Those who deny that the provision of protection services could be supplied through either the market or some other nonmonopolistic device must therefore endorse some sort of state. And those within that group who maintain that the provision of such services to everyone within a given territory is the only proper function of government must therefore advocate a minimal, or laissez-faire, state. However, an examination of the arguments of three of the better-known contemporary minarchists discloses problems of internal (...) class='Hi'>inconsistency which render them unsound, even on their own.. (shrink)

In the Appendix to the Treatise, Hume argues that there is a significant problem with his earlier account of personal identity. There has been considerable debate about what this problem actually is. I develop a new version of an internal inconsistency reading, where I argue that Hume realised that his original account of the connexion between perceptions in terms of an association of the ideas of the perceptions was not a viable means of explaining the connexion between perceptions (...) as it leads to an infinite regress of ideas of perceptions. This is only stopped by accepting that the mind perceives a connexion between perceptions. This, however, is something Hume cannot accept. As a result, Hume is left without a positive account of the self, as he has no account of the connexion between perceptions. (shrink)

A further reformulation of Naive Set Comprehension related to that proposed in “Resolving Insolubilia: Internal Inconsistency and the Reform of Naive Set Comprehension” is possible in which contradiction is averted not by excluding sets such as the Russell Set but rather by treating sentences resulting from instantiation of such sets as the Russell Set in their own descriptions as invalid. So the set of all sets that are not members of themselves in this further revision is a valid (...) set but the claim that that set is or is not a member of itself is not validly expressible. Such an approach to set comprehension results in a set ontology co-extensive with that permitted by the Naive Set Comprehension Principle itself. This approach has as strong a claim to consistency as that formulated in “Resolving Insolubilia: Internal Inconsistency and the Reform of Naive Set Comprehension.”. (shrink)

According to the Internal Aspects View, the value of different outcomesdepends solely on the internal features possessed by each outcome and theinternal relations between them. This paper defends the Internal AspectsView against Larry Temkin’s defence of the Essentially Comparative View,according to which the value of different outcomes depends on what isthe alternative outcome they are compared with. The paper discusses bothperson-affecting arguments and Spectrum Arguments. The paper doesnot defend a person-affecting view over an impersonal one, but it (...) arguesthat although there are intuitive person-affecting principles that entail anEssentially Comparative View, the intuitions that support these principlescan also be acommodated by other principles that are compatible with theInternal Aspects View. The paper also argues that the rejection of transitivityand the Internal Aspects View does not help us to solve the challengespresented by Spectrum Arguments. Despite this, the arguments presentedby Temkin do succeed in showing that, unfortunately, our intuitions arechaotic and inconsistent. The paper argues that this has metaethicalconsequences that will be unwelcome by a moral realist such as Temkin,since they challenge the idea that our intuitions may track a moral realityexisting independently of our preferences. (shrink)

For centuries, inconsistencies were seen as a hindrance to good reasoning, and their role in the sciences was ignored. In recent years, however, logicians as well as philosophers and historians have showed a growing interest in the matter. Central to this change were the advent of paraconsistent logics, the shift in attention from finished theories to construction processes, and the recognition that most scientific theories were at some point either internally inconsistent or incompatible with other accepted findings. The new interest (...) gave rise to important questions. How is `logical anarchy' avoided? Is it ever rational to accept an inconsistent theory? In what sense, if any, can inconsistent theories be considered as true? The present collection of papers is the first to deal with this kind of questions. It contains case studies as well as philosophical analyses, and presents an excellent overview of the different approaches in the domain. (shrink)

