This chapter examines age discrimination from the perspective of age-differentiated paternalism. Many people share the intuition that paternalism is less problematic when applied to children than to the elderly. The chapter examines this intuition by considering not only the dimensions of competence and voluntariness but also the magnitude of the good promoted by paternalistic interventions. While this dual account does not generally challenge common-sense intuitions about paternalism, it introduces additional complexity when evaluating paternalistic interventions in a wide range of cases (...) where age plays a part. The chapter considers many examples, from age-differentiated rules for access to sterilization, through age-differentiated fines for not using a helmet, to age-differentiated prices for cigarettes. (shrink)

In defense of nudging policies, proponents have pointed out that choice architecture is inevitable. However, critics have objected that shaping people’s choices in an intentional way is not inevitable and involves an objectionable substitution of judgment, with the choice architect imposing his will on others. Accordingly, the inevitability of choice architecture in general does not provide reason to accept intentional nudges. In contrast to this view, the paper argues that precisely because the choice architects will unavoidably contribute to people’s choices, (...) it is permissible for them to consider the content of the choices that their choice architecture promotes. Specifically, I argue that it is often within choice architects’, including states’, own legitimate sphere of control whether they want to contribute to other people’s behaviors through their organization of the choice architecture. It is argued that such intentional choice architecture does not involve objectionable substitution of judgment. (shrink)

This book challenges the theory that our perceptions are unreliable, shows that information reflects the structural organization of the complex systems that constitute our world, and documents that the theories we construct detach us from reality and lead us astray.

Even after two millennia, through her adherence to the Hegelian/sartrean model of transcendence versus immanence, Simone de Beauvoir perpetuated the valorization of male risk-taking over the creation and nurture of life, obligations she assigned solely to the female. Nonetheless, her dispassionate, meticulous, phenomenological description of women's lived experience in The Second Sex, combined with her insistence that women, in spite of their oppression, must choose to become subjects, to `engage in freely chosen projects', has spurred contemporary feminist theorists to expand (...) the definition of the ethical and the moral to value female experience. The emancipatory discourse, therefore, has been extended by the work of feminists such as Martha Nussbaum, Luce Irigaray and Carol Gilligan, who insist upon the inclusion of marginalized `others' in the definition of `human being' and `ethical activity'. (shrink)

Treatise on Jaina philosophy and epistemology.

A common objection to paternalism concerns its expressive content. Many reject paternalistic policies and actions on the ground that they arguably involve insulting expressions of disrespect toward those subjected to them. The paper challenges this view. It argues that refraining from acting paternalistically can be disrespectful. Specifically, the paper argues that there is a relevant way in which A disregards the moral worth of B if A stands idly by when B is about to act very imprudently. If true, treating (...) others with equal respect and concern, as relational egalitarians and others rightly ask us to do, will somewhat surprisingly sometimes involve treating them paternalistically. (shrink)

A theory is presented which proposes that knowledge acquisition involves direct perception of schematic information in the form of structural and transformational invariances. Individual components with salient verbal descriptions are considered conscious place-holders for non-conscious invariant schemes. It is speculated that theories positing mental construction have three related causes: The first is a lack of consciousness of the schema processing capacities of the right hemisphere; the second is the paucity of adequate words to express schematic relationships; and the last involves (...) the dominance of verbal processes in consciousness. Philosophical theories are reviewed and schematic data relevant to biological survival is offered. Applications to education are suggested. (shrink)

The policy of earmarked paternity leave aims to promote mothers’ position in the labor market and fathers’ relationship with their child. Critics argue that the policy prevents parents from pursuing their own ideas about what is best for them. This provides reason to consider whether the policy is paternalistic or, in other ways, disrespectful of parental autonomy. I argue that the state implicates itself in the gender inequalities that result from parents’ unequal parental leave agreements when the state financially facilitates (...) such agreements. This argument for earmarked paternity leave is not disrespectful of parental autonomy. (shrink)

