The potential use, relevance, and application of AI and other technologies in the democratic process may be obvious to some. However, technological innovation and, even, its consideration may face an intuitive push-back in the form of algorithm aversion (Dietvorst et al. J Exp Psychol 144(1):114–126, 2015). In this paper, I confront this intuition and suggest that a more ‘extreme’ form of technological change in the democratic process does not necessarily result in a worse outcome in terms of the fundamental concepts (...) of democracy and the Rule of Law. To provoke further consideration and illustrate that initial intuitions regarding democratic innovation may not always be accurate, I pose and explore four ways that AI and other forms of technology could be used to augment the representative democratic process. The augmentations range from voting online to the wholesale replacement of the legislature’s human representatives with algorithms. After first noting the intuition that less invasive forms of augmented democracy may be less objectionable than more extreme forms, I go on to critically assess whether the augmentation of existing systems satisfies or enhances ideas associated with democracy and the Rule of Law (provided by Dahl and Fuller). By imagining a (not too far-fetched) future in a (not too far-removed) democratic society, my conclusion is that, when it comes to democracy and the Rule of Law, intuitions regarding technology may lead us astray. (shrink)

"Judges should interpret the law, not make it." Nearly everyone assents to this proposition , so why is there controversy? In this essay I examine three grounds or sources of disagreement. First, the concept of interpretation is unclear. Second, there is uncertainty about whether legal interpretation raises special interpretive problems. Third, there is an implicit assumption among legal theorists that constitutional interpretation is a specially problematic kind of legal interpretation. My goal is to clarify these and other misconceptions. In Chapter (...) 2 I connect normative theories of adjudication to the concept of interpretation. In Chapters 3 and 4 I develop a conception of interpretation that explains how constitutional interpretation is possible and why it is necessary, thus refuting proponents of the invention and discovery models of adjudication. In Chapters 5 and 6 I develop theories of expression meaning and constitutional interpretation, respectively. Chapters 7 and 8 are critical analyses of the interpretive theories of H. L. A. Hart, Lon L. Fuller, and Ronald Dworkin. (shrink)

The ethical theories employed in health care today assume, in the main, a modern Western philosophical framework. Yet the diversity of cultural and religious assumptions regarding human nature, health and illness, life and death, and the status of the individual suggest that a cross-cultural study of health care ethics is needed. A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics provides this study. It shows that ethical questions can be resolved by examining the ethical principles present in each culture, critically assessing each (...) value, and identifying common values found within all traditions, It encourages the development of global awareness and sensitivity to and respect for the diversity of peoples and their values and will advance understanding as well as help to foster a greater balance and a fuller truth in consideration of the human condition and what makes for health and wholeness. (shrink)

The most important and exciting recent development in the philosophy of science is its merging with the sociology of scientific knowledge. Here is the first text book to make this development available.

Research in Science and Technology Studies (STS) tends to presume that intellectual and political radicalism go hand in hand. One would therefore expect that the most intellectually radical movement in the field relates critically to its social conditions. However, this is not the case, as demonstrated by the trajectory of the Parisian School of STS spearheaded by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. Their position, "actor-network theory," turns out to be little more than a strategic adaptation to the democratization of expertise (...) and the decline of the strong nation-state in France over the past 25 years. This article provides a prehistory of this client-driven, contract-based research culture in U.S. sociology of the 1960s, followed by specific features of French philosophical and political culture that have bred the distinctive tenets of actor-network theory. Insofar as actor-network theory has become the main paradigm for contemporary STS research, it reflects a field that dodges normative commitments in order to maintain a user-friendly presence. (shrink)

This ground-breaking text offers a fresh perspective on the governance of science from the standpoint of social and political theory. Science has often been seen as the only institution that embodies the elusive democratic ideal of the 'open society'. Yet, science remains an elite activity that commands much more public trust than understanding, even though science has become increasingly entangled with larger political and economic issues.

