Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

"Hannah Arendt war der schwierigste Film, den ich je gemacht habe", sagt Margarethe von Trotta. Die grosse Denkerin Hannah Arendt fühlte sich.

The paper presents a critical appraisal of Floridi’s metaphysical foundation of information ecology. It highlights some of the issues raised by Floridi with regard to the axiological status of the objects in the “infosphere,” the moral status of artificial agents, and Floridi’s foundation of information ethics as information ecology. I further criticise the ontological conception of value as a first order category. I suggest that a weakening of Floridi’s demiurgic information ecology is needed in order not to forget the limitations (...) of human actors and/or of their surrogates, digital agents. I plea for a rational theoretical and practical view of such agents beyond utopian reasoning with regard to their potential moral status. (shrink)

The first aim is to provide well-articulated concepts by thinking through elementary phenomena of today s world, focusing on privacy and the digital, to clarify who we are in the cyberworld hence a phenomenology of digital whoness. The second aim is to engage critically, hermeneutically with older and current literature on privacy, including in today s emerging cyberworld. Phenomenological results include concepts of i) self-identity through interplay with the world, ii) personal privacy in contradistinction to the privacy of private property, (...) iii) the cyberworld as an artificial, digital dimension in order to discuss iv) what freedom in the cyberworld can mean, whilst not neglecting v) intercultural aspects and vi) the EU context.". (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role (...) in helping societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

– This paper aims to examine the present status of the research field intercultural information ethics including the foundational debate as well as specific issues., – A critical overview of the recent literature of the field is given., – The present IIE debate focuses on a narrow view of the field leaving aside comparative studies with non‐digital media as well as with other epochs and cultures. There is an emphasis on the question of privacy but other issues such as online (...) communities, governmentality, gender issues, mobile phones, health care and the digital divide are on the agenda., – The paper addresses basic issues of IIE that may open new vistas for research and practice in this field. (shrink)

This is a survey article in which I explore some important recent work on the topic in question, Kant’s formula of the end in itself (or “formula of humanity”). I first provide an overview of the formulation, including what the formula seems roughly to be saying, and what Kant’s main argument for it seems to be. I then call the reader’s attention to a variety of questions one might have about the import of and argument for this formula, alluding to (...) some of the works in which philosophers have recently raised or tried to answer these questions. Then, for the bulk of the paper, I focus my discussion on two issues of contention: the identity of the “end in itself” that the formula refers to, and the relation between the value of the end in itself and the value of other ends. I do not attempt to argue for a particular position of my own regarding these issues. Instead, I explain a number of the more interesting or influential recent attempts to answer these questions, compare these approaches in various ways, draw implications from them, and raise concerns about some of them. I also suggest that an important link connects the question about the identity of the end in itself and the question about the relation between the value of the end in itself in relation to the value of other ends: How one answers these questions commits one to a position on the thorny issue of whether, how, and how fully, autonomy is manifested through empirical (not simply pure) practical reason. (shrink)

The paper addresses severalethical issues in online communication researchin light of digital ontology as well as theepistemological questions raised by theblurring boundary between fact and theory inthis field. The concept of ontology is used ina Heideggerian sense as related to the humancapacity of world construction on the basis ofthe givenness of our being-in-the-world.Ethical dilemmas of Internet research thusarise from the tension between bodily existenceand the proper object of research, i.e., onlineexistence. The following issues are beingconsidered: online identity, online language,online consent (...) and confidentiality. We alsoargue that research ethics in the US followsthe utilitarian tradition, while Europeanresearchers are deontologically oriented. Aguideline of best practice in online researchethics is proposed. (shrink)

