ABSTRACT:Microfinance is often assumed to be an ethically progressive industry, but in recent years it has been the target of much ethical criticism. Microfinance institutions have been accused of using exploitative lending techniques and charging usurious interest rates; and critics even question the ability of microfinance to alleviate poverty. This article reviews recent research on the microfinance sector that addresses these ethical issues. We show how this research is relevant to a number of theoretical issues, such as how to define (...) poverty, how to understand exploitation, and how to balance financial and social goals in commercial organizations. We conclude by identifying a critical agenda for future research. (shrink)

Discussion on financial ethics increasingly includes the problem of exclusion of the poorer segments of society from the financial system and access to credit. This paper explores the ethical dimensions surrounding the concept of a human right to credit. If access to credit is directly instrumental to economic development, poverty reduction and the improved welfare of all citizens, then one can proclaim, as Nobel Prize Laureate M. Yunus has done, that it is a moral necessity to establish credit as a (...) right. Arguments both supporting and opposing the concept of a right to credit are presented. While there may be general agreement that access to financial services may provide a pathway out of poverty, granting a universal right could induce perverse effects such as overindebtedness. Bearing in mind the ultimate goal of proponents of this right as well as the potential harmful consequences, this paper offers a new perspective on the question of access to credit based on a goal-right system. (shrink)

This paper addresses the fairness of microcredit interest rates. Since microfinance institutions provide credit for the poor at relatively high prices, the fairness of their interest rates has been repeatedly debated. We first apply Rawls' principles of justice to the case of microcredit interest rates and suggest some limitations related to the hypothesis of rationality of the borrowers and the level of inequality. We then suggest another framework based on the analysis of the distribution of the benefits generated by the (...) transaction to assess the fairness of interest rates. We conceptualize this as the distribution of the bargaining range between the borrowers' and the institutions' reservation price and discuss what these reservation prices could be in the context of microfinance. (shrink)

According to The Consensus Gentium Argument from the premise: “Everyone believes that God exists” one can conclude that God does exist. In my paper I analyze two ways of defending the claim that somebody’s belief in God is a prima facie reason to believe. Kelly takes the fact of the commonness of the belief in God as a datum to explain and argues that the best explanation has to indicate the truthfulness of the theistic belief. Trinkaus Zagzebski grounds her defence (...) on rationality of epistemic trust in others. In the paper I argue that the second line of reasoning is more promising and I propose its improved version. (shrink)

Author: Pepliński Marek Title: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ’S ANALYSIS OF MEANING OF “HAPPINESS” (Władysława Tatarkiewicza analiza terminu „szczęście”) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 633-674 Keywords: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ, PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF HAPPINESS, EMOTION, PLEASURE, EUDAIMONIA Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: marek[DOT]peplinski[AT]univ[DOT]gda[DOT]pl www:Władysław Tatarkiewicz work on philosophical and moral psychology, particularly on theory of happiness is still example of the best kind of analytical and close to phenomenological analysis of (...) our speaking and thinking about the topics in question. He distinguishes four main different meanings of Polish word ‘szczęście’ and present a new classification of them based on two principles: the opposition of subjective and objective and between ordinary and philosophical language. Accordingly we can speak about luck, positive psychological states like different kinds of good emotions or feelings and pleasure, Greek eudaimonia and specifically philosophical, a very correct concept of happiness as a rationally justified deep and comprehensive satisfaction of one’s life taken in its wholeness. In this paper I present critically his classification and argue that subjective meanings are always related to objective concepts. (shrink)

W książce Źródło i noc. Wprowadzenie do współczesnego absconditeizmu (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM 2020) Miłosz Hołda wnikliwie przedstawia poruszaną problematykę i proponuje ciekawe rozwiązania. Stanowiąc ambitną próbę wypracowania oryginalnego stanowiska w ważnym obszarze myśli chrześcijańskiej, publikacja domaga się krytycznej refleksji i uwypuklenia istotnych problemów, co jest celem niniejszego tekstu. Chodzi zwłaszcza o dwie kwestie o kluczowym znaczeniu dla teizmu: (nie)działanie Boga w świecie oraz godzenie „Boga filozofii” z „Bogiem objawienia”. W pierwszym z wymienionych zagadnień podstawowym problemem jest (częściowo) niewłaściwe podejście do (...) przyrodniczego obrazu świata oraz do filozofii nauki i teologii nauki. W drugim obszarze głównym mankamentem analiz Hołdy jest rozbieżność między manifestowanym poparciem dla teizmu klasycznego a brakiem krytycznego spojrzenia na te jego elementy, które utrudniają, w niektórych zaś aspektach uniemożliwiają, wyrażenie istotnych treści judeochrześcijańskiego objawienia. Zawarte w artykule uwagi nie obalają w całości głównych tez stawianych przez Hołdę, lecz prowadzą do ich modyfikacji, dowartościowującej przyrodniczy obraz świata. (shrink)

