The article tries to prove the necessity and demonstrates the possibility of application of the methods of praxiology to ethical questions. The result is an ethical praxiology conceived as a theory of making best moral choices by moral agents. It is meant to be a practical science invented for the regulation of the process of decision-making and decision implementation.

The academic and humanitarian conception of harmonious union has been proposed by Professor Zhang Liwen in the 1990s. It claims to explain the specifics of Chinese civilization and proposes solution of some global problems by its means. Despite the lack of direct references to the conception, it remains in demand both in the political and ideological discourse of the People's Republic of China. This presentations deals with the historical and philosophical facts available in Chinese written monuments and works of Antiquity (...) and the Middle Ages, which are put forward as a justification for the primordial idea of harmonious union in Chinese culture. An attempt is done to show that this concept does not offer any new set of philosophical categories, but appeals to the well-known concepts of two-, three- and five-item classifications. At the same time, the emphasis is laid on the form, the method of combining opposite or dissimilar elements. In general, on the basis of the limited historical and philosophical material, it can be concluded that the concept of harmonious unification is aimed not so much at revising the composition of the philosophical system of Confucianism, but at rethinking its value criteria for interaction and mutual dependence of objects and phenomena. (shrink)

Suppose one hundred prisoners are in a yard under the supervision of a guard, and at some point, ninety-nine of them collectively kill the guard. If, after the fact, a prisoner is picked at random and tried, the probability of his guilt is 99%. But despite the high probability, the statistical chances, by themselves, seem insufficient to justify a conviction. The question is why. Two arguments are offered. The first, decision-theoretic argument shows that a conviction solely based on the statistics (...) in the prisoner scenario is unacceptable so long as the goal of expected utility maximization is combined with fairness constraints. The second, risk-based argument shows that a conviction solely based on the statistics in the prisoner scenario lets the risk of mistaken conviction surge potentially too high. The same, by contrast, cannot be said of convictions solely based on DNA evidence or eyewitness testimony. A noteworthy feature of the two arguments in the paper is that they are not confined to criminal trials and can in fact be extended to civil trials. (shrink)

Many oppose the use of profile evidence against defendants at trial, even when the statistical correlations are reliable and the jury is free from prejudice. The literature has struggled to justify this opposition. We argue that admitting profile evidence is objectionable because it violates what we call “equal protection”—that is, a right of innocent defendants not to be exposed to higher ex ante risks of mistaken conviction compared to other innocent defendants facing similar charges. We also show why admitting other (...) forms of evidence, such as eyewitness, trace, and motive evidence, does not violate equal protection. (shrink)

Die erste Bekanntschaft mit den Ideen Fichtes in der Ukraine erfolgte gleich zu Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Neue Impulse erhielten die Aneignung und Auseinandersetzung mit seinen Gedanken mit der Eröffnung der Universität in Charkow im Herbst 1804. Dank der Berufung des ehemaligen Jenaer Extraordinarius Johann Baptist Schad wurde die Universität Charkow im ersten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts zur Hauptstadt der Fichte-Forschungen und Kritik, nicht nur in der Ukraine, sondern im ganzen Russischen Reich. Schad, der als erster Philosophieprofessor Charkows dort bis (...) zum Dezember 1816 lehrte, gründete auch eine »Charkower philosophische Schule«, deren Vertreter verschiedene Lehrstücke Fichtes, aber auch der kritischen Philosophie insgesamt rezipierten und sich mit ihnen auseinander setzten und sie eifrig verbreiteten. (shrink)

Die erste Bekanntschaft mit den Ideen Fichtes in der Ukraine erfolgte gleich zu Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Neue Impulse erhielten die Aneignung und Auseinandersetzung mit seinen Gedanken mit der Eröffnung der Universität in Charkow im Herbst 1804. Dank der Berufung des ehemaligen Jenaer Extraordinarius Johann Baptist Schad wurde die Universität Charkow im ersten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts zur Hauptstadt der Fichte-Forschungen und Kritik, nicht nur in der Ukraine, sondern im ganzen Russischen Reich. Schad, der als erster Philosophieprofessor Charkows dort bis (...) zum Dezember 1816 lehrte, gründete auch eine »Charkower philosophische Schule«, deren Vertreter verschiedene Lehrstücke Fichtes, aber auch der kritischen Philosophie insgesamt rezipierten und sich mit ihnen auseinander setzten und sie eifrig verbreiteten. (shrink)

