Résumé Cet article porte sur l’analyse des interrelations entre les pratiques non officielles du sulh, de la réconciliation, et le travail des cours de justice à partir d’enquêtes menées en Algérie et, subsidiairement, au Soudan. J’illustrerai en particulier l’idée que le sulh – action faisant bien souvent référence au ‘ûrf (conventions usuelles ou droit coutumier) ou encore à la loi coranique et aux jurisprudences musulmanes (malékite en particulier) – s’inscrit en continuité et en complément avec le travail judiciaire. Je propose (...) ici de réfléchir à la pluralité des acteurs, mais également aux dimensions spatiales et temporelles qui orientent l’ensemble du processus articulant pratiques non officielles de réconciliation et celles (officielles) des cours de justice. Nous avons en effet une pluralité de lieux – lieu du crime, lieux de la réconciliation, cours de justice – qui imprègnent et l’interprétation que l’on se fait de l’offense et le procès socio-légal (réconciliation/cours de justice) dans son ensemble. Je discuterai ainsi des conséquences pratiques et théoriques de cette articulation entre réconciliation (sulh) et processus judiciaire. (shrink)

In non-ideal theory, the political philosopher seeks to identify an injustice, synthesize social scientific work to diagnose its underlying causes, and propose morally permissible and potentially efficacious remedies. This paper explores the role in non-ideal theory of the identification of a plausible agent of change who might bring about the proposed remedies. I argue that the question of the agent of change is connected with the other core tasks of diagnosing injustice and proposing practical remedies. In this connection, I criticize (...) two linked postures that nonideal theorists sometimes adopt: a technocratic mode of neutral policy recommendation, whereby philosophers say what “we” must do to address some problem, without attending to the way agency enters the problem and its possible resolution; and the tendency to treat non-ideal theory as primarily consisting int eh enumeration of duties we are failing to fulfill, and specification of who is under what additional duties in light of this shortfall. My argument is that these tendencies fail to register in a coherent way the practical character of political philosophy. (shrink)

Recent works by feminist and social epistemologists have carefully mapped the contours of epistemic injustice, including gaslighting and prejudicial credibility deficits, prejudicial credibility excesses, willful hermeneutical ignorance, discursive injustices, contributory injustice, and epistemic exploitation. As we look at this burgeoning literature, attention has been concentrated mainly in four areas in descending order of emphasis: phenomena of epistemic injustice themselves, including the nature of wrongdoings involved, attendant consequences and repercussions, individual and structural changes for prevention or mitigation, and restorative, restitutive, or (...) retributive responses. This project urges greater attention to the last of these, and to that end offers a relational approach to epistemic justice drawing upon Margaret Walker’s work on moral repair and reparative justice. In developing and enacting better epistemic practices, how can such practices be made meaningfully restorative: not only recognizing the prospects for epistemic improvement, but responding to the perpetration and experience of epistemic injustice with effective epistemic amelioration? (shrink)

Hun Chung argues for a theory of distributive justice – ‘prospect utilitarianism’ – that overcomes two central problems purportedly faced by sufficientarianism: giving implausible answers in ‘lifeboat cases’, where we can save the lives of some but not all of a group, and failing to respect the axiom of continuity. Chung claims that prospect utilitarianism overcomes these problems, and receives empirical support from work in economics on prospect theory. This article responds to Chung's criticisms of sufficientarianism, showing that they are (...) misplaced. It then shows that prospect utilitarianism faces independent problems, since it too requires a threshold, which Chung bases on the idea of ‘adequate functioning’. The article shows that there are problems with this as a threshold, and that it is not empirically supported by prospect theory. (shrink)