Victims of oppressive (e.g., sexist, racist or ableist) structures sometimes internalize the unjust norms that prevail in society. This can cause these victims to develop preferences or make deci-sions that seem bad for them. Focusing on such cases, we ask: is self-discrimination disrespectful? We show that some of the most sophisticated respect theories fail to provide any clear guidance. Specifically, we show that the widely recognized view that respect has two dimensions—an interest dimension and an autonomy dimension—delivers completely opposite verdicts (...) depending on how these two dimensions (and the relation between them) are specified. A main takeaway point is that we need to distinguish between at least four different respect-based views. Whether self-discrimination caused by internalized oppression is disrespectful depends on which view one supports. (shrink)

What justifies differences in the acceptance of paternalism towards competent minors and older people? I propose two arguments. The first argument draws on the widely accepted view that paternalism is easier to justify the more good it promotes for the paternalizee. It argues that paternalism targeting young people generally promotes more good for the people interfered with than similar paternalism targeting older people. While promoting people's interests or well-being is essential to the justification of paternalism, the first argument has certain (...) unfair implications in that it disfavours paternalism towards the worse off. The second argument caters to such fairness concerns. It argues that priority or inequality aversion supports age-differentiated paternalism because young people, who act imprudently and thereby risk their interests or well-being, are worse off than older people who act in similar ways. I suggest that both arguments are pertinent in evaluating specific paternalistic acts and policies. (shrink)

Opponents of paternalism have sought to formulate non-paternalistic arguments for some seemingly reasonable but apparently paternalistic policies. This article addresses two such non-paternalistic arguments—the public charge argument and the psychic harm argument. The gist of both arguments is that a person’s imprudent or risky behavior often affects the interests of others adversely, and that this justifies restricting his or her behavior in various ways. The article shows that both arguments face important problems. It thus throws serious doubt on the prospect (...) of holding on to apparently sound and well-founded policies whilst at the same time avoiding paternalism. (shrink)

Is it fair for employers to select candidates partly based on how the employers think customers react to the candidates' appearances, that is, based on candidates' reaction qualifications? Both philosophically (in the literature on wrongful discrimination) and empirically, this question has recently been getting attention. Here, we focus on a theory of unfair disadvantages emphasizing (i) whether the possession of the appearance feature in question reflects choices on the part of the candidate and (ii) whether the appearance feature in question (...) reflects values or convictions of importance to the candidate. We scrutinize the theory by evaluating how well these factors map on to folk intuitions about wrongful discrimination using an experimental-philosophical approach and data from the United States. We do so on the presumption that coherence with folk intuitions is one desideratum for a philosophical theory and that attention should be given to potential discrepancies between philosophical theories and folk intuitions. Our central finding is that there is only general support for factor (i), not (ii), in the American population. Our study also adds to the extant empirical literature on reaction qualifications that tend to focus on the employer's side of the matter, not the candidate's as we do. (shrink)

The discussion on mandatory turnout, which controversially introduces coercion at the heart of the electoral process, illustrates a dilemma between increasing voter turnout on the one hand and avoiding coercion on the other. If successful, a recent proposal by Elliott solves this dilemma as it removes the compulsory element of mandatory turnout. Specifically, Elliot reinterprets the policy’s purpose as (a) a pre-commitment device for those who believe that they have a duty to vote and (b) a nudge to the surveillance (...) of politics for those who do not believe this. We critically evaluate Elliott’s novel intervention in the debate and argue that it is ultimately unsuccessful. Mandatory turnout can be interpreted as neither a pre-commitment device nor a nudge. Moreover, we present a more promising and novel solution to the dilemma: a genuine state-administered pre-commitment device with respect to voting that also nudges citizens to vote and seems _prima facie_ attractive. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Is it fair for employers to select candidates partly based on how the employers think customers react to the candidates' appearances, that is, based on candidates' reaction qualifications? Both philosophically (in the literature on wrongful discrimination) and empirically, this question has recently been getting attention. Here, we focus on a theory of unfair disadvantages emphasizing (i) whether the possession of the appearance feature in question reflects choices on the part of the candidate and (ii) whether the appearance feature in question (...) reflects values or convictions of importance to the candidate. We scrutinize the theory by evaluating how well these factors map on to folk intuitions about wrongful discrimination using an experimental-philosophical approach and data from the United States. We do so on the presumption that coherence with folk intuitions is one desideratum for a philosophical theory and that attention should be given to potential discrepancies between philosophical theories and folk intuitions. Our central finding is that there is only general support for factor (i), not (ii), in the American population. Our study also adds to the extant empirical literature on reaction qualifications that tend to focus on the employer's side of the matter, not the candidate's as we do. (shrink)

