I consider backtracking reasoning: that is, reasoning from backtracking counterfactuals such as if Hitler had won the war, he would have invaded Russia six weeks earlier. Backtracking counterfactuals often strike us as true. Despite that, reasoning from them just as often strikes us as illegitimate. A number of diagnoses have been offered of the illegitimacy of such backtracking reasoning which invoke the fixity of the past, or the direction of causation. I argue against such diagnoses, and in favor of one (...) that invokes a principle I call the fixity of reasons. Backtracking reasoning violates the fixity of reasons. But, the fixity of reasons is a principle that must be observed in order to engage in practical reasoning at all. (shrink)

Knowledge of others, then, has value; so does immunity from being known. The ability to extend one's knowledge has value; so does the ability to limit other's knowledge of oneself. I have claimed that no interest can count as a right unless it clearly outweighs opposing interests whose presence is logically entailed. I see no way to establish that my interest in not being known, simply as such, outweighs your desire to know about me. I acknowledge the intuitive attractiveness of (...) such a position; but my earlier discussion concluded that the value of privacy is ease, and the value of knowledge is understanding - and it's not obvious that either outweighs the other. Nor is it obvious that the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to limit what others know is more significant than the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to extend one's knowledge. I believe the intuitive attractiveness of the belief that privacy values outweigh knowledge values lies in the entirely correct belief that a society without any privacy would be unpleasant. But a society without mutual knowledge would be impossible.I conclude therefore that there is no right to privacy nor to control over it. Nevertheless, each of these things is a good, and a good made possible (given the presence of other people) by social structures. A desirable society will provide both privacy and control over privacy to some extent. Nothing in my analysis helps determine what the proper extent is, nor what areas of life particularly deserve protection. Those who would argue that privacy and control over it are entailed by respect for persons should, I think, choose instead some particular areas central to being a person, to counting as a person, and then show how one is less likely to exercise one's capacities there fully without privacy or without control over it. Although Gerstein's attempt fails because he inaccurately defines intimacy as a kind of absorption and incorrectly opposes absorption with publicity, I think it is the kind of attempt which must be made. Furthermore, he has probably chosen the right area of life - if anything has a special claim to privacy it is probably the union between people who care for one another. The value of being together alone may be more significant than the value of being alone, if only because words and actions are public while thoughts are not. But I will not try to develop that argument here.In any case both privacy and control over it are social goods; on egalitarian grounds they should, ceteris paribus, be equally available to everyone. This helps explain the “dehumanizing” effect of institutions which provide no privacy at all- prisons and some mental institutions. It is not so much that the inmates are totally known; it is rather that those who know them are not so fully known by them; further, that the staff has a great deal of control over what they disclose of themselves, and the inmates very little. The asymmetry of knowledge in those institutions is one aspect of the asymmetry of power; the completely powerless are likely to feel dehumanized.My analysis also helps account for the wrongness of covert observation. It is not simply that the observer violates the wishes of the observed, for the question is whose wishes trump. The observer is violating the justified expectations of the observed: expectations supported by weighty social conventions. These have more moral weight than simple desires do. The peeping torn is violating a convention which structures the distribution of knowledge, a convention from which he benefits. Without it his own activities might well be impossible. He might be more easily caught; or his victim, less trusting, might choose houses without windows. More deeply, the thrill of what he is doing depends on the existence of the convention. Even morally permissible excitement - the suggestiveness of some clothing- would disappear without conventions about nudity. Presumably, too, there are elements of his own personal life for which he values his privacy. He is on grounds of justice obligated to observe the rule which makes his benefits possible.(Some claims to privacy result from personal predilections, rather than from convention. Parent describes a person who is extremely sensitive about being short, for instance, and does not want his exact height to be common knowledge. Parent, p. 346. The grounds for these claims are obviously different from those I've been discussing. The grounds are the moral obligation not to cause needless pain, or, if the information was given in confidence, to keep one's promises.) Although there is no right to privacy or to control over it as such, there is a right to equality of consideration and to a just distribution of benefits and burdens. To put it another way: there is no natural human right to privacy or to control over it; but a good society will provide some of each, and justice requires that the rules of a good society be observed. This paper was written during Joel Feinberg's 1984 NEH Summer Seminar. I am indebted to NEH for funding, and to Professor Feinberg and the other members of the seminar for helpful comments. (shrink)