This article argues that the reduction of the morality of killing in war to the morality of killing in self-defense by ‘reductive-individualist’ revisionist just war theories is inconsistent, because when those theories apply the moral notion of self-defense to the morality of killing in war, they do not preserve the two conceptions of the “individual” inherent in this notion. The article demonstrates this inconsistency in two steps: First, it disentangles the two conceptions of the individual inherent to the notion (...) of self-defense, namely (1) that the individual is an “entity” potentially bearing a right to self-defense (unlike, e.g., groups) and (2) that the individual is a “particular,” where “particular” signifies that every human is different from every other human. The conception of the individual as a “particular” is tied to the idea that a justification grounded in a rule of self-defense is necessarily “concrete,” in the sense of referring to individually given and specific perceptions or cases, as opposed to “abstract,” in the sense of being detached from specific perceptions or cases. The article then demonstrates that reductive individualism reflects the first notion of the individual, but not the second. Due to the “loss” of the individual as a “particular”, the reductive-individualist reduction of the morality of killing in war to the morality of killing in self-defense is inconsistent, and hence its justification of killing in war grounded in self-defense is not concrete. Since such a justification must be concrete, reductive individualism cannot offer a justification for belligerent killing. (shrink)

This is a philosophical and historical investigation of the role of inconsistent representations of the same scientific phenomenon. The logical difficulties associated with the simultaneous application of inconsistent models are discussed. Internally inconsistent scientific proposals are characterized as structures whose application is necessarily tied to the confirming evidence that each of its components enjoys and to a vision of the general form of the theory that will resolve the inconsistency. Einstein's derivation of the black body radiation law is used (...) as an example application of such a strategy and is contrasted with planck's derivation. (shrink)

I erect a framework within the semantic view of theories for explaining the empirical success of internally inconsistent models and theories, with scientific realism in mind. The framework is an instance of the ‘content-driven’ approach to inconsistency, advocated by both Norton (Philos Sci 54:327–350, 1987) and Smith (Stud Hist Philos Sci 19:429–445, 1988a, In: Fine A, Leplin J (eds) PSA1988, 1988b), whose ideas my analysis aims to clarify and substantiate.

Inconsistency robustness is information system performance in the face of continually pervasive inconsistencies---a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination attempting to sweep them under the rug. Inconsistency robustness is a both an observed phenomenon and a desired feature: Inconsistency Robustness is an observed phenomenon because large information-systems are required to operate in an environment of pervasive inconsistency. Inconsistency Robustness is a desired feature because we need to improve (...) the performance of large information system. This volume has revised versions of refereed articles and panel summaries from the first two International Symposia on Inconsistency Robustness conducted under the auspices of the International Society for Inconsistency Robustness. The articles are broadly based on theory and practice, addressing fundamental issues in inconsistency robustness. The field of Inconsistency Robustness aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for computer information systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information.". (shrink)

In this paper, I present the discussive adaptive logic DLI r . As is the case for other discussive logics, the intended application context of DLI r is the interpretation of discussions. What is new about the system is that it does not lead to explosion when some of the premises are self-contradictory. It is argued that this is important in view of the fact that human reasoners are not logically omniscient, and hence, that it may not be evident to (...) discover the inconsistencies in one's beliefs. In addition to this, DLI r can handle cases in which different participants contradict each other. It is shown that, in both kinds of cases, DLI r leads to an interpretation of the discussion that is as rich as possible (even though no discussive connectives are introduced). (shrink)

The Bohr-Heisenberg scheme, which forms the basis of any current version of the standard or Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, is shown to be internally inconsistent. Although the inconsistencies demonstrated here are directly relatable to Einstein's opinion that it is unsatisfactory to interpret physical theory solely in terms of the knowledge gained from experimental outcomes, it is nevertheless shown that Einstein's view requires important modification. The implications of the Bohr-Heisenberg schem's self-inconsistency are discussed in relation to Bell's theorem and (...) Aspect's experiments. (shrink)

Inferentialists about scientific representation hold that an apparatus’s representing a target system consists in the apparatus allowing “surrogative inferences” about the target. I argue that a serious problem for inferentialism arises from the fact that many scientific theories and models contain internal inconsistencies. Inferentialism, left unamended, implies that inconsistent scientific models have unlimited representational power, since an inconsistency permits any conclusion to be inferred. I consider a number of ways that inferentialists can respond to this challenge before suggesting (...) my own solution. I develop an analogy to exploitable glitches in a game. Even though inconsistent representational apparatuses may in some sense allow for contradictions to be generated within them, doing so violates the intended function of the apparatus’s parts and hence violates representational “gameplay.”. (shrink)