This research explored the ethical issues that nurses reported in the process of elaboration and further disclosure after an initial diagnosis of a terminal illness had been given. One hundred and six hospice nurses in Norway and Denmark completed a questionnaire containing 45 items of forced-choice and open-ended questions. This questionnaire was tested and used in three countries prior to this study; for this research it was tested on Danish and Norwegian nurses. All respondents supported the ethics of ongoing disclosure (...) to terminally ill patients based on ethical principles embedded in their country’s Patients’ Rights Acts. Truth, as an intrinsic value, proved foundational to patient autonomy, the most frequent ethical principle these nurses reported to justify their ethical position on information disclosure to terminally ill people. Telling the truth about a diagnosis was not the end of ethics in hospice care, but rather the beginning because what occurs ethically in dealing with prognosis issues became central to these hospice nurses, the patients and their families. Coupled with truth-telling, compassionate interaction and care become extensions of patients’ rights. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that faith is recalcitrant in the face of new evidence, but it is puzzling how such recalcitrance could be rational or laudable. I explain this aspect of faith and why faith is not only rational, but in addition serves an important purpose in human life. Because faith requires maintaining a commitment to act on the claim one has faith in, even in the face of counter-evidence, faith allows us to carry out long-term, risky projects that we (...) might otherwise abandon. Thus, faith allows us to maintain integrity over time. (shrink)

The paper deals with the difference between who and what we are in order to take an ethical perspective on algorithms and their regulation. The present casting of ourselves as homo digitalis implies the possibility of projecting who we are as social beings sharing a world, into the digital medium, thereby engendering what can be called digital whoness, or a digital reification of ourselves. A main ethical challenge for the evolving digital age consists in unveiling this ethical difference, particularly when (...) dealing with algorithms and their regulation in the context of human relationships. The paper addresses by way of example some issues raised by autonomous cars. (shrink)

Background: It is obvious from literature within the nursing discipline that nursing is related to moral or moral–philosophical related ideas which are other-oriented. The socio-cultural process of change in modern society implies that more self-oriented ideas have been found to be significant. Aim: The overall aim of this article is to highlight self-oriented moral or moral–philosophical related ideas as an important part of the nursing discipline. This is achieved by (a) exploring self-realization as a significant self-oriented moral or moral–philosophical related (...) idea based on a philosophical anthropological perspective, (b) demonstrating how moral or moral–philosophical related ideas are expressed by nurses, (c) discussing the relevance of self-realization for the nursing discipline, and (d) pointing out possible consequences for the future development of the discipline of nursing. Research design: This theoretical study draws empirical examples from interviews. Participants and research context: Data consisted of interviews with 13 nurses with varying work experience within the primary and secondary somatic and psychiatric health service, from inside as well as outside institutions. Ethical considerations: The empirical study was approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Information was given and consent was obtained from the study participants. Findings: Findings are presented in two themes: (a) other-oriented ideas and (b) self-oriented ideas. More concretely, the findings show that nurses hope to make life as good as possible for the patient and they have a wish to improve themselves as human beings, to become better persons. Discussion: The relevance of self-realization for the nursing discipline is discussed along two lines, first, by connecting nurses’ self-understanding to a horizon of identity and second, by considering what self-realization could offer. Conclusion: It is of ultimate concern for the nursing discipline to highlight self-realization connected to the positive view of freedom understood as an exercise-concept. Further identifying and articulating the contribution of self-realization to nurses and nursing practice is of particular importance. (shrink)

