The small sample properties of estimators and tests are frequently too complex to be useful or are unknown. Much econometric theory is therefore developed for very large or asymptotic samples where it is assumed that the behaviour of estimators and tests will adequately represent their properties in small samples. Refined asymptotic methods adopt an intermediate position by providing improved approximations to small sample behaviour using asymptotic expansions. Dedicated to the memory of Michael Magdalinos, whose work is a major contribution to (...) this area, this book contains chapters directly concerned with refined asymptotic methods. In addition, there are chapters focusing on new asymptotic results; the exploration through simulation of the small sample behaviour of estimators and tests in panel data models; and improvements in methodology. With contributions from leading econometricians, this collection will be essential reading for researchers and graduate students concerned with the use of asymptotic methods in econometric analysis. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the role an ethic of care might play in constructing a normative model of ethical practice for journalism. How would practice be changed if the goal of journalism shifted from the traditional epistemological understanding to an ontological-ethical orientation? What would it mean for journalism to think of itself as an institution committed to aiding in the construction of a community defined by the solidarity of its citizens with one another?

What does unethical behavior look like in everyday professional practice, and how might it become the accepted norm? Examinations of unethical behavior often focus on failures of individual morality or on psychological blind spots, yet unethical behaviors are generated and performed through social interactions across professional practices rather than by individual actors alone. This shifts the focus of behavioral ethics research beyond the laboratory exploring motivation and cognition and into the organizations and professions where unethical behavior is motivated, justified, enabled (...) and supported in specific social contexts. For instance, when pharmaceutical firms fund academic research, how do the funding arrangements intersect with individual behaviors that are typical in academic research? In turn, how do academic-industry interactions affect scientific norms, particularly those involving compliance with rules, regulations, and ethical codes of conduct? A social organization approach to ethics allows us not only to examine ethics in practice, but also to tease apart unethical behaviors that might operate on an unreflective level and become accepted as “just the way it is.”. (shrink)

Hegel and Empire: From Postcolonialism to Globalism. By Habib M.A.R.

What comes after "postmodernism"?

In 1931, in the remarks collected as Culture and Value, Wittgenstein writes: ‘A thinker is very much like a draughtsman whose aim it is to represent all the interrelations between things.’ At a glance it is clear that this analogy might contribute significantly to a full description of the autobiographical thinker as well. And this conjunction of relations between things and the work of the draughtsman immediately and strongly suggests that the grasping of relations is in a sense visual, or (...) that networks or constellations of relations are the kinds of things brought into focus by seeing in the right way. (shrink)

The distinguishing feature of enactivist cognitive science is arguably its commitment to non-reductionism and its philosophical allegiance to first-person approaches, like phenomenology. The guiding theme of this article is that a theoretically mature enactivism is bound to be humanistic in its articulation, and only by becoming more humanistic can enactivism more fully embody the non-reductionist spirit that lay at its foundation. Our explanatory task is thus to bring forth such an articulation by advancing an enactivist theory of human personality. To (...) this end, we synthesize core concepts from cognitive science, personality theory, and phenomenological philosophy in order to develop an Enactivist Big-5 Theory of personality. According to EB5T, personality traits are dispositional tendencies for how we come to optimally grip our distinctly human worlds. Individual differences in personality are therefore reflective of stylistic differences in optimal gripping tendencies between human beings. EB5T affords a non-reductionist understanding of the immanent teleology of the autopoietically embodied human mind as a kind of full-scale optimal gripping process that is achieved along five major dimensions of personality. To the degree that these dimensions are universal, therefore, we argue that our theory offers a viable path forward in advancing enactivist cognitive science beyond the life of a cell and into the mind of a person, a longstanding hope and ambition held by proponents of the enactive approach. (shrink)

Toward the end of the twentieth century, Highland Maya intellectuals and activists in Guatemala began to argue for the recognition of indigenous customary law, rooted in traditional Maya moral and ritual discourse. Such law is often in tension with the Western notion of rights that undergirds national and international treatises regarding indigenous peoples. This essay identifies three distinct but mutually engaged pairs of moral concepts—hot/cold, left/right, and favorable/not favorable—articulated through K'iche' Maya quotidian and ceremonial practices and speech. It also identifies (...) the extent to which they do not necessarily align with Western notions of good and bad. These three pairs of moral terms, specifically as conserved through the high-register of Maya discourse used by traditional ceremonial specialists, illustrate a normative means by which Highland Maya discern understandings of justice, and ground their advocacy for restorative justice. (shrink)