This dissertation examines how we should respond to situations in which a person acts profoundly imprudently. We can, e.g., imagine the motorcyclist who prefers to drive without insurance and without a helmet. How should we, or the policy-makers, counter such imprudent activities performed by others? One option is that we do nothing, meaning that we do not interfere with other people’s imprudent behaviour, at the same time refraining from providing assistance in cases where the risk of the activities materialises. A (...) second option is to provide unconditional assistance to the person in need by taxing everyone. A third option is that we regulate the risky activity prior to the accident (e.g. by forcing the person to take out insurance, imposing security measures, or perhaps banning the activity in question). No matter what we choose, our choice seems to compromise at least one of the following moral considerations: i) satisfying sufficiency, ii) avoiding paternalism, or iii) internalising the costs associated with the risky activities (so that the persons performing the activities carry the relevant costs). For the same reason, it has been pointed out that together the three considerations constitute a trilemma, the so-called ‘imprudence trilemma.’ The dissertation argues that we should accept paternalism when people act so imprudently that they risk suffering serious, absolute deprivation as a result (i.e. in cases of relevance to the trilemma). That is not to say that we should always interfere when a person acts profoundly imprudently. The paternalistic view defended is that it is a good and relevant (but not necessarily decisive) reason in favour of interfering with a person’s voluntary choices that such interference will promote the person’s interests or well-being. Pace the anti-paternalistic view, I argue that such reasons should be included in the assessment of policies and actions that interfere with people’ liberty or autonomy. (shrink)

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is (...) alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

This paper was presented as the opening keynote lecture at the 2011 meeting of the German Association of Religious Studies in Heidelberg. It discusses the international presence of contemporary German scholarship in Religious Studies and proposes four theses: that Religious Studies is a transnational discipline; that German scholars of religion focus their research interests increasingly on Europe, in particular on contemporary Europe; that their participation in the transnational discourse has been low and is further declining; and that the latter two (...) points are related. It ends with a call for a broader scope of study and a more active participation in international discussions. (shrink)

Scholars of religion have always been fascinated by asceticism. Some have even regarded this radical way of life-- the withdrawal from the world, combined with practices that seriously affect basic bodily needs, up to extreme forms of self-mortification --as the ultimate form of a true religious quest. This view is rooted in hagiographic descriptions of prominent ascetics and in other literary accounts that praise the ascetic life-style. Scholars have often overlooked, however, that in the history of religions ascetic beliefs and (...) practices have also been strongly criticized, by followers of the same religious tradition as well as by outsiders. The respective sources provide sufficient evidence of such critical strands but surprisingly as yet no attempt has been made to analyze this criticism of asceticism systematically. This book is a first attempt of filling this gap. Ten studies present cases from both Asian and European traditions: classical and medieval Hinduism, early and contemporary Buddhism in South and East Asia, European antiquity, early and medieval Christianity, and 19th/20th century Aryan religion. Focusing on the critics of asceticism, their motives, their arguments, and the targets of their critique, these studies provide a broad range of issues for comparison. They suggest that the critique of asceticism is based on a worldview differing from and competing with the ascetic worldview, often in one and the same historical context. The book demonstrates that examining the critics of asceticism helps understand better the complexity of religious traditions and their cultural contexts. The comparative analysis, moreover, shows that the criticism of asceticism reflects a religious worldview as significant and widespread in the history of religions as asceticism itself is. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 2 Seiten: 181-195.

