The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism. James Griffin and Yael Tamir raise questions concerning Raz's notion of group rights and its application to claims of cultural and political autonomy, while Will Kymlicka and Bernhard Peters examine Raz's theory of multicultural society. Lukas Meyer investigates (...) the applicability of the notion of harm in the intergenerational context. Other papers are devoted to fundamental theoretical tenets of Raz's work. Hillel Steiner and Andrei Marmor examine Raz's account of value pluralism and incommensurability in light of what these authors consider to be goods whose equal distribution must be valued for its own sake. Robert Alexy and Timothy Endicott discuss traditional issues of jurisprudence and legal philosphy with special attention to Raz's contribution. Rüdiger Bittner, Bruno Celano, and J. E. Penner discuss and criticize aspects of Raz's theory of practical reason. Jeremy Waldron presents a critique of Raz's interpretation of authority.This volume concludes with a chapter by Joseph Raz in which he responds to arguments in the foregoing essays. (shrink)

Currently living people cannot be said to be wronged because of the wrongless emissons of greenhouse gases by past people. According to the usual subjunctive-historical understanding of harm, currently living people cannot be said to be harmed by the impact of greenhouse emissions on their well-being. By relying on a subjunctive-threshold notion of harm we can justify conclusions about both the present generation’s duties not to violate the rights of future generations, and the present generation’s duties to compensate currently living (...) people for the harms inflicted upon them through the lasting impact of wrongless past harms. This interpretation supports a forward-looking understanding of the grounds of our relating to wrongless past harms. The significance of past harms lies in their consequences for the well-being of currently living and future people. The subjunctive-threshold notion of harm lends support to a standard of minimal, general, and universal justice. Those actors who are in a position to fulfill its requirements are under a duty to do so. Especially the rich and powerful countries ought to counteract the harmful impact of past greenhouse emissions. (shrink)

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often‐ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science—including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes—can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. (...) SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a “sensitive” phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk‐benefit profile. (shrink)

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism.

The essays are tied together by the idea that our understanding of cognition is likely to be enhanced by consideration of mechanisms and processes at its ...

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

The development and utility of genetically modified crops for smallholders around the world is controversial. Critical questions include what traits and crops are to be developed; how they can be adapted to smallholders’ ecological, social and economic contexts; which dissemination channels should be used to reach smallholders; and which policy environments will enable the greatest benefits for smallholders and the rural poor. A key question is how the voices of smallholders who have experience with or desire to use GM technologies (...) enter the larger debate. Africa has the greatest number of smallholders and poor with the least exposure to GM crops. Because of the well-established use of GM crops in South Africa by commercial farmers, we formed a community of practice involving smallholders, extension, researchers, non-profits and agribusiness in KwaZulu-Natal to examine the conditions under which GM crops are used by smallholders, how smallholders interact with GM technologies and what insights smallholders and other stakeholders can provide regarding these questions. One of the advantages of the CoP approach is that it brings stakeholders together in a non-hierarchical way that encourages new ways of thinking and new partnerships. Such interaction around a specific project can enhance the voice of smallholders in a variety of ways. In our project, smallholder participants have increased their knowledge and can make better decisions about GM technologies, which had been barriers for them. Notably, they have also improved their knowledge of maize production practices, accessed new practice networks, and met new researchers and resource providers. They are now being integrated into these networks in a way that should improve their livelihoods and make the wants and needs of smallholders better known. Such knowledge and experience has improved their voice in agriculture and rural development discussions. (shrink)

We introduce two extreme methods to pairwisely compare ordered lists of the same length, viz. the comonotonic and the countermonotonic comparison method, and show that these methods are, respectively, related to the copula T M (the minimum operator) and the Ł ukasiewicz copula T L used to join marginal cumulative distribution functions into bivariate cumulative distribution functions. Given a collection of ordered lists of the same length, we generate by means of T M and T L two probabilistic relations Q (...) M and Q L and identify their type of transitivity. Finally, it is shown that any probabilistic relation with rational elements on a 3-dimensional space of alternatives which possesses one of these types of transitivity, can be generated by three ordered lists and at least one of the two extreme comparison methods. (shrink)

