Due to the alarming rise of antibiotic resistance, medically unwarranted use of antibiotics has assumed new moral significance. In this paper, a thematic content analysis of focus group discussions was conducted to explore lay people’s views on the moral challenges posed by antibiotic resistance. The most important finding is that lay people are morally sensitive to the problems entailed by antibiotic resistance. Participants saw the decreasing availability of effective antibiotics as a problem of justice. This involves individual as well as (...) collective moral responsibility. Yet, holding agents responsible for their use of antibiotics involves varying degrees of demandingness. In our discussion, these findings are related to the contemporary ethical debate on antibiotic resistance and two proposals for the preservation of antibiotic effectiveness are compared to and evaluated against participants’ views. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 4 Seiten: 701-741.

Carruthers’ “mentalese expressions” take the form of English sentences, thus suggesting an isomorphism between thought and language that ignores linguistic diversity. Furthermore, complex syntax is not the only linguistic means of combining information from various domain-specific modules into domain-general expressions, nor is such syntax the preferred means of encoding basic experiences in all languages. The analysis seems to rest on an unacknowledged version of linguistic determinism.

The first poems about the Prophet Muḥammad appeared while he was alive. These first examples, which are panegyrics (madīḥ, i‛tiẕār, fakhr and ris̱ā), largely reflect the characteristics of the pre-Islamic qaṣīda poetry. Due to the developments in the following centuries, the number of poems about the Prophet increased. And thus, a separate literary genre was formed under the name al-madīḥ al-nabawī. Especially the fact that sufi leaning poets contributed to the literary richness in this field. Another factor is the beginning (...) of the tradition of writing mawlid poems in memory of the birth of the Prophet Muḥammad. The thirteenth century was an important period for poems praising the Prophet Muḥammad. Two important poets emerged in this century. One of them is Egyptian poet al-Būṣīrī and the other is Baghdad's famous poet, Yaḥyā al-Ṣarṣarī. Even after his death, Ṣarṣarî’s works with high literary value were read and memorized in the circles of science, literature and Sufism. Due to his competence in the field, al-Ṣarṣarī was known as the poet of the Prophet and Ḥassān b. Thābit of his time. However, it is understood that his poems, which lost their importance in literary circles over time, were not studied as much as they deserved in the modern period. In this article, his life and works are introduced and basic language and stylistic features of his poems are examined. Also, the image of the Prophet in his poems was determined within the framework of the political conditions of the period.Summary: In the field of madīh nabawī, which first appeared in the ‘Asr al-Sa’āda and has continued to the present day, especially two names stand out in the 7th/13th century, when famous poets such as Macduddīn al-Vitrī (d. 662/1264), Ibn al-Muraḥḥal (d. 699/1300) and Ṣafiyyuddīn al-Ḥillī (d. 749/1348) were also raised. One of them is the Egyptian poet al-Būṣīrī (d. 695/1296), who left his mark on the field of madīh nabawī with his many poems, especially Qaṣīda Burda, and the other is the Iraqi poet Yahya al-Ṣarṣarī (d. 656/1258), who was named Shā‘iru Rasūlillāh (The poet of the Prophet) and Ḥassānu Vaḳtihī (Ḥassān of that period) because of the quality of his poems in this field.al-Ṣarṣarī, was born in the village of al-Ṣarṣar, near Baghdad, spent most of his life in the shadow of Baghdad’s political instability and the social collapse that developed in parallel. He was killed in 656/1258 by the Mongolian forces that invaded Baghdad. al-Ṣarṣarī was extremely knowledgeable in fiqh, hadith, language, and ‘ilm al-qirāa. Our poet adopted the views of the Hanbalī law school. In addition, he turned to Sufism and became a murīd (disciple) of Ali ibn Idrīs al-Ya‘kūbī, a student of Abdalqadīr al-Gīlanī who was accepted as the founder of Qādiriyya. He was closely attached to the Sunnah of the Prophet and was fond of reading the Quran. He was chaste and patient and was content with what he had himself. All his works are poetic and they all concern the madīh nabawī or fiqh.Since his poems, almost all of which are about the praise of the Prophet, have a high literary value, they were read, memorized and narrated for a long time in the circles of science, literature and Sufism. In terms of its structure, his poems are based on the traditional forms of Arab qasīda. In the introductory sections of his poems, he often expresses his longing for Madina. The main subject in poems is usually the Prophet and his superior features. In the last part, he usually says salāt for the Prophet and seeks help from him. It can be said that he used simple language in his poems. The vocabulary reflects the characteristics of the urban life in which he lived. The source of inspiration for his poems are the Qur’an and