This paper examines what it is for a condition to be a disease. It falls into two sections. In the first I examine the best existing account of disease (as proposed by Christopher Boorse) and argue that it must be rejected. In the second I outline a more acceptable account of disease. According to this account, by disease we mean a condition that it is a bad thing to have, that is such that we consider the afflicted person to have (...) been unlucky, and that can potentially be medically treated. All three criteria must be fulfilled for a condition to be a disease. The criterion that for a condition to be a disease it must be a bad thing is required to distinguish the biologically different from the diseased. The claim that the sufferer must be unlucky is needed to distinguish diseases from conditions that are unpleasant but normal, for example teething. Finally, the claim that for a condition to be a disease it must be potentially medically treatable is needed to distinguish diseases from other types of misfortune, for example economic problems and legal problems. (shrink)

God, sex, and economics are all intertwined. The trafficking of people for sex intensifies each year. The sex trade crosses a spectrum from ‘high class’ escorts to sex slaves. The sex industry includes toys, pornography, and the exchange of sex between buyers, sellers, and managers. In this market exists sexual poverty caused by injustice, the imbalance of sexual power between individuals and within structures. Poverty pushes people into the market to sell, to be sold. Theologically there is a harmful, top-down, (...) and irrelevant theology that often ignores our sexuality. Liberation theology’s hermeneutical circle, a circle of action and reflection in community, can address sexual poverty. Its steps include: 1. assessing our situation; 2. analyzing our situation with academic tools; 3. analyzing our faith; and 4. praxis; right action. It can help us to draw the line between sexual exploitation and the celebration of sex as a way to know God. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that Rawls’s duty of assistance offers an incomplete picture of our international social and economic responsibilities. I will start by presenting the two main interpretations of the ‘Rawlsian circumstances of egalitarian distributive justice’ – the first requiring the existence of a ‘certain kind’ of cooperation, the second the existence of a ‘certain kind’ of interaction with the will – and then show that none of them rules out the applicability of international principles (...) of egalitarian distributive justice. My argument will draw on societies’ participation in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). So, in the second section I will show that even though this organization is not endowed with a centralized coercive authority, its participants are asked to accept significant constraints on their behaviour and are therefore owed a special justification for these constraints. I will also suggest that the alleged voluntariness of this organization may not only be contested (especially when developing societies are involved), but may also not be sufficient to rule out requirements of distributive equality. In the third section, I will show that, as any system of cooperation, the WTO gives rise to requirements of fairness and that, given the purpose it claims to serve, not all inequalities that can be traced back to so-called ‘domestic’ factors can be considered justified. More specifically, I will argue that the fairness of the WTO requires that all its participants be given a fair chance of benefiting from global market competitions, and that this is likely to entail significant egalitarian distributive duties among societies. (shrink)

The identification and valorization of unacknowledged, feminized forms of economic productivity has been an important task for feminist theory. In this article, we expand and rethink existing definitions of labour, in order to recognize the essential economic role women play in the stem cell and regenerative medicine industries, new fields of biomedical research that are rapidly expanding throughout the world. Women constitute the primary tissue donors in the new stem cell industries, which require high volumes of human embryos, (...) oöcytes, foetal tissue and umbilical cord blood. Such material is generally given for free in the advanced industrial democracies, constituted as a surplus (‘spare’ embryos) or waste (umbilical cord ‘afterbirth’, cadaveric foetuses, poor quality oöcytes) whose generative powers should not be withheld from others. At the same time, among impoverished female populations in developing nations, such biological material is now often procured through frankly transactional relations, where women undertake risky procedures for small fees. In each case, female bodily productivity is mobilized to support bioeconomic research, yet the economic value involved in these relations is largely unacknowledged. In this article, we consider both the gift economy and the transactional economy for reproductive tissues as a form of labour. In order to fully conceptualize the specificities of feminized productivity in the bioeconomy, we distinguish between earlier feminist theories of reproductive labour and the emerging practices generated by stem cell research, which we term regenerative labour. We consider how historical transformations in the regulation of feminized labour and the technical repertoires of stem cell research renegotiate the productivity limits of female reproductive biology, opening it out to novel and profitable forms of surplus value and enrolling women in complex negotiations over their role in bioeconomic activity. (shrink)

