This volume develops a novel approach to state theory.

One of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt is a deeply controversial figure who has been labeled both Nazi sympathizer and modern-day Thomas Hobbes. First published in 1938, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes used the Enlightenment philosopher’s enduring symbol of the protective Leviathan to address the nature of modern statehood. A work that predicted the demise of the Third Reich and that still holds relevance in today’s security-obsessed society, this (...) volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science. “Carl Schmitt is surely the most controversial German political and legal philosopher of this century. . . . We deal with Schmitt, against all odds, because history stubbornly persists in proving many of his tenets right.”— Perspectives on Political Science “[A] significant contribution. . . . The relation between Hobbes and Schmitt is one of the most important questions surrounding Schmitt: it includes a distinct, though occasionally vacillating, personal identification as well as an association of ideas.”— Telos. (shrink)

In this paper we pose the question what constitutes the originality of governmentality as a state analytical framework by confronting it with alternative contemporary approaches in state theory, suggesting that the latter may already contain many of the insights Foucaultians sometimes tend to ascribe to the governmentality perspective exclusively and thus run the risk of reinventing the state theoretical wheel. Still, we argue that there is something unique to the governmentality perspective, namely a particular kind of (...) unwieldy knowledge about the state it aims to produce. Generating such knowledge would no longer be state theory but rather state philosophy in a specifically Foucaultian sense. (shrink)

With a focus on the social and political conjuncture in Greece following interventions by the troika of the International Monetary Fund, European Union, and European Central Bank, as well as with an analysis of historical trends in Greek capitalism, the end of the Metapolitefsi period, and the rise in authoritarian statism, I argue for a revival of Marxist state theory in understanding the current global crisis. I identify this moment in Greece as a battle for hegemony between the (...) dominant narratives of disaster that perpetuate the vicious cycle of debt-and-austerity and an alternative, radical narrative of here-and-now. (shrink)

SummaryThis article deals with laissez faire arguments as distinguishable in Europe between the final decades of the nineteenth century and 1914. The focus is on Herbert Spencer and the British ‘Individualists’, the Italian Vilfredo Pareto, and the Frenchman Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. Analysis concentrates on the relationship between laissez faire formulations and democracy, the latter amounting to the impact of the extension of the franchise on representative government. All the mentioned authors blamed the mechanisms of democratic government for the contemporary growth in (...) state functions. While Spencer focused on the threat of a new class legislation after the demise of aristocratic power, Pareto and Leroy-Beaulieu viewed the pressure of lobbies and parties as the chief cause of the extension of state interventions. This article also aims to detect similarities and differences with more recent formulations. It is argued that Friedrich Hayek's achievement was to reconcile, against earlier perspectives, laissez faire with democracy. The reconciliation rested on a conceptualisation of democracy as a valuable method or procedure, onto which no values should be grafted. (shrink)

Current social and political theory is sceptical of the future of welfare states in the face of global markets. Their moral claims, too, have been challenged by the neo-liberal association of market capitalism and individual freedom and by an implicit acceptance of that critique - of the welfare state as bureaucratic - by left-wing commentators. This article offers a defence of the national welfare state as the guarantor of `complex freedom'. This defence is derived from the theoretical (...) contributions of Marshall, Polanyi and Myrdal and offers a reconsideration of the debate immediately after the second world war over the welfare state and its relevance today. Marshall's concept of social rights has become a familiar part of our own debate, but it is argued that Polanyi provides the rigorous critique of market relationships which is missing, and Myrdal locates gender issues as central to the understanding of welfare state development and women's rights as integral to social rights. (shrink)

The ideas of creatio ex nihilo of the universe and creatio continua of new matter out of nothing entered the arena of natural science with the advent of the Big Bang and the steady-state theories in the mid-twentieth century. Adolf Grünbaum has tried to interpret the steady-state theory in such a way, to show that the continuous formation of new matter out of nothing in this theory can be explained purely physically. In this paper, however, it (...) will be shown that Grünbaum's interpretation encounters at least three problems: not distinguishing between material and efficient causes, inconsistency, and misconceiving the law of density conservation. (shrink)

