The use of private security companies by national governments is met with widespread skepticism. Less understood is the role these companies can play in international humanitarian interventions in the service of international organizations. I argue here that despite valid concerns about the use of such private entities, we should nonetheless see them as legitimate participants in efforts to secure human rights protection around the globe. In order to assess their legitimacy, we need to ensure, among other things, that they (...) can adhere to ethical standards when serving in humanitarian missions, that they can be held accountable when they fail to uphold the standard of justice enshrined in international law, and that their for-profit status does not have implications detrimental to humanitarian concerns. (shrink)

In Beck, focus intervention is used as an argument for reducing Hamblin’s semantics for questions to Rooth’s focus semantics. Drawing on novel empirical evidence from Mandarin and English, we argue that this reduction is unwarranted. Maintaining both Hamblin’s original semantics and Rooth’s focus semantics not only allows for a more adequate account for focus intervention in questions, but also correctly predicts that focus intervention is a very general phenomenon caused by interaction of alternatives in different dimensions.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly recognised as a threat to human, animal and environmental health. In an effort to counter this threat, several intervention plans have been proposed and implemented by states and organisations such as the WHO. A One Health policy approach, which targets multiple domains (healthcare, animal husbandry and the environment), has been identified as useful for curbing AMR. Johnson and Matlock have recently argued that One Health policies in the AMR context require special ethical justification because of (...) the so-called least restrictive alternative principle. This article analyses and rejects two assumptions that this argument relies on. The first assumption is that One Health policies are generally more restrictive than their alternatives because they target more domains and impact more people. The second assumption is that the least restrictive alternative principle has a special normative importance in that it establishes a systematic presumption in favour of the least restrictive policy options. Once these assumptions are rejected, the use of One Health policies on AMR can be justified more easily than Johnson and Matlock argue. (shrink)

The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to (...) medical interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. Molding the institutions of governance: theories of state formation and the contingency of sovereignty in fragile polities; 2. Imposing states: foreign rivalries, local collaboration, and state form in peripheral polities; 3. Feudalizing the Chinese polity, 1893-1922: assessing the adequacy of alternative takes on state-reorganization; 4. External influence and China's feudalization, 1893-1922: opportunity costs and patterns of foreign intervention; 5. The evolution of foreign involvement in China, 1923-52: rising opportunity costs and convergent approaches to intervention; (...) 6. How intervention remade the Chinese state, 1923-52: foreign sponsorship and the building of sovereign China; 7. Creating Indonesia, 1893-1952: major power rivalry and the making of sovereign statehood; 8. Siam stands apart, 1893-1952: external intervention and rise of a sovereign Thai state; 9. Domesticating international relations, externalizing comparative politics: foreign intervention and the state in world politics. (shrink)

Alternatives in Semantics is the first volume to focus on alternatives as a key theme. It offers a survey of the use of alternatives in semantics and pragmatics, and an overview of current approaches and applications of alternative-based semantics, from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. The chapters represent different theoretical frameworks, which differ in the way they conceive of the source of alternatives, the status of alternatives, or the precise way in which they enter semantic composition. The contributions focus (...) on various empirical phenomena making reference to alternatives (negative polarity and free choice phenomena, implicatures, presupposition, focus and intervention effects), offering new insights and exploring connections between them. The chapters assembled in this volume demonstrate the vitality of alternative-based semantics and offer a clear perspective on the many challenging questions that arise from its increasing range of applications. (shrink)

Bioethics committees have issued guidelines that medical interventions should be permissible only in cases of clinically verifiable disease, deformity, or injury. Furthermore, once the existence of one or more of these requirements has been proven, the proposed therapeutic procedure must reasonably be expected to result in a net benefit to the patient. As an exception to this rule, some prophylactic interventions might be performed on individuals “in their best interests” or with the aim of averting an urgent and (...) potentially calamitous public health danger. In order to invoke these exceptions, a stringent set of criteria must first be satisfied. Additionally, where the proposed prophylactic intervention is intended for children, who are unlikely to be able to provide a meaningfully informed consent, a heightened scrutiny of any such measures is required. We argue that children should not be subjected to prophylactic interventions “in their best interests” or for public health reasons when there exist effective and conservative alternative interventions, such as behavioural modification, that individuals could employ as competent adolescents or adults to avoid adverse health outcomes. Applying these criteria, we consider the specific examples of prophylactic mastectomy, immunisations, cosmetic ear surgery, and circumcision. (shrink)

Next SectionBy discussing a novel paradigm, it is shown that the likeliness of an operator to trigger an intervention effect in a wh-in-situ question is determined by the logical properties of that operator (contra Beck 1996a, 2006, for instance). A new empirical generalization accounting for the differences between operators in their ability to cause intervention and improving on existing analyses is suggested. This generalization is fully predictive and allows one to not have to list in the lexicon whether an intervener (...) is problematic or not. It is implemented as a formal condition on wh-questions in a version of Hamblin 1973's/Karttunen 1977's question semantics that makes crucial use of Chierchia 2006's domain alternatives. (shrink)

