Various due process provisions designed for use by civil servants in administrative decision-making may become redundant when automated decision-making is taken into use in public administration. Problems with mechanisms of good government, responsibility and liability for automated decisions and the rule of law require attention of the law-maker in adapting legal provisions to this new form of decision-making. Although the general data protection regulation of the European Union is important in acknowledging automated decision-making, most of the legal safeguards within (...) administrative due process have to be provided for by the national law-maker. It is suggested that all countries have a need to review their rules of administrative due process with a view to bringing them up to date regarding the requirements of automated decision-making. In whichever way the legislation is framed, the key issues are that persons who develop the algorithm and the code as well as persons who run or deal with the software within public authorities are aware of the preventive safeguards of legality in the context of automated decision-making, not only of the reactive safeguards constituted by the complaint procedures, and that legal mechanisms exist under which these persons can be held accountable and liable for decisions produced by automated decision-making. It is also argued that only rule-based systems of automatized decision-making are compatible with the rule of law and that there is a general interest in preventing a development into a rule of algorithm. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court regards parental rights as fundamental. Such a status should subject any legal procedure that directly and substantively interferes with the exercise of parental rights to strict scrutiny. On the contrary, though, despite their status as fundamental constitutional rights, parental rights are routinely suspended or revoked as a result of procedures that fail to meet even minimal standards of procedural and substantive due process. This routine and cavalier deprivation of parental rights takes place in the context (...) of divorce where, during the pendency of litigation, one parent is routinely deprived of significant parental rights without any demonstration that a state interest exists—much less that there is a compelling state interest that cannot be achieved in any less restrictive way. In marked contrast to our current practice, treating parental rights as fundamental rights requires a presumption of joint legal and physical custody upon divorce and during the pendency of divorce litigation. The presumption may be overcome, but only by clear and convincing evidence that such an arrangement is harmful to the children. (shrink)

Privacy, Due process and the Computational Turn: The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology engages with the rapidly developing computational aspects of our world including data mining, behavioural advertising, iGovernment, profiling for intelligence, customer relationship management, smart search engines, personalized news feeds, and so on in order to consider their implications for the assumptions on which our legal framework has been built. The contributions to this volume focus on the issue of privacy, which is often equated with (...) data privacy and data security, location privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, unobservability, and unlinkability. Here, however, the extent to which predictive and other types of data analytics operate in ways that may or may not violate privacy is rigorously taken up, both technologically and legally, in order to open up new possibilities for considering, and contesting, how we are increasingly being correlated and categorizedin relationship with due process – the right to contest how the profiling systems are categorizing and deciding about us. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the learning of new grapheme-phoneme correspondences in individuals with and without dyslexia. Additionally, we investigated the relation between grapheme-phoneme learning and measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming, with a focus on the unique joint variance of grapheme-phoneme learning to word and non-word reading achievement. Training of grapheme-phoneme associations consisted of a 20-min training program in which eight novel letters (Hebrew) needed to be paired with speech sounds taken from the participant's native (...) language (Dutch). Eighty-four third grade students, of whom 20 were diagnosed with dyslexia, participated in the training and testing. Our results indicate a reduced ability of dyslexic readers in applying newly learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences while reading words which consist of these novel letters. However, we did not observe a significant independent contribution of grapheme-phoneme learning to reading outcomes. Alternatively, results from the regression analysis indicate that failure to read may be due to differences in phonological and/or orthographic knowledge but not to differences in the grapheme-phoneme-conversion process itself. (shrink)

In Patel v. Midland Memorial Hospital & Medical Center, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the defendant hospital did not violate the plaintiff's due process rights by suspending his clinical privileges without a pre-suspension hearing, where there were reasonable grounds for assuming that patient safety was at risk. Dr. P.V. Patel, a board-certified cardiologist, brought an action against Midland Memorial Hospital and several of its doctors, alleging that the suspension of his clinical privileges violated (...) his right to a pre-suspension hearing; was the result of racial discrimination; and resulted in anticompetitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted Midland's motion for summary judgment. The parties filed cross appeals, Dr. Patel on the ground that there were genuine issues of fact for all of his claims, and Midland on the ground that, with the exception of the civil rights claim, it was immune from all of Dr. Patel's claims under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. (shrink)

