Is the minimum wage ethically justifiable? In this chapter, we attempt to answer this question from an order-ethical perspective. To this end, we develop two simple game theoretical models for different types of labour markets and derive policy implications from an order-ethical viewpoint. Our investigation yields a twofold conclusion. Firstly, order ethicists should prefer a tax-funded wage subsidy over minimum wages, if they assume that labour markets are perfectly competitive. Secondly, order ethics suggests that the minimum wage (...) can be ethically justified if employers have monopsony power in the wage setting process. As it turns out, then, order ethics neither favours nor disfavours the minimum wage. Rather, it implies conditions under which this form of labour market regulation is justified and, hence, allows empirical science to play a great role in answering the ethical questions that arise in the context of the minimum wage debate. This illustrates one of order ethics’ strengths, viz. the fact that it tends to de-ideologize the debate about ethical issues. (shrink)

Workers generally face higher levels of pollution and risk in their workplace than members of the public. Economists justify the double standard on the grounds of the compensating wage differential . The CWD, or hazard-pay premium, is the increment in wages, all things being equal, that workers in hazardous environments receive, as compared to other workers. Economists defend the CWD by asserting that workers willingly trade safety for extra money. This essay examines the theory behind the CWD, presents (...) and evaluates economists' Market-Efficiency Argument for the CWD, offers several reasons for questioning the CWD, and applies the Market-Efficiency Argument to a real-world case, that of U. S. nuclear workers. The essay concludes that this argument fails to justify the CWD, at least in the case of U. S. nuclear workers. (shrink)

This paper argues that a certain kind of alienation from labour can be analyzed and explained in the theoretical framework that is dominant in current economics. Given a neoclassical model of a labour market, the intrinsic value that different kinds of labour may have for people can be represented as a source of utility (in the technical sense). It can then be shown that in capitalist economies, basing one’s supply decisions on this intrinsic value is predictably costly. So in the (...) long run, rational agents can be – and will be – expected to make their labour supply decisions based only on considerations of income and leisure time. In the resulting picture, rational agents are indifferent with regard to different qualitatively specific kinds of labour. I draw on the theory of efficiency wages to show that this picture lies at the root of contemporary problems like involuntary unemployment and injustice. (shrink)

We contend that if efficiency and reliability are important factors in neural information processing then distributed, not localist, representations are “evolution's best bet.” We note that distributed codes are the most efficient method for representing information, and that this efficiency minimizes metabolic costs, providing adaptive advantage to an organism.

This paper argues that the standard characterisation of the equity-efficiency trade-off as set out in this symposium by Joe Heath overstates the tension between these two values. The reason lies in the fact that economists tend to take individual labour supply preferences as given, which leads to a superficial analysis of the concepts of reservation wage and of economic rent. The paper suggests that we should instead think of reservation wages as variable and as influenced by social norms. (...) Social norms play a double role in this context. First, they represent a constitutive element of market competition; second, they can be a determinant of income inequalities. From this perspective, a certain share of high reservation wages sustained by contingent inegalitarian social norms should count as economic rent. The last section of the paper strengthens this conclusion further by drawing a parallel between expensive tastes in consumption and a certain class of high reservation wages. To the extent that the latter are underpinned by social norms rather than efficiency considerations, not paying them is both just and efficient. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that (...) neoclassical economists model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization. (shrink)