especially the hadith of the Prophet. He uses the potential of literary arts as much as possible while conveying his feelings. But he does not allow the correct information to be lost due to these arts on a serious subject such as depicting the Prophet. We can see a lot of badī‘ (creative) art in some of his poems. But we can immediately understand that these arts do not spoil the beauty of his expression. The poet provides rhythm and harmony in his poetry with the meter and rhyme in accordance with the classical Arabic qasida rules. In addition, he strengthens the musicality in poetry with puns (jinās) and repetition.The influence of the instability of the region where al-Ṣarṣarī lived on his poems is obvious. According to him, the main reason for the terrible situation that Muslims were in was that they were away from the way of the Prophet. He thought that it would be possible to go back to the old peaceful days by following the way of the Prophet. Perhaps as a result of this opinion, he allocated his qasīda to the narration of the Prophet and his Companions. In his poems, he describes the Prophet with his names, superior qualities, physical and moral characteristics. He says that the sentences describing the Prophet are the ornament of poems and believes that praising him is a mean of salvation in the next world. He also hoped that the poems he said in order to achieve spiritual ascension would protect himself against the troubled events of the period.In his poems, especially on the occasion of mawlīd, al-Ṣarṣarī mentions the Prophet’s physical characteristics and likens his smiling face to a bright full moon, his brows to the letter nûn, his teeth to pearls. He describes the Prophet as a man with black eyes, broad shoulders, born with kohl-lined eyes, and who emanates a beautiful scent as a requirement of his creation. The poet, who also touches on the Prophet’s powerful address, states that his speech is more effective than Luqman’s wise words by virtue of his jawami‘ al-kalim (comprehensive speech) and faṣl al-khiṭab (clear speech), and that his soft address, which states nothing other than the truth, is a blessing from Allah. He additionally describes the Prophet’s plain words, easy to understand by all, as more valuable than jewels. al-Ṣarṣarī, who praises the Prophet in terms of morality with basic human virtues such as bashfulness, justice, modesty, and courage, emphasizes that he is, a paragon of patience, perseverance, kindness, and compassion through analogies such as, “his clothes are peace and perseverance”, his “cover is kindness and forgiveness”. In his world of imagery, the Prophet’s benevolence is so abundant like the rain that the clouds cannot compete with him. Also, he does not shame anybody for what he gives. He bestows the most valuable possessions like gold and camels. Even the respectable personalities of the tribe benefit from his grace. He is so generous that he is giving even when the clouds are stingy about giving rain during times of drought. He welcomes with a smile those who approach him with requests. The donations he makes privately are entirely satisfying.The image of prophethood in al-Ṣarṣarī’s poems, is centralized around the thought of nūr Muhammadī (prophetic light) and the miracles of the Prophet. He reminds that the Prophet never gave up despite the calamities he encountered and that he was supported with extraordinary events in various stages of his life since he was born, and reflects the understanding that the prophet is spiritually supporting the community with his nūr, and in the case the community follow his sunnah, overcoming the Mongolian attacks, which seems like a miracle, is possible. The mention of Qattāl (warrior), Māḥī (eliminator of disbelief), Ẓāhir, Ẓāfir, Manṣūr and Muẓaffar (victorious) among the Prophet’s names, especially those that evoke the superiority he gained in his fight against the disbelievers, giving greater prominence to his courage and valor among his virtues are also related to the political and social conditions of the period. The couplets about the Companions of the Prophet following the couplets that describe the Prophet’s valor, the emphasis of their aid to the Prophet, and the particular mention of their fighter spirit may be considered in the same context. Perhaps, in this way, the poet aims to boost the courage of the Muslims who are exposed to Mongolian attacks with respect to protecting their spiritual and holy values against the enemy. (shrink)

Among the abilities people fear they will lose as they age, the most frequently reported is "staying sharp". The fear of being afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and other dementing disorders, which will clinically impact 10 to 12% of the population between the age of 65 and death, is the major concern. Despite the fear of losing their minds, most persons will not develop Alzheimer's disease. So why does the fear of losing mental acuity top the AARP list?One reason is that (...) older adults in general cannot distinguish the usual changes with aging from neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. We also live in a society that has been labeled, among other things... (shrink)