This paper adopts justificatory moral pluralism – a multilevel framework for justifying the choice by different agents of the most appropriate norms and values to guide their decisions and actions – to climate change. Its main objective is to investigate how ethics may effectively help achieve a better result in deciding how to mitigate, adapt, or compensate by enhancing the moral acceptability of the available policies or actions that are most likely to counter the effects of climate change. JMP presents (...) agents – individuals, nonstate, and state – with a thorough yet flexible process of matching policies and actions with ethical theories, raising the robustness of moral reasons for politically efficient and individually motivating courses of action against climate change. JMP triggers climate responsibility and sensibility in agents, engaging them in discussing and finding out individually and collectively the most acceptable paths for the decarbonisation transition that is fast approaching. (shrink)

Catalogue des manuscrits chinois de Touen-houang, fonds Pelliot de la Bibliothèque nationale, volume III, no 3001-3500, Editions de la Fondation Singer-Polignac, Paris 1983, XX + 482pp.

We explore the notion that culture influences people’s values, and their subsequent ideologies and ethical behaviors. We present the idea that culture itself changes with time, and explore the influence of culture and generational markers on consumer ethics by examining differences in these ethical dimensions between Australians, Indonesians, and Indonesian Migrants in Australia, as well as differences between Generation X versus Generations Y and Z. The present study addresses the need to investigate the role that culture plays in consumer ethics, (...) and the interaction between culture and generational attitudes in determining consumer ethics. Results established a distinct multiculturality in our three cultural samples, including a generational cohort differences. This suggests that culture and generational markers influence ethical beliefs, ideologies, and consumer ethics. It further indicates that Indonesian Migrants have acculturated to Australian society both in terms of their values and consumer behaviors, illustrating a crossvergence effect; scores indicate that these Migrants have the highest cultural intelligence among our samples. Implications of the findings for consumer ethics theory and practice are considered and future directions identified. (shrink)

To solve the probability problem of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, D. Wallace has presented a formal proof of the Born rule via decision theory, as proposed by D. Deutsch. The idea is to get subjective probabilities from rational decisions related to quantum measurements, showing the non-probabilistic parts of the quantum formalism, plus some rational constraints, ensure the squared modulus of quantum amplitudes play the role of such probabilities. We provide a new presentation of Wallace’s proof, reorganized to (...) simplify some arguments, and analyze it from a formal perspective. Similarities with classical decision theory are made explicit, to clarify its structure and main ideas. A simpler notation is used, and details are filled in, making it easier to follow and verify. Some problems have been identified, and we suggest possible corrections. (shrink)

Although the evidence remains tentative at best, the conception of hallucinations in schizophrenia as being underconstrained perception resulting from intrinsic thalamocortical resonance in sensory areas might complement current models of hallucination. However, in itself, the approach falls short of comprehensively explaining the neurogenesis of hallucinations in schizophrenia, as it neglects the role of external attributional biases, mental imagery, and a disconnection between frontal and temporal areas.

This essay aims at establishing that the word “free” (eleutheros) and related terms are used by Plato in the Laws in two main senses. There is, first, the constitutional meaning of “freedom” which is put to work in book 3 in order to analyze moderately good and degenerate forms of historical constitutions. Strikingly enough, this meaning does not play any subsequent role in the shaping of the Platonic constitution itself—a fact which requires some kind of explanation. There is, then, scattered (...) throughout the work, the behavioral meaning of “freedom” according to which the citizens of Magnesia, who are free in the sense that they are free men, are supposed to behave as such and to be educated accordingly, that is as “gentlemen.” One important aspect here is that a free education will appeal to rationality. The philosophically interesting fact, however, is that there appears to be no intrinsic link for Plato between freedom and rationality, as we might expect on the basis of modern philosophical assumptions whereby freedom is grounded on rationality. Rather, freedom is the condition for exercising rationality, because this exercise takes time. True, there is in the Laws a unique occurrence of yet another conception of “freedom” according to which one is free when one's reason masters one's desires. One might speculate why Plato did not develop this specific conception of freedom, which is in some sense closer to some modern views about liberty, as is shown, for example, from I. Berlin's concept of “positive liberty.” Footnotesa I would like to thank the editors for revising the English of this paper, as well as for a further series of useful suggestions. (shrink)

We show that the elementary theory of the recursively enumerable tt-degrees has the same computational complexity as true first-order arithmetic. As auxiliary results, we prove theorems about exact pairs and initial segments in the tt-degrees.

