The seed system is a major component of traditional management of crop genetic diversity in developing countries. Seed flows are an important part of this system. They have been poorly studied for minor Andean crops, especially those that are propagated vegetatively. We examine the seed exchanges of Oxalis tuberosa Mol., a vegetatively propagated crop capable of sexual reproduction. We studied the seed exchanges of four rural communities in Candelaria district at the international and local levels, emphasizing the spread of new (...) sexually-produced genotypes through these exchanges. Interviews with 44 farmers generated socioeconomic, agronomic, crop diversity and seed exchange information, and data on the potential incorporation of new sexually-produced genotypes in the crop germplasm. We interviewed merchants to evaluate the input and output of genetic diversity in the communities studied. Results showed a positive effect of the farmers’ wealth on the diversity cultivated and on seed exchanges. Most seed exchanges occurred at market, creating a distinction between cash and self-consumption landraces. Cash landraces were intensively exchanged; self-consumption landraces were isolated at the farmer level and prone to genetic drift and complete loss. Merchants exported seeds of cash landraces across Bolivia and into Peru and Argentina. New sexually produced genotypes are less incorporated into cash landraces than in self-consumed landraces. However, new genotypes incorporated into cash landraces are diffused faster and better, being more intensively exchanged. We propose conservation strategies that can be applied to other vegetatively propagated and minor Andean crops. (shrink)

In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines: more than twenty formulations of Second Law—a sort of indisputable intellectual (...) class='Hi'>wealth—are conceived after 1824 Sadi Carnot’s original statement and a multitude of entropy functions are proposed after 1865 Clausius’ former definition. Furthermore, at the end of nineteenth century, thermodynamics extended its cognitive domain to chemistry. Mainly thanks to Gibbs, a brand new discipline—chemical thermodynamics or physical chemistry—gradually affirmed its role inside the scientific community. This paper reports the former results of collaborative research program in the History and Epistemology of Science as well as Nature of Science Teaching aimed at retracing the foundations of the physical chemistry. Specifically, the research is structured in three parts: historical-epistemic reflections on fundamental thermodynamic concepts and principles—such as reversible process, heat, temperature, thermal equilibrium and Clausius’ Second Law—that play a structural role inside modern physical chemistry; panoramic overview on the entropy, whose polysemy makes it one of the most demanding concepts for scholars, teachers and students while approaching thermodynamics; conceptualization of chemical equilibrium as complex entity according to the dual epistemological approach offered by Gibbs’ thermodynamic model and the kinetic standpoint by Guldberg and Waage. In particular, the present work details an original reading of thermodynamic principles with the aim of setting forth a rationalized multidisciplinary substrate whereon the foundational concepts of reversible process and thermal equilibrium can be set. (shrink)

In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines: more than twenty formulations of Second Law—a sort of indisputable intellectual (...) class='Hi'>wealth—are conceived after 1824 Sadi Carnot’s original statement and a multitude of entropy functions are proposed after 1865 Clausius’ former definition. Furthermore, at the end of nineteenth century, thermodynamics extended its cognitive domain to chemistry. Mainly thanks to Gibbs, a brand new discipline—chemical thermodynamics or physical chemistry—gradually affirmed its role inside the scientific community. This paper reports the former results of collaborative research program in the History and Epistemology of Science as well as Nature of Science Teaching aimed at retracing the foundations of the physical chemistry. Specifically, the research is structured in three parts: historical-epistemic reflections on fundamental thermodynamic concepts and principles—such as reversible process, heat, temperature, thermal equilibrium and Clausius’ Second Law—that play a structural role inside modern physical chemistry; panoramic overview on the entropy, whose polysemy makes it one of the most demanding concepts for scholars, teachers and students while approaching thermodynamics; conceptualization of chemical equilibrium as complex entity according to the dual epistemological approach offered by Gibbs’ thermodynamic model and the kinetic standpoint by Guldberg and Waage. In particular, the present work details an original reading of thermodynamic principles with the aim of setting forth a rationalized multidisciplinary substrate whereon the foundational concepts of reversible process and thermal equilibrium can be set. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, we (...) employ a utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