When we take a look back at the way Western states have fought terrorist organizations in the last 20 years, it is difficult not to think that these alternatives to war might have been more ethical than the decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and in 2003. These cases speak for themselves as they have both led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, which is highly paradoxical in light of the logic that supported these (...) interventions. There is a need to think of alternatives to war that will imply the legitimization of proactive sets of measures that would allow states to effectively prevent terrorist attacks through the use of kinetic force in a limited extent as a way to avoid the terrible and unpredictable effects of wars. Violent Alternatives to War: Justifying Actions Against Contemporary Terrorism engages in a moral discussion of the challenges associated with violent alternatives to war when confronting terrorism and suggests a comprehensive approach to how this form of violence can be legitimized and how it ought to be used against this contemporary threat. (shrink)

The paper provides a semantic analysis of intervention effects in wh-questions. The interpretation component of the grammar derives uninterpretability, hence ungrammaticality, of the intervention data. In the system of compositional interpretation that I suggest, wh-phrases play the same role as focused phrases, introducing alternatives into the computation. Unlike focus, wh-phrases make no ordinary semantic contribution. An intervention effect occurs whenever a focus-sensitive operator other than the question operator tries to evaluate a constituent containing a wh-phrase. It is argued that this (...) approach can capture the universal as well as the crosslinguistically variable aspects of intervention effects, in a way that is superior to previous approaches. Further consequences concern other focus-related constructions: multiple focus data, NPI licensing, and alternative questions. (shrink)

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I (...) consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self-defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth-century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the "just authority" of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near-unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions. (shrink)

Background: The new human coronavirus that leads to COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world and has a high degree of lethality. In more severe cases, patients remain hospitalized for several days under treatment of the health team. Thus, it is important to develop and use technologies with the aim to strengthen conventional therapy by encouraging movement, physical activity, and improving cardiorespiratory fitness for patients. In this sense, therapies for exposure to virtual reality are promising and have been shown to (...) be an adequate and equivalent alternative to conventional exercise programs.Aim: This is a study protocol with the aim of comparing the conventional physical therapy intervention with the use of a non-immersive VR software during COVID-19 hospitalization.Methods: Fifty patients hospitalized with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 will be divided in two groups under physiotherapy treatment using conventional or VR intervention: Group A: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day of the protocol with VR tasks in the morning and then in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform the conventional exercises and Group B: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day with conventional exercises in the morning and in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform activity with VR. All participants will be evaluated with different motor and physiologic scales before and after the treatment to measure improvements.Conclusion: Considering the importance of benefits from physical activity during hospitalization, VR software shows promise as a potential mechanism for improving physical activity. The results of this study may provide new insights into hospital rehabilitation.Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04537858. Registered on 01 September 2020. (shrink)

In the ‘Justice Cascade’, Kathryn Sikkink argues that “foreign prosecutions and international tribunals can be cost-effective alternatives to military intervention.” Yet, the successes of the Special Court for Sierra Leone—in prosecuting former Liberian President Charles Taylor and in imposing accountability on the leaders of all armed groups regardless of political alignment—were dependent on a commitment by Western powers and international and regional organizations to a military victory against the rebels in Sierra Leone and coercive regime change in Liberia. The lesson (...) that should be drawn from this case—which parallels that of other international tribunals set up during ongoing violence—is that the prospects for international criminal justice during civil wars are dependent on the political strategies adopted by outsiders to address the conflict and that taking criminal accountability seriously requires an interventionist rather than a consent-based approach to conflict resolution. (shrink)

The widely cited Nuffield Council on Bioethics ‘Intervention Ladder’ structurally embodies the assumption that personal autonomy is maximized by non-intervention. Consequently, the Intervention Ladder encourages an extreme ‘negative liberty’ view of autonomy. Yet there are several alternative accounts of autonomy that are both arguably superior as accounts of autonomy and better suited to the issues facing public health ethics. We propose to replace the one-sided ladder, which has any intervention coming at a cost to autonomy, with a two-sided ‘Balanced (...) Intervention Ladder,’ where intervention can either enhance or diminish autonomy. We show that not only the alternative, richer accounts of autonomy but even Mill’s classic version of negative liberty puts some interventions on the positive side of the ladder. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience might make it possible to develop techniques for directly altering offenders’ brains, in order to make offenders more responsible and law-abiding. The idea of using such techniques within the criminal justice system can seem intuitively troubling, even if they were more effective in preventing crime than traditional methods of rehabilitation. One standard argument against this use of brain interventions is that it would undermine the individual’s free will. This paper maintains that ‘free will’ (at least, as (...) that notion is understood by those who adopt the influential compatibilist approach) is an inadequate basis for explaining what is problematic about some direct brain interventions. This paper then defends an alternative way of objecting to certain kinds of direct brain interventions, focusing on the relationship between the offender and the state rather than the notion of free will. It opposes the use of interventions which aim to enhance ‘virtue responsibility’ (by instilling particular values about what is right and wrong), arguing that this would objectify offenders. In contrast, it argues that it may be acceptable to use direct brain interventions to enhance ‘capacity responsibility’ (i.e. to strengthen the abilities necessary for the exercise of responsible agency, such as self-control). Finally it considers how to distinguish these different kinds of responsibility enhancement. (shrink)