High-spin states in the odd-odd N = Z nucleus Co-54 have been investigated by the fusion-evaporation reaction Si-28(S-32,1 alpha 1p1n)Co-54. Gamma-ray information gathered with the Ge detector array Gammasphere was correlated with evaporated particles detected in the charged particle detector system Microball and a 1 pi neutron detector array. A significantly extended excitation scheme of Co-54 is presented, which includes a candidate for the isospin T = 1, 6(+) state of the 1f(7/2)(-2) multiplet. The results are compared to large-scale shell-model (...) calculations in the fp shell. Effective interactions with and without isospin-breaking terms have been used to probe isospin symmetry and isospin mixing. A quest for deformed high-spin rotational cascades proved negative. This feature is discussed by means of cranking calculations. (shrink)

It has been suggested that people who will face hardship in the future may deserve our sympathies now. Similar intuitions can be adopted regarding the deservingness of jobs and scholarships, where andidates may be deserving now based on their expected future performance. To accommodate these intuitions, some have contended that desert is sometimes forward-looking. In this paper, I argue that it is a mistake to think of desert as forward-looking. The forward-looking view struggles to explain the deservingness of subjects that (...) have conflicting desert-making features in the future, it requires that we accept asymmetries and exceptions in desert theory and that we commit to a form of moderate determinism. In response, I present a comparative approach that offers a unified framework for explaining forward-looking cases without the drawbacks associated with the forward-looking view. (shrink)

Recently, there have been attempts at offering new justifications of the Rawlsian idea of public reason. Blain Neufeld has suggested that the ideal of political autonomy justifies public reason, while R.J. Leland and Han van Wietmarschen have sought to justify the idea by appealing to the value of political community. In this paper, I show that both proposals are vulnerable to a common problem. In realistic circumstances, they will often turn into reasons to oppose, rather than support, public reason. However, (...) this counterintuitive result can be avoided if we conceive of autonomy and community differently. (shrink)

Extending the work of Davidson and Worrell, we further investigate the stock market''s reaction to announced corporate illegalities. We examine a sample of 535 announcements of corporate crime and obtain an overall insignificant stock market reaction. However, when the sample is divided by type of crime, we find that the stock market reacts significantly to announcements of bribery, tax evasion, and violations of government contracts. We also find a significantly negative reaction to announcements of corporate crime when the company had (...) been previously accused of other illegal activity. For companies accused of crime in the 1970s, 51% of them were accused again in the 1980s. (shrink)

It seems odd that in such a densely theological text that Augustine would bring up something like the KK-thesis, which is so epistemological. Yet, as one progresses through the book it does begin to make sense. In this paper, I aim to try to come to some understanding of how and why Augustine uses something like the KK-thesis in Book 11 of The City of God. The paper will progress in the following way: First, I discuss Jaakko Hintikka's work on (...) the KK-thesis in order to have a clear idea of what the KK-thesis is, and some associated problems with it. Next, since Augustine most explicitly deals with the KK-thesis in De Trinitate, with the help of Gareth Matthews work, I discuss Augustine's use of the KK-thesis there. Finally, I return to The City of God, in order come to an understanding of Augustine's use of the KK-thesis there. (shrink)

According to John Rawls’s famous Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justifiable to all citizens. The currently dominant interpretation of what is justifiable to persons in this sense is an internalist one. On this view, what is justifiable to persons depends on their beliefs and commitments. In this paper I challenge this reading of Rawls’s principle, and instead suggest that it is most plausibly interpreted in externalist terms. On this alternative view, (...) what is justifiable to persons is not in any way dependent on, or relativized to, their beliefs and commitments. Instead, what is justifiable to all in the relevant sense is what all could accept as free and equal. I defend this reinterpretation of the view by showing how it is supported by Rawls’s account of the freedom and equality of persons. In addition, a considerable advantage of this suggestion is that it allows for an inclusive account of to whom the exercise of political power must be made justifiable. (shrink)

The contemporary debate on collective intentionality in analytic philosophy has lasted several decades, but questions concerning the nature of ‘we’ and the relation between the individual and the community are obviously far older. We can find a particularly rich discussion in early phenomenology. Indeed, while starting out with an interest in the individual mind, phenomenologists began their exploration of dyadic forms of interpersonal relations shortly before the start of World War I and were already deeply engaged in extensive analyses of (...) collective forms of intentionality a few years later. A distinctive feature of the phenomenological contribution was its exploration of the relation between the first- and second-person singular and the first-person plural perspectives. How are I, you, and we intertwined? The aim of this paper is to present some core insights from this early debate. (shrink)