There is by now broad consensus in the critical literature that neoliberalism and social conservatism have frequently coexisted in practice. Yet the alt-right fits none of the previously identified alliances: this is not the neoliberal neoconservatism of the Reagan and Bush years, nor the neoliberal communitarianism of the Third Way, nor even a form of neoliberal authoritarianism. Instead, the alt-right claims intellectual descent from economic libertarianism, on the one hand, and paleo- (as opposed to neo-) conservatism on the other. (...) This paper traces the contours of this ‘paleolibertarian’ alliance, first by following the volatile political trajectory of Murray Rothbard, the foremost philosopher of American libertarianism, and, second, by uncovering precedents in the longer history of the American far right. It will be argued that paleoconservatism makes for a uniquely powerful ally because it offers a workable response to libertarianism’s intrinsic contradictions. (shrink)

This article offers a thorough analysis of the unintended impact economic sanctions have on political repression—referred to in this study as the level of the government respect for democratic freedoms and human rights. We argue that economic coercion is a counterproductive policy tool that reduces the level of political freedoms in sanctioned countries. Instead of coercing the sanctioned regime into reforming itself, sanctions inadvertently enhance the regime’s coercive capacity and create incentives for the regime’s leadership to commit political (...) repression. Cross-national time series data support our argument, confirming that the continued use of economic sanctions (even when aimed at promoting political liberalization and respect for human rights) will increase the level of political repression. These findings suggest that both scholars and policy makers should pay more attention to the externalities caused by economic coercion. (shrink)

We bear witness to a sweeping social movement for change—fostered and driven by a powerful group of Black nurses and nursing students determined to call out and dismantle anti‐Black racism and discrimination within the profession of nursing. The Black Nurses Task Force, launched by the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) in July 2020, is building momentum for long‐standing change in the profession by critically examining the racist and discriminatory history of nursing, listening to and learning from the lived experiences (...) of the Black nursing community, and shaping concrete, actionable steps to confront anti‐Black racism and discrimination in academic settings, workplaces, and nursing organizations. The Black Nurses Task Force and the RNAO are standing up and speaking out in acknowledgment of the magnitude of anti‐Black racism and discrimination that exist in our profession, health system, justice system, and economic system. This social movement is demonstrating, in actions, how individuals and a collective act as change agents to drive meaningful and widespread change for our present and future Black nurses. We also acknowledge the Black nurses who have gone before us. (shrink)

Educational policy and discussion, in Britain and the USA, are increasingly dominated by the confused ideology of egalitarianism. David E. Cooper begins by identifying the principles hidden among the confusions, and argues that these necessarily conflict with the ideal of educational excellence - in which conflict it is this ideal that must be preserved. He goes on to criticize the use of education as a tool for promoting wider social equality, focussing especially on the muddles surrounding 'equal opportunities', 'social mix' (...) and 'reverse discrimination'. Further chapters criticize the 'new egalitarianism' favoured, on epistemological grounds, by various sociologists of knowledge in recent years and 'cultural egalitarianism' according to which standard criteria of educational value merely reflect parochial and economic interests. (shrink)

THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE challenges business leaders to take an active role in the preservation of today's free market by embracing leadership on wealth inequality, rural economic decay, and climate policy. Leveraging over twenty academic studies spanning more than 50 years, THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE paints a compelling picture of the rising threat that widespread public apathy towards institutions poses to business as we know it. And with engaging, erudite, authentic and personal language, it outlines the moves that matter to avoid (...) the evident catastrophe. THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE strikes a blow against archaic, profit-centric corporate culture that has proved detrimental to not only corporations but also to their own consumers, employees, and surrounding communities. Taking lessons from McKinsey & Company, notable executive leaders and corporate examples, personal stories, and more, millennial and Fortune 500 executive Andrew Cooper gives today's business leaders five strategies to position themselves, their teams, and their companies to thrive in the age of both social media dominance and low trust in corporations. THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE details how the profit-centric philosophy that predominates today's corporate decision-making is actually hurting the very communities needed for businesses to thrive in tomorrow's economy. And, it proffers that a new kind of success is instead based on long-term community wellbeing that results in continual prosperity and transforms business into a more human model. (shrink)