One of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt is a deeply controversial figure who has been labeled both Nazi sympathizer and modern-day Thomas Hobbes. First published in 1938, _The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes _used the Enlightenment philosopher’s enduring symbol of the protective Leviathan to address the nature of modern statehood. A work that predicted the demise of the Third Reich and that still holds relevance in today’s security-obsessed society, this (...) volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science._ __“Carl Schmitt is surely the most controversial German political and legal philosopher of this century.... We deal with Schmitt, against all odds, because history stubbornly persists in proving many of his tenets right.”—_Perspectives on Political Science_ _ _ “[A] significant contribution.... The relation between Hobbes and Schmitt is one of the most important questions surrounding Schmitt: it includes a distinct, though occasionally vacillating, personal identification as well as an association of ideas.”—_Telos_ __ _. (shrink)

Recent theories of the state often draw attention to states’ autonomy from social preferences. This paper suggests that the phenomenon of public ignorance is the primary mechanism responsible for state autonomy in democratic polities. Such theorists as Skocpol and Poulantzus, who do not take account of public ignorance, either underestimate the state's autonomy or stress causal mechanisms that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its autonomy. Gram‐sci's concept of ideological hegemony is promising, even though it is (...) far too insistent on the penetration of ideology of any kind beyond relatively small numbers of political sophisticates. (shrink)

Alien Politics retrieves from the writings of Marx an original theory of the state which remains viable and relevant today. Paul Thomas traces the process by which Marx's theory of the state as the instrument of the capitalist ruling class became transformed into communist dogma under the auspices of Lenin and other "official" Marxist stalwarts. He argues that Marx's writings still have something to teach us and should not be pulled down with the monoliths and mausoleums (...) of communism. The book continues the work of "Western Marxist" thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci and Nicos Poulantzas who came to understand the modern state in terms different from the rightly-discredited "ruling class" theory of the state associated with Leninism. Such Western Marxist theorists--more careful and nuanced readers of Marx than their powerfully-placed antagonists--helped formulate a theory of what Thomas calls "alien politics." The theory of alien politics, originally elaborated by Marx in his early critiques of Hegel and the Young Hegelians, diverges from ruling class state theory because it counterposes the state against civil society rather than treating it as an epiphenomenon of civil society. Unlike ruling class theory, alien politics retains considerable relevance as a critique of state forms that still exist in the West as well as those that have collapsed in the East. This topical and groundbreaking book re-interprets Marx and demonstrates how his ideas remain critical for political theorists, social scientists and anyone interested in the modern state. (shrink)

Although the structure of nation-states increasingly decline, but it is in the organization of economic globalization, political globalization and the emerging global civil society, still occupies the first position. Not in the demise of the nation-state, but is being re-imagined, re-design, re-adjust direction in response to a series of challenges. Accordingly, the country's research in the present era is still important in the context of globalization, global capital, global civil society, global governance and the relationship between the nation-state (...) study of the theory constitutes a new form of state. The nation-state has been eroded, but it still takes a pride of place on organizing global economy, global politics, global civil society which is coming into being. The nation-state is not vanished, but re-imagined, re-designed, re-adjusted to response to a series of challenges. Accordingly, under the context of globalization, the research of the state still has an important meaning, and the relations between global capital, global civil society, global governance arid the nation-state constitute the new forms of state theory. (shrink)

This theory regards intentions as mental states, e.g., attitudes, which, typically, have causal power. But we do not speak of our intentions as having such powers. Instead, we speak of a person's resolve, determination, or his anxiety, eagerness, and so forth, as the ‘powers’ that move us. Of course, one desires for various reasons to carry out his various intentions but that desire is not a component of the intentions. An intention is, roughly, the course of action that one (...) has adopted, so it has no such components. There are other characteristics of intentions which the mental state idea of intentions does not share. Intentions do not have the temporal characteristics that mental states have, or share the curious context dependency that intentions have. And since, according to the theory, mental states operate causally, it would not be possible for a person to commit himself to a course of action as we ordinarily do when we make a promise or sign an agreement or contract. (shrink)

This serves as an introduction to a debate between Hans Kelsen and Otto Bauer concerning the nature and relative autonomy of the state, and the theories that informed the political practices of the Austro-Marxists and of the SDAP (Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party) immediately after the fall of the monarchy and during the early years of the First Republic. Both pieces (translated below) were published in Der Kampf ( The Campaign), the SDAP’s theoretical journal, in which many key texts (...) of Austro-Marxist thought appeared. The debate is of theoretical interest, particularly with respect to Marxist state theory, but is potentially also of renewed relevance to an age of post-GFC (Global Financial Crisis) austerity. Bauer’s distinction between functional oligarchy and functional democracy is identified as one such potential contribution to current debate and analysis. (shrink)