Resumo: Reconstruiu-se a semiologia geral elaborada nos escritos inacabados e indiretos de Saussure, recolocando sua noção de sentido próxima à de Deleuze e explicando-a por meio deste. Defende-se que toda teoria baseada na noção de “diferença” precisa dar conta do processo de individuação e, junto disso, por meio da descrição de dois níveis de diferenciação. Demonstra-se que isto é realizado por ambos os autores, para além e mesmo junto de suas divergências. Assim, o artigo recoloca a teoria do valor de (...) Saussure na aurora de uma filosofia da diferença, mostrando que este inaugura e mesmo “repete” as teses que Deleuze explicitamente defende, nos anos 1960.: The paper reconstruct the general semiology elaborated in Saussure’s unfinished and indirect writings, replacing his notion of meaning next to that of Deleuze, and explaining it through the latter. We argue that any theory based on the notion of “difference” needs to account for the individuation process and, together, through the description of two levels of differentiation. We demonstrate that this is accomplished by both authors, beyond and even with their disagreements. Thus, the article puts Saussure’s theory of value on the dawn of a philosophy of difference, showing that it inaugurates and even repeats the theses that Deleuze explicitly defends in the 1960s. (shrink)

In a globalizing world, cross-national differences in values and business culture and understanding these differences become increasingly central to a range of organizational issues and ethical questions. However, various concerns have been raised about extant empirical research on cross-national dissimilarities in the cultural values of managers (what we refer to as managerial values) and the development of a unified business culture. This paper seeks to address three such concerns with the literature on convergence versus divergence of cultural values. It develops (...) an empirical approach to the study of changing business cultures that revolves around birth cohorts and intergenerational values shifts and aims to advance empirical knowledge of the dynamics of cross-national differences in the cultural values of managers. We use time-series data covering 68,708 managers and are able to consider a sample of 32 countries that represent more than half of the cultural clusters recognized in the literature. Results reveal diverse shifts in managerial values across birth cohorts with cross-national dissimilarities waning for some basic cultural dimensions (“convergence”), remaining stable for other dimensions (“cultural stability”), and becoming more pronounced for other dimensions still (“divarication”). Moving beyond the standard convergence/divergence taxonomy, we conclude that a full-fledged convergence–stability–divarication perspective provides the best basis for thinking about the subtle ways in which business cultures are changing. (shrink)

No Brasil, com o envelhecimento e a morte dos primeiros imigrantes nipônicos, o Budismo étnico tem enfrentado desafios para sua perpetuação. Tendo em vista esse contexto histórico, o objetivo deste artigo é analisar a difusão do Zen Budismo no Youtube no período de 2015 a 2017, utilizando como fontes primárias os vídeos da Monja Coen, religiosa não descendente de japoneses que tem atuado no universo midiático nos últimos anos. Como metodologia, os vídeos são discriminados em diferentes categorias, sendo analisados tanto (...) a partir de seus conteúdos quanto de sua composição audiovisual. Da perspectiva teórica, são utilizados os conceitos de representação e apropriação propostos, respectivamente, por Roger Chartier e Michel de Certeau. Como resultados, percebe-se que a divulgação do Zen na Web tem permitido que a religião consiga transcender as fronteiras étnicas, seja com a divulgação das ideias e práticas em português, seja com o diálogo com questões da sociedade atual. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo mostra a abordagem hermenêutica realizada por Martin Heidegger dos conceitos de natureza e vida a partir da ontologia fundamental. Em Ser e Tempo, Heidegger elabora as condições hermenêuticas para que se possa apreender ontologicamente a vida através do que ele chama de interpretação privativa da vida. O desenvolvimento sistemático do sentido de ser da vida é apresentado por Heidegger na preleção Os conceitos fundamentais da metafísica : mundo, finitude, solidão, de 1929/1930. Nela, para apresentar o fenômeno da (...) vida, Heidegger parte da tese central de que todo vivente é organismo, de modo a desenvolver uma investigação ontológica em conjunto com pesquisas biológicas e zoológicas. Por conseguinte, após a explicitação dos modos de encontro com a natureza, será evidenciado como a natureza em sentido originário mostra-se a partir de um retraimento na abertura de mundo do ser-aí em sua relação com os organismos vivos. Palavras-chave: Heidegger; ontologia; hermenêutica da natureza; vida; mundo.: This article shows the hermeneutical approach performed by Martin Heidegger to the concepts of nature and life from the fundamental ontology. In Being and Time, Heidegger elaborates the hermeneutical conditions so that we can apprehend ontologically life through what he calls the private interpretation of life. The systematic development of the sense of being of life is presented by Heidegger in the lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, of 1929/1930. In this lecture, to present the phenomenon of life Heidegger uses the central thesis that every living being is organism in order to develop an ontological investigation in conjunction with biological and zoological research. Therefore, after the explanation of the ways of meeting with nature, will be shown as nature in the original sense shows itself from a withdrawal in the world opening of the being-there in its relationship with living organisms. Keywords: Heidegger; ontology; hermeneutic of nature; life; world. (shrink)