The social psychology of science is a compelling new area of study whose shape is still emerging. This erudite and innovative book outlines a theoretical and methodological agenda for this new field, and bridges the gap between the individually focused aspects of psychology and the sociological elements of science studies. Presenting a side of social psychology that, until now, has received almost no attention in the social sciences literature, this volume offers the first detailed and comprehensive study of the social (...) psychology of science, complete with a large number of empirical and theoretical examples. The volume's introductory section provides a detailed analysis of how modern social psychology might apply to the study of science. Chapters show how to analyze science in terms of social cognition, attribution theory, attitudes and attitude change, social motivation, social influence and social conformity, and intergroup relations, weaving extensive illustrations from the science studies literature into the theoretical analysis. The nature and role of experimentation are discussed, as are metaanalytic methods for summarizing the results of multiple studies. Ways to facilitate the generalization of causal inferences from experimental work are also examined. The book focuses on such topics as interactions among small groups of scientists, and the impact of social motivation, influence, and conformity on scientific work. Also covered are scientists' responses to ethical issues in research, differences in cognitive style distribution, creativity in research and development, and the sociologists's view of the social psychology of science and technology. In addition, the book provides two annotated bibliographies, one on the philosophy of science and the other on social psychology, to guide readers in both disciplines to salient recent works. Valuable to the entire science studies community, this text will be of special interest to philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and historians of science interested in the nature of knowledge development in science. Because of its novel application of social psychological theories and methods, this book will be useful as a primary text or a secondary text in courses on science studies in psychology, sociology, or philosophy departments. (shrink)

John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is among the most important books in philosophy ever written. It is a difficult work dealing with many themes, including the origin of ideas; the extent and limits of human knowledge; the philosophy of perception; and religion and morality. This volume focuses on the last two topics and provides a clear and insightful survey of these overlooked aspects of Locke's best-known work. Four eminent Locke scholars present authoritative discussions of Locke's view on the ethics (...) of belief, personal identity, free will and moral theory. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary Barthes addresses the enduring stimulus that Barthes offers to intellectually adventurous work across the human sciences. It contextualises his creative engagements with ethnology, historiography, philosophy, ethics, music, photography, and literature, and traces the distinctive ways which he unsettled disciplinary boundaries.

It is often said that human rights are the rights that people possess simply in virtue of being human – that is, in virtue of their intrinsic, dignity-defining common humanity. Yet, on closer inspection the human rights landscape doesn’t look so even. Once we bring perpetrators of human rights abuse and their victims into the picture, attributions of humanity to persons become unstable. In this essay, I trace the ways in which rights discourse ascribes variable humanity to certain categories of (...) people. I set the stage for my discussion of the human in relation to human rights by examining John Locke’s account of the justification for punishment. For Locke, in committing a crime one abrogates one’s humanity and forfeits one’s rights. Likewise, I argue, human rights discourse takes a scalar view of humanity. I consider victims of genocide who are dehumanized as helpless and passive, victims of state persecution who are super-humanized as righteously agentic, and perpetrators of genocide who are dehumanized as out-of-control beasts. In each case I use relevant testimony to argue that the scalar view of humanity is factually incorrect and morally deplorable. For genocide victims, I discuss testimony that Selma Leydesdorff gathered from women who survived the Srebrenica massacre. For a victim of persecution, I discuss Liao Yiwu’s memoire of his detention and imprisonment in China because of his artwork protesting the Tiananmen Square massacre. For perpetrators of genocide, I discuss testimony Jean Hatzfeld gathered from Hutu men who systematically murdered Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide. Finally, I apply my critique of dehumanized and super-humanized victims and dehumanized perpetrators to the problem of transnational trafficking in persons and argue that the view I advocate necessitates reforming immigration policy with respect to persons trafficked into forced labor. (shrink)