*North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Book Award 2019.* -/- *International Studies Association (ISA) - International Ethics Section Book Award 2021.* -/- Although military mores have relied primarily on just war theory, the ethic of cooperation in warfare (ECW)—between enemies even as they are trying to kill each other—is as central to the practice of warfare and to conceptualization of its morality. Neither game theory nor unilateral moral duties (God-given or otherwise) can explain the explicit language of (...) cooperation in developing and enforcing principles of military ethics and the law of armed conflict. -/- The ethic of cooperation is borne of various motivations: reciprocity, self-preservation, and efficiency, to be sure, but also a sense of warrior honor and concern with human rights. This shared morality can persist despite making it more difficult for one side or the other to win and, unfortunately, its well-meaning motivations often lead to unintended tragic consequences. -/- This book explores three manifestations of this significant yet overlooked ethic of cooperation in warfare: (1) for a “fair fight,” (2) to protect classes of individuals (e.g., non-combatants or prisoners of war), and (3) to end the war quickly. Such cooperation can take unexpected forms, from ad hoc decisions on the battlefield to institutionalization in international law, and is the source of some critical tensions in one of the most significant developments in warfare in recent years: namely, how to handle terrorism or other forms of warfare that lie outside the purview of international law. -/- Each type of ECW raises questions internal to that ethic, such as inconsistencies in the concept of “parity” across different weapons bans, contradictions within the warrior ethic that heavily influence—and therefore confuse—notions of the “fair fight,” the disconnect between what protections a person receives and his responsibility for the war (e.g., political leaders), or the limited decisiveness of outcomes generated by very short wars. -/- Their simultaneous application also generates significant tensions and raises questions about the proper relationship of ECW to the immediate goal of war itself, which is to win, and thus yield either a political settlement or a justicial decision. For example, the ECWs for a “fair fight” and to protect classes of individuals can make it harder to win the war, but even more concerning is that they can also kill more people, which in the latter case contravenes its very purpose. -/- Human history is in some ways the story of trying to concurrently wage and tame war, and the architecture of warfare itself is informed by the ECW, in particular: (a) the political nature of war, (b) the abdication from jus ad bellum judgments in order to concentrate on justice within war (jus in bello), and (c) the ways in which modern nation-states collude to define “legitimacy” in war. -/- The combination of these three features leave questions of justicial right and responsibility for war disturbingly unresolved, it also generates new challenges in a geopolitical context in which cooperative and non-cooperative (e.g. contemporary terrorism) forms of warfare clash. (shrink)

This chapter uses the main principle to explain why economic rights should be regarded as human rights. Property rights, contract rights, and other economic rights are a solution to the productive investment CAP. Property and contract rights are not defined a priori, but should be defined in a way that they will, as a practice, do the best job of equitably promoting life prospects. The chapter uses the main principle to explain the moral appropriateness of the contours of property rights (...) to both tangible and intangible property; exceptions to contracts, including unconscionability, implied warranties, strict liability, mandatory disclosure, bankruptcy; the replacement of caveat emptor with caveat venditor in win-win contracts; market economies; negative income tax; voluntary consent to economic and other transactions; prohibitions on slavery contracts; minimum wage legislation. The chapter contrasts his account with fair starting-point theories of justice, including Ronald Dworkin’s theory. He also contrasts his account with Richard Posner’s account of the common law in terms of economic efficiency. (shrink)

Minimum wages are usually assumed to be inefficient as they prevent the full exploitation of mutual gains from trade. Yet advocates of wage regulation policies have repeatedly claimed that this loss in market efficiency can be justified by the pursuit of ethical goals. Policy makers, it is argued, should not focus on efficiency alone. Rather, they should try to find an adequate balance between efficiency and equity targets. This idea is based on a two-worlds-paradigm that sees (...) ethics and economics as two inherently conflicting ways of thinking. We, however, believe that this view of the relationship between ethics and economics is fundamentally flawed and blurs our understanding of how an ethically responsible regulation of the labour market should be conducted. In drawing on an economic-ethical approach that resolves the antinomy between efficiency and equity, we show that ethics and economics are, in fact, two sides of the same coin and that minimum wage legislation can only be ethically responsible, if it is at the same time economically efficient. In other words, we can have our cake and eat it too. On the basis of our approach, we develop two simple game theoretical models for different types of labour markets and derive policy implications from an economic-ethical viewpoint. We suggest that under the assumption of perfectly competitive labour markets a tax-funded wage subsidy is preferable over minimum wages, as it makes everyone better off. If, however, employers have monopsony power in the wage setting process, the minimum wage is justifiable under certain conditions. (shrink)