The primary objective of this article is to develop a framework for analyzing the ethical foundations and implications of shareholder wealth maximization (SWM). Distinctions between SWM and the more widely examined construct of profit maximization are identified, the most significant being the central role played in SWM by the market mechanism for pricing the corporation''s securities. It is argued that empirical tests concerned with evaluating the ethical implications of SWM will almost surely involve a joint hypothesis. A (...) number of recent empirical studies aimed at testing hypotheses with explicit ethical content are reviewed. (shrink)

L’objet de la présente recherche est d’interroger les mérites de la théorie utilitariste relative aux faillites personnelles, qui est dominante dans la littérature juridique depuis que le courant Law and Economics a gagné en importance. Nous démontrons que l’argumentation utilitariste, qui est assignée aux doctrines de l’acquittement des dettes personnelles par les spécialistes de Law and Economics travaillant dans le domaine du droit des faillites, soulève des questions normatives de taille et créée des tensions quand il s’agit de décrire le (...) phénomène. Ces deux problèmes invitent les théoriciens à proposer des modèles alternatifs pour décrire les conditions dans lesquelles nos systèmes juridiques soulagent les dettes des individus qui ne sont pas en mesure de les honorer. Dans notre ouvrage à paraître, The Virtue of Bankruptcy, nous embrassons ce projet. Ici, nous proposons une étape préliminaire à ce projet plus ambitieux en démontrant que les théories utilitaristes sur lesquelles s’appuient les contributions les plus importantes de la littérature sur la question à ce jour sont perfectibles lorsqu’il s’agit de comprendre les raisons et les circonstances dans lesquelles il est possible d’offrir un nouveau départ à ceux qui n’ont pas respecté leurs obligations financières. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to take a fresh look at the concept of wealth creation that is urgently needed, given the huge gap between the global importance of wealth creation and the attention paid to it. It is argued that its notion we encounter is often very simple (as in "making money") or extremely vague (as in "adding value"). In the first section "Need for a fresh look at the creation of wealth", the need for (...) a fresh look is highlighted by pointing to three concerns about globalization and the roles and responsibilities of corporations. In the second section "Conceptual clarifications: what is the creation of wealth?", a rich concept of wealth creation is developed that includes physical, financial, human, and social capital, encompasses private and public wealth, accounts for its production and distribution, recognizes its material and spiritual side, and places wealth in the time horizon of sustainability. Moreover, creating (wealth) as "making something new and better" is distinguished from possessing and acquiring, and different motivations required for wealth creation are explored. The third section "Challenges for business ethics" discusses several challenges of this rich concept for the understanding of business ethics. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, China has experienced an astounding economic development that calls for a differentiated understanding of this complex process of wealth creation. In the first section of this article, I present a new concept of wealth creation that goes beyond making money, maximizing profit and adding value and serves as a framework to address the article's main topic.In the second section, I investigate in what ways and to what extent this new concept might apply to (...) China's economic reform and development, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. In the third section, I attempt to draw a couple of lessons for development ethics in general. (shrink)

Rare earth elements have become increasingly important because of their relative scarcity and worldwide increasing demand, as well as China’s quasi-monopoly of this market. REEs are virtually not substitutable, and they are essential for a variety of high-tech products and modern key technologies. This has raised serious concerns that China will misuse its dominant position to set export quotas in order to maximize its own profits at the expense of other rare earth user industries. In fact, export restrictions on REEs (...) were the catalyst for the U.S. to lodge a formal complaint against China in 2012 at the World Trade Organization. This paper analyzes possible wealth transfer effects by focusing on export quota announcements by China, and the share price reactions of Chinese REE suppliers, the U.S. REE users, and the rest of the world REE refiners. Overall, we find limited support for the view of a wealth transfer in connection with MOFCOM announcements only when disentangling events prior to and post the initiation of the WTO trial, consistent with the trial triggering changes to China’s REE policy and recent announcement to abolish quotas. We do find, however, that extreme REE price movements have a first-order effect on all companies in the REE industry consistent with recent market trends to enable hedging against REE price volatility. (shrink)

