Abstract: In this article we introduce an input-oriented democratic innovation – that we term ‘TaxTrack’ – which offers individual taxpayers the means to engage with their political economies in three ways. After joining the TaxTrack program, an individual can: (1) see and understand how much, and what types, of taxes they have contributed, (2) see and understand how their tax contributions are, or have been, used, and (3) control what their tax contributions can, or cannot, be spent on. We explain (...) this democratic innovation in two ways. The first is through evocation to prefigure what the innovation could look like in future practise which raises the prospects for both good and problematic outcomes. The second is through formal theory to produce a detailed model of the innovation to assist theory building. We conclude by discussing three interactive outcomes of ‘TaxTrack’ through the democratic innovations literature to establish the beginnings of a theory for the model. This theory tells us that ‘TaxTrack’ can return benefits to its users and the democratic regimes in which they are located but it may also place restrictions on output-oriented innovations like Participatory Budgeting. (shrink)

Precision medicine (PM) aims to revolutionise healthcare, but little is known about the role religion and spirituality might play in the ethical discourse about PM. This Perspective reports the outcomes of a knowledge exchange fora with religious authorities in Singapore about data sharing for PM. While the exchange did not identify any foundational religious objections to PM, ethical concerns were raised about the possibility for private industry to profiteer from social resources and the potential for genetic discrimination by private health (...) insurers. According to religious authorities in Singapore, sharing PM data with private industry will require a clear public benefit and robust data governance that incorporates principles of transparency, accountability and oversight. (shrink)

En torno a estas tres interrogantes se estructura este texto: ¿Potenciar una agenda de género es contraproducente cuando un sujeto político es marcado por la categoría “etnia”? Cuando las demandas son étnicas, culturalistas, o identitarias ¿implican siempre una revalorización de la tradición que sitúa a las mujeres en lugares desaventajados o subordinados? ¿La agenda autonomista recoge la diversidad del mundo indígena? También se hace una breve referencia a los aspectos metodológicos de la investigación que inspira este texto. Finalmente se deja (...) planteada una reflexión en torno a la figura del intelectual indígena. La relevancia de esta discusión se explica por un contexto sociopolítico que vive el movimiento indígena en Chile: una “reemergencia” que se advierte crecientemente a partir de los años 90. Es una situación en la cual ciertas demandas ancladas territorialmente han permeado otras esferas de la vida de un grupo tan heterogéneo como dinámico y en cuyo escenario se ha bosquejado una identidad mapuche que se construye en el terreno de la resistencia y que, por lo mismo, experimenta todo tipo de tensiones y potencia la construcción de agendas controversiales. Una de las figuras que encarna esta resistencia es la del intelectual indígena. (shrink)

La decisión de Angela Merkel de abrir sin reservas las fronteras de su país en 2015 a cientos de miles de refugiados representa uno de los acontecimientos más relevantes de la historia de Alemania en el siglo xxi. Tanto la determinación de la canciller como la actitud manifestada por la mayoría de los ciudadanos han de ser interpretadas en el contexto de una historia caracterizada tanto por el sufrimiento infligido por Alemania como por el sufrimiento propio derivado de los (...) conflictos bélicos en los que se vieron inmersos. A este respecto, el humanitarismoalemán posterior a 1990 se debe en parte a una deudacon el pasado: bien como restitución del daño causado, bien como recordatorio del dolor sufrido. Ámbitos tan diversos como el discurso político o la literatura contribuyeron durante décadas a conformar una memoria cultural que prestaba especial atención al traumático siglo xx y a las responsabilidades nacionales que aún no habían prescrito. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical and conceptual implications of the findings from an empirical study (reported elsewhere) of decision-making capacity in anorexia nervosa. In the study, ten female patients aged thirteen to twenty-one years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, and eight sets of parents, took part in semistructured interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. All the patient-participants were also tested using the (...) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool—Treatment test of competence. This is a formalized, structured, interviewer-administered test of competence, which is a widely accepted clinical tool for determining capacity. The young women also completed five brief, self-administered questionnaires to assess their levels of psychopathology. The issues identified from the interviews are described under two headings: difficulties with thought processing and changes in values. The results suggest that competence to refuse treatment may be compromised in people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by traditional legal approaches. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is not only disrupting industries and businesses, particularly the ones have fallen behind the adoption, but also significantly impacting public life as well. This calls for government authorities pay attention to public opinions and sentiments towards AI. Nonetheless, there is limited knowledge on what the drivers behind the public perception of AI are. Bridging this gap is the rationale of this paper. As the methodological approach, the study conducts an online public perception survey with the residents of Sydney, (...) Melbourne, and Brisbane, and explores the collected survey data through statistical analysis. The analysis reveals that: the public is concerned of AI invading their privacy, but not much concerned of AI becoming more intelligent than humans; the public trusts AI in their lifestyle, but the trust is lower for companies and government deploying AI; the public appreciates the benefits of AI in urban services and disaster management; depending on the local context, public perceptions vary; and the drivers behind the public perception include gender, age, AI knowledge, and AI experience. The findings inform authorities in developing policies to minimise public concerns and maximise AI awareness. (shrink)