This paper examines an important but neglected topic in Suárez’s metaphysics–—namely, his theory of efficient causation. According to Suárez, efficient causation is to be identified with action, one of Aristotle’s ten highest genera or categories. The paper shows how Suárez’s identification of efficient causation with action helps to shed light on his views about the precise nature of efficient causation, and its role in his ontology. More specifically, it shows that Suárez understands efficient causation to be a distinctive or (...) sui generis type of entity, and that he thinks we must adopt this view in order to account for the facts of efficient causation. The paper also examines several objections to Suárez’s account. (shrink)

This 1987 book looks at competition, attacking the notion that competition always leads to good results and that more competition is better. It also attacks the notion that cooperation is always harmful. An efficient economic equilibrium requires an optimal combination of both cooperation and rivalry. Telser first examines the genesis of certain late nineteenth-century laws that affected competition in the United States. Going on to give theoretical insights into cooperation and rivalry, he shows when unrestricted competition can lead to an (...) efficient equilibrium, as well as when restrictions on competition can provide for the same. The tensions between these two forces are especially pertinent to the study of innovation - the more costly it is to protect the property rights of ideas, the greater is the reliance on secrecy, and hence, the more likely is the wasteful duplication of results. (shrink)

Recent studies of scientific interaction based on agent-based models suggest that a crucial factor conducive to efficient inquiry is what Zollman has dubbed ‘transient diversity’. It signifies a process in which a community engages in parallel exploration of rivaling theories lasting sufficiently long for the community to identify the best theory and to converge on it. But what exactly generates transient diversity? And is transient diversity a decisive factor when it comes to the efficiency of inquiry? In this (...) paper we examine the impact of different conditions on the efficiency of inquiry, as well as the relation between diversity and efficiency. This includes certain diversity-generating mechanisms previously proposed in the literature, as well as some factors that have so far been neglected. This study is obtained via an argumentation-based ABM. Our results suggest that cautious decision-making does not always have a significant impact on the efficiency of inquiry while different evaluations underlying theory-choice and different social networks do. Moreover, we find a correlation between diversity and a successful performance of agents only under specific conditions, which indicates that transient diversity is sometimes not the primary factor responsible for efficiency. Altogether, when comparing our results to those obtained by structurally different ABMs based on Zollman’s work, the impact of specific factors on efficiency of inquiry, as well as the role of transient diversity in achieving efficiency, appear to be highly dependent on the underlying model. (shrink)

There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do (...) not rely solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation. (shrink)

The idea of wage slavery is often regarded with suspicion even among critics of capitalism. Sceptics note the dubious racial politics associated with its use, while recording many differences between the condition of waged workers and chattel slaves. However, these objections are more plausible on some conceptions of wage slavery than others. I look to the history of political thought to recover and reformulate a more defensible account, drawing on a neo-Roman understanding of slavery as subjection to another’s (...) will (rather than as ownership or social death). I demonstrate not only that a neo-Roman vocabulary was taken up by abolitionists, but recount how radical republicans used it to criticise the wage relation and call for the socialisation of property. This neo-Roman approach is shown to represent a break with more paternalistic appeals to wage slavery made by Tory radicals and Southern apologists for chattel slavery. However, in order to avoid cheapening the accusation of wage slavery, I argue that it only obtains when a worker’s ability to meet their most vital material needs is dependent on the will of employers. Thus, wage slavery becomes an extreme form of economic unfreedom, which does not encompass every case of worker domination. (shrink)

Hayek and the Efficient Market Hypothesis are often seen as proposing a similar theory of prices. Hayek is seen as proposing to understand prices as information conveyer, incorporating inform...