The Epicureans advocate a moderately ascetic lifestyle on instrumental grounds, as the most effective means to securing tranquility. The virtuous person will reduce his desires to what is natural and necessary in order to avoid the trouble and anxiety caused by excessive desire. So much is clear from Epicurus' general ethics. But the later Epicurean Philodemus fills in far more detail about the attitude a wise Epicurean will take toward wealth in his treatise On Property Management. This paper explores (...) some of Philodemus' distinctive doctrines and argues that Philodemus' position on crafts is an improvement on the Socratic and Aristotelian positions that he is reacting against. Philodemus rejects both constraints on what counts as a genuine craft proposed by Socrates in the Gorgias: that a craft aims at a genuine good, and that it is based on a grasp of the nature of its subject. Philodemus also rejects the attempts of Xenophon and Theophrastus to preserve an important place for the craft of property management, conceived of as aiming at maximizing your wealth, within the Socratic and Aristotelian ethical tradition that puts virtue and virtuous activity at the center of the happy life. According to Philodemus, cultivating and exercising the traditional technê of property management is actually incompatible with being a virtuous person and obtaining happiness. (shrink)

The role of a corporation is often debated as a mutually exclusive choice between economic responsibility to shareholders and social responsibility to society. An evolving viewpoint embraces an integrated approach focused on long-term value creation for shareholders which benefits other stakeholders. Maximizing long-term shareholder value as a corporate objective can be compatible with stakeholder theory when an enlightened shareholder maximization strategy is embraced. Firms implementing an enlightened shareholder maximization strategy are expected to make decisions and use resources which (...) achieve long-term value-creating outcomes. However, critics of enlightened shareholder maximization as a corporate goal contend this strategy conflicts with maximizing shareholder value. This study explores whether firms which embrace a balanced enlightened shareholder maximization strategy indeed create long-term value which does not sacrifice shareholder wealth. (shrink)

The paper introduces a virtue-theoretic critique of recent “prosocial” revisions of shareholder primacy. The paper aims at widening the scope of virtue-based business ethics beyond its nearly exclusive focus on the character and virtue of managers, employees, and organizations. In contrast to MacIntyre-inspired research, the paper takes a “good intentions” approach that looks squarely at shareholders, regarding them as real people (not algorithms or institutions) occupying distinctive roles as principals of firms who are, ideally, virtuous moral agents. It is argued (...) that virtue ethics can play a part in questioning normative features of shareholder primacy and the objective function of the firm. Probing deeper than prudential and instrumental concerns, the paper poses normative questions about interpreting shareholder motivations: what _ought_ shareholders to prefer/want/desire?; _ought_ shareholders to desire profit maximization versus profit satisficing?; _ought_ shareholders to prefer other, prosocial goals, alongside of wealth?; should self-interested motivation in profit-seeking be considered virtuous? To lend focus, the paper taps Hart and Zingales’ recently revised “pro-social” version of shareholder primacy, as well as Munger and Russell’s analysis of “virtuous profit-seekers,” as normative frames of reference. Doing so enables a critical engagement with their respective accounts from the standpoint of virtue theory. Taking a “virtuous shareholders” perspective provides an aretaic standpoint, one that is appropriate, given that shareholders care about matters of justice and the common good. Shareholders are not simply concerned about making money. Hence it is the moral intentions and motivations of ideally virtuous shareholders which ought to modulate the profit-seeking activities of shareholders in accordance with maximizing their welfare. (shrink)