Many assume that theories of distributive justice must obviously take people’s lifetimes, and only their lifetimes, as the relevant period across which we distribute. Although the question of the temporal subject has risen in prominence, it is still relatively underdeveloped, particularly in the sphere of health and healthcare. This paper defends a particular view, “momentary sufficientarianism,” as being an important element of healthcare justice. At the heart of the argument is a commitment to pluralism about justice, where theorizing about just (...) principles demands paying attention to the role particular goods play in our lives. This means that different approaches to the temporal subject—as well as other relevant issues—may be appropriate for different goods, including different goods within healthcare. In particular, the paper discusses two central goods targeted by healthcare: life-saving and pain relief. The view is offered as complementary to, rather than competitive with, lifetime approaches. As such, the paper finishes by considering how a pluralist approach, which engages both with people’s lives as a whole and with their states at particular moments, can reconcile the potentially competing claims in healthcare that emerge from these two perspectives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Scientific advances in genetic analysis have been made possible in recent years by technical developments in computational biology, or bioinformatics. Bioinformatics has opened up the human genome to diverse analyses involving automated laboratory hardware and machine learning algorithms and software. As part of an emerging field of social genomics, recent educational genetics studies using big data have begun to raise challenging findings linking DNA to predicted life outcomes. Bioinformatic technologies and techniques including ‘genome-wide association’ and ‘polygenic scoring’ are producing (...) new kinds of genetic biodata and expert knowledge for rethinking the upbringing and education of children. This article takes as an empirical opening a recent epistemic and ethical controversy over the use of biodata to make genetic predictions about educational, socio-economic and life outcomes, detailing the forms of expert knowledge and technologies involved these predictions, and exploring the social and ethical implications of data-intensive bioinformatics. (shrink)

In recent years Mullins and Craig have argued that there is a problem for a timeless God creating, with Mullins formulating the argument as follows: (1) If God begins to be related to creation, then God changes. (2) God begins to be related to creation. (3) Therefore, God changes. (4) If God changes, then God is neither immutable nor timeless. (5) Therefore, God is neither immutable nor timeless. In this paper I argue that all the premises, (1), (2), and (4) (...) are false, and then provide a revised formulation of the argument which more clearly represents what Mullins and Craig wish to argue, given the explication and commentary they give when discussing this objection to timelessness. I then call into question this argument, and conclude by stating what I think Mullins and Craig should really be arguing given the specific views they have about creation ex nihilo and in virtue of what timelessness requires. (shrink)

Functionalists define a given mental state as a state that is apt to be the cause of specific effects and the effect of specific causes. Two tokens of the same belief, however, often cause and are caused by very different events: what makes them beliefs of the same type? Several answers, including the one relying on the identity of actual plus counterfactual causal relations, are considered and rejected. Functionalists did not notice that they have to specify how a state which (...) is to be identified as mental is to be individuated, but, given their theory, this cannot be done. (shrink)

In a series of publications I have claimed that by contrast to standard formal languages, quantifiers in natural language combine with a general term to form a quantified argument, in which the general term's role is to determine the domain or plurality over which the quantifier ranges. In a recent paper Zoltán Gendler Szabó tried to provide a counterexample to this analysis and derived from it various conclusions concerning quantification in natural language, claiming it is often ‘bare’. I show that (...) Szabó's example fails, and that even if it were successful his conclusions would not be supported by it. (shrink)

Committee decision making is examined in this study focusing on the role assigned to the committee members. In particular, we are concerned about the comparison between committee performance under specialization and non-specialization of the decision makers. Specialization (in the context of project or public policy selection) means that the decision of each committee member is based on a narrow area, which typically results in the acquirement and use of relatively high expertise in that area. When the committee members’ expertise is (...) already determined, specialization only means that the decision of each committee member is based solely on his/her relatively high expertise area. This form of specialization is potentially inferior relative to non-specialization under which the decision of each committee member is based on different areas, not just his/her relatively high expertise area. Given that the expertise of the committee members is already determined but unknown, our analysis focuses on non-specializing individuals whose decision is based on a decision rule that does not require information on the decision-making skills. Under these realistic assumptions, non-specialization is shown to be preferable over specialization, depending on the aggregation rule applied by the committee. The significance of our approach is not limited to the specific results that we obtain. Rather, it should be viewed as a first step toward a deeper examination of the role of individual decision makers in enhancing the performance of collective decision making. (shrink)

I outline three conceptions of seeing that a creature might possess: ‘the headlamp conception,’ which involves an understanding of the causal connections between gazing at an object, certain mental states, and behavior; ‘the stage lights conception,’ which involves an understanding of the selective nature of visual attention; and seeing-as. I argue that infants and various nonhumans possess the headlamp conception. There is also evidence that chimpanzees and 3-year-old children have some grasp of seeing-as. However, due to a dearth of studies, (...) there is no evidence that infants or nonhumans possess the stage lights conception of seeing. I outline the kinds of experiments that are needed, and what we stand to learn about the evolution and development of perspective taking. (shrink)