In the 1920s, John Dewey's followers in China, led by his student Hu Shih, attempted to put his pragmatism into practice in their quest for democracy. This essay compares Hu Shih's thought, especially his emphasis on pragmatism as method, with Dewey's philosophical positions and evaluates Hu's achievement as a pragmatist in the context of the tumultuous times he lived in. It assesses Hu's claim that the means to democracy lies in education rather than politics, since democracy as a way of (...) life requires a cultural renewal beyond institutional changes. It argues that a problem‐centered approach to social change does not preclude radical action, even revolution. But pragmatism is against gratuitous use of violence in the service of wholesale and abstract ideals advocated by various “isms.” While Hu's experiment of democracy in China is a significant episode in the history of pragmatism, its “failure” does not prove that there are inherent flaws in the pragmatist method, that pragmatism is unviable for China. The failure needs to be understood in the context of the pragmatist conception of experiment, in which failures are to be expected; what is important is to learn from them to achieve better results in the next stage of inquiry. Hu Shih's pragmatism contains lessons for pragmatists and for those interested in the continued quest for democracy in China—the experiment continues. (shrink)

Employing the distinction between the authoritarian (based on coercion) and the authoritative (based on excellence), this study of the understanding of authority in the Analects argues against interpretations of Confucianism which cast Confucius himself as advocating authoritarianism. Passages with key notions such as shang 上 and xia 下; fu 服 and cong 從; quan 權 and wei 威, are analyzed to illuminate ideas of hierarchy, obedience, and the nature of authority itself in the text. The evidence pieced together reveals the (...) Master to be authoritative rather than authoritarian; and the social order to which he aspired is one based on excellence rather than on coercion. The article then considers why teachings which present a model of authority as authoritative ended up as often identified with authoritarianism and concludes with some thoughts about how Confucianism might be rescued from authoritarian practice. (shrink)

Kant divides moral duties into duties of virtue and duties of justice. Duties of virtue are imperfect duties, the fulfillment of which is left to agent discretion and so cannot be externally demanded of one. Duties of justice, while perfect, seem to be restricted to negative duties (of nondeception and noncoercion). It may seem then that Kant's moral philosophy cannot meet the demands of global justice. I argue, however, that Kantian justice when applied to the social and historical realities of (...) the world can generate positive duties to promote and provide for the well being of others. (shrink)

Many liberals have argued that a cosmopolitan perspective on global justice follows from the basic liberal principles of justice. Yet, increasingly, it is also said that intrinsic to liberalism is a doctrine of nationalism. This raises a potential problem for the liberal defense of cosmopolitan justice as it is commonly believed that nationalism and cosmopolitanism are conflicting ideals. If this is correct, there appears to be a serious tension within liberal philosophy itself, between its cosmopolitan aspiration on the one hand, (...) and its nationalist agenda on the other. I argue, however, that this alleged conflict between liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan liberalism disappears once we get clear on the scope and goals of cosmopolitan justice and the parameters of liberal nationalism. Liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan global justice, properly understood, are mutually compatible ideals. (shrink)

In ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered’ Michael Hand revisits the debate on the right of parents to give their children a religious upbringing in a liberal context. According to him, the logical difficulty lies in the fact that parents cannot both impart religious beliefs and avoid indoctrination. While Peter Gardner and Jim Mackenzie have responded to Hand's paper and raised a number of pertinent issues, what is missing is a fuller treatment of indoctrination and belief inculcation for children. In this paper, I (...) argue that Hand's fallacy lies in his flawed understanding of indoctrination and belief inculcation: the inculcation of non-rational beliefs, far from being indoctrinatory, is in fact necessary for children in the process of growing up. (shrink)