Wage-earners voluntarily accept to work under the control, and for the account of, firms run by entrepreneurs1; they do not decide what, how and how much, they must produce; wage-earners are not responsible for the consequences of their activities when they comply with entrepreneurs' orders12; inside the firm, wage-earners are subordinates. Outside the firm, wage-earners freely choose the way they spend their wages in the markets for commodities and services. Such is the 'stylised fact' which characterises (...) the wage relationship in our economies. Any theory of the wage relationship should account for this 'stylised fact' by deriving it from a consistent set of assumptions and propositions. Three main propositions are advocated in this paper: Mainstream economists conceive the 'wage' as being the price of a commodity ('labour power' or 'human labour') determined by a market – as for any other commodity and service. As a consequence, the wage relationship is thought of as an exchange relation ruled by equivalence; this view cannot be derived from the usual basic assumptions without violating the very logic of mainstream theory. Following this logic: either the wage relationship should be thought of as a relation between human beings having such different conditions that it cannot be interpreted as an exchange ruled by equivalence or 'human labour' is not to be found within the commodity space. In any case, the 'stylised fact' mentioned above is not accounted for by mainstream theory. 'Wage' is the name of the payment entrepreneurs give to other people with the view to making them participate in production under their control and for their account; wage payment is neither a purchase nor a sale – it just allows wage-earners to enter the market and spend in order to acquire the commodities they desire Wage-earners are, economically speaking, a means used by entrepreneurs for their own ends; exploitation (Fleurbaey's M-exploitation) is inherent in the wage relationship. Propositions 2 and 3 do not fit general equilibrium theory (inspired by Walras and rationalised by Arrow- Debreu); they do not fit modern mainstream theory either. They have no room in the theory of prices of production (inspired by Ricardo and rationalised by Sraffa). Moreover, they are not compatible with Marx's theory of labour power. An alternative approach is needed to satisfy them. Paving the way for that alternative theory requires us to show that 'human labour' cannot belong to the commodity space from the very point of view of mainstream theory; a sharp incompatibility between assumptions and conclusions would follow, and justify resorting to an alternative approach. This is our first step. A second step is to effectively resort to a monetary analysis – the alternative approach to real analysis, according to Schumpeter in his History of economic analysis. In a nutshell, we have to discard the commodity space postulate, and to think of economic relations as money mediation. Instead of a commodity space, we presuppose money to be a unit of account ($) combined with a means of payment. Instead of a permutation of goods and services exchanged amongst people, economic relations are payments. Individuals are no longer endowments and preferences, but accounts into which payments write down quantities of $. Conditions of people may differ according to the form of money circulation – this view allows us to deal with different types of economic relations; for what matters here, the wage relationship involves a specific form of circulation not reducible to that of exchange. The final step is to suggest that exploitation is inherent in the wage relationship; such exploitation has nothing to do with justice, since there is no norm whatsoever for the level of wage; it is also quite different from the exploitation Marx thought he had unveiled. This exploitation is simply due to the special situation of wage-earners vis-a-vis the market, which a specific form of circulation makes clear. 1 'Entrepreneur' here means, following Coase, 'the person or persons who, in a competitive system, take the place of the price mechanism in the direction of resources' (Coase, 1937, p. 388). 2 David Ellerman distinguishes between factual/de facto and legal or de jure responsibility. What I mean here is economic responsibility only. Another way at looking at it may use David Ellerman's propositions. The 'Invisible Judge' market gives the entrepreneur the property of raw material and labour – and also of the finished product sold in the market. The market gives nothing to the wage-earner inside the firm; outside the firm it gives her the property of consumption of goods she acquires out of her wage. Inside the firm, the wage-earner is not economically responsible. Arguing that if she kills someone, the wage- earner is responsible has nothing to do with the 'Invisible Judge'! (shrink)

Ibn Sina’s theory of efficient causality includes the definitions of metaphysical and natural efficient causes. In the first section, these definitions and two theses about their relation will be introduced. َAccording to the first thesis, natural efficient causes do not bestow existence and therefore they are not metaphysical. The alternative thesis defends bestowing existence by natural efficient causes, although this ontological status is restricted only to conferring existence of motion. In the second section, I will argue that, according to (...) Ibn Sina, natural causes bestow existence and therefore they are metaphysical. To do that, textual evidence and second definition of efficient causality will be appealed. Bestowing existence by natural efficient causes threatens, prima facia, Ibn Sina's theory of divine causality as a deistic theory. However, I will finally try to show that bestowing existence by natural causes leads to a theory which respects special divine action, and so it is not deistic. (shrink)