Causal models show promise as a foundation for the semantics of counterfactual sentences. However, current approaches face limitations compared to the alternative similarity theory: they only apply to a limited subset of counterfactuals and the connection to counterfactual logic is not straightforward. This article addresses these difficulties using exogenous interventions, where causal interventions change the values of exogenous variables rather than structural equations. This model accommodates judgments about backtracking counterfactuals, extends to logically complex counterfactuals, and validates familiar (...) principles of counterfactual logic. This combines the interventionist intuitions of the causal approach with the logical advantages of the similarity approach. (shrink)

Third-party certification is an increasingly prevalent tactic which agrifood activists use to “help” consumers shop ethically, and also to reorganize commodity markets. While consumers embrace the chance to “vote with their dollar,” academics question the potential for labels to foster widespread political, economic, and agroecological change. Yet, despite widespread critique, a mounting body of work appears resigned to accept that certification may be the only option available to activist groups in the context of neoliberal socio-economic orders. At the extreme, Guthman (...) (Antipode 39(3): 457, 2007) posits that “at this political juncture… ‘there is no alternative.” This paper offers a different assessment of third-party certification, and points to interventions that are potentially more influential that are currently available to activist groups. Exploring the evolution of the Non-GMO Project—a novel certification for foods that are reasonably free of genetically engineered (GE) material—I make two arguments. First, I echo the literature’s critical perspective by illustrating how certification projects become vulnerable to industry capture. Reviewing its history and current context, I suggest that the Non-GMO Project would be better suited to helping companies avoid mounting public criticism than to substantially reorient agrifood production. Second, I explore the “politics of the possible” in the current political economy and argue that while neoliberalization and organizers’ places within the food system initially oriented the group towards the private sector, the choice to pursue certification arose directly from two industry partnerships. Consequently, current trends might favor market mechanisms, but certification is only one possible intervention that has emerged as a result of particular, and perhaps avoidable, circumstances. The article offers tentative delineation of alternatives ways that activists might intervene in agrifood and political economic systems given present constraints. (shrink)

The intensity of the opposition to health reform in the United States continues to shock and perplex proponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The emotion and the apocalyptic rhetoric, render civil and evidence-based debate over the implications and alternatives to specific provisions in the law difficult if not problematic. The public debate has largely barreled down two non-parallel yet non-intersecting paths: opponents focus on their fear of government expansion in the future if PPACA is implemented now, while (...) proponents focus on the urgency and specifics of our health care market problems and the limited number of tools we have to address them. Frustration on both sides has led opponents to deny the seriousness of our health system’s problems and proponents to ignore the risk of governmental overreach. These non-intersecting lines of argument are not moving us closer to a desired and necessary resolution. (shrink)

Legal debates about humanitarian intervention tend to assume that its legitimacy is irrelevant to its legality, while political theorists often assume the inverse. This paper defends an alternative account, which sees the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention as intertwined.

In this paper I look at causality in the context of intervention research, and discuss some problems faced in the evaluation of causal hypotheses via interventions. I draw attention to a simple problem for evaluations that employ randomized controlled trials. The common alternative to randomized trials, the observational study, is shown to face problems of a similar nature. I then argue that these problems become especially acute in cases where the intervention is complex (i.e. that involves intervening in (...) a complex system). Finally, I consider and reject a possible resolution of the problem involving the simulation of complex interventions. The conclusion I draw from this is that we need to radically reframe the way we think about causal inference in complex intervention research. (shrink)

Taking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, we present a concept for transdisciplinary cooperation between life sciences and humanities. PTSD is defined as a long-term persisting anxiety disorder after severe psychological traumata. Initially recognized in war veterans, PTSD also appears in victims of crime and violence or survivors of natural catastrophes, e.g., earthquakes. We consider PTSD as a prototype topic to realize transdisciplinary projects, because this disease is multifacetted from different points of view. Based on physiological and molecular biological (...) research to understand the causes of this disease, conventional academic medicine (to Western medicine) and pharmacology can offer a panel of drugs for treatment, albeit only with limited success. Hence, other treatment options are indispensable. Chinese medicine is frequently regarded as alternative to complement Western medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine offers a large array of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for PTSD patients. Narrative therapy represents a non-pharmacological approach combating PTSD both in Western medicine as well as in Chinese medicine to improve quality of life of affected patients. Narratives on traumatic experiences form a new genre of life writing in Asian American literature, whose excitement is considerably fueled by the tension between fictitious and very personal narratives taken from reality. Systematic academic reflections on narratives from PTSD patients in the field of Asian American studies may support the improvement of narrative therapy in medical practice. Chinese medicine has a strong philosophical background and may, therefore, serve as junction between life sciences with their strong rational and reductionistic way to generate new knowledge and more holistic approaches in traditional medicines and humanities. In this regard, Chinese medicine may represent a missing link between life science and life writing. (shrink)