Resumen: Esta exposición intenta comprender las formas culturales de comunicación y fijación mnémica en una narración específica que Davi Kopenawa, chamán Yanomami, expone al antropólogo Bruce Albert, en virtud de los modos de existencia amazónicos, refiriéndose en particular a la intensidad de los espíritus selváticos y a la experiencia chamánica con los mundos espirituales. En el contexto de una extensión vegetal dispersa y sobresaliente, afirmamos una sociabilidad cotidiana en el marco de una “ética respetuosa o amorosa” entre todas las formas (...) de vida, expresada estéticamente en formas significantes y transportadoras de emociones desarrolladas por la cosmología amazónica. Para ello utilizamos las nociones que Aby Warburg emplea en su estudio de la cultura de las imágenes, en tanto curso por el que estas pueden entenderse como organismos vivientes susceptibles a transformación, preservando su propia biología en la trasmisión codificada de la memoria.: This exhibition tries to understand the cultural forms of communication and mnemic fixation in a specific narrative that Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami shaman, exposes to the anthropologist Bruce Albert, by virtue of Amazonian modes of existence, especially referring to the intensity of jungle spirits and experience Shamanic with spiritual worlds. In the context of a dispersed and outstanding plant extension, we affirm a daily sociability within the framework of a “respectful or loving ethic” among all life forms, aesthetically expressed in significant and transporting forms of emotions developed by Amazonian cosmology. For this we use the notions that Aby Warburg uses in his study of the culture of images, as a course by which they can be understood as living organisms susceptible to transformation, preserving their own biology in the coded transmission of memory. (shrink)

Pourquoi ajouter un ouvrage à tant d'autres qui saluent la mémoire et commentent l'oeuvre d'Edith Stein? Philosophe allemande de l'école phénoménologique (1891-1942), juive convertie au catholicisme et entrée au Carmel, elle laisse une oeuvre universitaire et spirituelle d'une rare densité. Philibert Secretan, portant le souci d'une philosophie chrétienne, a traduit et commenté de nombreux textes philosophiques, notamment d'auteurs allemands et espagnols. Profondément marqué par la pensée d'Edith Stein, il y discerne comme constantes la réflexion, l'élucidation, et la mise en forme (...) intellectuelle du "monde vécu". C'est cette constante application à penser qu'il a suivie à travers divers champs : celui des sciences (naturelles et humaines) interrogées sur leurs méthodes, celui de la politique et du droit, celui de l'éducation, celui d'une métaphysique réactualisée, et celui de la mystique invoquée au-delà de tout psychologisme et de toute émotivité irrationnelle. Cet ouvrage évoque l'apport d'Edith Stein aux débats actuels sur l'écologie, le féminisme, et la laïcité de l'Etat. Il alerte sur la valeur essentielle de la patience et du goût du silence. (shrink)

In his autobiography, David Hume famously noted that A Treatise of Human Nature “fell dead-born from the press.” Yet it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophical works written in the English language. Within, Hume offers an empirically informed account of human nature, addressing a range of topics such as space, time, causality, the external world, personal identity, passions, freedom, necessity, virtue, and vice. This edition includes not only the full text of the Treatise but also Hume’s (...) summarizing Abstract, as well as selections drawn from critical book reviews which showcase the work’s reception in Hume’s own time. Angela Coventry’s expert introduction and annotations serve to contextualize the book’s themes and arguments for modern readers. (shrink)

We single out an alternative, strict interpretation of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen criterion of reality, and identify the implied extensions of quantum correlations. Then we prove that the theorem of Bell, and the non-locality theorems without inequalities, fail if the new extensions are adopted. Therefore, these theorems can be interpreted as arguments against the wide interpretation of the criterion of reality rather than as a violation of locality.