All higher education institutions in Finland are committed to following the guidelines of good scientific practice and procedures to handle allegations of misconduct compiled by the Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. However, there is no research available in what way institutions follow these guidelines. This article analyses the current practices of defining and dealing with plagiarism in published Master’s theses. The data consist of 29 written notifications of suspected plagiarism in Master’s theses that were sent to the rectors of (...) universities and decisions on these 29 cases. Inductive content analysis was used to classify the decisions according to definitions of plagiarism, processes to deal with suspicions and sanctions for plagiarism. Due to inconsistency and perplexity in some of the decisions, classifications are overlapping. The main actor in the process is the rector of the higher education institution who bases the decision on the views of preliminary enquirer. Preliminary inquiry has replaced investigation proper and this allows the procedures to remain internal and local. There is no consensus of the definition of plagiarism, and the sanctions for plagiarism vary from nothing to an attempt to revoke a Master’s degree. The adherence of the higher education institutions to the national ethical guidelines is not optimal and leads to inconsistent responses to notifications of suspected plagiarism. (shrink)

For several decades now philosophers have discussed apparent examples of internally inconsistent scientific theories. However, there is still much controversy over how exactly we should conceive of scientific theories in the first place. Here I argue for a new approach, whereby all of the truly important questions about inconsistency in science can be asked and answered without disagreements about theories and theory-content getting in the way. Three examples commonly described as ‘internally inconsistent theories’ are analysed in the light of (...) this approach. In the process, the question ‘Is the theory inconsistent or not?’ is identified as a bad, or at least unimportant, question. (shrink)

For Schopenhauer, death, understood as the annihilation of an individual's existence, cannot be successfully accommodated by theories endorsing an optimistic assessment of both human life and the world at large. I argue that Schopenhauer also has reasons to think that optimism cannot adopt personal immortality as a solution to that problem, although he does not present them systematically. Thus, he argues, prolonging one's life would necessarily lead at some point to an unbearable state of exhaustion due to one's unchanging character. (...) Changing one's character infinitely many times in the future would not do either, as Schopenhauer regards that idea as internally inconsistent. Finally, the immortality gained through one's work, one's descendants, or the survival of a part of oneself, while consistent with optimism, could not amount to personal immortality, on Schopenhauer's criteria. I end by discussing the implications of Schopenhauer's criticism for his own view, and a possible reply to it. (shrink)

I argue that William Craig’s defence of the moral argument is internally inconsistent. In the course of defending the moral argument, Craig criticizes non-theistic moral realism on the grounds that it posits the existence of certain logically necessary connections but fails to provide an adequate account of why such connections hold. Another component of Craig’s defence of the moral argument is an endorsement of a particular version of the divine command theory. Craig’s version of DCT posits certain logically necessary connections (...) but Craig fails to provide an adequate account of why these connections hold. Thus, Craig’s critique of non-theistic moral realism is at odds with his DCT. Since the critique and DCT are both essential elements of his defence of the moral argument, that defence is internally inconsistent. (shrink)

All higher education institutions in Finland are committed to following the guidelines of good scientific practice and procedures to handle allegations of misconduct compiled by the Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. However, there is no research available in what way institutions follow these guidelines. This article analyses the current practices of defining and dealing with plagiarism in published Master’s theses. The data consist of 29 written notifications of suspected plagiarism in Master’s theses that were sent to the rectors of (...) universities and decisions on these 29 cases. Inductive content analysis was used to classify the decisions according to definitions of plagiarism, processes to deal with suspicions and sanctions for plagiarism. Due to inconsistency and perplexity in some of the decisions, classifications are overlapping. The main actor in the process is the rector of the higher education institution who bases the decision on the views of preliminary enquirer. Preliminary inquiry has replaced investigation proper and this allows the procedures to remain internal and local. There is no consensus of the definition of plagiarism, and the sanctions for plagiarism vary from nothing to an attempt to revoke a Master’s degree. The adherence of the higher education institutions to the national ethical guidelines is not optimal and leads to inconsistent responses to notifications of suspected plagiarism. (shrink)