‘Moral bioenhancement’ refers to the use of pharmaceuticals and other direct brain interventions to enhance ‘moral’ traits such as ‘empathy,’ and alter any ‘morally problematic’ dispositions, such as ‘aggression.’ This is believed to result in improved moral responses. In a recent paper, Tom Douglas considers whether medical interventions of this sort could be “provided as part of the criminal justice system’s response to the commission of crime, and for the purposes of facilitating rehabilitation : 101–122, 2014).” He suggests (...) that they could “at least in some cases, permissibly be provided without valid consent : 101–122, 2014)” as a form of rehabilitative punishment. He argues for this conclusion by ‘parity of reasoning,’ starting from the currently accepted practice of non-consensual incarceration. His argument appears to be dependent on the successful defence of the following two claims: that non-consensual incarceration is a morally justifiable practice, and that there is no meaningful distinction between the forcible imposition of this practice, and the forcible imposition of medical interventions on prisoners. From both claims, he deduces : if non-consensual incarceration is morally justifiable, so is the non-consensual imposition of medical correctives, in some cases. In this paper, I begin by suggesting that the basic argument behind the Parity Claim results in a reductio ad absurdum, whereby any practice that is sufficiently similar to incarceration in the ways Douglas presents, would also be considered permissible. This appears to be an unpalatable conclusion, casting doubt on the soundness of a key premise. Douglas appears to offer no means of deciding which practices are sufficiently similar to incarceration in terms of harm and threat to agency, and of the practices that I will present, which do seem to be, it does not seem that he could rule them out in any principled way. Next I turn to dispute claim relating to the purported justifiability of incarceration on rehabilitative grounds. If successful, this attack causes a break in reasoning from the justifiability of incarceration, to the justifiability of medical interventions. Medical interventions would then require an alternative, independent justification, through outlining the ways in which they are conducive to a particular aim of punishment, without relying on the justifiability of incarceration. This argument has not been provided, and I suggest that attempts to do so may run into difficulty. I untangle and make explicit the various assumptions made in Douglas’ contention that medical interventions “might be thought conducive to rehabilitation in some offenders,” locating my critique in the wider debate on the causes of crime. Finally, I seek to challenge the normative weight of the Parity Claim, arguing that to show that two practices are comparable in some sense is not sufficient to show that both are equally as permissible. Other social purposes must be considered, leading me to suggest that the forcible imposition medical correctives falls beyond the appropriate remit of the criminal justice system. (shrink)

Throughout the Yemeni Civil War, western states have supplied weapons used in the indiscriminate bombing campaign conducted by the Saudis. In defence of their actions, British politicians have argued that they are exchanging weapons for influence, and using the influence obtained to encourage compliance with humanitarian law. An additional premise in the argument is that Britain is using its influence more benignly than alternative suppliers would use theirs if Britain were not on the scene. The idea is that Britain (...) is substituting itself for other, less scrupulous, interveners. I argue that, regardless of whether British substitution intervention could be justified in this way…, it is not in fact justified, because Britain has not plausibly used its influence to secure an amount of good sufficient to offset the various harms that its actions have created (or to discharge the expanded duties of rescue that greater influence entails). In addition, the article identifies the various forms that substitution intervention can take, and shows how the concept reveals hitherto neglected reasons to both support and oppose intervention in foreign conflicts. (shrink)

The past century has witnessed numerous methodological innovations in probabilistic and statistical methods of causal inference (e.g., the graphical modelling and the potential outcomes frameworks, as introduced in Chapter 1). These innovations have not only enhanced the methodologies by which scientists across diverse domains make causal inference, but they have also made a profound impact on the way philosophers think about causation. The philosophical issues discussed in this thesis are stimulated and inspired by these methodological innovations. Chapter 2 addresses the (...) question of how the holding of screening-off conditions for a causal model depends on the choice of variables. As bridge principles between probability and causation, screening-off conditions (especially the Causal Markov Condition) play a key role in causal inference. However, it has been known that these conditions may fail due to poor variable choice. My aim in this chapter is to further examine those constraints on variable choice that are deemed necessary for the satisfaction of screening-off conditions. The idea of a well-defined (hypothetical) intervention is also crucial for reliable causal inference. Chapter 3 explores the question of when interventions invoked in causal inference are “well-defined” or unambiguous, and how this requirement constrains the choice of cause-variables. I propose that an intervention is well-defined just in case the effect of interest is well-defined (under ideal interventions), and that the intervention can serve as a suitable means to identify that effect. Based on this proposal, several distinct types of ambiguous interventions are identified. Methodological progress in causal inference also poses the following question: Can such progress shed light on the ontology of causation? My answer is yes. In Chapter 4, I develop a Carnapian-pragmatist approach to the ontology of causation as an alternative to existing metaphysical approaches. I argue that, compared to traditional metaphysics, the pragmatist approach provides a superior picture of how the ontology and methodology of causation interact with each other in scientific practice. I conclude in Chapter 5 that the thing we call “causation” consists in both the right worldly infrastructure (e.g., screening-off patterns and possibilities for interventions) and appropriate ways of framing this infrastructure. (shrink)

Physicians may justifiably limit patients' refusals of medical interventions when the refusal is based on a negative right to noninterference coupled with a request for an unreasonable alternative.