Recently a lot has been written on the topic of value incomparability. While there is disagreement on how we are to understand incomparability, most seem to accept Ruth Chang's claim that all comparisons must proceed in some specific respect. Call this the Requirement for Specification. Interestingly, even though most seem to accept this requirement, next to nothing has been written on it. In this paper I focus on the requirement and discuss two different but related topics. First, an important observation (...) is made: as it turns out, the requirement plays an important explanatory role for the thesis that incomparability is to be understood in terms of vagueness. Second, I consider what is entailed by the Requirement for Specification. There is a general worry that the requirement entails that there is no such thing as goodness simpliciter. The line of thought is that if we always must specify in which way something is e.g., better than something else, then perhaps things cannot be better simpliciter. And if there is no such thing as betterness-simpliciter, then can there be such a thing as goodness simpliciter? Finally, I consider how an answer to this question affects the view that incomparability is vagueness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:January 25, 2012 (9:31 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3102\russell 31,2 064 red.wpd 1 See Russell’s exposure of this derogatory contraction of “Viet Nam Cong San” (“Vietnamese Communists”) in his War Crimes in Vietnam (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967), p. 45n. On the importance of language, cf. the legendary remark of Russell’s correspondent, Mohammad Ali: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.… No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” Russell attempted (...) to enlist Ali on behalf of the iwct (see the ra for their letters of 8 April, 18, 31 May, 11 Sept., 17 Oct., 15 Nov. and 16 Dec. 1967). russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 31 (winter 2011–12): 167–87 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 ibliographies, rchival nventories, ndexes A SECONDARY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL: LONDON, STOCKHOLM AND ROSKILDE Stefan Andersson [email protected] i.wintroduction T he International War Crimes Tribunal (iwct) on the United States’ warfare in Vietnam was founded in 1966 through the moral outrage of the British philosopher and political activist Bertrand Russell, his private secretary Ralph Schoenman, Ken Coates, Chris Farley and other people connected to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. They wanted to inform the world about the us government’s attempts to convince the Vietnamese population (who were mainly peasants) that capitalism is a better political-economical system than communism, by killing as many “Vietcong”1 and unarmed seniors, women and children as possible with regular carpet bombing, cluster and phosphorus bombs, napalm, Agent Orange and other illegal weaponry, and oTering the survivors pleasant lodgingsinwired-inhamlets far away from their homes and the graves of their ancestors. This charm oTensive went on for more than ten years, and although three times as many bombs fell on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as were dropped during the whole Second World War, surprisingly enough the Vietnamese were not to be converted. In the 1960s this macabre spectacle could be watched on television all over the world, but very few protested against it. Until 1968 the majority of American January 25, 2012 (9:31 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3102\russell 31,2 064 red.wpd 168 stefan andersson 2 See Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (New York, New American Library, 1968). He met up with Noam Chomsky, “a slim sharp-featured man with an ascetic expression, and an air of gentle but absolute moral integrity” (p. 180). Both were arrested and spent a night in prison together. 3 See Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS (New York: Random House, 1973), p. 348. See also Natalie Atkin, “From Margin to Mainstream: American Peace Movements, 1950s– 1970s”, in issue “Peace Movements in Western Europe, Japan and the usa since 1945”, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, no. 32 (2004): 175–92. 4 See May 1970: Birth of the Antiwar University (New York: PathWnder P., 1971). 5 The so-called “Chicago conspiracy trials” or “Chicago 7 trials” that followed, when sevendefendants—AbbieHoTman,JerryRubin,DavidDellinger,TomHayden,Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner—were charged with conspiracy and inciting to riot, showed that the us government was not going to tolerate such “unpatriotic” and “criminal ” behaviour. See James Tracy, Direct Action: Radical PaciWsm from the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven (Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1996), pp. 145–51. 6 See Mark Kurlansky, 1968: the Year That Rocked the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), and David Caute, 1968: the Year of the Barricades (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988), pp. 3, 7–8, 12z–13. 7 Fredrik Logevall, “De Gaulle, Neutralization, and American Involvement in Vietnam, 1963–1964”, PaciWc Historical Review 61 (1992): 69–102. citizens were for the war, although some earlier, well-attended rallies against it, like the 1967 march on the Pentagon in late October,2 might have made some think diTerently. sds (Students for a Democratic Society)3 and other antiwar organizations never became the united force that could challenge the government ’s reliance on what Nixon called the “silent majority”. It was not until the us attacked Cambodia... (shrink)