The idea of due process of law is recognised as the cornerstone of domestic legal systems, and in this book Larry May makes a powerful case for its extension to international law. Focussing on the procedural rights deriving from Magna Carta, such as the rights of habeas corpus and nonrefoulement, he examines the legal rights of detainees, whether at Guantanamo or in refugee camps. He offers a conceptual and normative account of due process within a general system of (...) global justice, and argues that due process should be recognised as jus cogens, as universally binding in international law. His vivid and compelling study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and the theory and practice of international law. (shrink)

Scientific evidence is crucial in a burgeoning number of litigated cases, legislative enactments, regulatory decisions, and scholarly arguments. Evaluating Scientific Evidence explores the question of what counts as scientific knowledge, a question that has become a focus of heated courtroom and scholarly debate, not only in the United States, but in other common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Controversies are rife over what is permissible use of genetic information, whether chemical exposure causes disease, whether future (...) dangerousness of violent or sexual offenders can be predicted, whether such time-honored methods of criminal identification have any better foundation than ancient divination rituals, among other important topics. This book examines the process of evaluating scientific evidence in both civil and criminal contexts, and explains how decisions by nonscientists that embody scientific knowledge can be improved. (shrink)

Recent works have suggested an analytical complementarity in mixing big and thick data sources. These works have, however, remained as programmatic suggestions, leaving us with limited methodological inputs on how to archive such complementary integration. This article responds to this limitation by proposing a method for ‘blending’ big and thick analytical insights. The paper first develops a methodological framework based on the cognitivist linguistics terminology of ‘blending’. Two cases are then explored in which blended spaces are crafted from engaging big (...) and thick analytical insights with each other. Through these examples, we learn how blending processes should be conducted as a rapid, iterative and collaborative effort with respect for individual expertise. Further, we demonstrate how the unique, but often overlooked, granularity of big data plays a key role in affording the blending with thick data. We conclude by suggesting four commonly appearing blending strategies that can be applied when relying upon big and thick data sources. (shrink)

Garantizar los derechos constitucionales es fundamental para proteger la dignidad y la libertad de las personas para ello los principios deben ser observados cumpliendo un respeto normativo de los derechos fundamentales, como la libertad; y, la seguridad jurídica, que deben ser protegidos y respetados por todos los poderes públicos más aun cuando las juntas de protección de derechos son las llamadas a garantizar la observación de las garantías constitucionales, por lo tanto los ciudadanos deben ser tratados de manera igual ante (...) la ley sin discriminación ni privilegios, el objetivo es determinar si en los procedimientos administrativos que serán judicializados se respetan los derechos constitucionales de los intervinientes. La investigación fue de enfoque cualitativo, con la aplicación de los métodos histórico lógico, analítico - sintético, inductivo - deductivo. Se estableció que, en la administración de justicia en el Ecuador por parte de los órganos llamados a tutelar derechos, inobservan el debido proceso vulnerando las garantías constitucionales teniendo responsabilidad los órganos de los poderes públicos en cuanto a legislar de manera clara con el propósito de cumplir los estándares internacionales de garantías constitucionales; como aporte se estableció la necesidad de normar y reforzar el criterio de los juzgadores para que su actuación sea apegada a respetar los derechos de los ciudadanos. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze what some private universities are doing in the area of mediation and other alternative ways of solving faculty complaints – what some term "alternative dispute resolution." Special attention will be given to one of the most important ethical issues in this area at the operating level of individual universities – the due process procedures with respect to the processing of the grievances of individual faculty members in nonunionized colleges. The paper concludes (...) with recommendations for university administrators and faculty senates, as well as recommendations for future research. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 3, March 2025, Page 87-89.

