ABSTRACTIn Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that voters are shortsighted and punish incumbents for politically irrelevant outcomes. These failings, in the authors’ view, mean that voters are incapable of holding politicians to account. But Achen and Bartels overstate voters’ failure to engage in effective retrospective voting. The authors also understate the degree to which accountability can be compatible with voters’ being myopic, such as when early- and late-term performance are correlated. Achen and Bartels also overlook evidence (...) that the American state acted as an insurer against social risk long before the New Deal, a fact that points to voters using relevant criteria when they appear to punish incumbents for natural disasters. Finally, while accountability is an important consequentialist reason for democracy, we should keep in mind non-consequentialist justifications for this system of government, in particular its instantiation of political equality. (shrink)

Political representation lies at the core of modern politics. Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate without representative institutions. Yet relations between the democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political representation have never been well defined and remain the subject of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers, and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move forward the debates about political representation on a number of fronts. Drawing on insights from political science, history, (...) political theory, economics, and anthropology, the authors provide much-needed clarity to some of the most vexing questions about political representation. They also reveal new and enlightening perspectives on this fundamental political practice. Topics discussed include representation before democracy, political parties, minorities, electoral competition, and ideology. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideal and the reality of political representation. (shrink)

On August 30, 2013, the American Political Science Association sponsored a roundtable on political epistemology as part of its annual meetings. Co-chairing the roundtable were Jeffrey Friedman, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin; and Hélène Landemore, Department of Political Science, Yale University. The other participants were Scott Althaus, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Mark Bevir, Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley; Rogers Smith, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania; and (...) class='Hi'>Susan Stokes, Department of Political Science, Yale University. We thank the participants for permission to republish their remarks, which they subsequently edited for clarity. (shrink)

This paper presents Stoicism as, in broad historical terms, the point of origin in Western thought of an extreme form of rational essentialism that persists today in the debate over human bioenhancement. Advocates of “radical” enhancement would have us codify extreme rational essentialism through manipulation of genes and the brain to maximize rational ability and eliminate the capacity for emotions deemed unsalutary. They, like Stoics, see anger as especially dangerous. The ancient dispute between Stoics and Aristotle over the nature and (...) permissibility of anger has contemporary analogues. I argue that, on the merits, this controversy should, finally, be put to rest in Aristotle’s favor. Beyond its philosophical assets, Aristotle’s perspective meshes well with “appraisal theory” of emotion in psychology and corresponding discoveries in neuroscience. What’s more, consideration of the ongoing struggle to achieve full racial equality in the United States supports the view that anger at this ongoing gap between λόγος and ἔργον is legitimate, and has a constructive role to play in furthering liberal democracy. As we are well positioned to retire the Stoics’ legacy regarding anger, all the more should we eschew transhumanists’ proposal to implement their position biologically, at which point debate over the nature and worth of anger would be permanently moot. (shrink)

The concept of similar systems arose in physics, and appears to have originated with Newton in the seventeenth century. This chapter provides a critical history of the concept of physically similar systems, the twentieth century concept into which it developed. The concept was used in the nineteenth century in various fields of engineering, theoretical physics and theoretical and experimental hydrodynamics. In 1914, it was articulated in terms of ideas developed in the eighteenth century and used in nineteenth century mathematics and (...) mechanics: equations, functions and dimensional analysis. The terminology physically similar systems was proposed for this new characterization of similar systems by the physicist Edgar Buckingham. Related work by Vaschy, Bertrand, and Riabouchinsky had appeared by then. The concept is very powerful in studying physical phenomena both theoretically and experimentally. As it is not currently part of the core curricula of STEM disciplines or philosophy of science, it is not as well known as it ought to be. (shrink)

BackgroundInstitutions of higher learning are persistently struggling with issues of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism, despite the availability of university policies and guidelines for upholding academic integrity.MethodologyThis was a descriptive qualitative study conducted on 37 students of a Healthcare Ethics course at an Australian tertiary institution from February 2016 to October 2018. The purpose of the study was to explore the reasons for plagiarism detected the TurnitinR plagiarism checking software and extensive review of manuscripts. The interviews were conducted in private (...) rooms and in strict confidence. Thematic analysis was manually done.ResultsFour major themes namely, lack of interest; pressure of time with competing priorities; lack of understanding of the policy on academic honesty, and “the determined students” were identified. Sub themes under lack of interest were lack of preparation and effort, low self-efficacy, poor studying techniques, and convenience of internet sources. Under pressure of time, the subthemes were, misplaced priorities, procrastination, high workloads, poor planning, competing interests, and the perception of availability of time at the start of the semester. Regarding lack of understanding of the policy on academic honesty, the subthemes identified were, lake of awareness of plagiarism, lack of awareness of acceptable similarity, conflicting messages from tutors and confusion with high school learning. The determined students were those that either made all effort to reduce plagiarism but still remained high, used the another language at home other than English, had poor paraphrasing techniques or lacked resources for English language editing.ConclusionThere are varied and diverse reasons for plagiarism. There is a need to systematically reinforce and educate students on issues pertaining to academic dishonesty and their associated implications. (shrink)