W świetle niektórych tez, wywodu i argumentacji zawartych w najnowszej książce Jacka Wojtysiaka Między ukryciem a jawnością. Esej z filozofii religii i teologii filozoficznej (2023) w niniejszym artykule prezentuję ważne elementy chrześcijańskiej koncepcji aktu stwórczego i relacji Bóg-–świat oraz wynikających z tego konsekwencji dla wyrażania istotnych składników doktryny religijnej. Argumentuję, że nie jest możliwe stworzenie świata z (względną) autonomią oraz (względną) ludzką wolnością, w którym nie ma zła naturalnego i zła moralnego. W tym kontekście podkreślam wagę aspektowego i racjonalnego ujęcia (...) relacji Stwórca–stworzenie oraz znaczenie teorii kenozy, w której akt kreacji przedstawiany jest jako swoiste samoograniczenie Boga. (shrink)

The abstract Everyone who gets to know deeper with the Nietzsche philosophy is forced to think about a mutual relationship of a culture and a biology. The main problem to correct show of above relationships is the understanding of the meaning of a language with reference to the culture and the biology. Considerations which are represented here are inspired by the Nietzsche philosophy. They are split by three parts. In the first part there is shown the meaning of the language (...) to create the herd in the Nietzsche philosophy. The second part develops his qualification of the language as a shortening of communication. The final part tries to refer the functioning of the language to the sphere of a biological human being. As I think, only the biological perspective permits to overstep the rhetoric of the individualism expressed in the Nietzsche philosophy by the opposition among weak and strong, or else among a priest and a superman. Thanks to drawn consequence from accepted by Nietzsche of the reduction my to the animal sort we are forced to the reversal of the perspective of his thought. The herd is not a centre to create the superman as the aim of the all mankind, but the sense of the exceptionality of an each subject is a centre to a fixation of the reproduction of the genetic definite population. (shrink)

Dawkins’ Ballet in the Garden of Theology. A Critical Assessment of Richard Dawkins’ Epistemological Theses on Theistic Beliefs from the God Delusion. Part II My paper presents an analysis and assessment of Richard Dawkins’ assumption from his book The God Delusion that there are no reason against treating belief in God as a scientific hypothesis, because even if the God existence is not disprovable, we could and maybe should ask if His existence is probable or highly improbable. My first aim (...) is to examine Dawkins' argumentation against if he is aware multiple possible ways interpretation of the claim that religious belief in God, construed as the hypothesis that existence of Creator may be treated as a scientific kind of hypothesis. My second aim is to show a nature of relation between his scientific God-hypothesis and his criticism of Thomas Henry Huxley agnosticism. I maintain that the he can't treat his probabilistic account of theism/atheism controversy as a ground for possible evidence for his controversial claim, that scientific knowledge could solve the problem of God's existence. As the matter of facts , things are just the opposite. I argue for claim that his construal of belief in God in terms of probabilistic scientific hypothesis is normatively weak and he can't use it in argumentation against rationality of belief in God even if he would be succesfully show that God-hypothesis is very weak and improbable explanation of origins and complexity of life. (shrink)

