The nineteenth-century strategist Carl von Clausewitz describes “fog” and “friction” as fundamental features of war. Military leverage of sophisticated information technology in the twenty-first century has improved some tactical operations but has not lifted the fog of war, in part, because the means for reducing uncertainty create new forms of it. Drawing on active duty experience with an American special operations task force in Western Iraq from 2007 to 2008, this article traces the targeting processes used to “find, fix, and (...) finish” alleged insurgents. In this case they did not clarify the political reality of Anbar province but rather reinforced a parochial worldview informed by the Naval Special Warfare community. The unit focused on the performance of “direct action” raids during a period in which “indirect action” engagement with the local population was arguably more appropriate for the strategic circumstances. The concept of “data friction”, therefore, can be understood not simply as a form of resistance within a sociotechnical system but also as a form of traction that enables practitioners to construct representations of the world that amplify their own biases. (shrink)

This book examines the importance of 'military ethics' in the formulation and conduct of contemporary military strategy. Clausewitz's original analysis of war relegated ethics to the side-lines in favour of political realism, interpreting the proper use of military power solely to further the political goals of the state, whatever those may be. This book demonstrates how such single-minded focus no longer suffices to secure the interest of states, for whom the nature of warfare has evolved to favour strategies that hold (...) combatants themselves to the highest moral and professional standards in their conduct of hostilities. Waging war has thus been transformed in a manner that moves beyond Clausewitz's original conception, rendering political success wholly dependent upon the cultivation and exercise of discerning moral judgment by strategists and combatants in the field. This book utilises a number of perspectives and case studies to demonstrate how ethics now plays a central role in strategy in modern armed conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of just war, ethics, military strategy, and international relations. in strategy in modern armed conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of just war, ethics, military strategy, and international relations. (shrink)

Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild animals give birth to large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and thus child mortality rates are far higher in nature than they are among human beings. In light of this reproductive strategy – traditionally referred to as the ‘r-strategy’ – does concern for the interests of wild animals require us to intervene in nature? In this paper, I argue that animal rights theorists should embrace fallibility-constrained interventionism: the (...) view that intervention in nature is desirable but should be constrained by our ignorance of the inner workings of ecosystems. Though authors sometimes assume that large-scale intervention requires turning nature into an enormous zoo, I suggest an alternative. With sufficient research, a new form of gene editing called CRISPR promises to one day give us the capacity to intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals’ liberties. (shrink)

In A World Not Made for Us, Keith R. Peterson provides a broad reassessment of the field of environmental philosophy, taking a fresh and critical look at three classical problems of environmentalism: the intrinsic value of nature, the need for an ecological worldview, and a new conception of the place of humankind in nature. Peterson makes the case that a genuinely critical environmental philosophy must adopt an ecological materialist conception of the human, a pluralistic value theory that emphasizes the need (...) for value prioritization, and a stratified categorical ontology that affirms the basic principle of human asymmetrical dependence on more-than-human nature. Integrating environmental ethics with the latest work in political ecology, Peterson argues it is important to understanding that the world is not made for us, and that coming to terms with this fact is a condition for survival in future human and more-than-human communities of liberation and solidarity. (shrink)

Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age - violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom except (...) on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. The book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate co-operation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends. Audi offers a balanced and sophisticated treatment of the relations between religion and politics in a modern, secular society. (shrink)

Political liberals ask citizens not to appeal to certain considerations, including religious and philosophical convictions, in political deliberation. We argue that political liberals must include a demanding requirement of intellectual modesty in their ideal of citizenship in order to motivate this deliberative restraint. The requirement calls on each citizen to believe that the best reasoners disagree about the considerations that she is barred from appealing to. Along the way, we clarify how requirements of intellectual modesty relate to moral reasons for (...) deliberative restraint. And we argue against attempts to weaken our requirement of intellectual modesty by emphasizing those moral reasons. (shrink)

„My sole purpose in this paper is to try and correct what I take to be a common misinterpretation of Hume’s opinions on mathematics. I shall not enquire whether he was right or wrong in holding these opinions. Nor shall I offer opinions of my own.“.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Using a new dataset of environmental, social, and corporate governance company ratings for the European market, this article examines whether socially responsible stock selection adds or destroys value in terms of portfolio performance. From 2004 to 2012, we find the following: Negative screens excluding unrated stocks from a representative European stock universe allow investors to significantly outperform a passive investment in a diversified European stock benchmark portfolio. Additional negative screens based on environmental and social scores neither add nor destroy portfolio (...) value, when cut-off rates are not too high. In contrast, governance screens can significantly increase portfolio performance under similar conditions. Thus, investors in the European stock market can do well while doing good. Because of a loss of diversification, positive screens can cause portfolios to underperform the benchmark. This implies that investors should concentrate on eliminating the worst firms. Our results are robust along several dimensions, namely, choice of performance measure, time, test parametrisation, portfolio weighting scheme, approximation of the risk-free rate, and consideration of transaction costs. (shrink)