The issue of how to best minimize scientific misconduct remains a controversial topic among bioethicists, professors, policymakers, and attorneys. This paper suggests that harsher criminal sanctions against misconduct, better protections for whistleblowers, and the creation of due process standards for misconduct investigations are urgently needed. Although the causes of misconduct and estimates of problem remain varied, the literature suggests that scientific misconduct—fraud, fabrication, and plagiarism of scientific research—continues to damage public health and trust in science. Providing stricter criminal statutes (...) against misconduct is necessary to motivate whistleblowers and deter wrongdoers, and the provision of basic due process protections is necessary for ensuring a fair and balanced misconduct investigation. (shrink)

The development of clinical ethic support in the UK arguably brings with it a series of legal questions, which need to be addressed. Most particularly, these concern questions of due process and formal justice, which I argue are central to the provision of appropriate ethical advice. In this article, I will compare the UK position with the more developed system in the USA, which often provides a template for development in the UK. While it is not argued that the (...) provision of clinical ethics support in the UK will necessarily follow the path mapped in the USA, there are lessons that can be learned from the US experience – particularly in terms of attention to process – from which UK clinical ethics support service might well benefit. (shrink)

Side effects are a concern in medical decision making and a robust area of biomedical research. However, there is relatively little philosophical investigation into side effects as such, especially given that side effects are appealed to for various applications in philosophy of medicine. In addition, health authorities like the FDA, CDC, and WHO have contrary definitions of ‘side effect.’ Moreover, these definitions have clear counterexamples. This dissertation aims to provide a complete account of what side effects are. I posit that (...) an account of side effects ought to draw clean conceptual lines between side effects and related treatment outcomes. I contend that an account of side effects must address two components: the reasons behind an intervention that produced the side effect, and the causal powers of the intervention that brought about that effect. With this account in mind, I address contemporary philosophical models that distinguish placebo effects from side effects. These arguments, respectively in chapters 2 and 3, yield a more complete, less problematic account of side effects than previous accounts. The dissertation then turns to the process of discovering side effects, specifically in the post-market context. Given the paucity of external validity in pre-market drug trials, chapter 4 argues that post-market ‘phase IV’ trials blur the received distinction of ‘confirmatory’ versus ‘exploratory’ experimentation in philosophy of science. The other component of post-market drug research is spontaneous reporting, or the voluntary reporting of a suspected side effect to a regulatory body. Chapter 5 uses the framework of risks and values in science to examine why clinicians underreport, which hinders our ability to prevent drug-related harms. Chapter 6 looks at how patients could mitigate underreporting and develops a social-epistemic, pragmatic, and ethical framework which can evaluate proposals to engage patients to spontaneously report their suspected side effects. In short, this dissertation aims to firstly address the conceptual problems in how we define ‘side effect’ and relate it to other treatment outcomes, and secondly it addresses issues that hinder the scientific investigation of side effects. (shrink)

Recent public hearings on misconduct charges belie the conjecture that due process will perforce defeat informed scientific reasoning. One notable case that reviewed an obtuse description of experimental methods displays some of the subtleties of differentiating carelessness from intent to deceive. There the decision of a studious nonscientist panel managed to reach sensible conclusions despite conflicting expert testimony. The significance of such a result may be to suggest that to curtail due process would be both objectionable and unproductive.

This chapter contains sections titled: Rules of conduct Investigations defined The theory behind due process A due process model for business ethicists Who should conduct an investigation? Notice and hearing: conducting the investigation Consequences of an investigation: the perspective of the accused Consequences of an investigation: the perspective of the accuser The corporate obligations that “trump” these investigatory risks A request for fundamental fairness.