La question de la culpabilité est un point capital de la pensée de Kierkegaard ; c’est par la faute que l’homme advient à soi-même. Cette interrogation, qui est examinée dans Le concept d’angoisse, est mise en scène et explorée dans Coupable? – non-coupable? En vérité, ses diverses significations ne trouvent leur cohérence qu’en étant mises en relation avec les catégories premières de Kierkegaard, celles d’amour et de don.

Pierre André,Michel Bourban | : Dans un contexte d’urgence, les philosophes ne peuvent plus se contenter d’élaborer des théories idéales de la justice climatique fondées sur des motivations purement morales. Il est désormais nécessaire d’envisager des approches non idéales. Nous proposons ici de prendre au sérieux le problème de la motivation à l’action et nous mettons en avant certains motifs prudentiels pour lutter contre le changement climatique, en vue non pas de remplacer, mais de renforcer les motivations morales existantes, (...) mais insuffisantes. Nous commençons par présenter trois grandes approches idéales qui ont prévalu jusqu’ici dans la recherche sur la justice climatique et sont fondées respectivement sur l’éthique déontologique, sur l’éthique des vertus et sur l’utilitarisme. Nous mettons en évidence leurs limites pratiques, en ciblant le problème de la motivation à l’action. Nous proposons ensuite quelques pistes pour résoudre ce problème en esquissant une approche non idéale de la justice climatique. Cette approche est centrée sur les motivations amorales ressortant de l’examen attentif des perturbations systémiques globales et des contextes nationaux et locaux spécifiques. Elle est à notre sens incontournable pour motiver les États-nations, les entreprises et les individus. Il s’agit cependant moins de la substituer totalement aux théories idéales de la justice climatique que de compléter celles-ci pour établir une vision plus compréhensive qui distingue le problème de la justification morale de celui de la motivation. | : In a situation of urgency, philosophers can no longer rely exclusively on ideal theories of climate justice grounded on purely moral motives. It has become necessary to build nonideal approaches. We propose to give serious consideration to the problem of motivation to act by putting forward some prudential reasons for tackling climate change—with the aim not of replacing existing but inadequate moral motivations, but of strengthening them. First, we identify three major ideal approaches that have so far prevailed in climate justice research, grounded respectively on deontological ethics, on virtue ethics, and on utilitarianism. We highlight their practical limitations, particularly with regards to the problem of motivation to act. Second, we open the way for an alternative nonideal approach to climate justice based on amoral motivations issuing from a careful examination of global systemic disruptions as well as of specific national and local situations. This approach cannot be ignored if one wishes to motivate nation-states, corporations, and individuals to act. However, our goal is not to replace ideal theory with nonideal theory, but rather to complete the former with the latter for a more comprehensive account of climate justice that distinguishes the problem of moral justification from the problem of motivation. (shrink)

This paper supports the contention that the general rules introduced by Hume in the Treatise on Human Nature (THN 1.3.15) are a selection mechanism for inductive inferences, which rejects two sources of inefficiency : (i) from emotional origin, which would reduce the uneasiness coming from a possible failure in the uniformity of nature ; (ii) from cognitive origin, which would tolerate the possible overflow of the imagination on judgment. A growing consensus in recent decades, which distinguishes between two kinds of (...) rules — extensive and corrective — is at the basis of this device. Whereas the extensive rules allow us to go beyond a singular experience and derive a wider range of inferences, the corrective rules, whose command opposes the philosopher to the vulgar, control and rectify the effects of extensive rules alone, so as to eliminate emotional and cognitive inefficiencies, and to make inferences that, borrowing the expression to Peirce, we will designate as abductive. (shrink)

This work aims to analyze the action of the poetic or inventive imaginative faculty (Dichtungsvermögen) in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, in the first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781), and to examine the emphasis that this author attributes to it in his Anthropology. This work defends the thesis that this capacity of the imaginative faculty would have a fundamental role in the development of the subjective deduction presented by Kant in the first edition of his Critique (...) of pure reason, indicating, as it would make it possible to consider from its functioning a theory of psychological judgments, however, we will emphasize that such a possibility would be limited in the Critique, a fact that we consider to add its field of action and investigation to Anthropology, which would characterize this last work as a fertile field for psychological action and investigation. (shrink)