In response to controversies about Attention Deficit Disorder and Ritalin, many alternative therapies have proliferated in professional and lay circles. This study examines alternative therapy discourse and asks whether these texts offer any real challenge to traditional discourses of medicalized motherhood. Indeed, alternative therapies employ most of medicine's discursive strategies, portraying mothers as inadequate and responsible for their children's problems and positioning the child as both at risk and a danger to society. Furthermore, the speculative causal factors (...) and the lengths to which mothers are encouraged to go in alternative therapy texts place a heavier burden on women than do traditional medical texts. Thus, while the medical treatment for ADD might be challenged, alternative therapy discourse supports the legitimacy of ADD as a diagnostic category, argues that its causes are personal and gendered, and claims that professional intervention remains the proper response. (shrink)

Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, (...) and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles. (shrink)

The World Trade Organization has been the target of social justice activists since its inception in 1994, with many seeking to reshape or rescind the WTO agreements. This article instead explores possible interventions into WTO adjudication by compelling the reinterpretation of existing WTO documents. Such an approach can take several forms: mobilizing professional expertise, engaging technical standards, and constructing companion regimes. Using the recent United States/european Community genetically modified organisms case as a reference point, this article explores opportunities for (...) implementing the last two strategies. The Codex Alimentarius, an international food standards regime, seems to provide a particularly promising location for reconstructing WTO risk and governance procedures. The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, an international environmental regime, deeply challenges narrow readings of WTO texts but may not have enough legal force in the WTO. These alternative locations for intervention hold promise and risks for activists seeking international justice in environment, food, and trade. (shrink)

Beginning farmer initiatives like the USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, farm incubators, and small-scale marketing innovations offer new entrant farmers agricultural training, marketing and business assistance, and farmland loans. These programs align with alternative food movement goals to revitalize the anemic U.S. small farm sector and repopulate landscapes with socially and environmentally diversified farms. Yet even as these initiatives seek to support prospective farmers with tools for success through a knowledge dissemination model, they remain mostly individualistic and (...) entrepreneurial measures that overlook structural barriers to productive and economic success within U.S. agriculture. Analysis of the BFRDP’s funding history and discourse reveals a “knowledge deficit” based program focused on the technical rather than the structural aspects of beginning farming. This is contrasted with qualitative analysis of beginning farmer experiences in California’s Central Coast region. The discrepancies between the farmer experiences and national structure of the BFRDP program ultimately reveal a policy mismatch between the needs of some beginning farmers and the programs intended to support them. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the semantic typology of dependent indefinites, by accounting for the distribution and interpretation of the Romanian indefinite vreun. It is shown that its occurrences are restricted to negative polarity and a subset of modal contexts. More specifically, the study of its behavior in intensional environments reveals that vreun is systematically incompatible with non-epistemic operators, a restriction we capture by proposing a novel empirical generalization (‘the epistemic constraint’). To account for the observed pattern, we adopt the unitary (...) approach to polarity in Chierchia (Logic in Grammar: polarity, free choice and intervention, 2013a; in: Fălăuş (ed.) Alternatives in semantics, 2013b) and derive the properties of vreun from its obligatory association with alternatives. Its distributional restrictions are argued to follow from the interplay between the types of alternatives it activates (scalar and subdomain alternatives), the way these alternatives are factored into meaning (via an independently motivated mechanism of exhaustification) and the lexical semantics of the operators in the context of occurrence. We propose that the epistemic constraint arises from the lexicalization of an inference (anti-total variation) that non-epistemic operators can never satisfy. (shrink)

It is a widely shared belief that genocide – the ‘crime of crimes’– is more morally significant than ‘mere’ large-scale mass murder. Various attempts have been made to capture that separate evil of genocide: some have attempted to locate it in damage done to individuals, while others have focused upon the harm done to collectives. In this article, I offer a third, neglected, option. Genocide damages humankind: it is here that the difference is to be found. I show that this (...) understanding has a venerable legal history, and argue that it has the significant benefits of legitimising intervention and justifying universal jurisdiction. (shrink)