Predictive processing is an increasingly popular approach to cognition, perception and action. It says that the brain is essentially a hierarchical prediction machine. It is typically construed in a representationalist and inferentialist fashion so that the brain makes contentful inferences on the basis of representational models. In this paper, I argue that the predictive processing framework is inconsistent with this epistemic position. In particular, I argue that the combination of hierarchical modeling, contentful inferentialism and representationalism entail an internal (...) class='Hi'>inconsistency. Specifically, for a particular set of states, there will be both a representation requirement and not. Yet a system cannot both be required to represent a certain set of states and not be required to represent those states. Due to this contradiction, I propose to reject the standard view. I suggest that predictive processing is best interpreted in terms of reliable covariation instead, entailing an instrumentalist approach to the statistical machinery. (shrink)

Rule-consequentialism has been accused of either collapsing into act-consequentialism or being internally inconsistent. I have tried to develop a form of rule-consequentialism without these flaws. In this June's issue of Utilitas, Robert Card argued that I have failed. Here I assess his arguments.

Incommensurable theories are said to be both incompatible and incomparable. This is paradoxical, because, being incompatible, these theories must have the same subject-matter, yet incomparability implies that their subject-matter is different. This paper's proposed resolution of the paradox makes use of the distinction between internal subject-matter and external subject-matter for languages as outlined by W. Sellars. Incommensurability arises when two languages share the same external subject-matter but differ in internal subject-matter. When they share the same external subject-matter, they (...) can be inconsistent, and yet incomparable. A substantial part of the paper is devoted to the technical development of the notion of inconsistency as a relationship between languages in contrast to the traditional notion of inconsistency between statements. (shrink)

Andrew Kliman’s Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital’ sets out to refute the ‘myth’ that Marx’s original presentation of the theory of the value is internally inconsistent. A century ago, Bortkiewicz purported to demonstrate that Marx’s mistake was his failure to adopt simultaneous valuation. Thereafter, twentieth-century Marxian economics worked out a ‘corrected’ version of Marx’s original theory, culminating in Steedman’s 1977 Marx after Sraffa. Conclusions Marx himself deemed central were dropped, prominently including the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. (...) But simultaneous valuation is absolutely incompatible with Marx’s first and fundamental premise, the determination of value by labour-time. On the other hand, if Marx’s major theoretical conclusions do consistently follow from his premises, including the transformation of values into prices of production, then the quantitative dimension of his value-theory is internally consistent after all and stands in no need of correction on this score. Advocating a temporal, single-system interpretation, Kliman shows how ‘two simple modifications’ eliminate ‘all of the alleged inconsistencies in the quantitative dimension of Marx’s value theory’: valuation is temporal, and values and prices are determined interdependently. Kliman’s refutation is sound, but his claim to know Marx’s intentions, in E.D. Hirsch’s sense, is questionable. (shrink)

The semantic approach to scientific representation is now long established as a favourite amongst philosophers of science. One of the foremost strains of this approach—the model-theoretic approach —is to represent scientific theories as families of models, all of which satisfy or ‘make true’ a given set of constraints. However some authors have criticised the approach on the grounds that certain scientific theories are logically inconsistent, and there can be no models of an inconsistent set of constraints. Thus it would seem (...) that the MTA fails to represent inconsistent scientific theories at all, and this raises concerns about the way it represents in general. In a series of papers and a recent book da Costa and French have developed a variant of the MTA approach which they call ‘partial structures’, and which they claim can accommodate inconsistent theories. I assess this claim, looking to two theories which have been called ‘inconsistent’: Bohr’s theory of the atom and classical electrodynamics. (shrink)

