to an open and flexible form of representative democracy by applying the open source model of participation to political participation. Third, activists acknowledge that intermediaries are necessary to make raw data accessible to the public. This leads them to an interest in transforming journalism to become an intermediary in this sense. At the same time, they try to act as intermediaries themselves and develop civic technologies to put their ideas into practice. The article concludes with suggesting that the practices and ideas of open data activists are relevant because they illustrate the connection between datafication and open source culture and help to understand how datafication might support the agency of publics and actors outside big government and big business. (shrink)

In this annotated critical edition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda Stefan Alexandru draws upon many hitherto unexplored sources of the direct and indirect tradition, inter alia upon an independent Greek manuscript he has discovered in the Vatican Library.

Die Frage nach Sinn ist eine bleibend existentielle Frage des Menschen. Sie wird dringend aktuell in einer Zeit zunehmender Säkularisierung und Multioptionalität. Eine Theologie, die die Gesellschft prägen will, muss hierzu eine Antwort aus der Mitte des christlichen Glaubens geben können. Stefan Laurs stellt sich dieser Herausforderung. In Auseinandersetzung mit Charles Taylor und Walter Kasper analysiert er den neuzeitlichen Säkularisierungsprozess und widmet sich insbesondere der damit verbundenen Frage des Menschen nach Sinn und Erfüllung. Dabei wird ersichtlich, dass die Sinnfrage (...) aus theologischer Perspektive in der Gottesfrage zur Darstellung kommt. Nur in Gott, der Liebe ist, findet der Mensch den universalen Sinn un die Erfüllung seines Lebens. (shrink)

ABSTRACT How do non-experts single out numbers for reference? Linnebo has argued that they do so using a criterion of identity based on the ordinal properties of numerals. Neo-logicists, on the other hand, claim that cardinal properties are the basis of individuation, when they invoke Hume’s Principle. I discuss empirical data from cognitive science and linguistics to answer how non-experts individuate numbers better in practice. I use those findings to develop an alternative account that mixes ordinal and cardinal properties to (...) provide a detailed answer to the question: how do we in fact semantically individuate numbers? (shrink)

Integrating the study of human diversity into the human evolutionary sciences requires substantial revision of traditional conceptions of a shared human nature. This process may be made more difficult by entrenched, 'folkbiological' modes of thought. Earlier work by the authors suggests that biologically naive subjects hold an implicit theory according to which some traits are expressions of an animal's inner nature while others are imposed by its environment. In this paper, we report further studies that extend and refine our account (...) of this aspect of folkbiology. We examine biologically naive subjects' judgments about whether traits of an animal are 'innate', 'in its DNA' or 'part of its nature'. Subjects do not understand these three descriptions to be equivalent. Both innate and in its DNA have the connotation that the trait is species-typical. This poses an obstacle to the assimilation of the biology of polymorphic and plastic traits by biologically naive audiences. Researchers themselves may not be immune to the continuing pull of folkbiological modes of thought. (shrink)

Linsky and Zalta try to explain how we can refer to mathematical objects by saying that this happens through definite descriptions which may appeal to mathematical theories. I present two issues for their account. First, there is a problem of finding appropriate pre-conditions to reference, which are currently difficult to satisfy. Second, there is a problem of ensuring the stability of the resulting reference. Slight changes in the properties ascribed to a mathematical object can result in a shift of reference (...) and this leads to various problems, e.g., it makes inferring knowledge much harder than it is. (shrink)

The normative mechanics of promising seem complex. The strength and content of promissory obligations, and the residual duties they entail upon being violated, have various prima facie surprising features. We give an account to explain these features. Promises have a point. The point of a promise to φ is a promise-independent reason to φ for the promisee’s sake. A promise turns this reason into a duty. This explains the mechanics of promises. And it grounds a nuanced picture of immoral promises, (...) an argument against promissory bare wrongings, and a constraint on theories of why we have promissory obligations at all. (shrink)

We are currently witnessing the emergence of a ‘third culture’, driven by unprecedented developments that are changing the playing field. These include advances in AI, big data analysis and robotics. The traditional ‘two cultures’ view (S. P. Snow) distinguishes between the sciences and the humanities. The wisdoms these two cultures offer are separated from each other, with little to no interaction or mutual comprehension. However, over the past two decades, and for the first time in human history, a new, third (...) culture has appeared. This new culture, rooted in new technologies, not only pursues its own form of rationality but also supports advances in the original two cultures, deepening and expanding our individual and collective consciousness so that we can see more and do better. It will eventually give rise to new forms of consciousness based not on biochemical signals, but on copper wires and lithium chips. These new machine intelligences will change the world and force us to realise: we are no longer alone. The human species’ position in the twenty-first century will be fundamentally redefined: not as a conductor leading the orchestra, but a single string player within it. (shrink)

Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, Robert Brandoms Begriff des Explizit-Machens explizit zu machen. Zu diesem Zweck werden zunächst verschiedene Formen des Explizit-Machens unterschieden. Dabei erweist sich allein der Begriff des logischen Explizit-Machens als haltbar. Anschließend wird gezeigt, dass diesem Begriff eine Schlüsselstellung im Rahmen von Brandoms Philosophie zukommt. Sowohl seine philosophische Methodologie als auch sein zentrales philosophisches Projekt einer Zurückführung von Semantik auf Pragmatik lassen sich höchstens soweit verständlich machen wie der Begriff des logischen Explizit-Machens. Dieser weist allerdings ein erhebliches (...) Defizit auf: Im Rahmen einer Inferentialistischen Semantik lässt sich die expressive Funktion wichtiger Teile des logischen Vokabulars nicht verständlich machen. Das Ergebnis ist, dass sich zwei der Grundpfeiler von Brandoms Sprachphilosophie, die Inferentialistische Semantik einerseits und deren Zurückführung auf eine normative Pragmatik andererseits, nicht gleichzeitig konsequent durchhalten lassen. (shrink)

Most accounts of our knowledge of the successor axiom claim that this is based on the procedure of adding one. While they usually don’t claim to provide an account of how children actually acquire this knowledge, one may well think that this is how they get that knowledge. I argue that when we look at children’s responses in interviews, the time when they learn the successor axiom and the intermediate learning stages they find themselves in, that there is an empirically (...) viable alternative. I argue that they could also learn it on the basis of a method that has to do with the structure of the numeral system. Specifically, that they (1) use the syntactic structure of the numeral system and (2) attend to the leftmost digits, the one with the highest place-value. Children can learn that this is a reliable method of forming larger numbers by combining two elements. First, a grasp of the syntactic structure of the numeral system. That way they know that the leftmost digit receives the highest value. Second, an interpretation of numerals as designating cardinal values, so that they also realise that increasing or adding digits on the lefthand side of a numeral produces a larger number. There are thus two, currently equally well-supported, ways in which children might learn that there are infinitely many natural numbers. (shrink)

According to Hempel’s influential theory of explanation, explaining why some a is G consists in showing that the truth that a is G follows from a law-like generalization to the effect that all Fs are G together with the initial condition that a is F. While Hempel’s overall account is now widely considered to be deeply flawed, the idea that some generalizations play the explanatory role that the account predicts is still often endorsed by contemporary philosophers of science. This idea, (...) however, conflicts with widely shared views in metaphysics according to which the generalization that all Fs are G is partially explained by the fact that a is G. I discuss two solutions to this conflict that have been proposed recently, argue that they are unsatisfactory, and offer an alternative. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

Einleitung -- Charismatische Herrschaft -- Traditionale Herrschaft -- Traditionale und charismatische Herrschaft im vorrationalen Okzident: Antike -- Traditionale und charismatische Herrschaft im vorrationalen Okzident: Mittelalter -- Legale Herrschaft.

The ways in which the sciences have been delineated and categorized throughout history provide insights into the formation, stabilization, and establishment of scientific systems of knowledge. The Dresdener school’s approach for explaining and categorizing the genesis of the engineering disciplines is still valid, but needs to be complemented by further-reaching methodological and theoretical reflections. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social practice is applied to the question of how individual agents succeed in influencing decisively a discipline’s changing object orientation, institutionalisation and self-reproduction. (...) Through the accumulation of social, cultural and economic capital, they succeed in realising their own organisational ideas and scientific programs. Key concepts for the analysis include the struggle for power and resources, monopolies of interpretation, and the degree of autonomy. A case study from the Aachener Technische Hochschule shows that the consolidation of ferrous metallurgy can be conceived as a symbolical struggle between Fritz Wüst, professor for ferrous metallurgy, and the German Iron and Steel Institute, leading to a construction of a system of differences in which scientists accepted being scientists rather than entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs accepted becoming entrepreneurs and renounced science. (shrink)

Cross-compliance has proven its effectiveness, as can be shown by looking at the Swiss experience with cross-compliance since 1999. Besides describing the existing cross-compliance practices in Switzerland, the paper shows different perspectives on the efficiency and fairness of cross-compliance. It concludes that transaction cost advantages justify cross-compliance only in few cases. Usually, it will be more efficient to decouple social and environmental policy. The strong support for cross-compliance by the Swiss population is explained by a perceived unfairness in the distribution (...) of property rights between farmers and society. If property rights would be redistributed, there probably would be no more need for cross-compliance. (shrink)