Medical interventions such as methadone treatment for drug addicts or “chemical castration” for sex offenders have been used in several jurisdictions alongside or as an alternative to traditional punishments, such as incarceration. As our understanding of the biological basis for human behaviour develops, our criminal justice system may make increasing use of such medical techniques and may become less reliant on incarceration. Academic debate on this topic has largely focused on whether offenders can validly consent to medical (...) class='Hi'>interventions, given the coercive environment of the criminal justice system. Both sides in this debate share the assumption that administering medical interventions to offenders without their valid consent would be unethical. Recently, Thomas Douglas has mounted a formidable challenge to this “consent requirement”. Essentially, his argument rests on a comparison between prison and medical interventions. Douglas asks: if the state is entitled to impose a prison sentence on a criminal without the criminal’s consent, why is consent required for the imposition of a medical intervention? The most obvious way of defending the consent requirement against Douglas’s challenge appeals to the fact that incarceration merely interferes with the right to free movement, but medical interventions interfere with the right to bodily integrity. This argument rests on what Douglas calls the “robustness claim”—the claim that the right to bodily integrity is more robust than the right to freedom of movement. In other words, the right to freedom of movement loses its protective force in a wider range of circumstances than the right to bodily integrity. Douglas’s article seeks to undermine the robustness claim, by arguing that neither case-based intuitions, nor theoretical considerations support this claim. In this article, I will attempt to raise some doubts about Douglas’s challenge to the consent requirement and the robustness claim. (shrink)

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic people have endured potentially stressful challenges which have influenced behaviors such as eating. This pilot study examined the effectiveness of two brief interventions aimed to help individuals deal with food cravings and associated emotional experiences. Participants were 165 individuals residing in United Kingdom, Finland, Philippines, Spain, Italy, Brazil, North America, South Korea, and China. The study was implemented remotely, thus without any contact with researchers, and involved two groups. Group one participants were (...) requested to use daily diaries for seven consecutive days to assess the frequency of experience of their food cravings, frequency of giving in to cravings, and difficulty resisting cravings, as well as emotional states associated with their cravings. In addition to completing daily food diaries, participants in group two were asked to engage in mindful eating practice and forming implementation intentions. Participants assessed their perceived changes in eating, wellbeing, and health at the beginning and end of the intervention. Repeated measures MANOVAs indicated that participants experienced significantly less food cravings, as well as lower intensities of unpleasant states associated with cravings across time. In contrast to our hypothesis, the main effects of the group were not significant. Participants reported less eating and enhanced wellbeing at the end of the study. Our findings can be used to inform future remote interventions to manage food cravings and associated emotions and highlight the need for alternative solutions to increase participant engagement. (shrink)

Historically, the nomadic traditions of pastoralists have been alternately attacked and romanticized. In fact, pastoral groups represent a range of production systems with wide variations in pastoral and cultivation activities. Given this range and the ecological and sociopolitical constraints facing pastoralists today, agroforestry interventions appear not only feasible, but perhaps imperative for some pastoral groups. However, their design and implementation must be carried out with keen awareness and respect for the unique ecological and cultural position traditionally nomadic pastoral people (...) hold. A review of the sociopolitical and natural resource management literature on existing sylvopastoral and agrosylvopastoral technologies points to the importance of social issues such as gender, land and tree tenure, equity, and cultural context. These provide the basis for discussing the feasibility of agroforestry interventions in terms of their aims, potentials, and risks for pastoral groups. (shrink)

Frankfurt’s “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” made an important intervention into the literature on moral responsibility via a classical Frankfurt-type example, arguing that “the principle of alternate possibilities” is false. This paper argues that classical Frankfurt-type examples fail due to the use of agentic counterfactual interventions who lack agency. Using finite state machines to illustrate, I show the models that classical Frankfurt-type examples must use and why they are incongruent with leeway incompatibilist beliefs—the motivating interlocutor for classical Frankfurt-type examples. (...) I then argue that returning agency to the agentic counterfactual intervention also returns alternate possibilities to the actual sequence of events, undermining a core premise of Frankfurt’s. Lastly, I show why a number of potential counterarguments should fail to persuade the leeway incompatibilist. (shrink)

This book offers an intervention into the process of decolonization through the re-subjectification of the settler subject. The authors draw on what Deleuze and Guattari call minor threads of philosophy, pedagogy, spirituality, and healing practices rooted in neglected lineages of European thought and ceremony. The book proposes a methodology for unontologizing the settler subject, which they term 'desettlering.' Rather than fetishizing indigenous theory and practice as a mode for resubjectifying settlers to facilitate land-based decolonization, it offers a fresh approach by (...) looking towards alternative sets of traditions and identity. These alternatives are used to interrogate minoritarian European philosophies, practices, and beliefs, which the authors propose could be deployed to unontologize the settler within current historical conditions. Asserting that such a process is not volitional but a historical necessity, the book offers a novel and timely investigation into who settlers become if they intend to engage seriously in decolonization. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and researchers in psychological science, social psychology, counseling, philosophy, indigenous studies, and sociology. (shrink)

Feminist analyses of the roles gender has played in art lead to an alternative theory that emphasizes art's complex interactions with culture(s) rather than the autonomy within culture claimed for it by formalism. Focusing on the visual arts, I extrapolate the new theory from feminist research and compare it with formalist precepts. Sharing Arthur Danto's concern that art has been disenfranchised in the twentieth century by its preoccupation with theory, I claim that feminist thought re-enfranchises art by revisioning its (...) relationship to its contexts. (shrink)