For a complete Heyting lattice , we define a category Etale (). We show that the category Etale () is equivalent to the category of the sheaves over , Sh(), hence also with -valued sets, see [2], [1]. The category Etale() is a generalization of the category Etale (X), see [1], where X is a topological space.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Citation Information -- Introduction -- 1 Philosophy and Performance of Neoliberal Ideologies: History, Politics and Human Subjects -- 2 Neo-Liberal Education Policy and the Ideology of Choice -- 3 Varieties of Neo-Liberalism: a Foucaultian Perspective -- 4 The Labouring Sleepwalker: Evocation and Expression as Modes of Qualitative Educational Research -- 5 The Learning Society, the Unfinished Cosmopolitan, and Governing Education, Public Health and Crime Prevention at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century -- (...) 6 What Were You Thinking? A Deleuzian/Guattarian Analysis of Communication in the Mathematics Classroom -- 7 (Re)Visioning the Centre: Education Reform and the 'Ideal' Citizen of the Future -- 8 Biopolitical Utopianism in Educational Theory -- 9 A Place Pedagogy for 'Global Contemporaneity' -- 10 Antonio Gramsci and Feminism: The Elusive Nature of Power -- 11 Foucault, Educational Research and the Issue of Autonomy -- Index. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is very modest. First, we want to assess how different strategies of naturalization might deal with the need of using folk psychology in legal domain. Second, we want to check whether folk psychology is indeed indispensable in the legal domain. Third, we want to describe possible problems with one strategy of naturalization, i.e. radical naturalization with classical elimination. Our conclusion will be that despite various attempts, every project of naturalization of law will have to resolve (...) the tension between law and folk psychology and such resolution would not be achieved by simple reduction or elimination of folk psychology. A variety of non-standard solutions might be in place to resolve this tension. We will only outline those strategies here. (shrink)

The text focuses on a revision of the narrative about and status of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969), touted as a ground-breaking publication which heralded a historic turning point in the study of ethnicity. In the first part, the author demonstrates that the understanding of ethnic groups, as presented in this work, was in no way original in its time; rather, it exemplified an already well-established and generally accepted theoretical model. In the second part, the author provides an alternative explanation (...) for the fame and success of this text. He reveals that the central concept of the book – the bounded (ethnic) group – resonates very well with the mental module of “groupism” – part of the human cognitive apparatus. The generally favourable reception of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries is therefore not rooted in its novelty but rather in that it explicitly formulated a fundamental component of the human cognitive apparatus. (shrink)

The article deals with the theme of updating of Cuba’s economic model mainly from the perspective of economic and political philosophy and its interdisciplinary contexts. First, it examines the historical origins of Cuba’s socialist model and the subsequent changes after the fall of the Eastern Bloc. Second, it analyses the actualization of Cuba’s model in the first two decades of the 21st century, that is, mainly the introduction of market and private ownership to complement planning and public ownership. Third, it (...) explains the codification of these changes in the new constitution. Forth and finally, it focuses on an interpretation of international cooperation both in Latin America, especially within the framework of the two pink tides, and with other partners in global interactions, particularly China. This will make it possible to understand the updated Cuba’s model, which the author has coined strategic socialism with Cuban characteristics. (shrink)

The issue of whistleblower protection has been gaining more attention in recent years, especially after the passing of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 23, 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. However, there is a fundamental question as to whether the regulations are sufficient to provide real protection for whistleblowers in organizations. In this regard, it seems crucial that the various actors (legislators, managers, employees) work together to (...) create an appropriate social environment. In this context, it is worth considering the use of knowledge of human decision-making processes, with particular emphasis on the possibility of modifying choice architecture and influencing decisions without imposing specific solutions. Nudging can be used in the “foreground” of legal regulation, by adjusting the social environment in such a way that legal regulation can work effectively. The paper provides an introduction to the application of nudge theory in the context of legal protection of whistleblowers. (shrink)

Is Divine Knowledge Incompatible with Human Freedom? An Analysis of Some Arguments The problem that divine omniscience or divine foreknowledge makes free will impossible belongs to notoriously difficult to solve. In XX century one of the most important interpretation of this difficulty was provided by Nelson Pike. If God believes infallibly and in advance how Smith will act, this fact about the past excludes out all alternatives for Smith. But libertarian account of free will requires alternatives possibilities, so, it could (...) be argue that God’s foreknowledge is incompatible with our free will. This paper carefully criticizes Pike’s argumentation and suggests that because God’s foreknowledge doesn’t eliminate future alternatives through causal means, it is compatible with free will and that Pike’s argument and two briefly analyzed standard arguments for fatalism presented by Zagzebski failed. (shrink)

Tato studie se věnuje komentářům a glosám k první kapitole druhé knihy Boethiova Úvodu do aritmetiky, jejímiž autory v poslední čtvrtině 10. století byli Gerbert z Aurillacu, Abbo z Fleury, Notker z Lutychu a anonymní autor textu De arithmetica Boetii. Studie sleduje dva hlavní cíle: nejprve upozorňuje na to, že Boethiův text o převodu číselných posloupností na stejnost lze interpretovat dvěma rozdílnými způsoby, následně se zaměřuje na využití této problematiky v dalších svobodných uměních a při hraní deskové hry rithmomachie.