This article reflects on the convergence of revolutionary anti-capitalism and moral fundamentalism in the contemporary Islamic revival. It is concerned more generally with the recurrent appeal to fundamental value — of a sexual, genealogical or economic kind — in the history of anti-imperial and anti-capitalist movements. Exploring the tradition of Islamist philosophies of finance, the article suggests that Islamic political theology is unique in its ability to separate absolute law from territory ( pace Schmitt). Transgressing the boundaries of nation-state (...) postcolonialism, it thereby relocates absolute value, and hence absolute prohibition, in the realm of the sexual and the divine. (shrink)

In this article, the author describes the far Eastern Federal district as one of the subjects, considers the socio-economic development of the Far East, especially the timber industry. Since this industry is a priority of socio-economic development. The author also describes the problems of development of the timber industry in the Far East, focusing on the production potential, the object of attention also includes customs duties, the cost of forest products. The author considers solutions to problems through the (...) development of foreign economic cooperation with the countries of the Northeast Asia, namely through foreign investment in the timber industry, construction of common enterprises on mutually beneficial terms, etc. (shrink)

The modern world is characterised by the juxtaposing forces of hope in unlimited expansion on the one hand, and scepticism at the state of the world on the other. Society is in many ways in a state of distrust, uncertain of how to exist in an inherited world of opportunity and turmoil, optimism and confusion. As the rationality of the economy and its ability to fairly distribute resources is being called into question in current times, technological development in the service (...) of no end continues in a seemingly uncontrollable fashion. In economic rationality, everything is reduced to effectiveness, but for whom? And for what end? This paper, motivated by the writings of Cornelius Castoriadis, explores the inherited state of philosophy today and offers a call towards self reflective autonomy. It outlines the process underpinning social being and doing through Castoriadis‟ notion of the social-historical, which involves a world of significations instituted for the subject by the social imaginary. I suggest that the future for the thinking individual and the autonomous society is seen in revolutionary praxis, involving a radical calling into question of the institution of society and collective praxis to transform the given. This paper will conclude by arguing that philosophy is the key site of promise for the future – philosophy in its truest sense, which encompasses all domains of thought, seeks to break open the closure of the world, ultimately forming creative, reflecting and deliberating subjects. For, as Castoriadis‟ argues, humanity has a genuine future, and this future is to be made. (shrink)

Sir Andrew Witty’s pivotal 2013 report (Witty, Encouraging a British invention revolution: Sir Andrew Witty’s review of universities and growth. Final Report and Recommendations, 2013) identified that universities have an extraordinary potential to enhance economic growth, and that much of this growth will come from small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). The report noted that whilst they offer SMEs substantial benefits, many universities lack resources for external engagement. I argue that larger universities do contribute to this narrative but are driven by strong (...) research agendas and typically work with larger companies nationally and internationally. They are not particularly accessible to SMEs.This chapter discusses the impact that a small university can have on the regional economy in which it operates, and argues that smaller universities can be more focused on local need, especially in relation to supporting small businesses. It is presented within the context of the development of the University of Chichester Business School over the last 20 years; the successes and the challenges that had to be overcome. The University and the Business School is an example of an anchor institution, like many other small universities, embedded in their local economies, acting as facilitators at the heart of a network of open innovation, connecting supply chains, education establishments, local government and businesses.The importance of building long-term relationships is explored and illustrated with feedback from interviews with key stakeholders in the regional economy. (shrink)

This article recovers mid-century proposals for sciences of concord and contextualizes them as part of a broader politics of commercial knowledge in eighteenth-century Britain. It begins by showing how merchants gained authority as formulators of commercial policy during the Commerce Treaty debates of 1713–1714. This authority held fast during the Walpolean oligarchy, but collapsed by the 1740s, when lobbying and patronage were increasingly maligned as corrupt by a ferment of popular republicanism. The article then explores how the Anglican cleric Josiah (...) Tucker and country pamphleteer Joseph Massie made use of this vacuum in authority to formulate a novel basis for the production of commercial knowledge. In pamphlets written between 1749 and 1760, they argued that the competing interests comprising the nation’s increasingly complex commercial system could only be reconciled and geared to the national interest through the establishment of a science which harnessed an impartial and systematizing epistemology, developing highly idealized accounts of the abstract market as a realm of concord which operated according to regular, rationally deducible principles. The conclusion suggests that their arguments introduced the foundational conceptual bases for later sciences of political economy and legitimated a new form of expertise in statecraft. (shrink)

Numerous studies have examined technological advances and their effects on industry, urbanization, social and economic shifts in power and expertise. Action into Nature assesses technology as the constitutional or political essence of the contemporary world.