This thesis is an inquiry into the Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, formulated by John Rawls in his later writings. According to this principle, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justifiable to all citizens. This view can be interpreted in different ways, and I argue that the presently most popular way of doing so faces serious problems. The aim is to identify and defend a more plausible version of the principle, which overcomes these problems, and yet (...) preserves the most essential and appealing features of the approach. Among the most central issues for how to interpret the principle are how to understand the notion of justifiability to a person, and who should be included in the group of persons referred to as "all citizens". On the currently received view, only justifiability to those who count as "reasonable" matter, and justifiability to these persons is understood in non-moral terms, as being determined by what is accessible to them, given the beliefs that they happen to hold. I argue that we have good reasons to reject both of these suggestions. We should instead spell out justifiability to a person in terms of what could be reasonably accepted in a moral sense, which allows us to retain the appealing idea that legitimacy is dependent on justifiability to all citizens over whom political power is exercised. I further suggest that we can use the original position – Rawls’s version of the social contract – to determine what is justifiable to all in this sense. I defend this suggestion against the expected objection that it will not be able to take reasonable pluralism – the assumption of deep disagreement between citizens – into account, by explaining why we should sharply distinguish this principle of political legitimacy from the theory of Political Liberalism. This distinction also contributes to my response to the objection, raised against this principle, that it is self-defeating. That my suggested interpretation allows us to convincingly respond to this line of criticism is yet another reason as to why it is preferable to the standard view. (shrink)

Timothy Michael Fowler has argued that, as a consequence of their commitment to neutrality in regard to comprehensive doctrines, political liberals face a dilemma. In essence, the dilemma for political liberals is that either they have to give up their commitment to neutrality (which is an indispensible part of their view), or they have to allow harm to children. Fowler’s case for this dilemma depends on ascribing to political liberals a view which grants parents a great degree of freedom in (...) deciding on the education of their children. I show that ascribing this view to political liberals rests upon a misinterpretation of political liberalism. Since political liberals have access to reasons based upon the interests of children, they need not yield to parent’s wishes about the education of their children. A correct understanding of political liberalism thus shows that political liberals do not face the dilemma envisaged by Fowler. (shrink)

This paper considers the view that the basis of equality is the range property of being a moral person. This view, suggested by John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice (1971), is commonly dismissed in the literature. By defending the view against the criticism levelled against it, I aim to show that this dismissal has been too quick. The critics have generally failed to fully appreciate the fact that Rawls's account is restricted to the domain of distributive justice. On (...) Rawls's view distributive justice is a matter of the fair terms of cooperation among the participants of a system of social cooperation. I argue that this understanding of distributive justice can provide a compelling rationale for considering moral personality as the basis of equality for this domain of morality. That moral persons are indeed equal is further supported by an intuitive argument concerning the irrelevance of morally arbitrary factors, giving us reasons to believe that varying capacities among moral persons does not result in an unequal moral status. The dismissal of Rawls's account of equality has thus been premature, and it remains an important view to consider. (shrink)

John Rawls A Theory of Justice har haft ett monumentalt inflytande på den moderna politiska filosofin. Jag försöker här genom några nedslag i den nutida diskussionen förmedla en bild av detta inflytande, och av bokens fortsatta filosofiska relevans. Jag inleder med en kort presentation av huvuddragen i Rawls rättviseteori. Efter det går jag igenom, och bemöter, kritiken mot idealteori. Jag diskuterar sedan förhållandet mellan rättvisa och ekonomisk ojämlikhet, och förklarar varför teorin är radikalare än vad många kritiker insett. Slutligen går (...) jag igenom hur en kontraktsteori av detta slag kan hantera frågan om rättvisa mellan generationer. (shrink)