Police officers around the world must often select between equally unappealing, uncertain courses of action in an attempt to achieve the best outcome. Despite the immense importance of such decisions, there remains a lack of understanding in the study of individual differences in police decision-making. Here, using a sample of senior police officers recruited from decision-making training events across the United Kingdom (n = 96), we used the Least-worst Uncertain Choice Inventory For Emergency Responses (LUCIFER) to measure the effect of (...) maximization on both domain-specific (police) and domain-general (military) decisions. In line with a wealth of research on traditional “consumer” decisions, we found that police officers who were “maximizers” found decisions more difficult. Gender and previous military experience also influenced the process of decision-making. Specifically, police officers with military experience took more time to assess the situation but were faster to choose a course of action and commit to it. Female police officers also were slower to assess the situation. As recent events show, the outcomes of police decisions have significant consequences for the public, the officers involved, the police force as a whole, and the wider population, yet psychological research has yet to fully explore the role of individual differences in how such decisions are made. While this study does not seek to identify factors associated with “good” or “better” decision-makers, it provides strong support for the need to factor in perspectives of the individual when creating theory, or applied tools, in support of police decision-making. (shrink)

In an ideal democracy, people from all walks of life would come together to talk meaningfully and respectfully about politics. But we do not live in an ideal democracy. In contemporary democracies, which are marked by deep social divisions, different groups for the most part avoid talking to each other. And when they do talk to each other, their speech often seems to be little more than a vehicle for rage, hatred, and deception. -/- Democratic Speech in Divided Times argues (...) that we should nevertheless not give up on the ideal of democratic public speech. Drawing on the resources of political theory, epistemology, and philosophy of language, this book develops a sustained account of the norms that should govern public discourse in deeply divided circumstances. Should we try to find common ground when we talk to our political opponents, even though they seem unreasonable? Should we refrain from expressing anger, if we want to get things done? How can we use our speech to fight hate speech and disinformation? And is it even possible to speak to 'the other side,' in settings where different groups dislike one another, live apart from one another, and don't know much about one another? By tackling these questions, Lepoutre demonstrates that, when governed by the right set of norms, public speech can be a powerful force for good even amidst profound social divisions. (shrink)

Human activity is permeated by norms of all sorts: moral norms provide the 'code' for what we ought to do, norms of logic regulate how we ought to reason, scientific norms set the standards for what counts as knowledge, legal norms determine what is lawfully permitted and what isn't, aesthetic norms establish canons of beauty and shape artistic trends and practices, and socio-cultural norms provide criteria for what counts as tolerable, just, praiseworthy, or unacceptable in a community or milieu. Given (...) the diversity of norm-governed phenomena prevailing in our everyday experience, it is not surprising that the question of normativity has recently generated important debates in philosophy. However, the more specific question concerning the nature and function of 'norms in perceptual experience' has received comparatively little attention. This volume brings together scholars from philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, and phenomenology to explore this question. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:110 DAVID HUME'S INVISIBLE HAND IN THE WEALTH OF NATIONS THE PUBLIC CHOICE OF MORAL INFORMATION Introduction The thesis I shall defend is that there are systematic aspects of Adam Smith's economics which make little sense when read in isolation from a literature in which David Hume provides the signal contributions. Consequently, parts of Hume's own work are stripped of meaning, isolated as they are from later developments. (...) The puzzles about Smith's analysis which I find illuminated by Hume's are the following: 1. Why does Smith both defend the importance of economic growth for the material of well-being of the working class and claim that property originates as spoil, impoverishing the working class? After all, in the classical system the existence of property is one requisite for economic growth. 2. Why does Smith exalt the assumption of self-interested behavior in private activity but claim that irrationality dominates the political process? 3. Why does Smith deny the importance of benevolence in Wealth of Nations and insist on the importance of morality Sentiment morality in Theory of Moral its?3 The three questions have a common feature: they are related to the question of how public goods are provided. The particular public good in question is the institution of private property. As with all true I am obligated to the Center for Study of Public Choice for generous support of my research. Suzanne Levy gets the credit for the extent to which this approaches English. I have benefited from acute comments from Charles Rowley and Charles Griswold. The errors and obscurities which remain are solely my responsibility. Ill public goods, society considered as a whole benefits from having such an institution, but each individual considered separately can gain by anti-social behavior.4 Public goods provide a considerable difficulty for any social institution; neither competition in the market nor government requests that individuals reveal how much they wish to be taxed are certain to be efficient. There are aspects of the classical economic analysis which stress the importance of moral information as a partial solution to the public goods problem. By "moral information" I only require that the theory is employed as a guide and that if an individual acts contrary to the theory, this choice is not cited as "falsifying" the theory. Rather, something is said to be "wrong" or "wicked" about the choice.6 Much of modern economic analysis assumes that individuals have perfect information; this postulate rules out any significant role for moral information in the provision of the public goods. To avoid assuming away such a role for morality, we will drop the perfect information assumption and then examine if we can make sense of the classics' attack on the public goods problem. Of course, the specification that individuals see their own interests very poorly is consistent with Smith's general approach. The technique employed below is to look at the issue which Hume and Smith addressed as a problem in modern economics. The key difficulty is to determine under what conditions moral information could guide individuals with very imperfect perceptions to maximize their utility. In particular, suppose we find that moral guidance tells an individual how efficiently to produce. Is this morality self-enforcing or are resources required to persuade people to act in accord with these teachings? If resources are required, we will not pay much attention to just how this persuasion 112 is provided, e.g., whether we tell people that theft is "evil" or whether we hang a few thieves. General production theory tells us we probably will do both, but this is a separate issue. The argument to be advanced is that moral information has self-enforcement properties in private activities but these properties are missing in public activities. In this account, then, real resources will be required for implementing the morality. This consideration in turn raises an interesting issue. If the government expends these resources, what reason is there to believe that they will be provided to serve the public interest and not the interest of the government? Is it possible that the government can prosper by keeping people ignorant or by giving them advice... (shrink)