This serves as an introduction to a debate between Hans Kelsen and Otto Bauer concerning the nature and relative autonomy of the state, and the theories that informed the political practices of the Austro-Marxists and of the SDAP immediately after the fall of the monarchy and during the early years of the First Republic. Both pieces were published in Der Kampf, the SDAP’s theoretical journal, in which many key texts of Austro-Marxist thought appeared. The debate is of theoretical interest, (...) particularly with respect to Marxist state theory, but is potentially also of renewed relevance to an age of post-GFC austerity. Bauer’s distinction between functional oligarchy and functional democracy is identified as one such potential contribution to current debate and analysis. (shrink)

Explainable AI (XAI) provides methods to understand non-interpretable machine learning models. However, we have little knowledge about what legal experts expect from these explanations, including their legal compliance with, and value against European Union legislation. To close this gap, we present the Explanation Dialogues, an expert focus study to uncover the expectations, reasoning, and understanding of legal experts and practitioners towards XAI, with a specific focus on the European General Data Protection Regulation. The study consists of an online questionnaire and (...) follow-up interviews, and is centered around a use-case in the credit domain. We extract both a set of hierarchical and interconnected codes using grounded theory, and present the standpoints of the participating experts towards XAI. We find that the presented explanations are hard to understand and lack information, and discuss issues that can arise from the different interests of the data controller and subject. Finally, we present a set of recommendations for developers of XAI methods, and indications of legal areas of discussion. Among others, recommendations address the presentation, choice, and content of an explanation, technical risks as well as the end-user, while we provide legal pointers to the contestability of explanations, transparency thresholds, intellectual property rights as well as the relationship between involved parties. (shrink)

Feminist scholarship on the relative importance of working-class institutional strength in the economy and in the state has led to two divergent conclusions. Radical feminists argue that working-class institutions dominated by men produce male-biased outcomes; socialist feminists hold that working-class institutions promote classwide interests that benefit women as well as men. This article addresses this debate by applying generic and gendered working-class strength models of the welfare state in an examination of women's public pension quality. Quality is measured (...) as women's average pension compared with that of men, relative to women's average earnings, and compared with the average wage in the society. The authors find support for the socialist feminist view. Working-class institutions, having historically organized and represented the interests of working men, benefit women by improving the security and adequacy of their retirement incomes, but it is women's access to working-class economic and political institutions that brings greater economic equality with men in old age. (shrink)

The implications of Marxist state theories developed by Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband are useful for framing issues related to leftist strategy in twenty-first-century Venezuela. A relationship exists between each of the theories and three issues facing the Chavista movement: whether the bourgeoisie displays a sense of ‘class-consciousness’; the viability of tactical and strategic alliances between the left and groups linked to the capitalist structure; and whether socialism is to be achieved through stages, abrupt revolutionary changes, or ongoing (...) class='Hi'>state radicalisation over a period of time. During Poulantzas’s lifetime, his concept of the state as a ‘strategic battlefield’ lent itself to the left’s promotion of ‘strategic alliances’ with parties to its right. The same concept is compatible with the ‘process of change’ in Venezuela, in which autonomous movements play a fundamental role in transforming the old state and the construction of new state structures. (shrink)

It is argued that Nozick's experience machine thought experiment does not pose a particular difficulty for mental state theories of well-being. While the example shows that we value many things beyond our mental states, this simply reflects the fact that we value more than our own well-being. Nor is a mental state theorist forced to make the dubious claim that we maintain these other values simply as a means to desirable mental states. Valuing more than our mental states (...) is compatible with maintaining that the impact of such values upon our well-being lies in their impact upon our mental lives. (shrink)

The analysis of function-ascribing statements, such as “the function of x is y”, is proving to be a difficult matter. It is difficult because we are only beginning to see the complexity which is involved in ascribing functions. The process of discovery has been slow and tedious, with each newly constructed analysis of the meaning of functional ascriptions yielding insights into the structure of functional analysis and functional explanation. However, as each analysis is, in turn, dismantled, we seem to see (...) our insights slip away. In the wake of each exchange, a new member is added to the list of desiderata for an analysis of function-ascribing statements. Thus, the matter of finding a proper analysis of function attributions becomes more and more complex. (shrink)