This study takes a systemic functional multimodal social semiotic approach to the analysis and discussion of image and text relations in two sets of data. First, patterns of contextualisation of images and text in the online magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah produced by the Islamic extremist organisation which refers to itself as Islamic State are examined. The second data set consists of a sample of texts from Western online news and blog sites which include recontextualisations of images found in the first (...) data set. A sample of examples of the use and re-use of images is discussed in order to identify patterns of similarity and difference when images and text are recontextualised. It is argued that the ISIS material tends to foreground the interpersonal metafunction in combination with the textual metafunction, while the other data set tends to foreground the ideational metafunction. These inferences indicate that further exploration of a larger data set is worth pursuing. Such studies would provide deeper insights helping to distinguish between online material which supports terrorism and that which opposes it, as well as facilitating the further development of multimodal social semiotic approaches to image and text relations. (shrink)

What leads people to believe in conspiracy theories? In this paper, we explore the possibility that people might be drawn towards conspiracy theories because believing in them might satisfy certain existential needs and help people find meaning in their life. Through two studies (N = 289 and 287 after exclusion), we found that par­ ticipants higher in the need and search for meaning were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. This relationship was not moderated by participants' feelings of control. (...) We also found that believing in conspiracy theories was associated with more presence of meaning (Study 1), and more precisely with a heightened feeling of mattering in the grand scheme of things (Study 2). Additionally, we found that participants were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories that left them more agency and allowed them the possibility to make a difference. Overall, we argue that our results suggest that people might sometimes be drawn towards conspiracy theories because they allow them to feel as if they can make a difference and have a positive impact on the world, and thus that conspiracy theories can be used as tools to satisfy existential needs. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars of Machiavelli have dedicated closer attention to, on one hand, the role played by tumults, and the presence of the language of jurisprudence in his work. Until now, these two readings of Machiavelli have never intersected. This essay aims to show to what extent the language of jurisprudence was present in Machiavelli’s writings on tumults both in his early works, and above all in the Florentine Histories. Starting from Machiavelli’s analysis of the Valdichiana rebellion (1503), the (...) first part of the essay deals with ‘rebellion’ as a legal and political issue, as a specific case of the crime of lese majesty, discussed among civil and canon lawyers from commentaries on the famous imperial laws of Henry VII (1313) up through some legal consilia written in defense of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the city of Florence in relation to the Pazzi Conspiracy (1478), as well as first treatise dedicated specifically to the subject of seditions by a French jurist (1515). The essay’s second part considers the famous speech of the anonymous Ciompo in the third book of the Florentine Histories, and analyses a passage commonly overlooked by scholars : “When many err, no one is punished”. The essay shows that in this passage Machiavelli used a juridical principle, a regula iuris, which was certainly controversial and very frequently not accepted, but theoretically admitted as such. In concluding, the essay proposes some possible paths for further researchs. (shrink)

We agree with the author's working model, but we suggest that (a) the classical distinction between fast and slow processes as separable processes can be softened, and (b) human performance might result from an interplay between fast and slow processing and these processes may be mediated by systems that evolve to satisfy the need for operation in a complex environment.

1. Version française Ce numéro de la revue Alter est le second consacré aux problématiques liées à l’emploi des personnes en situation de handicap. Le premier numéro a été publié en janvier 2021 (ALTER, 15-1). Ces deux numéros font suite à un appel à contribution diffusé en 2019. Le premier numéro a rassemblé les contributions issues de travaux de recherche s’intéressant aux politiques publiques relatives à l’emploi des personnes en situation de handicap et les travaux rendant compte plus par...

Abrir el postigo y disponer la mirada. De pie, ante el hueco del visillo movido a causa del viento, se malogra el sol en su intensidad por un frío que proviene de las murallas del delicado velo de polvo en los sillones, de la espesura en que todos los vahos de la cocina, sumergen la mañana frente al océano; y entonces, cuando comienzo a aferrarme a los aspectos gratos de la vida costera, a don Marcos Huala le sobreviene una especie (...) de eminente fatalismo; relata que en unos meses, el río no ha arrojado caracoles, puesto que una embarcación japonesa ha violado el funcionamiento de la soberanía local arrastrando desde el lecho del río, todo molusco existente. A la sazón, desplegándose invisible a lo largo de las paredes hasta llegar al extremo de la sala, como un recién nacido, el nuevo campo de fuerzas abre su ojo puntiagudo para anunciarnos la presencia del tráfico transnacional al interior de la comunidad de Chaihuín... (shrink)