The majority of people show persistent poor performance in reasoning about “stock-flow problems” in the laboratory. An important example is the failure to understand the relationship between the “stock” of CO2 in the atmosphere, the “inflow” via anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and the “outflow” via natural CO2 absorption. This study addresses potential causes of reasoning failures in the CO2 accumulation problem and reports two experiments involving a simple re-framing of the task as managing an analogous financial budget. In Experiment 1 a (...) financial version of the task that required participants to think in terms of controlling debt demonstrated significant improvements compared to a standard CO2 accumulation problem. Experiment 2, in which participants were invited to think about managing savings, suggested that this improvement was fortuitous and coincidental rather than due to a fundamental change in understanding the stock-flow relationships. The role of graphical information in aiding or abetting stock-flow reasoning was also explored in both experiments, with the results suggesting that graphs do not always assist understanding. The potential for leveraging the kind of reasoning exhibited in such tasks in an effort to change people's willingness to reduce CO2 emissions is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Educators continue to struggle with how masculinities are performed and regulated in spaces of learning. In a time of rapid social change, there is a renewed impetus for gender justice reform in schooling, though these approaches themselves remain a shifting picture. Adding a new layer of complexity, we are now witness to educational policy recommendations around surveillance which are designed to counteract boys’ and young men’s vulnerabilities to be radicalised into the misogynies of the ‘manosphere’. These recommendations exist despite limited (...) research and significant gaps in our understanding regarding both the manosphere as well as the emotional lives of young men. The article intentionally shifts the conversation from reactive surveillance in schools to educative gender justice approaches. We focus, in particular, on the significance of ‘pedagogic discomfort’ in terms of fostering gender transformative dialogue which is critical of ideas associated with the manosphere. We consider how a constructive dialogue might be fostered with a particular focus on pedagogies that recognise the emotional intensities of gender justice work. (shrink)

The relationship between traditional and scientific ecological knowledge is a dynamic one. Consider the use of fire in land management. In the 1910s and 1920s, Aldo Leopold and other US foresters dismissively campaigned against burning as 'Paiute forestry', denigrating and driving out indigenous land management as though it had never existed, as though there was no credible ecological knowledge proir to settlement. Fire suppression as a longstanding policy across the US and Canada not only failed in reading historical tribal burning (...) practices and in applying that knowledge to settler resource management, but also systematically undercut tribal ecological knowledge. A century later, scientists and restorationists are coming to better understand the dangers of fire suppression, benefits of burns, and the fact that these are not really new insights but epistemically marginalized ones. If prescribed burning is a complex assemblage of epistemic practices, and settler-colonial reactions have perpetrated epistemic injustices against indigenous peoples, how can modern (tribal, settler, and collaborative) burning practices and policies be better? In this project, I offer a close reading of early 20th Century light-burning debates, with a particular focus on Leopold’s characterizations of indigenous ecological knowledge. I then turn to critically evaluate several 21st Century prescribed burn projects and policies for their reparative potential in both social-ecological and social-epistemic terms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper offers a framework for ethical analysis of reputation management practices. First, it outlines various articulations of the ethos of digital-age reputation defense as advanced by...

In the event of a pandemic, demand for vaccines may exceed supply. One proposal for allocating vaccines is to use a lottery, to give all citizens an equal chance, either of getting the vaccine or of surviving. However, insistence on strict equality can result in seriously suboptimal outcomes. I argue that the requirement to treat all citizens impartially need not be interpreted to require equal chances, particularly where citizens are differently situated. Assuming that we want to save lives, we should (...) also seek to use vaccine efficiently, so far as this is compatible with equality. Thus, in allocating vaccine, we may want to be sensitive to different levels of need and/or effects on vaccine production. While such policies may result in unequal chances, they may even improve everyone’s chances. In such cases, the resultant inequality is not a violation of impartiality, but a consequence of considering each person’s claim seriously. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that the strongest case for permitting non‐medical sex selection is where parents aim at family balance. This piece criticizes one representative attempt to justify sex selection for family balance. Kluge (2007) assumes that some couples may seek sex selection because they hold discriminatory values, but this need not impugn those who merely have preferences, without evaluative commitments, for a particular sex. This is disputed by those who see any sex selection as inherently sexist because it upholds (...) stereotypes about the sexes. This article takes an alternative approach. I argue that, even if we accept that preference‐based selection is unobjectionable, a policy permitting selection for family balancing does a poor job of distinguishing between value‐based and preference‐based selection. If we wish to permit only preference‐based sex selection we should seek to identify parents’ motives. If we wish to justify a family balancing policy, other arguments are needed. (shrink)

This essay engages the question whether it makes sense to talk about friendship between human beings and robots. Encountering the question of human and robot friendship, many might initially dismiss the possibility of such relationships out of hand. But such dismissals, it seems, based solely on the basis of species membership, are nothing more than unjustifiable speciesism. Mitias’s analysis of friendship is helpful, but makes the conditions for friendship demanding. Nevertheless, his framework implies that human and robot friendships are possible.