Across Europe, countries are reducing CO2 emissions and energy demand by lowering the temperature in public office buildings. These measures affect men and women unequally because the latter prefer and, indeed, perform better under higher temperatures than the standard temperature. Lowering the temperature thus further increases an already existing inequality. We show that the philosophical literature on discrimination provides an interesting theoretical approach to understanding such measures. On prominent understandings of what discrimination is, the policy would be considered direct discrimination (...) against women if it could be shown to reflect a broader inattentiveness to the needs of women in society. Alternatively, and more straightforwardly, the policies can be considered indirect discrimination because of their disparate effects on men and women. The final part of the paper shows that the policies are also wrong for the reasons it is often argued that discrimination is wrong—to wit, that it harms or disrespects those who are discriminated against. The final section suggests a range of measures to offset the discriminatory aspects of the policy. (shrink)

Askese und Devotion: Das rituelle System der Terāpanth Śvetāmbara Jaina. 2 vols. By Peter Flügel. Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, vol. 56. Dettelbach: J.H. Röll, 2018. Pp. 1227. €229.

An increasing vaccine hesitancy among parents, which has resulted in insufficient rates of immunization, provides reason to reconsider childhood vaccination practices. Studies suggest that parents' decision‐making process concerning whether to vaccinate their child is highly influenced by cognitive biases. These biases can be utilized to increase vaccination uptake via changes in the choice context. This article considers childhood vaccination programmes, which involve children being vaccinated in school or daycare unless their parents actively ‘opt out’. We suggest that such programmes reconcile (...) parents' decisional authority and vaccination duties. First, opt‐out childhood vaccination based in schools or daycare centres are not disrespectful of parental authority. Second, the programme aligns the default setting with a moral obligation to vaccinate one's child that most parents have. (shrink)

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong towards women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. (...) We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal. (shrink)

An increasing vaccine hesitancy among parents, which has resulted in insufficient rates of immunization, provides reason to reconsider childhood vaccination practices. Studies suggest that parents' decision-making process concerning whether to vaccinate their child is highly influenced by cognitive biases. These biases can be utilized to increase vaccination uptake via changes in the choice context. This article considers childhood vaccination programmes, which involve children being vaccinated in school or daycare unless their parents actively ‘opt out’. We suggest that such programmes reconcile (...) parents' decisional authority and vaccination duties. First, opt-out childhood vaccination based in schools or daycare centres are not disrespectful of parental authority. Second, the programme aligns the default setting with a moral obligation to vaccinate one's child that most parents have. (shrink)

Nothing, one day, seemed more imperative to me than the project of composing a book whose fiction would be constructed not as the representation of some preexistent entity, real or imaginary, but rather on the basis of certain specific mechanisms of generation and selection. The principle of selection may be called overdetermination. It requires that every element in the text have at least two justifications. In this perspective, each element is invested with a coefficient of overdetermination. If there is a (...) choice to be made between two overdetermined elements, the one with the highest coefficient of overdetermination will always be chosen. This principle, as we might expect, was not elected at random: it corresponds to any text construed as nonlinear. Take, for example, the simplest element, with a coefficient of two. A double relation connects it with the text: the one due to its place in the written line , and the one linking it with some other element in the text . By operating at a maximum level of multiple determinations, the text is elaborated by means of a maximum number of transversal relations, in a field diametrically opposed to the realm of the linear. Jean Ricardou is equally well known for his fiction, including L'Observatoire de Cannes , La Prise de Constantinople , Les Lieux-dits , and Les Révolutions Minuscules , and his criticism, including Problèmes du Nouveau Roman , Pour une Theorie du Nouveau Roman , and Le Nouveau Roman , LE PARADIGME d' Albert Ayme , and a collection of essays, Nouveaux Problèmes du Roman. His "Composition Discomposed" appeared in the Autumn 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry. Erica Freiberg regularly translates Jean Ricardou's works. She holds degrees in French and Italian, philosophy and modern literature from the University of Paris and the University of Geneva. (shrink)