This paper considers what it is about violent video games that leads one reasonably minded person to declare “That is immoral” while another denies it. Three interpretations of video game content are discussed: reductionist, narrow, and broad. It is argued that a broad interpretation is required for a moral objection to be justified. It is further argued that understanding the meaning of moral utterances—like “x is immoral”—is important to an understanding of why there is a lack of moral consensus when (...) it comes to the content of violent video games. Constructive ecumenical expressivism is presented as a means of explaining what it is that we are doing when we make moral pronouncements and why, when it comes to video game content, differing moral attitudes abound. Constructive ecumenical expressivism is also presented as a means of illuminating what would be required for moral consensus to be achieved. (shrink)

In this paper, I support a hybrid form of expressivism called constructive ecumenical expressivism (CEE) which I have previously used (to attempt) to resolve the gamer’s dilemma. (Young, 2016. Resolving the gamer’s dilemma. London: Palgrave Macmillan.) In support of CEE, I argue that the various other attempts at either resolving, dissolving or resisting the dilemma are consistent with CEE’s moral framework. That is, with its way of explaining what a claim to morality is, with how moral norms are established, with (...) the role intuition is able to play in establishing these norms, and therefore with how the gamer’s dilemma can be resolved. I also demonstrate, more broadly, how CEE advocates robust relativism as a means of justifying the constructed moral norm’s normative credentials, and therefore how one society’s norm can be judged morally superior to another’s. (shrink)

Jeffrey Alexander argues that despite Bourdieu’s considerable achievements ultimately his work is reductionist and determinist. He further argues that though Bourdieu is a middle range theorist he is implicitly realist in his meta-theoretical assumptions. This article accepts these conclusions but argues that Bourdieu’s meta-theoretical realism is a virtue rather than a vice and that the manner in which he is a reductionist and determinist necessitate a re-thinking of what is meant by these notions. Alexander uses Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to (...) demon-strate a fundamental contradiction in Bourdieu’s theorising. According to him habitus presents us with the oxymoron of unconscious strategisation. This article uses a discussion of habitus in order to demonstrate that in its relationship with the concept of field it instead produces a practical resolution of long standing theoretical problems concerning structural determination and human agency. It is also argued that these problems are resolved at the meta-theoretical level in the form of critical realist ontology and that it is Alexander’s misunderstandings on this level which cause him to fail to appreciate the significance of Bourdieu’s achievements. (shrink)

Normative dualism between descriptions of the mental and the physical is still a problem for many philosophers that provokes more and more attempts to justify it, or, on the contrary, to overcome it by means of reduction. The problem of a special normative status of mental states is usually considered in isolation from the concept of truth. Moreover, the definition of truth is often construed only as a part of the problem of normativity: in this case, truth is only a (...) kind of norm, for example, a goal of scientific research. Donald Davidson, however, believed that truth is not the norm and that, on the contrary, norms are possible only through the use of the primitive and original concept of truth already available to us. In this paper, we propose that if one develops an idea of such a conceptual dependence between truth and norms in a certain way, then it will become possible to solve the problem of a normative gap between our descriptions of the mental and the physical. In other words, if the assimilation of the concept of truth precedes the learning of norms pertaining to the mental and the physical, then the solution for the problem of the gap between these norms can be directly related to conditions and differences in the use of the notion of truth. (shrink)

This article concerns the related ideas of "presentation" and "representation" with regard to animals and suggests that the prefix "re" indicates a directing agent with its own concerns about the nature and status of animal presence. It further suggests that the representation of animals is perhaps always an expression of human concerns, desires, and imaginings. As with other domesticated nonhuman animals, foxhounds are not present in the world to fulfill their own purposes but there to fulfill these human desires and (...) imaginings and are celebrated as the realization of a complex engagement of humans with the world of animals. The foxhound is central to English foxhunting and is given cultural meaning because of this context.The article offers a close anthropological interpretation of the production of this animal - a complex, cultural creation based on a canine form. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a version of the principle of alternate possibilities which is not susceptible to the Frankfurt-style counter-example. I argue that PAP does not need to be endorsed as a necessary condition for moral responsibility and, in fact, presenting PAP as a sufficient condition maintains its usefulness as a maxim for moral accountability whilst avoiding Frankfurt-style counter-examples. In addition, I provide a further sufficient condition for moral responsibility – the twin world condition – and (...) argue that this provides a means of justifying why the protagonist in Frankfurt-style scenarios is still felt to be morally responsible. I conclude with the claim that neither the amended PAP nor the twin world condition is necessary for the ascription of moral responsibility; rather, what is necessary is simply that one of these conditions is satisfied. (shrink)