Vihvelin argues that Frankfurt-style cases should be divided into two kinds, according to when the trigger for the intention takes place: either prior to the agent's choice or after it. Most agree that only the former, which I call pre-decisional intervention, stands a chance of removing all of an agent's alternatives. Vihvelin notes that both sides in the dispute over whether there is a successful case of pre-decisional intervention assume that if there is a successful case, then it will be (...) a case where the agent has no alternative. Vihvelin thinks this is a mistake: agents subject to pre-decisional intervention still have alternatives, and the intricate discussion and development of ever more complex Frankfurt-style cases is beside the point. She argues for this by presenting a case, purportedly analogous to Frankfurt-style cases, where it is clear that there are alternatives available. Fischer has replied by disputing the analogy. In this paper I argue that Vihvelin is right to think the cases are analogous, but that both Fischer and Vihvelin are wrong to think that Vihvelin's parallel case is one where there are alternatives. Despite appearances, this is not the case, and I construct a Fischer-inspired argument to show this. (shrink)

This book isolates three moments within the epidemic—‘the Science,’ non-pharmaceutical intervention, and pharmaceutic remedies—and shows how each of these unities came to immunise itself against alternative proposals. Michael Lewis demonstrates the auto-immune and counter-productive effects of this approach.

As an art theoretician, and as a father, I focus on the social and political consequences of Vanderbeeken’s postmodernist negative theology. I express doubts about the relevance of a poetics of catastrophe that conflates any possible alternative to the alleged technocracy under the sign of the simulacrum. To my opinion, the discourse about the virtual and the real are in a deadlock. Following the lead of American novelist Thomas Pynchon, I rephrase these critical doubts in Luddite terms: should we (...) imagine a counterattack as radical as the alleged dystopian nightmare dreamed up and sketched out by Vanderbeeken? I try to show that this line of thinking risks to result in a bold and speculative logic where ethical nuance collapses and, ultimately, the relationship between art, theory and the social culture is reduced to metaphorical analogy. To make this point I retake a critical, phenomenologically inspired reaction by Vivian Sobchack to Baudrillard’s account of Crash, J.G. Ballard’s controversial novel on techno-fetishism. My argument is that the scar that marks Sobchack’s ‘technobody’ might here stand for an alternative that approaches our technological condition not as a discursive machine but as a social pragmatics with deep ethical implications. (shrink)

_René Descartes proposed an interactive dualism that posits an interaction between the_ _mind of a human being and some of the matter located in his or her brain. Isaac Newton_ _subsequently formulated a physical theory based exclusively on the material/physical_ _part of Descartes’ ontology. Newton’s theory enforced the principle of the causal closure_ _of the physical, and the classical physics that grew out of it enforces this same principle._ _This classical theory purports to give, in principle, a complete deterministic account (...) of the_ _physically described properties of nature, expressed exclusively in terms of these_ _physically described properties themselves. Orthodox contemporary physical theory_ _violates this principle in two separate ways. First, it injects random elements into the_ _dynamics. Second, it allows, and also requires, abrupt probing actions that disrupt the_ _mechanistically described evolution of the physically described systems. These probing_ _actions are called Process 1 interventions by von Neumann. They are psycho-physical_ _events. Neither the content nor the timing of these events is determined either by any_ _known law, or by the afore-mentioned random elements. Orthodox quantum mechanics_ _considers these events to be instigated by choices made by conscious agents. In von_ _Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory each such intervention acts upon the state of_ _the brain of some conscious agent. Thus orthodox von Neumann contemporary physics_ _posits an interactive dualism similar to that of Descartes. But in this quantum version the_ _effects of the conscious choices upon our brains are controlled, in part, by the known_ _basic rules of quantum physics. This theoretically specified mind-brain connection allows_ _many basic psychological and neuropsychological findings associated with the apparent_ _physical effectiveness of our conscious volitional efforts to be explained in a causal and_ _practically useful way.. (shrink)

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual (...) propositions that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)

Taking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, we present a concept for transdisciplinary cooperation between life sciences and humanities. PTSD is defined as a long-term persisting anxiety disorder after severe psychological traumata. Initially recognized in war veterans, PTSD also appears in victims of crime and violence or survivors of natural catastrophes, e.g., earthquakes. We consider PTSD as a prototype topic to realize transdisciplinary projects, because this disease is multifacetted from different points of view. Based on physiological and molecular biological (...) research to understand the causes of this disease, conventional academic medicine (to Western medicine) and pharmacology can offer a panel of drugs for treatment, albeit only with limited success. Hence, other treatment options are indispensable. Chinese medicine is frequently regarded as alternative to complement Western medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine offers a large array of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for PTSD patients. Narrative therapy represents a non-pharmacological approach combating PTSD both in Western medicine as well as in Chinese medicine to improve quality of life of affected patients. Narratives on traumatic experiences form a new genre of life writing in Asian American literature, whose excitement is considerably fueled by the tension between fictitious and very personal narratives taken from reality. Systematic academic reflections on narratives from PTSD patients in the field of Asian American studies may support the improvement of narrative therapy in medical practice. Chinese medicine has a strong philosophical background and may, therefore, serve as junction between life sciences with their strong rational and reductionistic way to generate new knowledge and more holistic approaches in traditional medicines and humanities. In this regard, Chinese medicine may represent a missing link between life science and life writing. (shrink)