Is 'n transendentale kritiek religieus bepaald? deur V. Brümmer. -- Constitution and creativity in the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, by A. L. Conradie. -- Studium Generale, deur H. J. De Vleeschauwer. -- Sociology of law and its philosophical foundtions, by H. Dooyeweerd. -- Beginvrae en antwoorde in der Wysbegeerte, deur P. G. W. Du Plesis. -- Max Scheler's concern with the highest perfection, by S. I. M. Du Plessis. -- Christelike wetenskap, highest perfection, by S. I. M. Deu Plessis. -- (...) Christelike wetenskap, deur B. Duvenage. -- Malan's critical study, by H. Hart. -- Raakpunte vir 'n dialoog met 'n Christelike Wysbegeerte, deur A. M. T. Meyer. -- Nuwe gedagtes oor die begrip Natuurwet, deur A. H. Murray. -- Die voorwaardes vir die uitbou van 'n wysgerige antropologie, deur C. K. Oberholzer. -- De structuur van feit-en-betekenis, deur K. J. Popma. -- The relation of the arts to the presentation of the truth, by C. G. Seerveld. -- Gezag en vrijheid in het licht van Gods Woord, deur J. Stellingwerff. -- Voorveronderstellings vir 'n filosogie van die opvoeding, deur J. A. L. Taljaard. -- Objektiwiteit, sekularisasie en geskiedenis, deur N. T. Van der Merwe. -- Etiek: wetenskap van relasies, deur S. P. Van der Walt. -- Wetten en feiten, deur C. A. Van Peursen. -- Enige opmerkingen over entiteiten, deur H. Van Riessen. -- Richard Kroner on Herman Dooyeweerd, by C. Van Til. -- De mens in de taalkunde, deur P. A. Verburg, -- Enkele motieven van het anti-militair pacifisme, deur S, U. Zuidema. -- Publications of prof. dr. H. G. Stoker. Publikasies van prof. dr. H. G. Stoker (p. 303-311). (shrink)

Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short. For thousands of years it has existed and has been growing older; but in the earlier part of this period it cannot boast of any continuous progress toward a riper and richer development. In the fourth century before our era that giant thinker, Aristotle, built it up into an edifice comparing very favorably with any other science of that time. But this edifice stood without undergoing any noteworthy changes or (...) extensions, well into the eighteenth or even the nineteenth century. Only in recent times do we find an advance, at first slow but later increasing in rapidity, in the development of psychology. The general causes which checked the progress of this science and thus made it fall behind the others can readily be stated:— "The boundaries of the Soul you cannot find, though you pace off all its streets, so deep a foundation has it," runs a sentence of Heraclitus, and it hits the truth more fully than its author could ever have expected. The structures and functions of our mental life present the greatest difficulties to scientific investigation, greater even than those presented by the phenomena, in many respects{4} similar, of the bodily life of the higher organisms. These structures and processes change so unceasingly, are so fleeting, so enormously complex, and dependent on so many factors hidden yet undoubtedly influential, that it is difficult even to seize upon them and describe their true substance, still more difficult to gain an insight into their causal connections and to understand their significance. We are just now beginning to recognize the full force of these difficulties. (shrink)

In view of the confusion about the use of the term ‘population’ in biology, an analysis has been made of the use of the concept of population in biology. Origin and development, logic and epistemology of the population-concept have been investigated for that purpose. It appears that several concepts of population coexist in biology. The term ‘population’ is used for all these concepts, so it is not amazing that confusion has arisen. This confusion is the more dangerous, since ‘population’ plays (...) an important part in the theory of evolution. A modus has been suggested to diminish this confusion by defining ‘population’ in a very wide sense of the term and by proposing a ‘deme’—terminology to specify the various special concepts of population. (shrink)