Establishing the aims and objectives of a welfare state is an integral part of the political, economic and cultural debate, in particular, the repercussions of a welfare state on economic systems and social institutions; the sociopsychological consequences of a welfare state; and the scope, conditions and definitions of welfare. Some discussions address a theological and religious approach to the issue, specifically the Churches’ teaching on welfare and the Churches’ influence on the birth and development of the welfare (...) state. The Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland [EKD]) has also joined the global discussion. The EKD advocates the welfare institutions; moreover, it stresses the contribution of the Protestant theology and culture to the emergence of the social state in Germany. This article aims to outline the Protestant approach to welfare axiology. Following a brief sketch of the welfare theory, it examines the previous and current Protestant influences on the welfare state and system. It also presents significant attempts to distinguish crucial values and the most serious challenges of the welfare state. The primary sources of the reflection are the recently published documents of the EKD (Denkschrifts), and the source literature. Contribution: The theological proposals of the Evangelical Church in Germany contribute to the axiological and ethical debate on welfare and the social state. The research addresses the focus and scope of the journal of the promotion of multidisciplinary aspects of studies in the general theological area. (shrink)

Since the BBS article in which Premack and Woodruff (1978) asked “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?,” it has been repeatedly claimed that there is observational and experimental evidence that apes have mental state concepts, such as “want” and “know.” Unlike research on the development of theory of mind in childhood, however, no substantial progress has been made through this work with nonhuman primates. A survey of empirical studies of imitation, self-recognition, social relationships, deception, role-taking, (...) and perspective-taking suggests that in every case where nonhuman primate behavior has been interpreted as a sign of theory of mind, it could instead have occurred by chance or as a product of nonmentalistic processes such as associative learning or inferences based on nonmental categories. Arguments to the effect that, in spite of this, the theory of mind hypothesis should be accepted because it is more parsimonious than alternatives or because it is supported by convergent evidence are not compelling. Such arguments are based on unsupportable assumptions about the role of parsimony in science and either ignore the requirement that convergent evidence proceed from independent assumptions, or fail to show that it supports the theory of mind hypothesis over nonmentalist alternatives. Progress in research on theory of mind requires experimental procedures that can distinguish the theory of mind hypothesis from nonmentalist alternatives. A procedure that may have this potential is proposed. It uses conditional discrimination training and transfer tests to determine whether chimpanzees have the concept “see.” Commentators are invited to identify flaws in the procedure and to suggest alternatives. Key Words: apes; associative learning; concepts; convergence; deception; evolution of intelligence; folk psychology; imitation; mental state attribution; monkeys; parsimony; perspective-taking; primates; role-taking; self-recognition; social cognition; social intelligence; theory of mind. (shrink)

Translator's Introduction Political Theory in the Welfare State [Politische Theorie im Wohl- fahrtsstaat] was originally published (Olzog, Munich) in. ...

Evolutionary theory is awash with probabilities. For example, natural selection is said to occur when there is variation in fitness, and fitness is standardly decomposed into two components, viability and fertility, each of which is understood probabilistically. With respect to viability, a fertilized egg is said to have a certain chance of surviving to reproductive age; with respect to fertility, an adult is said to have an expected number of offspring.1 There is more to evolutionary theory than the (...) theory of natural selection, and here too one finds probabilistic concepts aplenty. When there is no selection, the theory of neutral evolution says that a gene’s chance of eventually reaching fixation is 1/(2N), where N is the number of organisms in the generation of the diploid population to which the gene belongs. The evolutionary consequences of mutation are likewise conceptualized in terms of the probability per unit time a gene has of changing from one state to another. The examples just mentioned are all “forwarddirected” probabilities; they describe the probability of later events, conditional on earlier events. However, evolutionary theory also uses “backwards probabilities” that describe the probability of a cause conditional on its effects; for example, coalescence theory allows one to calculate the expected number of generations in the past that the genes in the present generation find their most recent common ancestor. (shrink)

Heyman's target article contributes to our understanding of addictions by offering solutions to several paradoxes and by recognizing the stable nature of addictive behavior. Previous classical and operant conditioning models have emphasized molecular processes, such as acquisition and extinction, and have failed to address the aggregate effects of long-term exposure to the contingencies of drug and alcohol use.