René Descartes proposed an interactive dualism that posits an interaction between the mind of a human being and some of the matter located in his or her brain. Isaac Newton subsequently formulated a physical theory based exclusively on the material/physical part of Descartes’ ontology. Newton’s theory enforced the principle of the causal closure of the physical, and the classical physics that grew out of it enforces this same principle. This classical theory purports to give, in principle, a complete deterministic account (...) of the physically described properties of nature, expressed exclusively in terms of these physically described properties themselves. Orthodox contemporary physical theory violates this principle in two separate ways. First, it injects random elements into the dynamics. Second, it allows, and also requires, abrupt probing actions that disrupt the mechanistically described evolution of the physically described systems. These probing actions are called Process 1 interventions by von Neumann. They are psycho-physical events. Neither the content nor the timing of these events is determined either by any known law, or by the afore-mentioned random elements. Orthodox quantum mechanics considers these events to be instigated by choices made by conscious agents. In von Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory each such intervention acts upon the state of the brain of some conscious agent. Thus orthodox von Neumann contemporary physics posits an interactive dualism similar to that of Descartes. But in this quantum version the effects of the conscious choices upon our brains are controlled, in part, by the known basic rules of quantum physics. This theoretically specified mind-brain connection allows many basic psychological and neuropsychological findings associated with the apparent physical effectiveness of our conscious volitional efforts to be explained in a causal and practically useful way.. (shrink)

The need for continuing provision of beneficial experimental interventions after research is concluded remains a controversial topic in bioethics for research. Based on the principle of beneficence, justice as reciprocity, concerns about exploitation and fair benefits, participants should be able to have continuing access to benefits beyond the research period. However, there is no consensus about whether or not post-trial provision of beneficial interventions should be mandatory for participants from developing countries. This paper summarises recommendations from international and (...) national guidelines. Ethical principles and practical issues relating to post-trial provision are also discussed. In conclusion, post-trial provision is not necessary in all situations and a set of criteria are proposed to identify the situations that beneficial interventions should be provided beyond the research period. However, mandatory post-trial supply of beneficial experimental interventions should be assured for those who still need and are able to benefit from them but have no alternative access. Mandatory provision is based on universal bioethical principles such as beneficence and justice. Furthermore, difficulties associated with implementation of post-trial provision are not unmanageable. Careful advanced planning and a comprehensive partnership among relevant parties would be very helpful in solving these difficulties in practice, which therefore should not be taken as an excuse to escape post-trial responsibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Digital mental health interventions have emerged as a promising means of expanding access to mental healthcare. Prospective participants reporting severe symptoms or suicidal ideation are often excluded from DMHI trials and may struggle to access alternative treatments. However, evidence suggests that DMHIs are efficacious for people reporting these characteristics. We suggest that there are risks to both including and excluding people from DMHI trials, and we urge researchers to ensure that their eligibility criteria are designed in an (...) evidence-based and ethically conscious manner. We also make specific recommendations for those working in various other capacities within the academic community. (shrink)

How are we to understand advanced information technologies at a time where their use is becoming more and more widespread? To address this question, the author analyses the discourse of cooperative design. In doing this she draws on recent feminist thinking and her own experiences from a research project. She discusses the meaning of concepts such as experience, users, computers and politics in this discourse. She particularly stresses alternative ways of understanding the political nature of design and that multiple (...) perspectives, including descriptive and historical ones, are relevant to both developing the technology and to deepening our understanding of the politics of intervention in design. (shrink)

High degrees of uncertainty and a lack of effective therapeutic treatments have characterized the COVID-19 pandemic and the provision of drug products outside research settings has been controversial. International guidelines for providing patients with experimental interventions to treat infectious diseases outside of clinical trials exist but it is unclear if or how they should apply in settings where clinical trials and research are strongly regulated. We propose the Professional Oversight of Emergency-Use Interventions and Monitoring System as an (...) class='Hi'>alternative pathway based on guidance developed for the ethical provision of experimental interventions to treat COVID-19 in Singapore. We support our proposal with justifications that establish moral duties for physicians to record outcomes data and for institutions to establish monitoring systems for reporting information on safety and effectiveness to the relevant authorities. Institutions also have a duty to support generation of evidence for what constitutes good clinical practice and so should ensure the unproven intervention is made the subject of research studies that can contribute to generalizable knowledge as soon as practical and that physicians remain committed to supporting learning health systems. We outline key differences between POEIMS and other pathways for the provision of experimental interventions in public health emergencies. (shrink)