The question may be asked why many workers are still being paid below subsistence wages and I believe the answer can be found in the confusion over what exactly constitutes a “living wage” and who has the duty to pay these wages. This article therefore clarifies what a living wage is and gives a concrete example of how a living wage can be calculated. To understand who has the obligation to pay living wages I look to the (...) theory of Alan Gewirth on individual and institutional responsibility and the account of Robert Mayer on structural exploitation to argue that all parts of the supply chain have the duty. The final part of this paper willoutline the inclusion of a living wage calculation into corporate codes of conduct to ensure that workers at the end of the supply chain receive living wages. (shrink)

This paper describes a theory that explains both the creativity and the efficiency of people's conceptual combination. In the constraint theory, conceptual combination is controlled by three constraints of diagnosticity, plausibility, and informativeness. The constraints derive from the pragmatics of communication as applied to compound phrases. The creativity of combination arises because the constraints can be satisfied in many different ways. The constraint theory yields an algorithmic model of the efficiency of combination. The C3 model (...) admits the full creativity of combination and yet efficiently settles on the best interpretation for a given phrase. The constraint theory explains many empirical regularities in conceptual combination, and makes various empirically verified predictions. In computer simulations of compound phrase interpretation, the C3 model has produced results in general agreement with people's responses to the same phrases. (shrink)

In contract law, common mistake or frustration are grounds for relieving the promisor from the obligation to perform. Conventional economic theory justifies relief by appealing to its effect on the promisee’s incentives, namely, her incentives to act efficiently to prevent the unfavorable occurrence or its associated losses. The Article challenges this justification. While relief may indeed generate efficient incentives under certain conditions, these are not the conditions in which it is in fact granted. Consequently, the cases in which the (...) conventional theory recommends that relief be provided and those in which it is actually awarded, are incompatible. Based upon this premise, the Article develops a new theory of the law of common mistake and frustration, bearing descriptive and prescriptive implications. Under the new theory, the purpose of relief is not to incentivize promisees, but rather to determine the legal consequences of non-contemplated events. Viewed in this light, the Article identifies a new set of efficiency rationales for the rule. Under specified conditions, relief allows contracting parties to (1) refrain from welfare-reducing trade in unquantifiable risk; (2) maintain control over the distribution of contractual gains; and (3) overcome disincentives to form efficient contracts. The Article analyzes the conditions under which these virtues are applicable, and finds that they generally correspond to those in which relief is actually awarded. (shrink)

Joseph Heath argues that we should reject the idea of a ‘just wage’ because market prices are supposed to signal scarcities and thereby to promote overall efficiency, rather than reward contributions. This argument overlooks the degree to which markets are institutionally, socially, and culturally embedded. Their outcomes are hardly ever ‘pure’ market outcomes, but the result of complex interactions of economic and other factors, including various forms of power. Instead of rejecting moral intuitions about wage justice as (...) misguided, we can often understand them as pointing towards questions about the embeddedness of markets, or lack thereof. At least in some cases, changes in the framework of markets can both increase efficiency and get us closer to conventional notions of fair wages, e.g. when gender discrimination is reduced. Thus, while an abstract notion of a ‘just wage’ remains problematic, we can and should recognize that some wages are unjust. (shrink)

Finding out why we have beliefs and desires is important for a thorough understanding of the nature of our minds (and those of other animals). It is therefore unsurprising that several accounts have been presented that are meant to answer this question. At least in the philosophical literature, the most widely accepted of these are due to Kim Sterelny and Peter Godfrey-Smith, who argue that beliefs and desires evolved due to their enabling us to be behaviourally flexible in a way (...) that reflexes do not—which, they claim, is beneficial in epistemically complex environments. However, as I try to make clear in this paper, upon closer consideration, this kind of account turns out to be theoretically implausible. In the main, this is because it fails to give due credit to the powers of reflex-driven organisms, which can in fact be just as flexible in their behaviour as ones that are belief/desire-driven. In order to improve on this account, I therefore propose that beliefs and desires evolved, not due to their enabling us to do something completely different from what reflexive organisms can do, but rather due to their enabling us to do the same things better. Specifically, I argue that beliefs and desires evolved for making the generation of behaviour more efficient, since they can simplify the necessary cognitive labour considerably. I end by considering various implications of this account. (shrink)