Bioethics represents a dramatic revision of the centuries-old professional ethics that governed the behavior of physicians and their relationships with patients. This venerable ethics code was challenged in the years after World War II by the remarkable advances in the biomedical sciences and medicine that raised questions about the definition of death, the use of life-support systems, organ transplantation, and reproductive interventions. In response, philosophers and theologians, lawyers and social scientists joined together with physicians and scientists to rethink and revise (...) the old standards. Governments established commissions to recommend policies. Courts heard arguments and legislatures passed laws. This book is the first broad history of the growing field of bioethics. Covering the period 1947-1987, it examines the origin and evolution of the debates over human experimentation, genetic engineering, organ transplantation, termination of life-sustaining treatment, and new reproductive technologies. It assesses the contributions of philosophy, theology, law and the social sciences to the expanding discourse of bioethics. Written by one of the field's founders, The Birth of Bioethics is based on extensive archival research into sources that are difficult to obtain and on interviews with many of the leading figures in the moral debates in medicine. A very readable and comprehensive account of the evolution of bioethics, this book stresses the history of ideas but does not neglect the social and cultural context and the people involved. It will serve the information needs of philosophers, ethicists, social historians, and everyone interested in the origins of some of today's most hotly debated issues. (shrink)

What place does motivation have in the lives of intelligent agents? Mele's answer is sensitive to the concerns of philosophers of mind and moral philosophers and informed by empirical work. He offers a distinctive, comprehensive, attractive view of human agency. This book stands boldly at the intersection of philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.

The solution of the outer multiplicity problem in the tensor product of U(3) irreducible representations (irreps) developed by Biedenharn et al.(1–7) and realized through the well-known Draayer-Akiyama (DA) computer code(8) is extended to the quantum algebra Uq(3). An analytic formula for special stretched Uq(3) Wigner coefficients, $$\left\langle {(\lambda _1 \mu _1 ) H_1 , (\lambda _2 \mu _2 ) \varepsilon _2 \Lambda _2 m_2 \left| { (\lambda _3 \mu _3 ) H_3 } \right.} \right\rangle _{\max }^q $$ is derived using (...) a projection operator method.(9–10) In this expression Hi denotes the highest weight vector of the (λiμi) irrep; the subscript “max” means coefficients corresponding to a unit tensor operator with a maximal characteristic null space; and q is the usual quantum label so the standard U(3) Wigner coefficient, which is required in the DA code, can be obtained in the q→1 limit of the theory. To illustrate the theory, some Uq(3) Wigner coefficients for the tensor product (22)×(22) are calculated. The procedure for evaluating nonhighest weight Wigner Uq(3) coefficients follow the DA prescription. (shrink)

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

There is probably no student of modern philosophy, and certainly no listener to the Third Programme, who has never received the warning that he must on no account deduce an “ought” from an “is.” This prohibition, it is claimed, is securely based in established and unchallengeable principles of logic. Professor Flew was speaking for many others when he said, in the course of a broadcast entitled “Problems of Perspectives”, “I think it is very important indeed to make as clear as (...) we can and to underline with all possible emphasis that this is a point of inexorable logic”. And Professor Popper, to take but one other example, has expressed himself no less trenchantly: “Perhaps the simplest and most important point about ethics is purely logical, I mean the impossibility to derive nontautological ethical rules—imperatives, principles of policy, aims or however we may describe them—from statements of fact”—a view that is fully endorsed by Mr. Hare in his Language of Morals. (shrink)

Utilitarianism has recently been criticised on two counts in a recent number of Ratio. According to Terrance C. McConnell, it represents many of the acts which are ordinarily regarded as supererogatory as obligatory, and some of the others as actually wrong. In support of the latter criticism, he gives two kinds of examples: cases of self-sacrifice, and cases of trivial favours. Acts of self-sacrifice performed for the sake of others’ good, but which result in a greater balance of harm over (...) benefits than alternative acts would produce, would, he claims, normally be regarded as heroic, but are forbidden as wrong by the utilitarian: and of two alternative trivial favours, either of which would ordinarily count as supererogatory the utilitarian must treat the more beneficial as an obligation, and the less beneficial alternative as unallowable. These departures from ordinary responses are considered grounds for seriously doubting the adequacy of utilitarianism. (shrink)