China is actively deepening integration into economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement has come into force and China is one of its members. Furthermore, China is applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This study uses the Global Trade Analysis Project model to measure the impact of the RCEP and CPTPP on Gross Domestic Production, import, export, terms of trade, and social welfare of major economies under various (...) scenarios, as well as the competitive effects and complementarity of the RCEP and CPTPP. We found that the CPTPP with China’s accession and the RCEP will complement and strengthen each other and that the members of the two agreements can obtain substantial benefits. If China and the United States join the CPTPP, China’s import growth rate will be higher than its exports. This would transmit growth to other nations and help bridge the trade gap between China and the United States. (shrink)

There is a global shortage of organs for transplantation and despite many governments making significant changes to their organ donation systems, there are not enough kidneys available to meet the demand. This has led scientists and clinicians to explore alternative means of meeting this organ shortfall. One of the alternatives to human organ transplantation is xenotransplantation, which is the transplantation of organs, tissues, or cells between different species. The resurgence of interest in xenotransplantation and recent scientific breakthroughs suggest that genetically-engineered (...) pigs may soon present a realistic alternative as sources of kidneys for clinical transplantation. It is therefore important for nurses and allied health professionals to understand what is involved in xenotransplantation and its future implications for their clinical practices. First, we explore the insufficiency of different organ donation systems to meet the kidney shortage. Second, we provide a background and a summary of the progress made so far in xenotransplantation research. Third, we discuss some of the scientific, technological, ethical, and economic issues associated with xenotransplantation. Finally, we summarise the literature on the attitudes of healthcare professionals toward xenotransplantation. (shrink)

South Africa’s groundbreaking constitution explicitly confers a right of access to sufficient water. But the country is officially ‘water-stressed’ and around 10 % of the population still has no access to on-site or off-site piped or tap water. It is evident that a disconnect exists between this right and the reality for many; however the reasons for the continuation of such discrepancies are not always clear. While barriers to sufficient water are myriad, one significant factor contributing to insufficient and unpredictable (...) access to water is the high percentage of broken water pumps. Previous studies have reported that between 20 and 50 % of all hand operated water pumps installed on the African continent are broken, or out of use. Monitoring and maintenance of pumps, which in South Africa is the responsibility of local municipalities is often ineffective, in part due to the distances between municipal centres and rural communities and the consequent costs of site visits, as well as breakdowns within the local bureaucratic system. The emergence of new telemetry tools that can remotely monitor water applications constitutes a novel and cost-efficient alternative to undertaking regular sites visits. Sustainable, appropriate, low-cost telemetry systems are emerging that could be used to monitor the operational performance of water pumps, or a wide range of other field parameters, and to communicate this information swiftly and cheaply to water service providers, using SMS messages. Data on the performance of water pumps could also be made available to the public online. This is an example of how ICT can be used for water resources management and environmental regulation, as well as in the governance of socio-economic rights: helping to optimize water allocation by improving communication and strengthening accountability. (shrink)

I explore a connection between Robert Nozick's account of decision value/symbolic utility in The Nature of Rationality and F. P. Ramsey's discussion of ethically neutral propositions in his 1926 essay , a discussion that Brian Skyrms in Choice and Chance credits with disclosing deeper foundations for expected utility than the celebrated Theory of Games and Economic Behavior of von Neumann and Morgenstern. Ramsey's recognition of ethically non-neutral propositions is essential to his foundational work, and the similarity of these propositions (...) to symbolic utility helps make the case that the latter belongs to the apparatus that constructs expected utility, rather than being reducible to it or being part of a proposal that can be cheerfully ignored. I conclude that decision value replaces expected utility as the central idea in (normative) decision theory. Expected utility becomes an approximation that is good enough when symbolic utility is not at stake. (shrink)