In the vernacular, ‘efficiency’ typically concerns means. I can choose efficient rather than inefficient means to accomplish my ends. Or more generally, I can be efficient or inefficient in allocating my limited resources. If we could measure the aggregate utility or welfare of a society, as in Benthamite utilitarianism, we could say that a society is efficient in an analogous sense: it uses effective institutions to achieve the greatest possible welfare. But the normative notion of efficiency commonly in (...) use in social and political theory today is about social choices without aggregative welfare measures. Efficiency is invoked as an alternative to such aggregative measures. (shrink)

An extended analysis compared to observations shows that modern “globalised” world civilisation has passed through the invisible “complexity threshold”, after which usual “spontaneous”, empirically driven kind of development (“invisible hand” etc.) cannot continue any more without major destructive tendencies. A much deeper, non-simplified understanding of real interaction complexity is necessary in order to cope with such globalised world development problems. Here we introduce the universal definition, fundamental origin, and dynamic equations for a major related quantity of (systemic) risk characterising real (...) complex system development tendencies at any level of dynamics. Practically important conclusions are derived, opening further detailed applications in economy, finance and development practice. (shrink)

IN THE PAST DECADE, RELIGIOUS ACTIVISTS HELPED PASS LIVING WAGE legislation in 177 municipalities across the United States. Drawing on concepts from social movement theory, this essay analyzes the framing success of these religious actors, particularly their mediation of theological inheritances, language, and rituals for broader political audiences. Much of the success of religious actors comes from their universalizing of ethical tropes such as "worker dignity" that resonate with dominant United States' culture while simultaneously not disrupting neoclassical economic (...) ideals. This approach entails significant ideological risks, for example, promoting independence from government as an ultimate value, but this framing strategy does introduce, at minimum, an effective triage mechanism in the U.S. capitalist economy and, optimally, a pathway for citizen economic education that funds future transformative politics. The essay concludes with suggestions for future framing for the movement. (shrink)

What is war, and how should it be waged? Are there restraints on its conduct? What can philosophers contribute to the study of warfare? Arguing that the practice of war requires a sound philosophical understanding, Ian Clark writes a fascinating synthesis of the philosophy, history, political theory, and contemporary strategy of warfare. Examining the traditional doctrines of the "just" and the "limited" war with fresh insight, Clark also addresses the applicability of these ideas to the modern issues of war (...) crimes, choice of targets, guerrilla warfare, and nuclear strategy and deterrence. (shrink)

Various methods have been employed to investigate different aspects of the brain activity modulation related to the performance of a cycling task. In our study we examined how functional connectivity and brain network efficiency varied during an endurance cycling task. To this purpose, we reconstructed EEG signals at source level: we computed current densities in 28 anatomical regions of interest (ROIs) through the eLORETA algorithm, then we calculated the Lagged Coherence of the 28 current density signals to define the (...) adjacency matrix. To quantify changes of functional network efficiency during an exhaustive cycling task, we computed three graph theoretical indices: local efficiency (LE), global efficiency (GE) and Density (D) in two different frequency bands, Alpha and Beta bands, that indicate alertness processes and motor binding/fatigue respectively. This analysis was conducted for six different task intervals: pre-cycling, initial, intermediate and final stages of cycling, active recovery and passive recovery. Fourteen participants performed an incremental cycling task with simultaneous EEG recording and RPE monitoring to detect participants’ exhaustion. LE remained constant during the endurance cycling task in both bands. Therefore, we speculate that fatigue processes did not affect segregated neural processing. We observed an increase of GE in the Alpha band only during cycling, that could be due to greater alertness processes and preparedness to stimuli during exercise. Conversely, although D did not change significantly over time in the Alpha band, its general reduction in the Beta bands during cycling could be interpreted within the framework of the neural efficiency hypothesis, which posits a reduced neural activity for expert/automated performances. We argue that the use of graph theoretical indices represents a clear methodological advancement in studying endurance performance. (shrink)