As the restructuration of municipalities could bring along new local political alliances, one would have thought about the possibility of a relevant modification of the political map of Wallonie after the «elections communales» of October 10th, 1976.Some experts had even conceived that the reorganization of the local authority was a manoeuvre of the central government, made in order to neutralize a region in which the «Parti Socialiste Belge» had the majority. Others thought that the national political strategy would prevail.On the (...) contrary, the results of the election have proved, that the «Parti Socialiste Belge» has kept its predominance in Wallonie. The other political parties have kept their position.The national strategy didn't appear neither in the program, nor in the constitution of the voting lists.The national political «variables», haven't brought modifications to the local objectives for which the main reason remains either to keep the power or to make its conquest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PEACE EDUCATION AND THE NORTHERN IRISH CONFLICT André Lascaris Dominican Theological Center, Nijmegen The Northern Irish conflict can be interpreted as an anachronism. This is true in many aspects. However, in the last ten years we were confronted with many "anachronistic" conflicts: in former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, Algeria, Colombia, and Afghanistan, to mention only some. In our postmodern times the division of the world into two rather neat (...) halves with two centers of power has gone, the nation state is weakening and in many societies the social glue seems to be losing its cohesive force. We have to live together in pluralistic societies in which we are all a minority at times. Wars between states become less likely, butcivil wars are on the increase. Terrorism becomes a power against which the traditional armies and their weapons are quite useless in spite of many technological developments. The ancient laws concerningthe protection of women and children in wartime are becoming obsolete. Women are invited to get involved in the armed forces. The child soldier is a well-known phenomenon. In our western society a child's world, which exists in isolation from the adult world, is no longer a possibility. Some lessons learned in dealing with theNorthern Irish conflict might turn out to be worthwhile taking up in other situations. In this essay, I reflect with the help ofthe mimetic theory on peace work done by some Dutch people on behalfofNorthern Ireland between 1973 and 1992. The Northern Irish conflict as such is not the subject ofthis paper; the mimetic interpretation of this conflict was admirably covered by people such as Duncan Morrow and the late Frank Wright to which I refer the reader in my bibliography. I will concentrate on the educational aspects ofDutch peace work done in the Northern Irish context. Here it suffices to say that the 136André Lascaris Northern Irish conflict is not a religious one, though religious labels are being used. It is aconflict between two cultures, an Irish one and an AngloSaxon or British one. I. Dutch peace work on behalf ofNorthern Ireland A. A short history In 1973 I was invited to become a member of staff of a conference for influential Northern Irishmen in the Netherlands. Glenn Williams, then secretary general of the KEK (Conference of European Churches) had asked the Dutch Council ofChurches whether it could do something on behalf of Northern Ireland. After some consultation Williams asked the Dutch adult education center 'De Haaf to accommodate "mixed Roman Catholic and Protestant Irish groups in a quiet and spiritual atmosphere." The director of this center, Aat van Rhijn, a Presbyterian minister, asked me to participate in the conference because he wanted a Catholic priest to make the Roman Catholic Northern Irishmen feel represented on the staff. A laywoman, Hermine Keuning, was the third member of the staff. The Dutch Reformed Church provided money. In April 1973 a visit was made to Belfast and contact was established with the Irish Council ofChurches; it soon became our Northern Irish counterpart. In Septembera firstconference was held, quickly followed by a second one. From participants of the first conference a new request for a conference was made and after this one even more conferences were organized, altogether 18 between 1973 and 1983. We worked with neighborhood groups, politicians, paramilitaries, social workers, police officers, adult educators, social workers, journalists and editors, Catholic and Protestant clergymen. In the conferences ofthe protestant politicians and the clergy it was not possible to have a mixed group; we had to be content with having some either Catholic or Protestant "observers" at the conference. Inthe late seventiesthesecurity situation inNorthern Ireland improved. The necessity oftraveling to the Netherlands to have a conference became less evident. Because our work remained in demand, we organized weekends in Northern Ireland itself from 1981 onwards, mainly in Corrymeela, an ecumenical adult education center near Ballycastle. Money was coming from several sources, but mainly from the Dutch Reformed Church. To handle the money well we decided in 1975 to become a trust: the "Dutch Northern Irish Advisory Committee." It was typical ofthis trustthat its constitution stipulated that no conference or any Peace Education andthe Northern Irish Conflict137 other activity... (shrink)