Multi-agent systems where the agents are developed by parties with competing interests, and where there is no access to an agent’s internal state, are often classified as ‘open’. The members of such systems may inadvertently fail to, or even deliberately choose not to, conform to the system specification. Consequently, it is necessary to specify the normative relations that may exist between the members, such as permission, obligation, and institutional power. We present a framework being developed for executable specification of open (...) multi-agent systems. We adopt a bird’s eye view of these systems, as opposed to an agent’s perspective whereby it reasons about how it should act. This paper is devoted to the presentation of various examples from the NetBill protocol formalised in terms of institutional power, permission and obligation. We express the system specification in the Event Calculus and execute the specification by means of a logic programming implementation. We also give several example formalisations of sanctions for dealing with violations of permissions and obligations. We distinguish between an open multi-agent system and the procedure by which an agent enters and leaves the system. We present examples from the specification of a role-management protocol for NetBill, and demonstrate the interplay between such a protocol and the corresponding multi-agent system. (shrink)

In 1944, American Polonia consisted of two separate social groups. The first one was the so-called “old Polonia”. This group was significantly assimilated into America’s culture and way of life, and had strong self-help organizations. The second group, “new Polonia”, was formed of wartime émigrés, mainly with intellectual backgrounds. They experienced at first hand the anti-human policies of the Nazi and Soviet systems.In the Polish American Congress, founded in 1944 by representatives of both groups, there was great concern about the (...) policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The fear was that these policies would allow Stalin, by a method of fait accompli, to introduce the Soviet system in all countries “liberated” by the Red Army. Old Polonia was under the influence of the US Administration and, despite reservations, supported the approach of Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk who was committed to finding a Polish-Soviet compromise. Such a compromise turned out to be impossible because of Stalin’s demands. Firstly, nearly 50% of the pre-war territory of Poland was to be ceded to the Soviet Union. Secondly, fundamental changes were to be made in the government leadership of the Polish satellite state.New Polonia, which in 1942 formed the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent, had a strong intellectual group. They warned the Polish American Congress and the US Administration against conceding to Stalin’s demands. From the perspective of the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, their evaluation of Stalin’s policy has turned out to be correct.There was also a small group of Polish American activists centered around Professor Oskar Lange and the eminent poet Julian Tuwim, who belonged to the so-called Kościuszko League. During the Warsaw Uprising they were willing to accept Stalin’s demands and in connection with this supported the policies of the Polish Committee for National Liberation (a pro-communist coalition).The overwhelming majority of American Polonia was involved in unmasking false information about the Warsaw Uprising in the American press. They signed petitions to the President and Secretary of State. They collected money. They organized religious and patriotic meetings at which true information about the Warsaw Uprising was presented. (shrink)

Obwohl Gesundheit für alle Menschen essentiell ist, unterliegt das Verständnis des Begriffs »Gesundheit« jeweils historisch, regional und kulturell unterschiedlichen Einflüssen. Mit verschiedenen Festlegungen von »Gesundheit und Krankheit« werden auch die Aufgaben der Medizin unterschiedlich definiert. Dieser Band ist dem Thema »Verständnis von Gesundheit« gewidmet, einem der Kernthemen der interdisziplinären Arbeitsgruppe der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften »Zukunft der Medizin: Gesundheit für alle«. Es wird u.a. der Frage nachgegangen, wie die Medizin Krankheiten nicht nur immer besser therapieren kann, sondern wie sie außerdem (...) besser imstande sein könnte, Gesundheit zu bewahren. Die Beiträge zeigen historische Kontinuitäten auf und verbinden diese mit kulturgeschichtlichen Besonderheiten aus allen Regionen der Welt, Europa, China, Indien, Afrika, Südamerika sowie mit philosophischen Aspekten, z.B. der Frage der Verantwortung für die eigene Gesundheit. So ergibt sich ein holistischer Gesundheitsbegriff, aus dem neue Perspektiven für die evidenzbasierte Medizin erwachsen. Ein eigener Buchteil ist dem Verständnis von Gesundheit aus Sicht einzelner Patienten und den Empfehlungen an die Politik gewidmet. (shrink)