One of the promising approaches to the problem of consciousness has been the Higher-Order Monitoring Theory of Consciousness. According to the Higher-Order Monitoring Theory, a mental state M of a subject S is conscious iff S has another mental state, M*, such that M* is an appropriate representation of M. Recently, several philosophers have developed a Higher-Order Monitoring theory with a twist. The twist is that M and M* are construed as entertaining some kind of (...) constitutive relation, rather than being logically independent of each other. We may call this the Same-Order Monitoring Theory of Consciousness. In this paper, I discuss the nature of the Same-Order Monitoring Theory and argue for its superiority over the more traditional Higher-Order Monitoring Theory. (shrink)

Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to solve the measurement problem by dropping the collapse dynamics from the standard von Neumann-Dirac theory of quantum mechanics. The main problem with Everett's theory is that it is not at all clear how it is supposed to work. In particular, while it is clear that he wanted to explain why we get determinate measurement results in the context of his theory, it is unclear how he intended (...) to do this. There have been many attempts to reconstruct Everett's no-collapse theory in order to account for the apparent determinateness of measurement outcomes. These attempts have led to such formulations of quantum mechanics as the many-worlds, many-minds, many-histories, and relative-fact theories. Each of these captures part of what Everett claimed for his theory, but each also encounters problems. (shrink)

It has been a popular theory in English, Japanese, and Chinese scholarship that a “victory of Confucianism” occurred during the Han dynasty. Some members of these academic communities challenge this theory. However, it has long been overlooked that they do so by adopting different terminology and research frameworks. English scholarship uses the expression “victory/triumph of Confucianism” to refer to the dominance or growth of Confucianism during that period, while the Japanese use “the establishment of Confucian doctrine/religion as the (...) state doctrine/religion” and the Chinese use “dismissing the hundred schools and revering only the Confucian arts”. The expressions, as the current issue illustrates, exemplify three different ways of studying the history of Han Confucianism. (shrink)

We show that three fundamental information-theoretic constraints -- the impossibility of superluminal information transfer between two physical systems by performing measurements on one of them, the impossibility of broadcasting the information contained in an unknown physical state, and the impossibility of unconditionally secure bit commitment -- suffice to entail that the observables and state space of a physical theory are quantum-mechanical. We demonstrate the converse derivation in part, and consider the implications of alternative answers to a remaining (...) open question about nonlocality and bit commitment. (shrink)

La parution de l’ouvrage de Jula Wilberger doit être signalée comme un moment important des études stoïciennes. L’auteur nous livre là un travail de qualité, qui se propose de présenter de manière exhaustive la pensée politique stoïcienne, laquelle a fait l’objet de recherches ponctuelles, mais d’aucune monographie de cette ampleur. L’objectif est en effet d’enquêter à la fois sur le fonds conceptuel sous-jacent à cette théorie politique (la sociabilité humaine, les notions de droit, de loi,...

In this book, Daniel Shapiro argues that the dominant positions in contemporary political philosophy - egalitarianism, positive rights theory, communitarianism, and many forms of liberalism - should converge in a rejection of central welfare state institutions. He examines how major welfare institutions, such as government-financed and -administered retirement pensions, national health insurance, and programs for the needy, actually work. Comparing them to compulsory private insurance and private charities, Shapiro argues that the dominant perspectives in political philosophy mistakenly think (...) that their principles support the welfare state. Instead, egalitarians, positive rights theorists, communitarians, and liberals have misunderstood the implications of their own principles, which in fact support more market-based or libertarian institutional conclusions than they may realize. Shapiro's book is unique in its combination of political philosophy with social science. Its focus is not limited to any particular country; rather it examines welfare states in affluent democracies and their market alternatives. (shrink)

Philosophical considerations have been essentially involved in the origin and development of the steady-state cosmological theory. These considerations include an explicit uniformitarian methodology and implicit metaphysical views concerning the status of natural laws in a changing universe. I shall examine the foundations of SST by reconstructing its early history. Whereas the strong uniformitarian methodology of SST found no support in the subsequent development of cosmology, the idea of a possible influence the global structure of the universe may have (...) on the laws of physics operative in it has been assimilated by the standard big bang theory as it made its remarkable progress in recent decades. (shrink)