Dans son ouvrage majeur, le Kuzari, Juda Hallévi déploie une critique précise de la philosophie, au profit de la révélation du Sinaï. Nous entendons montrer que cette critique est liée à la situation historique des Juifs qui suscite la rédaction du Kuzari (I), qu’elle s’adresse à un type assignable de philosophie (II) à laquelle elle substitue l’histoire (III). Ce faisant, il ne s’agit absolument pas pour Juda Hallévi de renoncer à toute exigence rationnelle, mais de la satisfaire en la resituant (...) en son vrai lieu (IV). Cet examen permet d’éclairer, certes par le petit bout de la lorgnette, mais à travers une pensée qui occupe au Moyen Âge une position originale, une partie des enjeux qui traversent les rapports entre foi et raison dans la philosophie juive médiévale en terre d’Islam. (shrink)

We see two related, but not well linked, fields that together could help us better understand biodiversity and how it, over time, provides benefits to people. The affordances approach in environmental psychology offers a way to understand our perceptual appraisal of landscapes and biodiversity and, to some extent, intentional choice or behaviour, i.e. a way of relating the individual to the system s/he/it lives in. In the field of ecology, organism specific functional traits are similarly understood as the physiological and (...) behavioural characteristics of an organism that informs the way it interacts with its surroundings. Here, we review the often overlooked role of traits in the provisioning of ecosystem services as a potential bridge between affordance theory and applied systems ecology. We propose that many traits can be understood as the basis for the affordances offered by biodiversity, and that they offer a more fruitful way to discuss human-biodiversity relations than do the taxonomic information most often used. Moreover, as emerging transdisciplinary studies indicate, connecting affordances to functional traits allows us to ask questions about the temporal and two-way nature of affordances and perhaps most important, can serve as a starting point for more fully bridging the fields of ecology and environmental psychology with respect to how we understand human-biodiversity relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights between (...) parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 Reviews 185 A NORWEGIAN ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSELL ON WAR, PEACE AND PACIFISM Stefan Andersson Theology and Religious Studies / U. of Lund s223 62 Lund, Sweden [email protected] Øystein Hide, ed. Bertrand Russell om krig, fred og pasifisme [Bertrand Russell on war, peace and pacifism]. Oslo: Humanist Forlag, 2006. Pp. 261. isbn 8292622101. 268 Kroner. Paperbound. his is a selected anthology (...) of Russell’s writings and interviews on war, Tpeace and pacifism edited by the Norwegian Øystein Hide, who was born in 1975 and has the equivalent of a ma in philosophy from a Norwegian university. He did graduate work at the University of Southampton in 2001–04. He has worked at the Wittgenstein Archives in Bergen and at the University of Bergen. He has done research at the Bertrand Russell Archives1 and is a member of the Mind Association. He has translated Wittgenstein’s Zettel and Über Gewissheit into Norwegian and has done other philosophically relevant work in both Norwegian and English. Øystein Hide has supplied his anthology with an introduction that contains a number of minor factual mistakes that are a bit disturbing, but they do not overshadow his main message that Russell’s writings on war, peace and pacifism are still worth reading. He starts out by distinguishing between “the two Bertrand Russells”: the philosopher and what he calls “the political humanist”. Although Hide does not spend much energy on explaining exactly what he means by it, I find this a thought-provoking expression that to me suggests a secular humanist who is prepared to act on his convictions. He compares Russell to the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss, who also was a political activist and acted according to his deepest beliefs. Hide says about Russell: “For many people Russell has become the great philosopher who also actively contributed to the general political debate and who, in the capacity of being a philosopher, gave the lovers of peace a philosophical and intellectual alibi with which they could decorate their struggles” (p. 11). 1 Notably resulting in his article, “Wittgenstein’s Books at the Bertrand Russell Archives and the Influence of Scientific Literature on Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy”, Philosophical Investigations, 27 (Jan. 2004): 68–91. _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 186 Reviews Russell’s position as a philosopher and political activist in Norway is more or less the same as in the other Nordic countries, and although Hide’s book is Norwegian a lot of Swedes, Danes, Finns and Icelanders will be able to benefit from the collection. There is no mention, however, of Russell’s only trip to Norway (in 1948), which had a political purpose. Hide has divided his collection into two parts. The first part contains ten texts written between 1916 and 1920, and the second part contains five between 1950 and 1960. He does not say a lot about why he has included these texts and excluded others. These are the selections he offers: Part 1: “War as an Institution”, Chapter 3 from Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916) “Why the War Continues”, The UDC, 2 (10 Feb. 1917); in Papers 14 “National Service”, The Tribunal, 47 (15 Feb. 1917); Papers 14 “War and Individual Liberty”, The Tribunal, 50 (8 March 1917); Papers 14 “Pacifism and Revolution”, The Tribunal, 67 (19 July 1917); Papers 14 “The International Outlook”, The Pioneer, 347 (10 Nov. 1917); Papers 14 “Draft of Defence” (for Russell’s 1918 trial); Papers 14 “Government and Law”, Chapter 5 from Roads to Freedom (1918) “The World as It Could be Made”, Chapter 8 from Roads to Freedom (1918) “Bolshevik Criticism of Democracy”, Chapter 3 of Part 2 of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920) Part 2: “Politically Important Desires”, Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954); Nobel Prize speech, 1950 How Near Is War? (London: Fleet Street Forum, 1952); interview “Man’s Peril”, The Listener, 52 (30 Dec. 1954); Papers 28 “The Road to Peace”, The Bomb: Challenge and Answer (London: Batsford, 1955); Papers 28 “War and Pacifism”, Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960... (shrink)