We live in the era of Facebook, Fitbit, and Skype. As such, it would be unreasonable to expect that the healthcare industry would not see the same kind of globalization as do our social spheres and consumer activities. Indeed, the explosion of information technology, the ease of transcontinental travel, and the emergence of a more globally aware citizenry allows for scientific collaboration that has had many positive effects on global health. However, the economic and structural disparities between systems of (...) healthcare delivery in the industrialized world and parts of the developing world have created a monster in the form of an international medical tourism industry that endangers the health and safety of citizens of the host country as well as visiting patients. Not only does the practice of medical tourism pose a practical danger to those in direct contact with the industry, but it brings up troubling philosophical problems centering on national responsibility and the commodification of healthcare, among other important issues. In the United States, the driving force behind international medical tourism is the exorbitant cost of healthcare, particularly for the uninsured but also for the underinsured and those who experience catastrophic medical expenses from chronic illness or sudden health crises. Not only have individuals begun to look outside the U.S. for surgical procedures and other expensive therapies, but employers have begun to toy with the idea of outsourcing the medical care of the employees they insure in order to cut costs. In other industrialized nations, the issues that underpin international medical tourism are related to healthcare rationing and reflect different shortcomings in the delivery of healthcare in those nations, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, that have single-payer systems. Yet the regulatory and philosophical implications for both patients and hosts of international healthcare are largely the same. The challenge of regulating international trade in medical care is obvious and becomes particularly acute when there are insurers and employers involved. Complicating matters further, medical care that takes place outside the country of origin of the patient is often brokered by “medical concierge services,” which, though quick to claim indemnity from any harm arising from substandard or inappropriate medical care, cannot be divorced from responsibility for the health outcomes of their clients. Agreements hashed out between concierge services and patients specify that any remedy for harm stemming from their medical care must be pursued within the confines of the law of the host country, but the practical implications of this are troublesome. How can a foreign patient—often without either linguistic or cultural competency in the host country—be expected to navigate the complexity of a foreign legal system, particularly one that may be far less developed than his home country? Furthermore, if insurance companies and employers are involved with such care, who pays for an adverse result or determines responsibility for harm that may befall the patient? Under which countries’ laws? If a patient travels to Singapore for sexual reassignment surgery or a cardiac valve repair, returns to the States and suffers complications, who pays for the restoration of her health? Beyond legal standards and judicial remedies for harm to patients seeking care on the international market, there is the question of what ethical standards and norms apply to such patients. What effect does it have on American patients, for example, to receive care within a system that does not emphasize autonomy and informed consent the way they are used to? Why should foreign physicians care about the cultural mores of their patients’ country of origin? Can they be expected to grasp cultural differences between American, Canadian, and British patients? The medical concierge might respond, “Well, buyer beware!” This is unreasonable: It is nearly impossible for any patient to accurately assess the various options, risks and benefits that go with a particular medical treatment, much less the patient who is attempting to do so on the international market. And the crass invocation of the doctrine of caveat emptor betrays a view of healthcare as a commodity that is naive and inappropriate. Paramount in my mind, however, are the practical implications for the care of the citizens of developing nations that host international patients and the broader philosophical issue of what the goals of the medical profession as a whole and each country’s individual healthcare system should be. While I understand the argument that international medical tourism creates great economic gains for developing nations, which can then be channeled toward the care of their citizenry as a whole, there is much reason to doubt that this “trickle-down” model of economics provides real benefits for underserved, whether in healthcare or other arenas. What is more likely is that, while lucrative international “medi-cities” may keep bright doctors in their home countries, it is also likely to lure them away from the institutions that serve the lion’s share of their countrymen. With the concentration of talented native doctors in private hospitals that serve citizens of the developed world, the population at large is left to obtain care at institutions that suffer “brain drain” from the flight of talented local staff to more prestigious, often “brand name,” institutions that give them more Western-like salaries while allowing them to practice in their countries of origin. The very fact that citizens of the wealthiest nations in the world are forced to go abroad for life-saving care speaks to an abdication of national responsibility on the part of their home countries. The provision of health care is one of the principal responsibilities of any nation and it is unacceptable that a nation with the strength and wealth of the United States would take advantage of the weaker political and economic situations of developing nations in order to shirk its responsibility to its fellow citizens. If we take care of our countrymen and take pride in an equitable system of healthcare delivery, there will be no need to shrug our shoulders and say “Buyer beware” to the patient who heads to the Philippines for heart surgery. (shrink)