At the turn of the 21st century, Susan Leigh Anderson and Michael Anderson conceived and introduced the Machine Ethics research program, that aimed to highlight the requirements under which autonomous artificial intelligence systems could demonstrate ethical behavior guided by moral values, and at the same time to show that these values, as well as ethics in general, can be representable and computable. Today, the interaction between humans and AI entities is already part of our everyday lives; in the near (...) future it is expected to play a key role in scientific research, medical practice, public administration, education and other fields of civic life. In view of this, the debate over the ethical behavior of machines is more crucial than ever and the search for answers, directions and regulations is imperative at an academic, institutional as well as at a technical level. Our discussion with the two inspirers and originators of Machine Ethics highlights the epistemological, metaphysical and ethical questions arising by this project, as well as the realistic and pragmatic demands that dominate artificial intelligence and robotics research programs. Most of all, however, it sheds light upon the contribution of Susan and Michael Anderson regarding the introduction and undertaking of a main objective related to the creation of ethical autonomous agents, that will not be based on the “imperfect” patterns of human behavior, or on preloaded hierarchical laws and human-centric values. (shrink)

Confessional modes of self-representation have become crucial in feminist epistemologies that broaden and contextualize the location and production of knowledge. In some versions of confessional feminism, the insertion of “I” is reflective, the product of an uncomplicated notion of experience that shuttles into academic discourse apersonal truth. In contrast to reflective intrusions of the first person, reflexive confessing is primarily a questioning mode that imposes self-vigilance on the process of self positioning.

Susan Sontag’s talk at the UNESCO meeting on which the French edition of Diogëne 201 was based has been replaced in this English edition of Diogenes 201 by extracts from her published work: her article ‘Looking At War’ in The New Yorker (December 2002).

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, published a wide variety of works including poems, plays, letters and treatises of natural philosophy, but her significance as a political writer has only recently been recognised. This major contribution to the series of Cambridge Texts includes the first ever modern edition of her Divers Orations on English social and political life, together with a new student-friendly rendition of her imaginary voyage, A New World called the Blazing World. Susan James explains the allusions made (...) in this classic text, and directs readers to the many intellectual debates with which Cavendish engages. Together these two works reveal the character and scope of Margaret Cavendish's political thought. She emerges as a singular and probing writer, who simultaneously upholds a conservative social and political order and destabilises it through her critical and unresolved observations about natural philosophy, scientific institutions, religion, and the relations between men and women. (shrink)

The question of whether perception can be penetrated by cognition is in the limelight again. The reason this question keeps coming up is that there is so much at stake: Is it possible to have theory-neutral observation? Is it possible to study perception without recourse to expectations, context, and beliefs? What are the boundaries between perception, memory, and inference (and do they even exist)? Are findings from neuroscience that paint a picture of perception as an inherently bidirectional and interactive process (...) relevant for understanding the relationship between cognition and perception? We have assembled a group of philosophers and psychologists who have been considering the thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability in light of these questions (Abdel Rahman & Sommer, 2008; Goldstone, Landy, & Brunel, 2011; Lupyan, Thompson-Schill, & Swingley, 2010; Macpherson, 2012; Stokes, 2011). Rather than rehashing previous arguments which appear, in retrospect, to have been somewhat ill-posed (Pylyshyn, 1999), this symposium will present a thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability that is at once philosophically satisfying, empirically testable, and relevant to the questions that cognitive scientists find most interesting. (shrink)

Demonic composition, demonic refinement and demonic union are alternatives to the usual ‘angelic’ composition, angelic refinement (inclusion) and angelic (usual) union defined on binary relations. We first motivate both the angelic and the demonic via an analysis of the behaviour of non-deterministic programs, with the angelic associated with partial correctness and demonic with total correctness, both cases emerging from a richer algebraic model of non-deterministic programs incorporating both aspects. Zareckiĭ has shown that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations (...) under angelic composition and inclusion is finitely axiomatized as the class of ordered semigroups. The proof can be used to establish that the same axiomatization applies to binary relations under demonic composition and refinement, and a further modification of the proof can be used to incorporate a zero element representing the empty relation in the angelic case and the full relation in the demonic case. For the signature of angelic composition and union, it is known that no finite axiomatization exists, and we show the analogous result for demonic composition and demonic union by showing that the same axiomatization holds for both. We show that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations with the ‘mixed’ signature of demonic composition and angelic inclusion has no finite axiomatization. As a contrast, we show that the isomorphism class of partial algebras of binary relations with the partial operation of constellation product and inclusion (also a ‘mixed’ signature) is finitely axiomatizable. (shrink)

Scholars of Arabic dialects have long noted the occurrence of a morpheme in a widespread number of dialects, realized -ən or -an, frequently suffixed to morphologically indefinite nouns, especially when followed by an adjective. Separately, another morpheme, realized -un or -u, is attested with a slightly different distribution in the dialects of western Yemen. Traditionally, scholars have interpreted both morphemes as reflexes of an etymological case vowel + tanwīn, traditionally labeled “dialectal tanwīn.” In this paper, I offer a new reconstruction (...) of the origin and diachronic development of this morpheme. Throughout I integrate data and insights from comparative Semitics, as well as recently studied pre-Islamic epigraphic and textual materials, in order to break the familiar Classical Arabic / dialectal Arabic dichotomy and reframe the way in which historiography of features in the dialects is conducted. (shrink)

De schrijfster ziet een paar opvallende veranderingen in de opvattingen over het probleem van het kwaad sinds de 18e eeuw. Terwijl de aardbeving, die in 1755 de stad Lissabon verwoestte, het optimistisch geloof aan vooruitgang en beheersbaarheid van de natuur aan het wankelen bracht, vernietigde Auschwtz in de 20e eeuw de toenmaals geldende ethische categorieën. Hierdoor blijkt het thans onmogelijk een niet politieke gekleurd antwoord te vinden op de aanslag op de Twin Towers te New York op 11 september 2001.

The Tanner Lectures are a collection of educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. Conducted by leaders in their fields, the lectures are presented at prestigious educational facilities around the world.