Incommensurable theories are said to be both incompatible and incomparable. This is paradoxical, because, being incompatible, these theories must have the same subject-matter, yet incomparability implies that their subject-matter is different. This paper's proposed resolution of the paradox makes use of the distinction between internal subject-matter and external subject-matter for languages (frameworks) as outlined by W. Sellars. Incommensurability arises when two languages share the same external subject-matter but differ in internal subject-matter. When they share the same external subject-matter, (...) they can be inconsistent (hence incompatible), and yet incomparable (because they are about distinct internal subject-matter). A substantial part of the paper is devoted to the technical development of the notion of inconsistency as a relationship between languages in contrast to the traditional notion of inconsistency between statements. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes three goals. First, the essay demonstrates that Edmund Husserl’s theory of meaning consciousness from his 1901 Logical Investigations is internally inconsistent and falls apart upon closer inspection. I show that Husserl, in 1901, describes non-intuitive meaning consciousness as a direct parallel or as a ‘mirror’ of intuitive consciousness. He claims that non-intuitive meaning acts, like intuitions, have substance and represent their objects. I reveal that, by defining meaning acts in this way, Husserl cannot account for our experiences (...) of countersensical, absurd, or impossible meanings. Second, I examine how Husserl came to recognize this 1901 mistake in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. I discuss how he accordingly reformulates his understanding of non-intuitive meaning acts from the ground up in those Revisions, where this also allows for him to properly account for the experience of impossible meanings. Instead of describing them as mirrors of intuitions, Husserl takes non-intuitive meaning acts to be modifications of intuitions, where they have no substance and do not represent their objects. Finally, in the conclusion to this essay, I demonstrate how this fundamental change to his understanding of meaning consciousness forced Husserl to revise other central tenets of his philosophy, such that the trajectory of his thought can only be properly understood in light of these revisions to his theory of non-intuitive meaning consciousness. (shrink)

Nonmonotonic consequence is the subject of a vast literature, but the idea of a nonmonotonic counterpart of logical inconsistency—the idea of a defeasible property representing internal conflict of an inductive or evidential nature—has been entirely neglected. After considering and dismissing two possible analyses relating nonmonotonic consequence and a nonmonotonic counterpart of logical inconsistency, this paper offers a set of postulates for nonmonotonic inconsistency, an analysis of nonmonotonic inconsistency in terms of nonmonotonic consequence, and a series (...) of results showing that nonmonotonic inconsistency conforms to these postulates given the analysis of nonmonotonic inconsistency presented here and certain postulates for nonmonotonic consequence. The results presented here establish the interest of certain previously undiscussed postulates of nonmonotonic consequence. These results also show that nonmonotonicity, which has never seemed useful in the formulation of general principles governing nonmonotonic reasoning, is relevant to the positive characterization of nonmonotonic inference after all. (shrink)

This paper provides moderate criticism of so-called normative theories of thinking and reasoning. The discussion focuses on the problems of idealization, adequacy, inconsistent yet non-trivial logics, logical omniscience etc. I called them “internal” to the normative approach, because they stem from the very properties of formal systems used to model these two human activities. Some arguments, however, refer to the current theories in cognitive science, including those which are developed within “descriptive” framework.

Putnam’s internal realism implies a form of conceptual relativity with respect to ontology. There can be different descriptions of the world which are based on distinct ontologies. It has been argued that this relativity forecloses any possibility of unifying our knowledge and can even lead to inconsistency. If this is true, internal realism should be abandoned because it is compatible with non-rational positions. We will argue that these objections can be dismissed if truth as idealized warranted assertibility (...) is understood as stability of a belief state under new evidence. This view of truth is still compatible with the existence of distinct belief states expressing different views on the world. This understanding of the notion of truth is a consequence of interpreting both our cognitive activities and the notion of meaning dynamically. The meaning of a sentence is no longer given in terms of (static) truth conditions but as a relation between belief sets, that is, as a kind of information change potential. (shrink)

These reflections elaborates the theory of The Idea of Human Rights by addressing a topic that theory attempts to bracket: international and regional judicialization in the form of international courts and tribunals. Using the method of reflective equilibrium, the article argues that this exclusion is inconsistent. Including these international courts and tribunals (‘ICs’) prompts several changes to the original theory, and opens new research questions. The original theory is on the one hand too narrow regarding both the objectives and tools (...) of international mechanisms of corrective concern. The account should consider further subsidiary modes of support. On the other hand the theory is too broad, in that it gives insufficient guidance to the judges of ICs and others able to effect changes. This leaves the theory incomplete, and open to similar criticism as the book raised against others. Accounts of the theory presented in The Idea of Human Rights,and of ICs and their roles regarding human rights allow us to explore some implications of ICs for The Idea of Human Rights.We then consider how if at all The Idea of Human Rights can guide international judges. (shrink)