Men are living in the midst of a world pervaded by ideas.* Ideas, which provide men with help in their will to act and to think according to rules, which offer them guidance in their lives, are mustered into systems which are called ideologies.Ideologies are issued by the inclusive society, by special, functional groups inside the society and, beginning with a given stage in the development of human society, by ideological movements which profess to provide men not only with guidance (...) for special tasks or functions, but for life as a whole. So, individual men are faced with various sets of ideologies, more or less in agreement between themselves, more 'or less authoritative for them. They must choose between the suggestions, the rules, the orders given to them. As men are always in search of some degree of consistency in their ways of thinking and acting, they fit together the ideas they choose, unconsciously, into systems, into personal, private, individual ideologies. (shrink)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid legal decision making has become prominent. This paper investigates the use of AI in a critical issue in employment law, the determination of a worker’s status—employee vs. independent contractor—in two common law countries (the U.S. and Canada). This legal question has been a contentious labor issue insofar as independent contractors are not eligible for the same benefits as employees. It has become an important societal issue due to the ubiquity of the gig (...) economy and the recent disruptions in employment arrangements. To address this problem, we collected, annotated, and structured the data for all Canadian and Californian court cases related to this legal question between 2002 and 2021, resulting in 538 Canadian cases and 217 U.S. cases. In contrast to legal literature focusing on complex and correlated characteristics of the employment relationship, our statistical analyses of the data show very strong correlations between the worker’s status and a small subset of quantifiable characteristics of the employment relationship. In fact, despite the variety of situations in the case law, we show that simple, off-the-shelf AI models classify the cases with an out-of-sample accuracy of more than 90%. Interestingly, the analysis of misclassified cases reveals consistent misclassification patterns by most algorithms. Legal analyses of these cases led us to identify how equity is ensured by judges in ambiguous situations. Finally, our findings have practical implications for access to legal advice and justice. We deployed our AI model via the open-access platform, https://MyOpenCourt.org/, to help users answer employment legal questions. This platform has already assisted many Canadian users, and we hope it will help democratize access to legal advice to large crowds. (shrink)

The main argument of this theoretical paper is that the pursuit of honest profits in a voluntary market exchange is not only moral but also ingrained in human nature, in that human beings pursue activities that benefit them and avoid those that cause them loss. Through an examination of the Kenyan business venture called Iko Toilet (which is a mix of the Kiswahili word ‘iko’ meaning ‘there is’ and the English word ‘toilet’ to literally mean ‘there is a Toilet’), the (...) paper contends that there is no inherent contradiction between doing well (engaging in honest voluntary business transactions) in order to do good (maximize legitimate profits). (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 106-146, Spring 2024.