I sit on the edge of the bed of my youngest daughter and read the fairy tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. My little four-year-old daughter has heard this story thousands of times and simply loves it. In my eagerness to create a good story and a good setting I add some personal description to the story. Then she who is thrilled with the story makes a strange face and corrects my telling: “No, mama, it is not like that. (...) You have to tell the truth”. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 11, Edition 1 May 2011, 59-67. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Research Ethics after World War II: The Insular Culture of BiomedicineAllan M. Brandt (bio) and Lara Freidenfelds (bio)Human subjects research in the United States has only recently emerged as an important area of historical investigation. Over the last quarter century, scholars have begun the process of grounding within an historical context both the complex relationship between researchers and subjects and the processes by which biomedical knowledge is produced. (...) Their studies examine topics ranging from the impact of the anti-vivisectionist movement on human experimentation in the early twentieth century (Lederer 1995) to the development of the discipline of bioethics in the 1960s and 1970s (Rothman 1991) and the emergence of the legal concept of informed consent for human research (Katz, Glass, and Capron 1972). Many of the discussions focus on isolated incidents of scandal, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Jones 1993; Brandt 1978) and the Willowbrook School hepatitis study (Rothman and Rothman 1984). In doing so, they attempt to explain how such clearly unethical research could have been initiated and what consequences have resulted from public knowledge of such research.Nonetheless, the broader historical contexts and implications of human subjects research have yet to be fully delineated. This project will be of crucial importance, not only for historians, but also for those concerned with research policy and medical ethics. The historical examination of human subjects research will provide further insight into the details of research methods, the construction of protocols, and the historically specific interest in certain diseases. In addition, scholars will better understand the relationships of power and authority between researcher and subject, as well as the social and scientific mechanisms for the production of new biomedical knowledge. The process of enlisting research subjects illuminates the significance of class, gender, ethnicity, and race in science, in biomedicine, and in society. The fact that, historically, much research has employed research subjects from vulnerable populations, who participated in coercive contexts, has exposed powerful social assumptions embedded in the research enterprise. [End Page 239]The revelation of new documents indicating past abuses has sparked much of the investigation into human subjects research and the recent investigation of human radiation experiments during the Cold War era. One of the most important achievements of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was the uncovering of thousands of documents, a remarkable mine of archival data, that had been previously inaccessible to researchers. Jonathan Moreno and Susan Lederer’s article on the history of Cold War research ethics in this issue of the Kennedy Institute ofEthics Journal represents the first attempt since the publication of the Committee’s Final Report to analyze the Committee’s findings in a serious historical context.Historical accounts of the emergence of bioethics traditionally have left a great void in their discussions of human experimentation, generally ignoring the period between the writing of the Nuremberg Code in 1947 and the publication of Henry Beecher’s 1966 New England Journal ofMedicine article condemning systematic, unethical practices in human experimentation (Rothman 1991). The period from 1946 to 1966, however, was a time of vigorous research characterized by a fragmented community of medical researchers who applied inconsistent ethical standards and employed highly variable research practices. Both military and civilian medical researchers were intensely interested in radiation and thus conducted human subjects research along those lines, including examinations of the effects of plutonium injections and of total body irradiation, the use of trace radioisotopes to study various body processes, and observations of the effects of radiation intentionally released into the environment. The U.S. Government sponsored several thousand such studies (ACHRE 1995 [GPO, pp. 227–31; Oxford, pp. 135–38]), some of which were conducted on hospital patients, institutionalized children, military personnel, and prisoners. The Cold War scientific culture that produced this research must be examined from an historical ethical perspective.A central aspect of the culture of biomedical science after World War II was its insularity. Increasingly high standards of admission and challenging training had come to ensure that only a select group of individuals was admitted to the professions of medicine and research science. In this culture of experts, trustworthiness and ethical judgment were considered to be dependent upon expertise... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, on Kant's view, the work of genius serves as a sensible exhibition of the Idea of the highest good. In other words, the work of genius serves as a special sign that the world is hospitable to our moral ends and that the realization of our moral vocation in such a world may indeed be possible. In the first part of the paper, I demonstrate that the purpose of the highest good is not to (...) strengthen our motivation to accept the moral law as binding for us but, rather, to strengthen our motivation to persist in our already existent moral dispositions. In the second part, I show that the works of genius exhibit the Idea of the highest good and, consequently, strengthen our hope in its realization. Drawing on the results of the second part, the third part of the paper demonstrates that beauty, of both art and nature, symbolizes morality in a more substantive sense than that suggested by Henry Allison's “formalistic” interpretation. Since, on my view, fine art in Kant serves as a sensible representation of an undetermined conceptual content, or the Idea of the highest good, the fourth part of the paper addresses the vexed question of whether Kant's account of fine art already anticipates the cognitive role later attributed to it by the German Idealists. (shrink)