Internal due process systems are the formal mechanisms thatmany organizations use to address and resolve ethics conflicts.Problematical due process systems such asinvestigation-punishment and grievance-arbitration systemsnarrowly constrain the political and moral space needed formeaningful ethics voice, praxis, and community. The relativelyuncommon employee board and mediator-counselor types of systemscan help solve such problems. The employee board andmediator-counselor systems permit questioning not only of guiltwith respect to policy violations but also the appropriateness ofthe policies as well as potential biases in an (...) organization'sembedded tradition-system that may be contributing to unethicalbehavior. Theoretical implications for organization ethics,praxis, community, and integrative social contracts theories areexplored. Several case examples are discussed. (shrink)

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that naturalism is, as he puts it, ‘incoherent or self defeating’. Plantinga supposes that, in the absence of any God-like being to guide the process, natural selection is unlikely to favour true belief. Plantinga overlooks the fact that adherents of naturalism may plausibly hold that there exist certain conceptual links between belief content and behaviour. Given such links, natural selection will favour true belief. A further rather surprising consequence of the existence (...) of such links is this: even if semantic properties are epiphenomenal, unguided evolution will still favour true belief. (shrink)

This paper asks whether geographically localised, or ‘hyperlocal’, uses of Twitter succeed in creating peer-to-peer neighbourhood networks or simply act as broadcast media at a reduced scale. Literature drawn from the smart cities discourse and from a UK research project into hyperlocal media, respectively, take on these two opposing interpretations. Evidence gathered in the case study presented here is consistent with the latter, and on this basis we criticise the notion that hyperlocal social media can be seen as a community (...) in itself. We demonstrate this by creating a network map of Twitter followers of a popular hyperlocal blog in Brockley, southeast London. We describe various attributes of this network including its average degree and clustering coefficient to suggest that a small and highly connected cluster of visible local entities such as businesses form a clique at the centre of this network, with individual residents following these but not one another. We then plot the locations of these entities and demonstrate that sub-communities in the network are formed due to close geographical proximity between smaller sets of businesses. These observations are illustrated with qualitative evidence from interviews with users who suggest instead that rather than being connected to one another they benefit from what has been described as ‘neighbourhood storytelling’. Despite the limitations of working with Twitter data, we propose that this multi-modal approach offers a valuable way to investigate the experience of using social media as a communication tool in urban neighbourhoods. (shrink)

Over the last few years, an increasingly sophisticated literature devoted to normative questions arising out of the enforcement of immigration law had developed. In this essay, I consider what sorts of constraints considerations of justice and legitimacy may place on the enforcement of immigration law, even if we assume that states have significant discretion in setting their own immigration policies, and that open borders are not required by justice. I consider constraints placed on state or national governments, constraints on enforcement (...) by substate governments, and constraints on the actions of individuals. I show that there are significant limits on what states may do and what they may require substate governments and individuals to do, in enforcing their immigration laws, but that these constraints are not clearly incompatible with significant state discretion in setting immigration policy. Nonetheless, consideration of justice in enforcement is necessary for any complete normative account of immigration. (shrink)