Maxime Chastaing s'étonne de l'embarras manifesté par les philosophes pour s'assurer de l'existence des autres : ne va-t-il pas de soi que nous coexistons depuis toujours avec nos semblables et que nous ne doutons pas de leur présence tant que nous ne spéculons pas? Il s'agit dès lors de dénoncer avec énergie le faux problème philosophique de la connaissance d'autrui, tout en s'employant à rendre compte, grâce à la psychologie, des conditions de notre communauté d'existence. Cette perspective proprement psycho-philosophique est (...) déployée dès 1934, dans un travail inédit à ce jour, La compréhension d'autrui. Essai de psychologie descriptive. Proche à cette époque de Gabriel Marcel et d'Emmanuel Mounier, après avoir été l'élève de Jean-Paul Sartre au lycée du Havre, Chastaing est un des premiers en France à discuter les thèses de la phénoménologie allemande, d'Edmund Husserl à Max Scheler. Il anticipe ce faisant sur la phénoménologie d'autrui que Sartre développera, non sans résoudre par avance des difficultés que ce dernier mettra du temps à apercevoir. (shrink)

Il est une figure souvent croisée dans la littérature et les arts de la représentation : c'est l'Autre. Dès sa naissance, le cinéma a reçu un immense héritage à partir duquel il a généré à son tour des représentations spécifiques de l'Autre. Aussi bien imaginaires et réelles, étranges et banales, proches et lointaines, elles surgissent tantôt du dehors, tantôt du dedans de l'humaine réalité des êtres. Notamment décryptées par la psychanalyse et l'anthropologie, elles s'incarnent dans toutes sortes de films : (...) des fictions allant du réalisme au fantastique aussi bien que des documentaires. Cet ouvrage réunit des analyses rapprochées de certains films exemplaires, de toutes les époques et de tous les continents. (shrink)

« Falsifier la monnaie », réévaluer les valeurs : telle est la mission que l’oracle de Delphes aurait confiée à Diogène. Rapportée aux personnages du théâtre tragique, à Socrate ou encore à Antisthène, la subversion cynique permet de construire un concept de marginalité pour l’Antiquité grecque.

Les zombies sont partout, au cinéma, à la télévision, dans nos rues, chez notre libraire. Grotesques et terrifiants, ils pourraient n’être qu’une tendance kitsch, un divertissement à la mode. Derrière sa démarche traînante et ridicule se cache pourtant une figure symptomatique de notre époque. Peur de l’épidémie ou fantasme de la catastrophe, aliénation moderne ou fascination pour la violence : le zombie et le monde apocalyptique qu’il crée nous parlent d’abord, intimement, de nous-mêmes. Par l’obscène exhibition de la mort, l’ultime (...) tabou de la société occidentale, il brise les limites de la condition humaine : celles de la conscience, de la vie, de la civilisation. Mais surtout, il trahit un fantasme émergeant dans notre culture, celui d’en finir. (shrink)