There are currently two robust traditions in philosophy dealing with doxastic attitudes: the tradition that is concerned primarily with all-or-nothing belief, and the tradition that is concerned primarily with degree of belief or credence. This paper concerns the relationship between belief and credence for a rational agent, and is directed at those who may have hoped that the notion of belief can either be reduced to credence or eliminated altogether when characterizing the norms governing ideally rational agents. It presents a (...) puzzle which lends support to two theses. First, that there is no formal reduction of a rational agent’s beliefs to her credences, because belief and credence are each responsive to different features of a body of evidence. Second, that if our traditional understanding of our practices of holding each other responsible is correct, then belief has a distinctive role to play, even for ideally rational agents, that cannot be played by credence. The question of which avenues remain for the credence-only theorist is considered. (shrink)

This essay argues that when setting climate policy, we should place more weight on worse possible consequences of a policy, while still placing some weight on better possible consequences. The argument proceeds by elucidating the range of attitudes people can take towards risk, how we must make choices for people when we don’t know their risk-attitudes, and the situation we are in with respect to climate policy and the consequences for future people. The result is an alternative to the Precautionary (...) Principle, an alternative that gives similar policy recommendations in many cases but is also sensitive to the costs of precautions. (shrink)

I have claimed that risk-weighted expected utility maximizers are rational, and that their preferences cannot be captured by expected utility theory. Richard Pettigrew and Rachael Briggs have recently challenged these claims. Both authors argue that only EU-maximizers are rational. In addition, Pettigrew argues that the preferences of REU-maximizers can indeed be captured by EU theory, and Briggs argues that REU-maximizers lose a valuable tool for simplifying their decision problems. I hold that their arguments do not succeed and that my original (...) claims still stand. However, their arguments do highlight some costs of REU theory. (shrink)

The following paper presents both a historical and personal account of the societal and ethical issues arising in the development of artificial intelligence, tracking, where I was involved, the issues from the nineteen seventies onward. My own involvement in the AI narrative begins with the early discussions around whether machines can think. These first discussions, in time, evolved secondly, with the rise of the internet in the nineties, into perceptions of AI as distributed intelligence, addressing its impact on social structures (...) including basic ethical issues arising in daily life. Thirdly, in the sweeping application of AI to all kinds of societal goals and contexts, the awareness that all natural and artificial things might be digitally connected with each other and to human agents led my further involvement in the AI narrative. Tracing this evolution from start to finish, I conclude my own narrative in the history of AI by presenting some of the future challenges for the development and use of artificial intelligences. Through the application of recent research in academia, scientific associations and political bodies, I address the possibilities for the good life, both with and without artificial intelligences. (shrink)

Background: Why nurses remain in the profession is a complex question. However, strong values can be grounds for their remaining, meaning nurses evaluate the qualitative worth of different desires and distinguish between senses of what is a good life. Research question: The overall aim is to explore and argue the relevance of strong evaluations for remaining in the nursing profession. Research design: This theoretical article based on a hermeneutical approach introduces the concept strong evaluations as described by the Canadian philosopher (...) Charles Taylor and provides examples of nurses’ experiences in everyday nursing care drawn from a Norwegian empirical study. Participants and research context: Data collected in the original study consisted of qualitative interviews and qualitative follow-up interviews with 13 nurses. The research context was the primary and secondary somatic and psychiatric health service, inside as well as outside institutions. Ethical consideration: The article uses data from an original empirical study approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Information was given and consent obtained from the participants. Findings: Remaining in the nursing profession can be understood as revolving around being a strong evaluator. This has been concretized in issues of being aware of different incidents in life and having capacities as a nurse. Discussion: Why nurses remain is discussed in relation to how nurses have shaped themselves by reflecting on what is of significance in their life. However, being a strong evaluator cannot be seen as the casual condition for remaining. Conclusion: Remaining in the nursing profession is obviously not a contingent matter, rather it is a matter concerned with the qualitative worth of different desires and values. Nurses’ awareness of a life choice impacts on whether they remain or not. Consequently, nurses may need to articulate and reflect on their priorities for remaining. (shrink)