Music reflects subjectivity and identity: that idea is now deeply ingrained in both musicology and popular media commentary. The study of music across cultures and practices often addresses the enactment of subjectivity "in" music - how music expresses or represents "an' individual or "a" group. However, a sense of selfhood is also formed and continually reformed through musical practices, not least performance. How does this take place? How might the work of practitioners reveal aspects of this process? In what (...) sense is subjectivity performed in and through musical practices? This book explores these questions in relation to a range of artistic research involving contemporary musical practices, drawing on perspectives from performance studies, phenomenology, embodied cognition, and theories of gendered and cultural identity. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida offers his recent commentary on the early career of Paul de Man as an urgent intervention in a discussion he fears is going awry. The most pressing danger he sees in the recent revelations is that they have played into the hands of de Man’s antagonists, who are now ready to denounce the whole of his career and even deconstruction itself. Against such indiscriminate critiques Derrida hurls the epithet: totalitarian. He is attempting to reseize the initiative in the (...) discussion and to reset the terms of the debate. His agenda extends across historical, theoretical, and political questions.He wants to affirm that a radical, indeed absolute break separates the later from the earlier de Man. He also wants to show that the young de man, however firmly committed to fascist ideology and however much an accomplice of the Nazis occupying Belgium, at the same time regularly distanced himself from that ideology and even undermined its meanings. Moreover, Derrida boldly takes up the challenge that these revelations have cast on the intellectual movement he and de Man have shaped. Can deconstruction come to grips with the political and intellectual history of its own leading American proponent? And can deconstruction in the process make a distinctive contribution to the understanding of fascism and intellectuals’ participation in it? John Brenkman is associate professor of English at Northwestern University. He is the author of Culture and Domination . Jules David Law is assistant professor of English at Northwestern University. He is currently working on a book-length study of the metaphors of surface, depth, and reflection in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British prose. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBuilding on Google's efforts to scan millions of books, this article introduces methodology using a database of annual word frequencies of the 40,000 most frequently occurring words in the American literature between 1800 and 2009. The current paper uses this methodology to replicate and identify terror management processes in historical context. Variation in frequencies of word usage of constructs relevant to terror management theory are investigated over a time period of 209 years. Study 1 corroborated previous TMT findings and demonstrated (...) that word use of constructs related to death and of constructs related to patriotism and romantic relationships significantly co-vary over time. Study 2 showed that the use of the word “death” most strongly co-varies over time with the use of medical constructs, but also co-varies with the use of constructs related to violence, relationships, religion, positive sentiment, and negative sentiment. Study 3 foun... (shrink)

It is commonly thought that there is some tension between the second law of thermodynam- ics and the time reversal invariance of the microdynamics. Recently, however, Jos Uffink has argued that the origin of time reversal non-invariance in thermodynamics is not in the second law. Uffink argues that the relationship between the second law and time reversal invariance depends on the formulation of the second law. He claims that a recent version of the second law due to Lieb and Yngvason (...) allows irreversible processes, yet is time reversal invariant. In this paper, I attempt to spell out the traditional argument for incompatibility between the second law and time reversal invariant dynamics, making the assumptions on which it depends explicit. I argue that this argument does not vary with different versions of the second law and can be formulated for Lieb and Yngvason's version as for other versions. Uffink's argument regarding time reversal invariance in Lieb and Yngvason is based on a certain symmetry of some of their axioms. However, these axioms do not constitute the full expression of the second law in their system. (shrink)

Traditional notions of crime control often position the police against an individual, known or not yet known, who is responsible for the commission of a crime. However, with increasingly sophisticated technology, policing increasingly prioritizes the prevention of crime, making it necessary to ascertain who, or what class of persons, may be the next likely criminal before a crime can be committed, termed predictive policing. This causes a shift from individualized suspicion toward predictive profiling that may sway the expectations of a (...) police patrol. Classically, where a patrol officer forms reasonable suspicion prior to a stop, it is based upon his/her analysis of the situation taken as a whole in context. However, where a predictive profile is employed, information available to the officer accordingly adjusts his/her perception of context and affects the application of the reasonable suspicion standard. This article addresses the way in which new approaches to forming reasonable suspicion affect the due process protection of individuals’ fundamental rights. It argues that while an officer still operates with good faith discretion, using predictive profiling causes reasonable suspicion to be based on an augmented understanding of reality and as a result, due process guarantees are weakened. The rights to non-discrimination and the presumption of innocence are assessed and argued as illustrative of this weakening and shift in policing standards. The article ultimately argues that while predictive policing cannot be categorically labeled as inconsistent with criminal justice, changes as seemingly moderate as the manner in which discretion operates have larger effects on individuals’ rights. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article critically examines the practice and ethical underpinnings of Collaborative Law, one of the newest processes in the ADR suite of options available to parties in dispute. CL has been described as mediation without the mediator. The parties and their lawyers agree to negotiate in good faith and in a cooperative non-adversarial manner without the assistance of a mediator. However, controversially, they also agree that if settlement is not reached, the lawyers are to withdraw and be disqualified from representing (...) the parties in any subsequent litigation. The parties must engage new lawyers and often new expert witnesses if they wish to proceed with litigation. In this article, the author highlights the potential for CL lawyers to exert undue pressure on their clients as the goal of settlement is given priority over the interests of the clients. The article describes the main features of CL, its contractual supports, its potential benefits and the potential for its abuse. (shrink)

Rethinking Law as Process draws on insights from 'process philosophy' in order to rethink the nature of legal decision-making.