– Pharmacy sales of over‐the‐counter medicines in the UK represent an economically significant and important mechanism by which customers self‐medicate. Sales are supervised in pharmacies, but this paper seeks to question whether patients' electronic health records – due to be introduced nationally – could be used, ethically, by pharmacists to ensure safe medicines sales., – Using theoretical arguments, three areas of ethical concern are identified and explored in relation to pharmacists' access to EHRs‐consequentialsim, analogies and confidentiality/privacy., – Consequentialist arguments include (...) positive benefits to customer's welfare and control of medicine of abuse, but negative economic healthcare burdens and consequences due to potentially increased or paradoxically, decreased presentation of patients to doctors. Socially accepted analogous practices – credit checks, existing pharmacy access to information and hospital treatment – are then argued to be ethically relevant and supportive of access. Privacy and confidentiality are then considered as reasons not to allow EHR access. A contrasting view is that pharmacy access to EHRs is another form of surveillance and hence the question of pharmacists' assess to EHRs may be answered negatively by empirical research that locates pharmacy customers as expert users and identifies confidentiality and privacy concerns about information technology in healthcare more generally., – This paper offers a unique and valuable contribution to the debate about healthcare professionals' role‐based access to patients' medical records and offers a reflection on the ethical concerns surrounding patient information and the rival concerns of patient qua customer autonomy and safety. (shrink)

This chapter examines Goethe’s notion of the “economy of nature [Ökonomie der Natur]” to argue that his morphological writings play a more extensive role in the formation of evolutionary science than scholars have previously acknowledged. I suggest that Goethe’s economic analogy replaces the Newtonian model of force with an experimental conception of the formative drive, opening a large-scale programme of research. This feature of his work was rightly picked up by his early critics and yet was overlooked by later (...) biologists given the emphasis on population genetics following the Modern Synthesis. Goethe’s economic analogy marks an important advance in the study of organic form, I conclude, for it places comparative anatomy within a biodynamic system of exchange. (shrink)

The essays in this collection honor Professor Ellis Sandoz, Hermann Moyse Jr. Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University, and founding director of the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies, an institute located at Louisiana State University and devoted to research and publication in the fields of political philosophy, constitutional law, and Voegelin studies. Without the tireless leadership—both academic and economic—of Ellis Sandoz, who was one of Eric Voegelin’s early students and his first American doctoral candidate at (...) the University of Munich, the thirty-four volumes of _The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin _would never have neared completion within only twenty years of Voegelin’s death. The authors of the essays, some of the most respected scholars in the field of political philosophy, hail from Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, and the United States. They have known Sandoz in a variety of ways: as former students, as beneficiaries of his work on constitutionalism, as fellow participants in the publication of _The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin_, as philosophical colleagues, as participating members of the Eric Voegelin Society, and finally as friends. The essays, each written especially for this volume, are grouped into the disciplines of philosophy, literature, and politics and range widely across these subjects, exploring writers as diverse as Xenophon, Natsume Soseki, Freud, and George Santayana and topics ranging from the leadership style of François Mitterrand and the Velvet Revolution to the nature of the Law and of the Political. _Philosophy, Literature, and Politics _is a fitting tribute to a man whose life’s work has been formed by commitment to the philosophical enterprise and by a conviction in Eric Voegelin’s contribution to that enterprise. The seventeen essays in this collection will be of particular interest to scholars of politics, comparative government, Japanese studies, political philosophy, and literary criticism. (shrink)