Background: The relationship between the nurse and the patient is understood as fundamental in nursing care. However, numerous challenges can be related to the provision of relationship-based nursing care. Challenges exist when nurses do not respond adequately to the patient’s appeal for help. Moreover, challenges arising in the nurse–patient relationship can be understood as more destructive demands from the patient to the nurse, thus begging inquiry into such a relationship. Research question: The overall aim is to explore and argue the (...) relevance of problematizing destructive demands evident within relationship-based nursing care. Research design: This theoretical article explores destructive demands based on the phenomenological philosophy of the Danish theologian and philosopher Knud E. Løgstrup and provides examples of nurses’ experiences in everyday nursing care. The examples are drawn from a Norwegian empirical study based on a hermeneutical research design. Participants and research context: Data consisted of qualitative interviews and qualitative follow-up interviews with 13 nurses with varying work experience within the primary and secondary somatic and psychiatric health service, from inside as well as outside institutions. Ethical consideration: The original empirical study was approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Information was given and consent was obtained from the participants. Findings: Two themes are described: strong impressions formed in meetings with patients and persistent concern over the burden of work and ability to endure. Discussion: Destructive demands related to relationship-based nursing care are discussed along two lines, first, by further elucidating nurses’ everyday experiences connected to destructive demands and, second, by highlighting the significance of including destructive demands within the relationship-based nursing care. Conclusion: Including destructive demands related to relationship-based nursing care is of particular significance in enabling the proposition that radical, one-sided demands are based on relationality, reciprocity and thereby expectations of life. In short, both the nurse and the patient are human beings in need of love and goodness. (shrink)

Social policy includes many aspects, some of which are related to welfare, as well as many social responsibilities and rights that are considered the basis of the early childhood stage, as social policy aims to secure a kind of stimulating, safe and equal environment for children, especially in the first years of their lives, as these early stages greatly affect their growth, development and future capabilities. It aims to study the current facts related to a phenomenon, situation or group of (...) individuals. This study relied on the social survey method by sample and used the questionnaire tool to identify the extent of the impact of social legislation to protect early childhood. A field study in the city of Baghdad, where the study sample amounted to (200) individuals, males and females. The results of the study showed that the highest percentage of the research community are females at 54.4%. The results of the study showed that providing health care to mothers before and after birth is the health system for child health by 60.4%. The results of the study indicate that the early childhood care policy contributed to reducing child mortality rates by 63.2%. The results of the study indicate that one of the most important ways is the contribution of the social care policy to correcting some wrong practices by holding educational courses for workers in health centers by 43.6%. The results of the study concluded that there are educational programs provided for early childhood with cognitive and cognitive stimulation by 58.4%. And the contribution of government efforts to provide development programs for the early childhood stage by encouraging enrollment in education by 55.2%. One of the most important difficulties facing the implementation of policies and strategies for sustainable development for early childhood is the absence of activation of the national strategy by 36%. Therefore, we recommend the establishment of a higher council for childhood that takes on the responsibility of drawing up policies related to children and following up on strategies and programs related to them. (shrink)

Postmodern political critiques speak of the death of ideology, the end of history, and the postsecular return of religious attitudes, yet radical conservative theorists such as Mark Lilla argue religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. Returning much-needed uncertainty to debates over the political while revitalizing the very terms in which they are defined, María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means three things: (...) the translation of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed and better enables societies (and individual political actors) to articulate meaning through action--that is, through the emergence of new concepts. These actions, Lara proves, radically transform our understanding of politics and the role of political agents and are further enhanced by challenging the structural dependence of politics on religious phenomena. (shrink)