Smith argues that, unlike other forms of evidence, naked statistical evidence fails to satisfy normic support. This is his solution to the puzzles of statistical evidence in legal proof. This paper focuses on Smith’s claim that DNA evidence in cold-hit cases does not satisfy normic support. I argue that if this claim is correct, virtually no other form of evidence used at trial can satisfy normic support. This is troublesome. I discuss a few ways in which Smith can respond.

The literature on algorithmic fairness has examined exogenous sources of biases such as shortcomings in the data and structural injustices in society. It has also examined internal sources of bias as evidenced by a number of impossibility theorems showing that no algorithm can concurrently satisfy multiple criteria of fairness. This paper contributes to the literature stemming from the impossibility theorems by examining how informational richness affects the accuracy and fairness of predictive algorithms. With the aid of a computer simulation, we (...) show that informational richness is the engine that drives improvements in the performance of a predictive algorithm, in terms of both accuracy and fairness. The centrality of informational richness suggests that classification parity, a popular criterion of algorithmic fairness, should be given relatively little weight. But we caution that the centrality of informational richness should be taken with a grain of salt in light of practical limitations, in particular, the so-called bias-variance trade off. (shrink)

Die Forschung zu und über Leonhard Euler verweist oft darauf, dass das Entstehen und Etablieren neuer Zeichenpraktiken zum dominierenden Legitimationsmuster der übersichtlichen Mathematik in der Zeit der Aufklärung wird. Bei genauerem Hinsehen fällt jedoch auf, dass die konkreten Formen der Erscheinung und Durchsetzung dieser Praktiken mit ihren symbolischen Dimensionen über Jahrzehnte kaum ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit gerückt wurden. Gerade diesen Formen der Wissensentfaltung und -vermittlung versuchen die hier versammelten Aufsätze eine zentrale Position zukommen zu lassen. Denn im Falle Eulers beschränkt (...) sich die Problematik solcher Erscheinungen nicht auf das mathematische Abstrahieren der zu lösenden Aufgaben, sind diese doch mit den graphischen Abstrahierungen vernetzt, deren Erscheinungskriterien untersucht werden. (shrink)

The article deals with the main tendencies in the studies of Russian neo-Kantianism in Poland. Although the number and quality of research in the history of Russian neo-Kantianism still cannot be equated with those of the history of German neo-Kantianism, the situation of these studies is constantly changing for the better. The authors mark the undeniable progress in the studies of Russian neo-Kantianism in Poland in the recent years: there are monographs, articles, collections, research projects on particular thinkers or themes (...) related to the history of Russian neo-Kantianism. The authors consider A. Noras’s idea of the development of neo-Kantianism into post-neo-Kantianism rather heuristic. One of the main features of this development is the ontologization of the cognitive process. This “ontological turn”, typical of Russian neo-Kantianism, in particular as represented by S. Hessen, V. Sesemann, B. Jakovenko, is, on the one hand, the hallmark of the entire Russian philosophy and, on the other, it brings together the philosophical efforts of Russian neo-Kantians and the conception of the author of the “new ontology” – N. Hartmann. (shrink)

El texto de Martin Heidegger Was ist das - die Philosophie? es una de las obras claves para hacer una hermenéutica de su pensamiento. En ella se explica como lo que pretendía la filosofía en su origen no tiene un correlato con sus conquistas a lo largo de la tradición, que están más bien teñidas de un tinte racionalista que obvia los estados afectivos, tan necesarios para entender el pensar filosófico. De este modo, volvemos con Heidegger a remontarnos al inicio (...) de la filosofía, hasta Heráclito, para así poder establecer unas pautas que nos ayuden en nuestras disquisiciones dentro del filosofar. Para ello será necesario retomar el verdadero sentido griego de λὀγος tal y como fue planteado por Heráclito: como fluir y como lucha. (shrink)