The possibility of extraction across awh-island is usually assumed to be dependent on whether or not the constituent in question can undergo “long” (i.e., nonlocal) Ā-movement across the island. However, the question of how to make a principled distinction between those elements which can violate locality and those which cannot is still rather controversial. I will propose that there are no well-formed locality violations in these cases, and that the grammaticality patterns observed derive from a semantic filter on the escape (...) hatch used to bypass the island. In other words, if a phrase is extracted across awh-island, it must adjoin to the island in order to get by. This adjunction site is restricted by the interpretive component: only traces which are interpreted as variables of typee can occur in this position, while higher-order variables are not allowed. This restriction is shown to capture the known facts aboutwh-island violations, as well as some less known phenomena, such as the absence of functional (and pair-list) readings acrosswh-islands. (shrink)

The integration of ideas, methods, and data from diverse disciplines has been a transformative force in science and higher education, attracting policy interventions, program innovations, financial resources, and talented people. Much energy has been invested in producing a new generation of scientists trained to work fluidly across disciplines, sectors, and research problems, yet the success of such investments has been difficult to measure. Using the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program of the U.S. National Science Foundation as a (...) strategic research site, we conducted an experiment to determine whether and how the process and products of research of IGERT-trained scientists differ from those of scientists trained in disciplinary graduate programs. Among scientists in the early years of graduate study we found substantial and consistent differences suggesting that interdisciplinary training improved the quality and process of research, but this pattern was equally strongly reversed among students in the latter years of graduate study. Using systematic observation and other data we suggest why this might be so, then discuss the implications of these results for the design and conduct of graduate education and research. (shrink)

Nietzsches Philosophie ist ein ausgezeichnetes Beispiel für die Produktivität des Dialogs zwischen Medizin und Philosophie. Diana Aurenque stellt die medizinischen Einflüsse in der Entstehung von Nietzsches moralkritischem Denken heraus. Ferner klärt sie die Bedeutung seiner medizinisch-philosophischen Moralkritik und erforscht die Rezeption und Aktualität von Nietzsches moralkritischem Denken in Fragestellungen und Debatten der heutigen Medizinethik.

ABSTRACT Massimo Dell’Utri proposes the idea of an ‘epistemological compass’, which he alleges provides a common intuitive sense of objectivity, the existence of which defenders of ‘post-truth’ positions would perversely try to deny. I argue that Dell’Utri’s choice of a compass – metaphorical or otherwise – is unfortunate because it is a device that presupposes that what appears plain to the senses is directed by hidden forces emanating from distant sources, such as the stars. More generally, the post-truth condition is (...) not about the denial of facts as ordinarily understood. Rather, it is about the denial of a privileged context in terms of which the significance of the facts should be understood. In Dell’Utri’s terms, it implies a plurality of epistemological compasses, which in turn undermines the effectiveness of the metaphor. I have described this situation as a struggle over ‘the name of the game’. In terms of philosophical logic, it is about which metalanguage provides the semantics for expressions in the object language the people try to deploy to their advantage. (shrink)

Johanna Burgess; Value in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 8, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 7–29, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1974.tb.

Malls have become social magnets for people of all social strata, young included, and, in this guise, they apparently emulate churches in their function of ritually congregating people at weekends or on Sundays. In the following we shall endeavour to read the city malls (in Transylvania) from a Cultural Studies perspective with the goal of showing that they function as cultural loci for youth congregation, as well as powerful agencies of identity construction. We aim to prove that through their ritual (...) presence in malls and their consumption and reassignment of meaning to mall space (teens make special use of mall space quite often contrary to, or at least different from, the original intentions) adolescents perform and display self-identities. The underlying assumption is that consumption is symbolic and that teens in malls consume signs and meanings rather than just commodities. During the process, there occurs a construction of sorts, that of self- or group identities, for this is an era where young people increasingly define themselves through what they consume, be it commodities or signs. Our concern is with how malls are appropriated by teenagers, and how through the ritualistic pursuit of leisure and pleasure therein Romanian teens consecrate the function of malls of symbolising a specific world view, a system of beliefs, and a set of attitudes, very much like religion does. Thus, while primarily secular temples (now a commonplace syntagm for malls), malls may be said to epitomize the sacred symbols of young people today1 although, at face value, they seem to tend to mundane rather than spiritual needs. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Friendship and happiness are intimately connected. According to a recent account provided in Leibowitz (2018) friendship contributes to happiness because friends value each other and communicate this valuation to each other, which increases their self-worth, and this in turn increases their happiness. In this paper I argue that Leibowitz’s account of how friendship contributes to happiness is mistaken. I first present Leibowitz’s view, and then argue against it. I have two main worries with his account. One worry is that increase (...) in self-worth is not characteristic of friendship and hence it is problematic to use it for explaining the connection between friendship and happiness. The other worry is that the distinctive way in which increase in self-worth contributes to happiness seems to be in an important way different from the distinctive way in which friendship contributes to happiness. Finally, I point to what I take to be the right direction in explaining the connection between friendship and happiness. (shrink)