The contextualistic account for the semantic behaviour of the term “know” - a position labelled as “epistemic contextualism” - combined with the widely accepted idea that “know” is a factive verb seems to lead to a very unpleasant conclusion: epistemic contextualism is inconsistent. In section 1 we first examine some aspects of the epistemological meaning of the contextualist semantics of “know”, then in section 2 we sketch the problem which leads to the supposed inconsistency of epistemic contextualism and in (...) section 3 we analyse some solutions that have been proposed to solve the problem which are, in our view, unsatisfactory. In section 4 we present our attempt of solution. (shrink)

I finished the first draft of this lecture just before the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia began — a campaign that provides, I think, a prime example of the failure of international society. A double failure in this case: its political agencies were not able to respond in a timely fashion to the disaster of the former Yugoslavia, and then they were not able to find a more effective form of military intervention. The problem both times wasn't one of organization (...) but of political will, and I am afraid that I won't have much to say in this lecture about how to solve it. No doubt there are organizational structures that lend themselves to swift and strong action in a crisis.But these structures can as easily produce reckless and cruel acts as wise ones, and so we need to limit their powers. And then, properly limited, they may not act at all. This dilemma is an old one, and my way of dealing with it — which, as you will see, is to multiply structures and agents in the hope that somewhere, somehow, someone will do the right thing — will certainly seem inadequate. I concede immediately that I cannot produce an organizational chart showing how a decision to act rightly in international society would be deliberated, and decided, and then resolutely carried out. There is no such procedural or organizational solution; we have to think instead of a political strategy for coping with crises and for creating the sorts of agents that might cope successfully. That's my goal. It doesn't answer to the urgency of the daily news, but these days nothing could answer.I imagine the possible political arrangements of international society as if they were laid out along a continuum marked off according to the degree of centralization. Obviously, there are alternative markings: the recognition and enforcement of human rights could also be measured along a continuum, as could democratization, economic laissez-faire, welfare provision, pluralism, and so on. But I think that focusing on centralization is the best way of opening a discussion of international politics and the quickest way to reach all the other political and moral questions, above all the classical question: what is the best or the best possible regime? What constitutional goals should we set ourselves in an age of globalization?My plan is to present seven possible regimes or constitutions or political arrangements. I will do this discursively, without providing a list in advance, but I do want to list the criteria against which the seven arrangements have to be evaluated: these are their capacity to promote peace, distributive justice, cultural pluralism, and individual freedom. Obviously, within the scope of a single lecture, I will have to deal much too briefly and summarily with some of the arrangements and some of the criteria. This is especially regrettable since the criteria turn out to be inconsistent with, or at least in tension with, one another. So my argument will be complicated, and could be, probably should be, much more so. (shrink)

Inconsistent information between an organization’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments and perceived CSR (in-)action is a big challenge for organizations because this is typically associated with perceptions of corporate hypocrisy and related negative stakeholder reactions. However, in contrast to the prevailing corporate hypocrisy literature we argue that inconsistent CSR information does not always correspond to perceptions of corporate hypocrisy; rather, responses depend on individual predispositions in processing CSR-related information. In this study, we investigate how an individual’s moral identity shapes reactions (...) to inconsistent CSR information. The results of our three studies show that individuals who symbolize—i.e., display—their moral identity to the public more than they internalize moral values react less negatively to inconsistent CSR information. We also show that this weakens their anger and willingness to change company behavior. Furthermore, we find that this effect is amplified for extraverted but weakened for neurotic individuals. Our findings underline the importance of individual predispositions in processing CSR information. (shrink)

Much health and safety regulation can be understood as the product of political coalitions between two groups. The first, consisting of persons with self-control issues, enlists the government as an intermediary. The second either expects to benefit from the success of the first, or anticipates gains from a tax imposed on the first group’s behavior. A political entrepreneur might plausibly turn these groups’ preferences into law. This public choice perspective on regulation provides a positive explanation of why it is more (...) likely that a legal system will engage in some health and safety programs than in others. The important break from the conventional view of regulation, as something that either controls externalities or is imposed paternalistically, is in advancing the idea that the government is an intermediary deployed by those who want help. Internalities, associated with collective action problems or with time inconsistent preferences, deserve equal billing. The discussion considers smoking regulation and other health and safety regulation, and then contrasts these with anti-obesity efforts where private contracting is a more feasible means of controlling internalities, and where political coalitions are less likely. (shrink)