This new edition reintroduces on the central texts of late nineteenth-century political thought. In addition to the fourth and final edition of the Philosophical Theory of the State, the editors have added a comprehensive selection of Bosanquet's most important essays on political theory and social policy. Also added is a detailed new introduction, a guide to further reading, and an index. Together they make clear the social and political background and implications of Bosanquet's political philosophy and allow (...) a more complete understanding of British idealism. (shrink)

For millennia, knowledge has eluded a precise definition. The industrialization of knowledge (IoK) and the associated proliferation of the so-called knowledge communities in the last few decades caused this state of affairs to deteriorate, namely by creating a trio composed of data, knowledge, and information (DIK) that is not unlike the aporia of the trinity in philosophy. This calls for a general theory of knowledge (ToK) that can work as a foundation for a science of knowledge (SoK) and (...) additionally distinguishes knowledge from both data and information. In this paper, I attempt to sketch this generality via the establishing of both knowledge structures and knowledge systems that can then be adopted/adapted by the diverse communities for the respective knowledge technologies and practices. This is achieved by means of a formal–indeed, mathematical–approach to epistemological matters a.k.a. formal epistemology. The corresponding application focus is on knowledge systems implementable as computer programs. (shrink)

Philosophy, despite its typical attitude of detachment and abstraction, has for most of its long history been engaged with the practical and mundane-seeming question of whether there is a duty to obey the law. As Matthew Kramer has recently summarized: “For centuries, political and legal theorists have pondered whether each person is under a general obligation of obedience to the legal norms of the society wherein he or she lives. The obligation at issue in those theorists' discussions is usually taken (...) to be prima-facie, comprehensively applicable, universally borne, and content-independent.” This essay is a commentary on the current state of discussion of this perennial philosophical topic. (shrink)

For over a century and certainly since single-unit recordings in the 1960s the theory of perception that has dominated thinking and research, with implications for the understanding of all other cognitive domains, entails a neocortical process of progressive assembly from V-1 to V-4 leading to object-construction and secondary spatial updating and recognition. In recent years, however, difficulties with the theory have emerged in neurophysiological research though a compelling alternative has not been forcefully argued. It is the purpose of (...) this paper to review the main features of the microgenetic account of perception, which inverts standard theory 180 degrees, and aligns the perceptual process with patterns of evolutionary growth. This theory developed on clinical study, and perhaps for this reason has not received sufficient attention, in mainstream cognitive and affective neuroscience, though it provides an account not only of perception but of stages in memory, imagery, the present moment, and the mind/brain state. (shrink)

Possibilities of applying the management theory in various human communities are analysed in this article. The management theory was developed as an instrument of increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of industrial enterprises. Many useful dependencies were identified and rules created for the rational division of common work and the purposeful coordination of these divided work pieces allotted for participants of the common work process. The author’s position is that many elements of the man­agement theory can be successfully (...) applied in every human community because in each of them some common work is conducted. The main condition, enabling to use all instruments of the management theory, is the existence of the main common goal, called mission, expressed in terms of meeting needs of consumers of community’s common work product. Such formulations of the mission of a family, a state, a political party and trade unions are suggested in this article. (shrink)

State-dependent utility is a problem for the behavioural branch of decision theory under uncertainty. It questions the very possibility that beliefs be revealed by choice data. According to the current literature, all models of beliefs are equally exposed to the problem. Moreover, the problem is solvable only when the decision-maker can influence the resolution of uncertainty. This article gives grounds to reject these two views. The various models of beliefs can be shown to be unequally exposed to the (...) problem of state-dependent utility. The problem can be argued to be solved even when the decision-maker has no influence over the resolution of uncertainty. The implications of such reappraisal for a philosophical appreciation of the revealed preference methodology are discussed. (shrink)

Many philosophers and laypeople have the following two intuitions about legal punishment: the state has a pro tanto moral reason to punish all those guilty of breaking a just law and to do so in proportion to their guilt. Accepting that there can be overriding considerations not to punish all the guilty in proportion to their guilt, many philosophers still consider it a strike against any theory if it does not imply that there is always a supportive moral (...) reason to do so. In this paper, I demonstrate that censure theory accounts for these intuitions much better than any other theory, including forms of retributivism such as desert theory and fairness theory, and explain why censure theory is able to do so. (shrink)