Reciprocity is ubiquitous in our lives, both as a way of rewarding and punishing others. Consequently, the social sciences have devoted many studies to this phenomenon. However, the concept of 'reciprocity' is quite polyvalent, and is used in many different ways across different disciplines - a situation potentially prone to equivocation, which hinders fruitful interdisciplinary work. At the same time, although philosophers often invoke 'reciprocity' in their work, there is a lack of conceptual clarification about what reciprocity actually means - (...) an eminently philosophical task. This thesis fills such a gap, by offering a general framework that allows us to understand how 'reciprocity' is used across different sciences. Such a framework consists in a grammar of several uses/meanings of reciprocity. Moreover, the thesis fills a second gap, regarding the correct interpretation of the psychological role of the reciprocity-motive in economic experiments. There has been a long-standing tradition in economics which overemphasizes the role of inequality aversion and downplays the role of reciprocity. Contrary to this deeply ingrained trend, I argue that reciprocity is the main motive of punishment of free-riders in the public goods game. My argument includes the first systematic critique of an experiment which is currently quite popular in behavioural economics. I show that the latter does not deserve the credit which it has received so far, and thus many economists need to revise their endorsement of inequality aversion. By offering a renewed interpretation of the motives in economic experiments, the thesis highlights reciprocity as a distinctive motivation. The thesis also offers tools to rethink key aspects of economic methodology, and proposes a distinction between prediction, explanation and rationalization of behaviour, in order to achieve psychologically realistic explanations of behaviour. The disciplinary home of the thesis is in philosophy of social science, economics and moral psychology. (shrink)

There is growing political pressure for farmers to use more sustainable agricultural practices to protect people and the planet. The farming press could encourage farmers to adopt sustainable practices through its ability to manipulate discourse and spread awareness by changing the salience of issues or framing topics in specific ways. We sought to understand how the UK farming press framed sustainable agricultural practices and how the salience of these practices changed over time. We combined a media content analysis of the (...) farming press alongside 60 qualitative interviews with farmers and agricultural advisors to understand whether the farming press influenced farmers to try more sustainable practices. Salience of sustainable agricultural practices grew between 2009 and 2020. Many of the practices studied were framed by the press around economic and agronomic aspects, and farmer respondents said the most common reasons for trying sustainable agricultural practices were for economic and agronomic reasons. The farming press tended to use more positive rather than negative tones when covering sustainable agricultural practices. Respondents used the farming press as a source of information, though many did not fully trust these outlets as they believed the farming press were mouthpieces for agribusinesses. Whilst a minority of farmers stated they were motivated to try a new sustainable agricultural practice after learning about it in the farming press, this was rare. Instead, the farming press was used by respondents to raise their awareness about wider agricultural topics. We reflect on the role and power given to agribusinesses by the farming press and what this means for agricultural sustainability. (shrink)

Many argue that transgenic technology will have wide-ranging implications for farmers in developing nations. A key concern is that competencies may be destroyed by predominantly foreign multinational transgenic technologies, exacerbating problems of social exclusion in the case of subsistence farmers. Conversely, those that fail to adopt the technology may become uncompetitive, particularly in commodity-based export markets. Drawing on interview data conducted in Brazil and supporting data collected in North America, Europe and China, we found that the impact of transgenic technology (...) varies. It has less impact on farmers that adapt the products to their crop systems and environment, and greater negative implications for less formally educated subsistence farmers in consequence of both complexity and compatibility. Earlier attempts at industrializing agriculture through technological innovation led to vastly improved agricultural output and exports, but the benefits of productivity was not equitably distributed [D. Lee: 2005, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 87, 1325-1334], nor was it designed to meet specific local environmental and socioeconomic farmer conditions, exacerbating social exclusion. Multinationals attempting to introduce transgenic technology without considering the broader social and ethical implications will invite resistance. We discuss the implications for policy makers, multinationals and small-scale farmers. (shrink)

This article argues that the Mondragon cooperatives, a network of worker-owned businesses in the Basque region of Spain, offers a concrete example of Deweyan economy, wherein democracy is part of everyday work-life. It first identifies three central features of Deweyan economy: a) its notion of economic growth is rooted in human growth; b) it is organic and evolutionary, not ideological or utopian; and c) it is empirical and experimental. Second, the article sketches some of the important historical and philosophical (...) influences upon and distinct features of the Mondragon cooperatives, and, third, it indicates how the Mondragon cooperatives manifest each of the three central features of Deweyan economy. The article concludes by suggesting that the Mondragon cooperatives have achieved a previously unknown level of economic democracy and that its recent modifications in response to changing economic conditions, far from being retreats from fundamental principles, as some critics maintain, are evidence of Mondragon’s experimental, non-ideological character. Furthermore, it is an economic model that transcends the stale, false capitalist-socialist dichotomy and thereby helps us to imagine creative solutions to current economic problems. (shrink)

The representation of public and private partnership in higher education management as a mechanism of forming the added value of human capital is specified. An algorithm of economic effect calculation of universities and entrepreneurs cooperation at training undergraduates is given. As shown in the article the economic effect is achieved by developing wide cooperation with entrepreneurs in public and private partnership and widening the undergraduates’ flow at conducting practices and independent work in individual education.

Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardbound volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, (...) science, law, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient because dynamic ecological-economic interactions and uncertainties occur. Thus more demanding no whinge standards are needed. In this paper, we first argue that these new boundaries can be endogenously exhibited with the mathematical concepts of (...) viability kernel and viable controls. Second, it is shown how these no whinge kernels have components, such as harvesting of resources, that should remain within safe corridor while some other components, in particular biodiversity, have only lower conservation limits. Thus, using radar charts, we show how this no whinge kernels can take the shape of a tree that we name viability tree. These trees of viability capture the idea that the unbounded renewal potential of biodiversity combined with a bounded use of the different ecosystem services are crucial ingredients for the sustainability of socio-ecosystems and the design of no whinge policies reconciling the different stakeholders involved. (shrink)

The Mondragon Corporation, a group of cooperatives, is a thriving example of how cooperatives can succeed. The authors describe six features of the corporation and five 'successful cooperative actions' that they consider to be crucial in explaining its accomplishments. Both the specific features and the successful actions are contrasted with those of standard capitalist companies, to show how this case is unique in the field of corporate organization and management. Through a combination of democratic principles, the values of solidarity, and (...) strong competitiveness, Mondragon has simultaneously achieved both efficiency and equity and has become an alternative to the organizational and governance models of traditional capitalist firms. (shrink)

The central idea of Rawls’s theory of justice is the idea of democratic society as a fair system of cooperation between free and equal citizens. The moral powers of democratic citizens are the capacities presupposed by this idea. Rawls identifies two such powers, the capacity for a conception of the good and the capacity for a sense of justice. I argue that the idea of democratic citizenship presupposes also a third moral power: the capacity for working. Since the basic (...) rights are the rights necessary for the development and exercise of the moral powers of citizenship; and since the capacity for working is such a moral power; and since access to work, education, and healthcare are necessary for the development and exercise of the capacity for working; access to work, education, and healthcare are basic rights. (shrink)

Strong reciprocity is an effective way to promote cooperation. This is especially true when one not only cooperates with cooperators and defects on defectors (second-party punishment) but even punishes those who defect on others (third-party, “altruistic” punishment). Some suggest we humans have a taste for such altruistic punishment and that this was important in the evolution of human cooperation. To assess this we need to look across a wide range of cultures. As part of a cross-cultural project, I (...) played three experimental economics games with the Hadza, who are hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. The Hadza frequently engaged in second-party punishment but they rarely engaged in third-party punishment. Other small-scale societies engaged in less third-party punishment as well. I suggest third-party punishment only became more important in large, complex societies to solve more pressing collective-action problems. (shrink)

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of (...) small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. Key Words: altruism; cooperation; cross-cultural research; experimental economics; game theory; ultimatum game; public goods game; self-interest. (shrink)

This paper examines two strands of literature regarding economic models of cooperation. First, payoff transformation theories assume that people may not be exclusively motivated by self-interest, but also care about equality and fairness. Second, team reasoning theorists assume that people might reason from the perspective of the team, rather than an individualistic perspective. Can these two theories be unified? In contrast to the consensus among team reasoning theorists, I argue that team reasoning can be viewed as a particular (...) type of payoff transformation. However, I also demonstrate that many payoff transformations yield actions that team reasoning rules out. (shrink)

The idea of cooperation has been recently used with regard to human–animal relations to justify the application of an associative theory of justice to animals. In this paper, I discuss some of these proposals and seek to provide a reformulation of the idea of cooperation suitable to human–animal relations. The standard idea of cooperation, indeed, presupposes mental capacities that probably cannot be found in animals. I try to disentangle the idea of cooperation from other cognate notions (...) and distinguish it from exploitation, use, and relationship. The upshot is a minimal taxonomy of human–animal relations that covers most possibilities, from the worst type of relation to that which is most favourable to animals’ welfare. In this taxonomy, cooperation is a form of relation where animals are used to produce a valuable good in a way that is compatible with their ethological features and without being harmed. (shrink)