In the rabbinic literature from the land of Israel the poor are depicted not as passive recipients of gifts and support, but as independent agents who are responsible for their own behaviour. Communal care for the needy was expected to go beyond their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter; the physical safety of the poor and the value of their time as well as their dignity and self-worth were also included in the scope of charity. In this monograph, Yael (...) Wilfand offers a comprehensive and contextual analysis of major rabbinic texts on poverty and charity composed during the first five centuries of the Common Era in the land of Israel, principally the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian Talmud and midrashim. She shows that, for the rabbis, the poor were not necessarily considered outsiders; indeed, some students and rabbis in Palestine may have personally experienced poverty. Wilfand claims that such socio-economic diversity contributed to the thinking of these rabbis, who rarely saw poverty as a result of transgression (in contrast to the Babylonian Talmud). This book presents a number of contrasting viewpoints held by Palestinian rabbis over such questions as: Must communal administrators ensure applicants' eligibility for alms? Should the newly indigent from wealthy families receive exceptional levels of support? Might neighbouring gentiles qualify for economic assistance from Jewish communal sources? By examining Palestinian rabbinic sources within the contexts both of the hegemonic Greco-Roman (later, Christian) milieu and of the biblical heritage, this volume offers an absorbing account of some ancient approaches to timeless social challenges. (shrink)

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are now classified into two types of pluripotency: “naïve” and “primed” based upon their differing characteristics. Conventional human ESCs have much more in common with mouse epiblast stem cells and are now deemed to be primed. Naïve human ESCs that resemble mouse ESCs have recently been generated from their primed counterpart by cellular reprogramming. Isolation of naïve hESCs from human embryos has proven to be difficult. Is the inability to capture naïve hESCs the result of suboptimal (...) derivation conditions or because they are so transient they cannot be “captured” in vitro? Prevailing evidence surrounding this issue are inconclusive and require additional human embryo research. However, negative public opinion regarding human embryo research, may make this an uphill battle. The solution may come from cellular reprogramming. (shrink)

The sixteen essays written in honour of Jonathan Barnes for this volume reflect the impressive scope of his contributions to philosophy. Six are on knowledge, five on logic and metaphysics, five on ethics. The volume ranges widely over ancient philosophy, while also finding room for two contemporary papers on truth and vagueness. Aristotle is prominent in eight of the essays; Plato, Sextus Empiricus, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and ancient Greek medical writers are also discussed. The contributors include some of the (...) most distinguished scholars of our time. (shrink)

In education, character education is a burgeoning field; however, it is also the target of considerable criticism. Amongst criticisms of character education, the political criticism that character education is a form of indoctrination stands out. In particular, the charge is made against character education that it breaches the principle of liberal neutrality about the good. In this article I discuss liberal approaches to character education. I outline the two most prominent liberal approaches to character education in school, liberal neutralism and (...) liberal perfectionism, as we find it in the work of Clayton (neutralism) and Levinson (liberal perfectionism). I hold that the two standard liberal approaches do not distinguish carefully enough between two possible forms of character education – moral character education and intellectual character education. Drawing on recent work in virtue epistemology, I hold that the liberal position tacitly demands intellectual character education. Regarding moral character education, however, I hold that the picture appears different. In the final analysis, I advocate a new form of perfectionism regarding character education that I call ‘intellectual perfectionism’. According to intellectual perfectionism, schools should be perfectionist regarding children's intellects, but neutralist regarding their morals. (shrink)

As graduates embark on the next phase of their lives, what better way to get them accustomed to the rat race they are about to enter than by introducing them to the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre? Cleverly told through the story of a pair of rats trapped in the labyrinth of existence, this allegory humorously conveys the key ideas of Sartre's existential philosophy in graphic-novel form - accessible for students and readers of all ages."--Back cover.