One specific instantiation of the storm-and-stress view of adolescence is the idea that “normal” adolescence involves high-risk substance use behaviors. However, although uptake of some substance use behaviors is more common during adolescence than other life stages, it is clear that not all adolescents engage in risky substance use—and among those who do, there is much variation in emotional, behavioral, and contextual precursors of this behavior. One such set of predictors forms the internalizing pathway to substance use disorder, whereby internalizing (...) symptoms in childhood such as negative affect and anxiety set off a chain of consequences culminating in high-risk substance use in late adolescence. However, findings linking internalizing symptoms to substance use are mixed, and it is clear that this link varies across adolescents and contexts. One heretofore unanswered question is whether and how geographic location, specifically whether the adolescent lives in an urban or rural location, moderates this link. The current report is a secondary analysis of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, in which we examined the link between internalizing symptoms in childhood and initiation of substance use through age 19. Using a multiple event process survival mixture model, we identified three trajectories of substance use initiation in adolescence: one characterized by near-complete abstinence until late adolescence, another by earlier initiation of alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis, and another by early initiation of these substances and later initiation of more hazardous drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. Although childhood externalizing symptoms increased the risk of being in the second or third class, internalizing symptoms decreased risk when rural and non-rural adolescents were considered together. Few effects of rurality were found, but the negative relationship between internalizing at age 10 and high-risk substance use was only observed among non-rural adolescents. This finding, which was inconsistent with our initial predictions that rurality might confer higher risk for substance use, instead suggests a potentially protective effect of internalizing symptoms for engagement in risky substance use which may differ based on an adolescent’s geographical context. (shrink)

In this paper I’ll explore the relation between ω-inconsistency and plain inconsistency, in the context of theories that intend to capture semantic concepts. In particular, I’ll focus on two very well known inconsistent but non-trivial theories of truth: LP and STTT. Both have the interesting feature of being able to handle semantic and arithmetic concepts, maintaining the standard model. However, it can be easily shown that both theories are ω- inconsistent. Although usually a theory of truth is generally (...) expected to be ω-consistent, all conceptual concerns don’t apply to inconsistent theories. Finally, I’ll explore if it’s possible to have an inconsistent, butω-consistent theory of truth, restricting my analysis to substructural theories. (shrink)

Um certo número de trabalhos foi dedicado à viabilidade e interesse da matemática inconsistente, mas até hoje poucos esforços comparáveis foram feitos no que diz respeito à física. Alguns poucos tópicos de física são aqui descritos no qual a presença de contradições é indisputável e clama por um tratamento lógico diferenciado. O argumento baseia-se em dois fatos. Primeiro, antinomias não são necessariamente geradas por negação: a conjunção de dois enunciados opostos pode igualmente gerar uma antinomia. Segundo, essa antinomicidade por oposição (...) desce ao nível dos conceitos — termos e relações — que se tornam antinômicos quando ligados a seus opostos. Cada categoria básica do pensamento, por exemplo, é impensável e sem significado se não tomada em conjunção com sua categoria oposta. Todas elas são necessariamente antinômicas. Aqui, indeterminismo, não localidade e vazio, em particular, são apresentados como conceitos físicos eminentemente antinômicos. DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p43. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to call for the formulation and adoption of a declaration on the universal rights and duties of business. We do not attempt to define the specific contents of such a declaration, but rather attempt to explain why such a declaration is needed and what would be some of its general characteristics. The catalyst for this call was the recognition that even under optimal conditions, good companies sometimes are susceptible to moral lapses, and when companies (...) undertake ventures in authoritarian countries with poor human rights records, even those with the best intentions may find themselves drawn into complicity in human rights abuses. There, market exigencies may persuade them to leave their codes of ethics and commitments to human rights at home. Pragmatism, it would seem, requires thatthey accept the ethical inconsistencies that follow from a “When in Rome, do as they Romans do” outlook. When facing the moral dilemma about whether or not to invest in human rights abusing countries, companies are offered two alternatives: they can operate in those countries and accept potential complicity or they can stay away. We suggest, however, that a preferable option is to address the underlying problem, and to this end we advocate the promulgation of a declaration for business that is comparable to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our proposed name for this is the “Declaration on the Universal Rights and Duties of Business.” To be effective, such a declaration would require enforcement mechanisms. To illustrate this issue, we focus on China, not because China is unique in its human rights abuses, but because China occupies such a central place in the globalization efforts of the major companies from around the world. A robust international declaration is needed to provide a common framework for the practice of consistent and fair business competition everywhere. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch some lines of response to Mark Colyvan’s indispensability arguments for the existence of inconsistent objects, being mainly concerned with the indispens ability of inconsistent mathematical entities. My response will draw heavily on Jody Azzouni’s deflationary nominalism.