오늘날의 과학자들은 발전하고 있는 새로운 개념과 방법들이 개별적인 것이나 어느 한 부분에 초점을 두어서는 대답할 수 없는 질문들에 역점을 두기 시작했다. 따라서 체계 안에서, 그리고 체계들 사이에서 기능적이고 동시에 일어나는 관계에 대하여 더욱 관심을 가지게 되었다. 복합체계는 부분들 사이의 관계가 어떻게 체계의 집합적인 행동을 불러일으키는가와 체계가 어떻게 그 환경들과 상호작용하고, 어떤 관계를 유지하는 가에 대한 연구를 하는 과학의 새로운 접근법으로 등장하게 된 것이다. 이제 복합체계의 분야는 과학자나 엔지니어들에게 뿐만 아니라 회사의 경영자나, 경영관리 연구가들, 의사나 의학 연구자들, 정책 입안자들이나 정치학자들에 이르기까지 (...) 매력 있는 것이 되었다. 이러한 복합체계의 연구는 오늘날 복잡한 사회 및 자연 현상을 분석하는 유용한 인식의 틀이라고 생각한다. (shrink)

Ockham’s razor is the principle that, all other things being equal, scientists ought to prefer simpler theories. In recent years, philosophers have argued that simpler theories make better predictions, possess theoretical virtues like explanatory power, and have other pragmatic virtues like computational tractability. However, such arguments fail to explain how and why a preference for simplicity can help one find true theories in scientific inquiry, unless one already assumes that the truth is simple. One new solution to that problem is (...) the Ockham efficiency theorem, which states that scientists who heed Ockham’s razor retract their opinions less often and sooner than do their non-Ockham competitors. The theorem neglects, however, to consider competitors following random strategies and in many applications random strategies are known to achieve better worst-case loss than deterministic strategies. In this paper, we describe two ways to extend the result to a very general class of random, empirical strategies. The first extension concerns expected retractions, retraction times, and errors and the second extension concerns retractions in chance, times of retractions in chance, and chances of errors. (shrink)

The practice of paying research subjects for participating inclinical trials has yet to receive an adequate moral analysis.Dickert and Grady argue for a wage payment model in whichresearch subjects are paid an hourly wage based on that ofunskilled laborers. If we accept this approach, what follows?Norms for just working conditions emerge from workplacelegislation and political theory. All workers, includingpaid research subjects under Dickert and Grady''s analysis,have a right to at least minimum wage, a standard work week,extra (...) pay for overtime hours, a safe workplace, no faultcompensation for work-related injury, and union organization.If we accept that paid research subjects are wage earners likeany other, then the implications for changes to current practiceare substantial. (shrink)

In this short essay, I suggest a few specific ways in which criminal law exceptionalism has shaped the theory and practice of criminal law. First, criminal law exceptionalism isolates criminal theory from legal theory more generally, with the result that criminal theorists often miss insights from other legal fields. Relatedly but more broadly, criminal law exceptionalism can make sociology, psychology, history, and political theory invisible or seemingly irrelevant to criminal theory. Together, these two forms of (...) scholarly insularity put criminal theory (or criminal theorists) into a silo in which the political, social, and historical contexts of actual criminal legal practices disappear from view. Ultimately, the siloed thinking of criminal law exceptionalism makes it difficult or impossible to contemplate a world without criminal law. Thus criminal law exceptionalism does its ideological work: it produces and reinforces the belief that criminal law is indispensable, a belief that in turn motivates policy choices and informs legal practices. (shrink)