Dire toute la vérité et rien que la vérité. Vivre dans la transparence et la franchise. Ces préceptes, les chantres du vrai ont voulu les appliquer de force à ce que tout nous désigne comme une forme retorse du mensonge : la littérature. Quelle est la légitimité de cette posture? N'est-on pas amené à la suspecter, à en reconnaître la fragilité et les impasses? Car, examinant l'inlassable guerre qui a opposé les tenants de la sincérité (Rousseau, Leiris, Sartre) à leurs (...) détracteurs (Molière, Laclos, Dostoïevski, Gary, Perec), on aperçoit se profiler une autre définition de ce qu'est la littérature. En toute mauvaise foi : ne serait-ce donc pas ainsi que les oeuvres se présentent à nous et se jouent de nous? C'est-à-dire en s'inscrivant dans une structure qui n'est ni le mensonge ni la vérité, mais leur mélange incertain. Qui affirme en niant et qui dément en proclamant. Sommes-nous pourtant prêts à accepter que tout discours échappe à ce qu'il est tout en continuant de l'être, à admettre que la littérature ne produise qu'une vérité, parfois contradictoire, et non la vérité? Percevoir la manière dont l'oeuvre pose la mauvaise foi, la suscite et la défie, c'est approcher ce qui constitue sa matière même, tant le moteur de ses intrigues que sa métaphysique implicite ou explicite. Mais c'est aussi repenser son rapport au lecteur, au réel et au savoir. Car il y a un paradoxe commun au menteur et au sincère que seule la mauvaise foi permet de décrire en s'arrachant à nos routines intellectuelles. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of economic medicalization where non-medical problems are transformed into medical problems in order to achieve the objective of corporate shareholder wealth maximization. Following an overview of the differences in ethical norms applicable to medical ethics and business ethics, the economic medicalization of medical research practice and publication is examined in some detail. This motivates a general discussion of the problems involved in the ethical approval process for medical research that balances the interests of (...) both business and government in the market for medical products and services. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron, among others, has forcefully argued that public hate speech assaults the dignity of its targets. Without denying this claim, I contend that it fails to establish that bans, rather than counterspeech, are the appropriate response. By articulating a more refined understanding of counterspeech, I suggest that counterspeech constitutes a better way of blocking hate speech’s dignitarian harm. In turn, I address two objections: according to the first, which draws on contemporary philosophy of language, counterspeech does not block enough (...) hate speech; according to the second, counterspeech blocks too much speech. Although these objections should qualify our optimism regarding counterspeech, I demonstrate that each can be turned, with even greater force, against hate speech bans. (shrink)

The notions of perceptual normativity and optimality have generated much discussion in the last decade or so in the literature on Merleau-Ponty. Husserl’s position on the topic has been far less extensively investigated. Surprisingly, however, Husserl wrote a great deal about the question of perceptual optimality. Not only are there a considerable number of important passages scattered throughout the manuscripts, the archive also contains a few important full texts on precisely this issue. Given the role of fulfillment for Husserl’s concept (...) of intentionality, this should not really come as a surprise, since the teleological nature of the fulfillment structure terminates in an experience of the optimum. Hence, however marginal this topic might seem at first glance, reflecting on it rapidly leads us to the heart of Husserl’s project and sheds further light on his conception of intentional experience. (shrink)

On trouvera dans cet ouvrage les principaux jalons du parcours philosophique étonnant de Maxime Chastaing (1913-1997) qui culmine dans une psycholinguistique, et même une psychophonétique, une étude des interactions sociales, enfin une théorisation du pacte romanesque liant l'écrivain à ses lecteurs.

This is a survey paper giving a self-contained account of Shelah's theory of the pcf function pcf={cf:D is an ultrafilter on a}, where a is a set of regular cardinals such that a

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According to an influential objection, which Martha Nussbaum has powerfully restated, expressing anger in democratic public discourse is counterproductive from the standpoint of justice. To resist this challenge, this article articulates a crucial yet underappreciated sense in which angry discourse is epistemically productive. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, which emphasize the distinctive phenomenology of emotion, I argue that conveying anger to one’s listeners is epistemically valuable in two respects: first, it can direct listeners’ attention to elusive (...) morally relevant features of the situation; second, it enables them to register injustices that their existing evaluative categories are not yet suited to capturing. Thus, when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices. This epistemic role is indispensable in highly divided societies, where the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other... (shrink)

This is the introduction to the symposium on Maxime Lepoutre, Democratic Speech in Divided Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). The symposium contains articles by Paul Billingham, Rachel Fraser, and Michael Hannon, and a response by the author.