On the fictional level, La Route des Flandres deploys a world in the process of complete disintegration. The manifestly privileged situation is the debacle of the French army in 1940 in which a number of the novel's protagonists are involved: George, the narrator; his cousin, Captain de Reixach; Iglésia, previously the Captain's jockey, now his orderly; Blum, Wack, and their horses. The havoc wrought by the military debacle can be subdivided into five categories. With the dissociation and decimation of the (...) army . . . and the disintegration of the discipline which had consolidated it . . . an entire military order is in the course of demolition. The breakdown of the military organization is accompanied by a parallel dissolution of the social order. Scattered along the roads, the civilians have lost their essential function, their trade. And, in an incident which occurs in front of the captain, when a peasant threatens the deputy mayor with his hunting rifle, we detect a direct reversal of the civic order. In the mechanical order, the all but dismembered automobiles . . . and the dismantlement of their motors contribute to the general tide of dilapidation and decay. The spatial order, represented here by the traditional military space, endowed with significance and hierarchically divided into front and rear, becomes depolarized with the disappearance of the battle lines and the inextricable entanglement of the two armies . . . The temporal order, the chronological arrangement of events, is subject to a similar vitiation. Jean Ricardou is equally well known for his fiction, including L'Observatoire de Cannes , La Prise de Constantinople , Les Lieux-dits , and his criticism, including Problèmes du Nouveau Roman , Pour une Theorie du Nouveau Roman , and Le Nouveau Roman ."ARTISTS ON ART: Birth of a Fiction" appeared in the Winter 1977 issue of Critical Inquiry. Erica Freiberg regularly translates Jean Ricardou's works. She holds degrees in French and Italian, philosophy and modern literature from the University of Paris and the University of Geneva. (shrink)

Deliberately employing rather vague terms, let us postulate a literature of the past and a literature of today.Two very simple ways of bringing them into relation are conceivable. One might adopt a prospective attitude, which would consider today's literature in the light of the past's. Or one might adopt a retrospective attitude, which would consider the literature of the past in the light of today's. The two positions are not equivalent. The prospective attitude is threatened with sterility: it may well (...) find itself mainly seeking in today's literature the trace of that which was active in the literature of the past, that is, the persistence of something which is now perhaps fading away. The retrospective attitude, on the other hand, has a good chance of proving fruitful: what it tends to seek in the literature of the past is a foreshadowing of that which is alive in the modern text, that is, the beginnings of what is now in effect. In short, the former tends to minimize the innovations of today's text; the latter tends to stress the innovations in the text of the past.Clearly, this does not mean that today's text has a metaphysical role—that of containing a truth which would illuminate its inarticulate beginnings in the text of the past. Rather, today's text has an operative role—that of an instrument with which to analyze the text of the past. And this retrospective analysis is threefold: it detects the way the text works; it explains the way the text works; it specifies the way the text works. In the first two operations, detection and explanation, the resemblances between a highly active process in a recent text and a less intense one in an old text are turned to account. In the third operation, specification, the differences between the two are stressed.If we subject Proust's Remembrance of Things Past to a retrospective analysis in the light of the recent literary movement that has been named the New Novel, we immediately perceive, in Proust's work, a highly significant process. We are, in fact, witness to the beginnings of a monumental metamorphosis: a famous linguistic operation, metaphor, undergoes a radical change in function. It used to be mainly expressive or representative; with Proust, it becomes productive. Let's see how.Jean Ricardou is the author of many works of fiction and criticism. His most recent critical works are Nouveau problèmes du roman and the forthcoming Le théâtre des métamorphoses. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Birth of a Fiction" and "Composition Discomposed" . Erica Freiberg regularly translates Jean Ricardou's works. She holds degrees in French and Italian, philosophy, and modern literature from the University of Paris and the University of Geneva. (shrink)

Some policies are paternalistic and discriminatory at the same time (e.g., certain benevolent sexist policies). Such policies constitute an interesting, yet somewhat overlooked, category. We scrutinize what paternalistic discrimination is and account for its wrongness. First, we argue that paternalistic discrimination is pro tanto wrong because it is disrespectful. The disrespect consists in the selective negligence or denial of some people’s moral power over their own good. This applies even if the policies and actions in question benefit those interfered with. (...) Second, we show that paternalistic discrimination gives rise to a dilemma in situations where different social groups face different risks. In such situations, a choice must be made between i) protecting people equally and ii) respecting people's moral power over their own good equally. Finally, we show that paternalistic discrimination in certain cases shows a lack of respect for the moral worth of the persons who are not the target of the policies. (shrink)