Richard A. Posner's two books on the financial crisis focus on possible macroeconomic (Keynesian) causes of it, neglecting legal causes that would have had only microeconomic effects, yet could have been responsible for the crisis. Specifically, Posner accepts too readily the conventional wisdom that banks? leverage levels, hence their capital cushions, were deregulated; this ignores Basel I, Basel II, and the Recourse rule, which internationally and (in the last case) in the United States minutely regulated not only leverage levels but (...) the composition of banks? assets. These regulations penalized banks for making business loans in comparison to mortgage loans, and it further penalized them for keeping mortgage loans rather than selling them for securitization and then buying back the ?senior? tranches of the resulting mortgage-backed securities. These regulations may explain the overconcentration of mortgage risk in the banks, and thus the financial crisis. (shrink)

Richard A. Posner's two books on the financial crisis focus on possible macroeconomic (Keynesian) causes of it, neglecting legal causes that would have had only microeconomic effects, yet could have been responsible for the crisis. Specifically, Posner accepts too readily the conventional wisdom that banks’ leverage levels, hence their capital cushions, were deregulated; this ignores Basel I, Basel II, and the Recourse rule, which internationally and (in the last case) in the United States minutely regulated not only leverage levels but (...) the composition of banks’ assets. These regulations penalized banks for making business loans in comparison to mortgage loans, and it further penalized them for keeping mortgage loans rather than selling them for securitization and then buying back the “senior” tranches of the resulting mortgage-backed securities. These regulations may explain the overconcentration of mortgage risk in the banks, and thus the financial crisis. (shrink)

This article discusses different points of view on the possible relations between the various parts of Thomas Hobbes’ philosophical thought. It tries to clarify whether there is a relationship of deductive dependence between ethics and politics and his early philosophy as presented mainly in De Corpore of 1655, on the other hand.

O direito público contemporâneo é pensado a partir do tratamento impessoal dos cidadãos por autoridades e funcionários que agem dentro da moldura jurídica que delimita sua competência e orienta a sua ação ao interesse público. Se a soberania for compreendida a partir do instituto da propriedade (dominium), a relação entre o Estado e o cidadão acaba por espelhar a forma da relação entre senhor e escravo, em que os súditos se encontram submetidos à vontade privada do soberano. Uma tal modalidade (...) patrimonial de Estado mostra-se incompatível com a caracterização do direito público moderno. Neste artigo, identificamos na obra de Jean Bodin o contraste entre, de um lado, o caráter público do exercício da soberania nos regimes legítimos e, de outro, a natureza patrimonial dos regimes despótico e tirânico. No pensamento de Thomas Hobbes, observamos a evolução de uma concepção meramente patrimonial da soberania presente em Elements of law e De cive para uma distinção formal entre a vontade privada e a vontade pública do soberano no Leviathan. Nossa conclusão é que ambos os autores acabam por fornecer, cada um à sua maneira, um aparato conceitual apto para lidar com as características do Estado moderno acima apontadas, cuja repercussão pode ser notada na Filosofia Política dos séculos subsequentes. (shrink)

Many philosophers have pointed out that statistical evidence, or at least some forms of it, lack desirable epistemic or non-epistemic properties, and that this should make us wary of litigations in which the case against the defendant rests in whole or in part on statistical evidence. Others have responded that such broad reservations about statistical evidence are overly restrictive since appellate courts have expressed nuanced views about statistical evidence. In an effort to clarify and reconcile, I put forward an interpretive (...) analysis of why statistical evidence should raise concerns in some cases but not others. I argue that when there is a mismatch between the specificity of the evidence and the expected specificity of the accusation, statistical evidence—as any other kind of evidence—should be considered insufficient to sustain a conviction. I rely on different stylized court cases to illustrate the explanatory power of this analysis. (shrink)