The article considers pros and cons for a theoretic-measurement analogy, proposed by some philosophers as an illustration of semantic indeterminacy. Within this analogy ascribing of meanings to a certain linguistic expressions is compared with attribution of numbers according to a certain theory of measurement. Donald Davidson used this analogy in order to extend W.V.O. Quine's thesis of indeterminacy of translation to the interpretation of all human behavior. In other words, not only linguistic meanings, but all mental states are considered as (...) indeterminate. The article explains the failure of some counter-arguments put forward against Davidson's use of this analogy and against the thesis of indeterminacy on the whole. Particularly, instrumentalist version of the analogy is rejected for there is no direct relation between indeterminacy and underdetermination of theories by empirical evidences. The article concludes that the semantic indeterminacy is largely based on indeterminacy of rationality. (shrink)

David Horner has recently offered a medieval argument for an Anglophilic pronunciation of the name of St. Augustine. I claim his disputatious account fails, both on an account of interlinguistic phonological equivalence, and on a Kripkean-style rigid-designator theory of reference. It turns out, surprisingly, that Floridians are closer to the truth about the correct pronunciation of the medieval saint’s name than are Englishmen.

Preface: A different kind of meditation -- Part I: Introductory -- A polemical clearing of the ground : Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins' lack of scruple : the unimpressive face of atheism -- Why we need to rethink religion -- Part II: The outside -- Shifting focus from the "outsider" to the "outside" -- Thought from the outside : Lawrence, Levinas and Derrida : at the firing line and into the unknown -- Thought from the outside : Abraham and Isaac : (...) hospitality, the messianic turn and the religious suspension of the ethical -- Balancing as we go : slave or noble, Abrahamic or Hellenic? -- Conclusion : "Driv[ing] on to the edge of the unknown and beyond". (shrink)

This paper is premised on the idea that cyberspace permits the user a degree of somatic flexibility?a means of transcending the physical body but not, importantly, embodiment. Set within a framework of progressive embodiment (the assumption that individuals seek to exploit somatic flexibility so as to extend the boundaries of their own embodiment?what we call the supermorphic persona), we examine the manner of this progression. Specifically, to what extent do components of embodiment?the self-as-object, the phenomenal self, and the body-schema?find authentic (...) expression within cyberspace? In addition, we also consider ways in which the issue of authenticity might impact on the psychological well being of the individual who seeks to transcend domains and present their supermorphic persona on- and offline. (shrink)

Pigs can't fly. Any person buying a pig should understand this – it would be absurd to be upset that they can't fly or play poker. But pigs are amazing creatures and can do many interesting and useful things.

This book examines what, if anything, makes a depiction of fictional immorality—such as the murder, torture, or sexual assault of a fictional character—an example of immoral fiction, and therefore something that should be morally criticized and possibly prohibited.

This paper revisits the controversy surrounding Bhaskar's ‘spiritualisation’ of critical realism, formally introduced with the publication of From East to West. It describes the principal divisions amongst realists with respect to the five moments of CR theoretical development signified by Bhaskar in terms of his own publications. The article critiques some of his later arguments, such as that for reincarnation; but it also locates and identifies a much earlier error as being consistent with, and fundamental to, the later ideas that (...) so many realists had problems with. The principal error is to be found in the concept of ontological truth. (shrink)

A nonexistent possible is a particular concrete object which exists in some possible world but doesn't exist in the actual world. A definite description may be said to individuate a nonexistent possible if just one possible object satisfies the condition specified by that description, and this possible object doesn't exist in the actual world. Given a plausible form of mereological essentialism, certain mereological and causal descriptions which determine a thing's composition individuate nonexistent possible hunks of matter which are mereological or (...) causal products of actual objects. Other sorts of descriptions such as 'the possible fat man in that doorway' and ones associated with typical fictional, imaginary, and mythical things do not individuate a nonexistent possible, and it is problematical whether we can individuate a nonexistent possible which is disjoint, viz., one which is not a mereological or causal product of actual objects. (shrink)