The article offers a theoretical analysis of the incorrect overlapping of the terms competence and value, value and belief, the confusion in using the terms value and value orientation and, as a result, the definitions of the concepts value and value orientation are proposed. The study aims to determine the dynamic and specifics of value manifestation in contemporary adolescents and young people in pre-pandemic and pandemic situations. The main part of the article is dedicated to the presentation of obtained experimental (...) data research received by four instruments used to get the most complex data regarding values and value orientations held by subjects. The focus of this article is on specificity of values held/maintained by contemporary adolescents and young people, relationship between terminal and instrumental values, significance of value differences in adolescents and young people, the changes that occurred in the value orientations during the pandemic period. (shrink)

El espíritu científico del siglo XVII, inclinado a demostrar la verdadmore geométrico y a sostener el ideal de un conocimiento seguro que dé cuenta de la totalidad de lo real partiendo de principios evidentes, influye de manera deteminante sobre la justificación racional de las condiciones más adecuadas para la ordenación de la vida en sociedad. En esta línea se inscribe el ambicioso proyecto de Tomas Hobbes, al postular una filosofía práctica demostrativa capaz de articular definitivamente la naturaleza humana el "estado (...) natural" de la sociedad y el ideal de un orden jurídico-normativo cuya expresión máxima, el Estado como ente de razón, asume la forma de un "cuerpo artificial" construido técrucamente por los hombres. La contrastación con el pensamiento de Aristóteles, permite ver que con Hobbes no sólo nos encontramos frente auna original teoría del poder, sino ante la manifestación naciente de un movimiento cultural, filosófico, científico y político, cuyos efectos de sentido nos son hoy contemporáneos. (shrink)

En la década de 1960, en Nicaragua, la revista Ventana, dirigida por los jóvenes universitarios, Sergio Ramírez y Fernando Gordillo, se constituyó en una caja de resonancia política y literaria. Confluyeron en ella el debate político y el reclamo de libertad y de autonomía, en el contexto de la dictadura con una apuesta literaria amplia y cosmopolita. Se dieron cita allí una multiplicidad de autores y textos literarios procedentes de diversas lenguas y culturas.

The contemporary American political landscape is littered with talk of apology. Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign, both camps sparred over when, why, and to whom apologies should be made. The most striking clash occurred in July 2012. The Obama camp ran a series of campaign advertisements alleging that the then presumptive Republican nominee had in fact remained at Bain Capitol in a leadership role longer than he had claimed, bolstering their characterization of Romney as a businessman whose business was not (...) good for America.1 When Romney’s aide failed to quiet the critique by claiming that the candidate had “retired retroactively” (DeLong 2012), Romney himself took to the airwaves to speak to the .. (shrink)

The classical conception of academic freedom associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt and the rise of the modern university has a quite specific cultural foundation that centres on the controversial mental faculty of 'judgement'. This article traces the roots of 'judgement' back to the Protestant Reformation, through its heyday as the signature feature of German idealism, and to its gradual loss of salience as both a philosophical and a psychological concept. This trajectory has been accompanied by a general shrinking in the (...) scope of academic freedom from the promulgation of world-views to the offering of expert opinion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Then Artemis Said DIANA LUEPTOW Then Artemis said, because our mother found no home but an island dragging anchor, a safe child will never be delivered. arion 26.3 winter 2019...