Paper presented at the conference FIS/ISIS 2015: Information Society at the Crossroads — Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, June 3-6, 2015. See: Conference Proceedings. The paper is based on my Apud Arabes. Notes on the Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew Roots of the Concept of Information (Capurro 2014), that goes back to my PhD thesis Information (Capurro 1978), as well as on Rafael Capurro and Birger Hjørland: The Concept (...) of Information (Capurro and Hjørland 2003) and Rafael Capurro: Past, present and future of the concept of information (Capurro 2009). References not listed can be found in these sources. (shrink)

Can Artificial Intelligence be more effective than human instruction for the moral enhancement of people? The author argues that it only would be if the use of this technology were aimed at increasing the individual's capacity to reflectively decide for themselves, rather than at directly influencing behaviour. To support this, it is shown how a disregard for personal autonomy, in particular, invalidates the main proposals for applying new technologies, both biomedical and AI-based, to moral enhancement. As an alternative to these (...) proposals, this article proposes a virtual assistant that, through dialogue, neutrality and virtual reality technologies, can teach users to make better moral decisions on their own. The author concludes that, as long as certain precautions are taken in its design, such an assistant could do this better than a human instructor adopting the same educational methodology. (shrink)

To perform an illocutionary act – e.g. to apologise – is it necessary, sufficient, or irrelevant that a hearer understand you to be performing that act? This issue is sometimes called the ‘problem of uptake’. Famously, Austin’s inaugural account makes uptake necessary for illocutionary force. For decades, critics have objected to this view: Some have sought to show that uptake is irrelevant; others have argued that uptake is important though not essential; while still others have argued that uptake is necessary (...) though must be radically reframed. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that there is a problem of uptake in Austin. In this paper, I contend that this view is wrong. Austinian uptake, I argue, is essential; yet, contra the standard reading, it is not synonymous with understanding. Uptake is a narrow criterion pertaining to conventional-linguistic competencies, which rules out specific kinds of misunderstanding, not misunderstanding überhaupt. The importation of non-Austinian assumptions about uptake from subsequent speech act theorists – specifically, the mis-equivocation of uptake with understanding a speaker’s intention – I show, has muddied the water. This paper offers a novel reconsideration and salvaging of uptake and its significance, whose stakes I elucidate through intervention in the fraught issue of conceptualising sexual consent. (shrink)

In the remediation of business-related human rights abuses, meaningful stakeholder engagement which culminates in effective access to remedy begins with forms of communication that enable the voice and agency of marginalized stakeholders, and value their lived experiences. Here, we consider how the development of a _dialogical_ theorization of stakeholder engagement is aligned with the practical and ethical goals of an effective access to human rights remedy. Drawing on dialogical theory, we discern four ethical criteria —_power cognizance, polyphonic pluralism, generative agonism (...) and discursive unfinalizability_— that reveal three general approaches to stakeholder engagement —_essentially monologic, seemingly dialogic and authentically dialogic_— based on the extent to which they exhibit the criteria above. We propose and discuss an 'authentically dialogic' approach for organizations adopting morally expansive, victim-centric approaches to engagement in the design and implementation of company-led remedial mechanisms. (shrink)

In this paper I want to leave behind the failed attempts to think about populism as ideology, strategy, style, or even discourse. I will focus on the ‘conceptual battles of politics’ and their potential to influence actors to pursue and effect specific ends. Reinhart Koselleck and his ideas about conceptual history will figure prominently in my discussion, as will his concept of asymmetrical combat-concept as a means of unleashing a theoretical and political war. The goal is to demonstrate that concepts (...) have taken the place of weapons of war among political actors. (shrink)