The Uppsala School in philosophy and the Vienna Circle are prima facie similar currents in contemporary philosophy. Both reject metaphysics, claim that reality is a spatio­‑temporal realm and adhere to noncognitivism in terms of values. However, justifications of these assumptions are quite different. In the following article we reconstruct main theses of both mentioned currents and then we indicate their impact on one of the major jurisprudential movements, namely Scandinavian Legal Realism. We focus on Alf Ross’ legal philosophy, as it (...) was an attempt to accommodate both: the philosophy of the Uppsala School and of the Vienna Circle. We trace those two sources of inspiration in Ross’ theory of legal validity and of legal concepts. (shrink)

W artykule analizuje się pojęcie „proposition" (sądu w sensie logicznym) wprowadzone w pracy D. Vandervekena "What is a Proposition", stosując metody algebraiczne. Analiza ta umożliwia głębsze zrozumienie tego pojęcia, prowadzi m.in. do uogólnienia pojęcia „mocnej implikacji" (§5), jej głównym rezultatem jest pewna reprezentacja pojęcia „proposition” (§ 6).

Text se zaměřuje na ideu otroctví v dějinách evropského a severoamerického myšlení. Věnuje se souboru šestnácti esejí Zotročení svobodou (2010), v němž Petr Bláha mapuje pojetí otroctví u vybraných filosofů v těchto dějinách a koncentruje se zejména na myšlenky autorů evropského kánonu. Postupuje chronologicky, začíná tradičně od antiky a pokračuje až do 20. století. K autorům, kteří měli na Bláhovo stanovisko největší formativní vliv, patří novověcí filosofové, s nimiž sdílí jak témata, tak do velké míry i přístup k nim. S (...) tím souvisí i zájem o ideu svobody, která do určité míry stála v opozici k ideji otroctví. Odtud ve svém paradoxním důsledku pochází myšlenka „zotročení svobodou“. (shrink)

This paper suggests that Nash equilibrium can be interpreted as a conceptual tool for addressing comparative-statics issues on an aggregate level. Together with additional assumptions, Nash equilibrium helps generate testable predictions about changes or differences of behavior induced by changes or differences of exogenous variables. However, Nash-equilibrium behavior, as such, is not subject to empirical testing. Instead, widespread and persistent behavior is modeled as a Nash equilibrium by assumption. The paper argues that this interpretation is in line with the traditional (...) use of an equilibrium concept in price theory. The suggested interpretation is illustrated with the model of public-goods provision. The paper compares this interpretation of Nash equilibrium with other interpretations and discusses its limits. (shrink)

This article was written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, where the Frankfurt School was founded and continues to evolve. From philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives, the article focuses on the trichotomic characteristics of critical theory, specifically: critique, explanation, and normativity. It looks first at the founding of the Institute for Social Research; second, at the emergence of critical theory at the Institute; and third, at how these ideas evolved. It (...) identifies trichotomy underpinning Horkheimer’s approach to critical theory. In the conclusion, the revisions made to critical theory in the later stages of development are considered. (shrink)

The paper analyzes recognition in relation to the global legal arrangements. It articulates of an extra-territorial recognition of right-holders by means of the development of a philosophical theory of recognition on the global level. It examines contemporary possibilities of extra-territorial recognition that are bound to the nation-states hitherto. The paper indicates an increasing influence of various transnational agents in order to show (1) the possibilities and limits of extra-territorial recognition based on a state-centric approach, and (2) a demand of supranational (...) recognition. Therefore, it maps the development from thecontemporary international system to the system that can contain also important supranational elements. In its practical consequences, it leads not only to rethinking social, political and legal philosophy but also to a philosophical reinvention of the United Nations because a new supranational stage of recognition requires not only a responsibility of the nation-states but also a direct responsibility of non-state transnationalagents. (shrink)