It is likely that internal factors play an important role in restricting the possible avenues of evolutionary change from any starting point. Internal selective processes operating on premutational disturbances, on mutations, and on developmental phases may usefully be separated from the adaptive selection of phenotypes. The precise structural and morphological consequences of internal factors should soon become an isolable problem owing to a) the observational correlation of definite changes in hereditary specificity with particular developmental consequences; and b) the progressive theoretical (...) identification of the coordinative conditions in organisms. Increasing clarity regarding the coordinative conditions should throw light on the “mutational selection rules” and on the differentiative mutations which led to the most important steps in the past history of evolution.Die Wege der Evolution können sowohl durch innere Auslese der Genotypen wÄhrend der Entwicklung als auch durch die Äussere Darwinische Auslese der Phenotypen bestimmt werden. Seit 1949 haben sich zumindest fünf Forscher mit dieser Möglichkeit befasst. Es ist zur Zeit möglich, zwischen den beiden Arten von Zuchtwahl theoretisch und experimentell zu unterscheiden.Les chemins de l'évolution peuvent Être déterminés non seulement par la sélection extérieure Darwinienne des phénotypes mais aussi par la sélection intérieure des genotypes pendant le développement. Depuis 1949 aux moins cinq investigateurs en ont considéré la possibilité. Il est possible à présent de faire la distinction entre les deux types de sélection dans la théorie comme dans l'expérience. (shrink)

My earlier attempt to develop a trope nominalist account of the relation between tropes and causal processes. In accordance with weak dispositional essentialism (Hendry & Rowbottom 2009), I remain uncommitted to full-blown necessity of causal functional laws. Instead, the existence of tropes falling under a determinable and certain kind of causal processes guarantee that corresponding functional laws do not have falsifying instances.

"This work springs from a conviction of the unity of nature, expressed here in a single principle. In its earliest form this conviction was merely the sense of a hidden unity of form in nature, which the intellect had not yet identified. At that stage it had little value, except in creating the need to find a rational justification for the a-rational feeling. Soon I realised that the discovery of a universal form of process was hindered by the intellectual (...) separation of the processes of subjective experience from those of the external world. It was necessary to bring into closer relation the scientific conception of the forms of external nature and the subjective sense of the forms of experience. This in turn led to the recognition that the methods of exact science had paid inadequate attention to the irreversible or one-way character of process, which is unmistakable in the subjective realm, but is also evident in many inorganic and organic processes, such as those do which form is developed. I expressed this view in a sketch of the outlook of the sciences, entitled Archimedes, or the Future of Physics (1927). The next step was the observation that one principle only could account for the development of regular spatial forms: the principle that asymmetry decreases in isolable processes. This concept of one-way process appeared to me to be the most general conception of spatial process conceivable at the present time, so that all other types of process should be capable of being represented as special cases. I called it the Unitary Principle and determined to use it as the basis of a comprehensive scientific method."--The preface. (shrink)

The examples and concepts that Shoemaker cites are rather heterogeneous. Some distinctions need to be drawn. An optimality thesis involves not just an ordering of options, but a value judgment about them. So let us begin by distinguishing minimality from optimality. And the concept of minimality can play a variety of roles, among which I distinguish between extremum descriptions, statements hypothesizing an optimizing process, and methodological recommendations. Finally, I consider how the three categories relate to Shoemaker’s question that “Who (...) is optimizing: the scientist or nature?” . (shrink)