Context: Second-order cybernetics and its implications have been understood within the cybernetics community for some time. These implications are important for understanding the structure of scientific endeavor, and for researchers in other fields to see the reflexive nature of scientific research. This article is about the role of context in the creation and exploration of our experience. Problem: The purpose of this article is to point out the fundamental nature of the circularity in cybernetics and in scientific work in general. (...) I give a point of view on the nature of objective knowledge by placing it in the context of reflexivity and eigenform. Method: The approach to the topic is based on logical analysis of the nature of circularity. Mathematics and cybernetics are both fundamentally concerned with the structure of distinctions, but there can be no definition of a distinction without circularity, since such a definition would itself be a distinction. The article proceeds by explicating the structure of reflexive domains D where the transformations of the domain are in one-to-one correspondence with the domain itself. Results: I show that every element of a reflexive domain has a fixed point. This means that eigenforms arise naturally in reflexive domains. Furthermore, a reflexive domain is itself an eigenform (at a higher level. This supports the context of a second-order science that would study domains of science as part of a larger cybernetic landscape. Implications: The value of the article is in its concise reformulation of the scientific endeavor as a search for eigenforms in reflexive domains. This new view of science is promising in that it includes the former worlds of apparent objectivity and it embraces those newer worlds of science where the theories and theorists become active participants in the ongoing process of creating knowledge. Constructivist content: I argue that the perspective of reflexive domains constitutes a new way to think about the practice of science, with observers deeply imbedded, and objectivity understood as the mutual search for eigenforms. (shrink)

As the usual regulatory framework did not fit well during the last Ebola outbreak, innovative thinking still needed. In the absence of an outbreak, randomised controlled trials of clinical efficacy in humans cannot be done, while during an outbreak such trials will continue to face significant practical, philosophical, and ethical challenges. This article argues that researchers should also test the safety and effectiveness of novel vaccines in wild apes by employing a pluralistic approach to evidence. There are three reasons to (...) test vaccines in wild populations of apes: i) protect apes; ii) reduce Ebola transmission from wild animals to humans; and iii) accelerate vaccine development and licensing for humans. Data obtained from studies of vaccines among wild apes and chimpanzees may even be considered sufficient for licensing new vaccines for humans. This strategy will serve to benefit both wild apes and humans. (shrink)

In Ontology, quality determines beings. The quality-quantity bipolarity reveals that a conceptual logical comprehension that can include negation must be a dialectical logic. Quality is a precise characteristic of something capable of augmentation or diminution while remaining identical through differences or quantitative changes. Thus, quality and in opposition quantity are inextricably linked, giving definition to each other, so constituting a logical bipolarity. The theory is that a magnitude G is never separated from secondary qualities α and β, and therefore, a (...) measure depends on a concrete quality Gα or Gβ, that is to say on one pole of a logical bi-pole. However, the particular number, the unit, that expresses the result of a measure is the quality G alone. Examples drawn from physical and chemical experiments illustrate these ideas and elaborate the structure of the concept of opposition between the secondary qualities α and β of a magnitude G. (shrink)

The ipsilesional arm of stroke patients often has functionally limiting deficits in motor control and dexterity that depend on the side of the brain that is lesioned and that increase with the severity of paretic arm impairment. However, remediation of the ipsilesional arm has yet to be integrated into the usual standard of care for upper limb rehabilitation in stroke, largely due to a lack of translational research examining the effects of ipsilesional-arm intervention. We now ask whether ipsilesional-arm training, tailored (...) to the hemisphere-specific nature of ipsilesional-arm motor deficits in participants with moderate to severe contralesional paresis, improves ipsilesional arm performance and generalizes to improve functional independence. We assessed the effects of this intervention on ipsilesional arm unilateral performance [Jebsen–Taylor Hand Function Test ], ipsilesional grip strength, contralesional arm impairment level [Fugl–Meyer Assessment ], and functional independence [Functional independence measure ]. Intervention occurred over a 3 week period for 1.5 h/session, three times each week. All sessions included virtual reality tasks that targeted the specific motor control deficits associated with either left or right hemisphere damage, followed by graded dexterity training in real-world tasks. We also exposed participants to 3 weeks of sham training to control for the non-specific effects of therapy visits and interactions. We conducted five test-sessions: two pre-tests and three post-tests. Our results indicate substantial improvements in the less-impaired arm performance, without detriment to the paretic arm that transferred to improved functional independence in all three posttests, indicating durability of training effects for at least 3 weeks. We provide evidence for establishing the basis of a rehabilitation approach that includes evaluation and remediation of the ipsilesional arm in moderately to severely impaired stroke survivors. This study was originally a crossover design; however, we were unable to complete the second arm of the study due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We report the results from the first arm of the planned design as a longitudinal study. (shrink)