This is a brief review of the Civics and Moral Education programme currently in use in Singapore schools. The paper offers an appraisal of the rationale provided in policy statements and of selected official and students' workbook descriptions of curricular content, activities and pedagogic theories. It shows that the Civics and Moral Education programme is more a matter of training students to absorb pragmatic values deemed to be important for Singapore to achieve social cohesion and economic success, rather than moral (...) education as the development of intrinsic commitment to and habituation in the practice of values, defended on autonomous moral considerations and not mere national expediency. Whilst educationists would be inclined to take issue with the programme's ultimate stand on values, they might warm to the pedagogy it prescribes in terms of the need for character-building by practice and experience, and also the importance of reasoning in the resolving of disputes and dilemmas. (shrink)

Physicists regularly invoke universal laws, such as those of motion and electromagnetism, to explain events. Biological and medical scientists have no such laws. How then do they acquire a reliable body of knowledge about biological organisms and human disease? One way is by repeatedly returning to, manipulating, observing, interpreting, and reinterpreting certain subjects—such as flies, mice, worms, or microbes—or, as they are known in biology, “model systems.” Across the natural and social sciences, other disciplinary fields have developed canonical examples that (...) have played a role comparable to that of biology’s model systems, serving not only as points of reference and illustrations of general principles or values but also as sites of continued investigation and reinterpretation. The essays in this collection assess the scope and function of model objects in domains as diverse as biology, geology, and history, attending to differences between fields as well as to epistemological commonalities. Contributors examine the role of the fruit fly Drosophila and nematode worms in biology, troops of baboons in primatology, box and digital simulations of the movement of the earth’s crust in geology, and meteorological models in climatology. They analyze the intensive study of the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory, ritual in anthropology, the individual case in psychoanalytic research, and Athenian democracy in political theory. The contributors illuminate the processes through which particular organisms, cases, materials, or narratives become foundational to their fields, and they examine how these foundational exemplars—from the fruit fly to Freud’s Dora—shape the knowledge produced within their disciplines. Contributors Rachel A. Ankeny Angela N. H. Creager Amy Dahan Dalmedico John Forrester Clifford Geertz Carlo Ginzburg E. Jane Albert Hubbard Elizabeth Lunbeck Mary S. Morgan Josiah Ober Naomi Oreskes Susan Sperling Marcel Weber M. Norton Wise. (shrink)

Le visage d'Edith Stein a disparu dans le martyre qu'elle subit à Auschwitz le 9 août 1942. Depuis lors, ses différents biographes ont tenté de recomposer les éléments de sa vie et de sa personnalité à partir d'une facette de sa personnalité. Edith Stein philosophe, Edith Stein carmélite, Edith Stein féministe: les approches se succèdent et esquissent les différents traits d'un visage dont l'unité demeure cachée dans le secret d'une destinée. Dans ce livre, Philibert Secretan propose une approche synchronique d'Edith (...) Stein. "Le portrait que je propose ici s'organise autour de trois données de fait : la conversion du judaïsme au christianisme ; le passage de la phénoménologie à la sagesse philosophique ; l'entrée au Carmel. Autant de faits qu'il s'agit de traiter non plus en diachronie, comme autant d'étapes d'une existence étalée dans le temps, mais en synchronie, comme autant de strates d'une personnalité dans laquelle continuent à résonner des échos de ces moments constitutifs de son être singulier". En conclusion, Philibert Secretan s'attache à montrer comment la vertu d'obéissance - à la vérité vue par l'intelligence jusqu'à la volonté de Dieu, de l'université au Carmel - unifie les strates qui constituent la personnalité d'Edith Stein. Un livre de vie. Un testament aussi, de celui qui sur le conseil de Paul Ricoeur a introduit la pensée d'Edith Stein en France. (shrink)

The conceptual changes of Jian儉 in the pre-Qin period were the results of changes in the social and political structure. It originally referred to Jian virtue, which was a kind of political norm of clan states. This required the aristocrats to be moderate in accordance with the patriarchal hierarchy and generously share their wealth with their own clansmen. The opposite of Jian virtue is Tan and Chi. In the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, many states formed their politics (...) based on ministerial families. The aristocrats glorified greed and extravagance as Fu, and stigmatized Jian virtue as Pin. After the collapse of the clan-based state order, the states in the Warring States Period gradually developed into territorial states, and the institutional political norm became a new, abstract concept, indicated by the compound Jian Yue and was used to describe the consumption attitudes of individuals and families. Meanwhile, with the increase of social mobility, the pursuit of riches was highly popular in the ideological world. The new expression of “means-ends” advocated by Legalists, which stipulated that individuals and families acquire wealth through Jian Yue, took shape and endures to this day. (shrink)