In this paper, I carry out an analysis of an event in Sweden called ‘the spring turnout’. It is a traditional event where cows are allowed out into the fields after the winter. I show how it has been colonized by Arla Foods, the diary company which controls part of the milk production in Sweden and in many other countries. Of interest in this analysis is how Arla infuses the event, and its own marketing, with discourses about nature that are (...) specifically Swedish and can be traced to the nation building of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, used systematically as part of the social democratic project for equality and progress through a strong welfare system. The paper examines how Arla recontextualizes these discourses for commercial purposes. I show how such recontextualized discourses carry reassurances to Swedish people that this project is still intact despite huge social political changes in Swede over the past decades embracing neoliberalism, global capitalism and becoming one of the fastest deregulating countries in the world. (shrink)

Before, during, and after the global financial crisis of 2008, executive pay practices were widely debated and criticized. Economists, philosophers, as well as the man on the street all seem to have strong feelings towards how much, in what ways, and on what grounds executives are paid. This thesis asks whether it is possible to morally justify current executive pay practices and, if so, on what grounds they are justified. It questions those who find no quarrel with pay practices due (...) to their minimally moralized view of the market and – perhaps more importantly – it asks for a sophisticated critique from those who criticize current pay practices. The discussion on just pay is clearly one of distributive justice. One reason for why some people consider CEO pay practices to be (fairly) unproblematic while others find them objectionable stems from the availability of different understandings of, and principles for, just pay. We tend to associate justice in pay with such things as proper incentivization, being the outcome of a fair procedure, being deserved on the basis of effort or contribution, and/or satisfying the ideal of equality. Parts of this thesis are devoted to these different understandings and what they entail for the moral justification of CEO pay. Another reason for the conflicting views on CEO pay stems from how issues of justice go beyond the confines of economics and applied ethics, extending all the way into the domain of political philosophy. Parts of this thesis explore this connection, in particular how the concept of economic desert relates to the broader concept of moral desert. Lastly, I discuss the criticism that the superrich (including executives) are being paid too much and are in possession of too much wealth. The issue at hand here is how to morally justify the interventions that seem suitable to rectify the situation. (shrink)

This article contributes to the current debate on human embryonic stem cell researchers’ possible complicity in the destruction of human embryos and the relevance of such complicity for the issue of commodification of human embryos. I will discuss if, and to what extent, researchers who destroy human embryos, and researchers who merely use human embryos destroyed by others, have moral use rights, and/or moral property rights, in these embryos. I argue that the moral status of the human embryo, however justified, (...) places few restrictions on the latter researchers’ use of it, and property rights in it, once it is destroyed. I argue that the former researchers have no property rights in the destroyed embryo but use rights in it to the extent allowed by the legitimate owners of the destroyed embryo. I discuss the implications of this account for previous and current US federal law regulating human embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

The Will Theory of Rights has commonly been criticized for excluding from the class of rights bearers all subjects who are incapable of agency. The Interest Theory of Rights faces the challenge of avoiding undue proliferation of the class of rights bearers. I advance a novel argument for a specific demarcation of the class of rights bearers. I then argue that this demarcation implies that the function of the moral rights of subjects incapable of exercising agency is to protect them (...) from being treated with illegitimate disregard in a certain sense. I advance reasons for holding that this theory is neither a Will Theory nor an Interest Theory, or a combination of these theories. The proposed account is significant also if it is interpreted as a version of the Interest Theory. It brings significant benefits in the form of cohesiveness, simplicity, and intuitive appeal. (shrink)