We consider the Stag Hunt in terms of Maynard Smith’s famous Haystack model. In the Stag Hunt, contrary to the Prisoner’s Dilemma, there is a cooperative equilibrium besides the equilibrium where every player defects. This implies that in the Haystack model, where a population is partitioned into groups, groups playing the cooperative equilibrium tend to grow faster than those at the non-cooperative equilibrium. We determine under what conditions this leads to the takeover of the population by cooperators. Moreover, we compare (...) our results to the case of an unstructured population and to the case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Finally, we point to some implications our findings have for three distinct ideas: Ken Binmore’s group selection argument in favor of the evolution of efficient social contracts, Sewall Wright’s Shifting Balance theory, and the equilibrium selection problem of game theory. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in accounts motivated by information theory that consider language production to be partially driven by a preference for communicative efficiency. Evidence from discourse production (i.e., production beyond the sentence level) has been argued to suggest that speakers distribute information across discourse so as to hold the conditional per-word entropy associated with each word constant, which would facilitate efficient information transfer (Genzel & Charniak, 2002). This hypothesis implies that the conditional (contextualized) probabilities of (...) linguistic units affect speakers’ preferences during production. Here, we extend this work in two ways. First, we explore how preceding cues are integrated into contextualized probabilities, a question which so far has received little to no attention. Specifically, we investigate how a cue's maximal informativity about upcoming words (the cue's effectiveness) decays as a function of the cue's recency. Based on properties of linguistic discourses as well as properties of human memory, we analytically derive a model of cue effectiveness decay and evaluate it against cross-linguistic data from 12 languages. Second, we relate the information theoretic accounts of discourse production to well-established mechanistic (activation-based) accounts: We relate contextualized probability distributions over words to their relative activation in a lexical network given preceding discourse. (shrink)

In 1983 the US Catholic bishops noted that "insufficient analytical attention has been given to the moral issues of revolutionary warfare." Decades later systematic analysis of armed revolutionary resistance remains a lacuna within theological scholarship on war and peacemaking. While nonviolence is always preferable, traditional just war criteria can and should be revised to provide guidelines for ethical, armed, revolutionary resistance. Examining the just war criteria of legitimate authority, last resort, and proportionality not from the perspective of society's dominant classes (...) but from that of the oppressed begins to yield a theory of just revolution. When properly met, revised understandings of the just war criteria allow for limited armed resistance as a moral response to severe repression. (shrink)

Fifty years after the famous essay “The Problem of Social Cost” (1960) by the Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, Law and Economics seems to have become the lingua franca of American jurisprudence, and although its influence on European jurisprudence is only moderate by comparison, it has also gained popularity in Europe. A highly influential publication of a different nature was the Brundtland Report (1987), which extended the concept of sustainability from forestry to the whole of the economy and society. According to (...) this report, development is sustainable when it “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. A key requirement of sustainable development is justice to future generations. It is still a matter of fact that the law as well as the theories of justice are generally restricted to the resolution of conflicts between contemporaries and between people living in the same country. This in turn raises a number of questions: what is the philosophical justification for intergenerational justice? What bearing does sustainability have on the efficiency principle? How do we put a policy of sustainability into practice, and what is the role of the law in doing so? The present volume is devoted to these questions. In Part One, “Law and Economics”, the role of economic analysis and efficiency in law is examined more closely. Part Two, “Law and Sustainability”, engages with the themes of sustainable development and justice to future generations. Finally, Part Three, “Law, Economics and Sustainability”, addresses the interrelationships between the different aspects. (shrink)

I argue that, in light of his critique of rival theories of efficient causation, there is a puzzle latent in Aristotle’s own account. To show this, I consider one of his preferred examples of such causation, the activity of experts. Solving the puzzle yields a novel reading of Aristotle, one according to which experts, but not their characteristic arts or skills, are efficient causes.

Two aerodynamic concepts theorized in the early twentieth century – laminar-flow control and flying wings – offer the potential for more efficient aircraft. However, despite compelling advantages on paper and optimistic predictions, the fuel-saving benefits of these technologies have not yet been fully realized. This paper documents British work on these concepts, with a particular focus on laminar-flow control. Faced with an increasingly difficult funding context and a lack of a clear military rationale, these potentially significant advances in aircraft (...) class='Hi'>efficiency were stymied by a catch-22: the government was only prepared to provide financial support for the development of an operational prototype if operational performance had already been demonstrated. This case also highlights the challenges faced in the commercial uptake of radical aviation technologies, even when they appear to offer greater efficiency and environmental benefits. (shrink)

Three case studies offered here will support the conclusion that a successful scientific theory of visual cognition still makes room for some rather systematic and rather striking semantic indeterminacies-W.V. Quine's well-known pessimism about the wages of such indeterminacy not withstanding. The first case concerns the perception of shape, the second concerns color vision, and the third concerns the rules of inference involved in "unconscious inference" within the visual system.