We contribute to the literature on intentions to report wrongdoing by examining whether Chinese internal auditors make consistent judgments when an ethical dilemma is presented in English and when the same dilemma is presented in Chinese. We invoke cultural frame switching theory, and our findings, which are based on a randomized experiment using between-subjects and within-subject mixed design, support the hypothesis that Chinese internal auditors are more likely to report wrongdoing when the ethical dilemma is presented in English (...) than when it is presented in Chinese. Our results, which demonstrate that internal auditors make inconsistent ethical judgments in English and Chinese, point to language-triggered cognitive bias resulting from cultural mindsets. We suggest practical interventions and language strategies to improve audit quality. (shrink)

In an era of domestic and economic reform wherein deregulation/privatisation becomes a priority, short shift has too often been given to evaluative analyses of business activities. Evaluative monitoring and oversight are especially needful in highly competitive international business environments, where the temptations are very strong to adjudge individual effectiveness by the sole criterion of the bottom line. But what additional or alternative criteria should be administered, and by whom, is less clear. That any but the most vague Judeo-Christian or secular (...) ethical standards are applicable (e.g. notions of fairness) is widely contested. The debate is significantly only widened when doing business across national borders involving peoples from different cultures and languages. This section is devoted to explicating the normative role of international codes of conduct for guiding the decision making of managers involved in multinational operations, and clarifying what ethical frameworks are available to the international manager for taking decisions which require selecting actions inconsistent with either home or host country demands. (shrink)

Edmund Pellegrino and David Thomasma’s writings have had a worldwide impact on discourse about the philosophy of medicine, professionalism, bioethics, healthcare ethics, and patients’ rights. Given their works’ importance, it is surprising that commentators have ignored their admission of an unresolved and troubling dilemma and inconsistency in their theory. The purpose of this article is to identify and state what problems worried them and to consider possible solutions. It is argued that their dilemma stems from their concerns about how (...) to justify professional rules restricting colleagues from performing acts they view as direct, active, and formal killings, such as physician-assisted suicide, mercy killing, and abortion. It is further argued that their inconsistency is that they both assert and deny that professional colleagues should not use their moral or theological values to impose professional restrictions on other colleagues without adequate philosophical grounds. At risk are their arguments about the nature of an internal morality for medicine, a secular and multicultural basis for medical ethics, and a nonarbitrary way to determine what acts fall outside the ends of medicine. These are arguments they claim also apply to other healthcare professions. The article begins with a brief overview of their key positions to provide the context in which they make their admission. (shrink)

Christopher Fuchs has recently offered a provocative version of quantum mechanical realism, which is based on the suggestion that quantum probabilities merit a subjective interpretation. His proposal, however, has been charged with inconsistency by Amit Hagar (2003), who argues that interpreting quantum probabilities subjectively is inconsistent with the realist claims Fuchs wants to maintain for the quantum system and the dimensionality of the Hilbert space that accompanies it. In this paper I first outline the fundamentals of Fuchs's approach and (...) then take up the task of rebutting Hagar's charge by demonstrating the internal coherence of Fuchs's realism. (shrink)