scholarly journals A Brief Note Concerning Hayek’s Non-Standard Conception of Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Scheall
Keyword(s):  
Standard Conception

scholarly journals Morals from rationality alone? Some doubts

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-273
Author(s):  
JP Messina ◽  
David Wiens
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Valid Argument ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Theoretic Argument ◽  
Game Theoretic

Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. It is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler’s recent book, Minimal Morality, seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel ‘two-level’ social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases of deep and persistent moral disagreement. Yet Moehler remains ambitious, arguing that a restricted version of Kant’s categorical imperative is a uniquely rational principle of conflict resolution. We develop a formal model of Moehler’s informal game-theoretic argument, which reconstructs a valid argument for Moehler’s conclusion. This model, in turn, enables us to expose how a successful argument for Moehler’s contractarian principle rests on assumptions that can only be justified by subtle yet significant departures from the standard conception of rationality. We thus extend our understanding of familiar contractarian difficulties by showing how they arise even if we restrict the scope of contractarian morality to a domain where its application seems both promising and necessary.

Causal Apportionment of Tort Liability: An Efficient Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo A. Acciarri ◽  
Fernando Tohmé ◽  
Andrea Castellano
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Tort Liability ◽  
Mainstream Economic ◽  
Efficient Approach ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Standard Conception

AbstractMainstream economic analysis of Tort Law assumes that efficiency cannot be formally assured by allocating liability according to causal apportioning. In this paper we will present some ways to escape from the full scope of this claim. We start by reviewing the standard conception of causality in the economic analysis of Tort Law, to show how some underlying assumptions influence the currently held view on the relation between causal apportioning and efficiency. Then, we revisit those assumptions to see how plausible they actually are. In the light of this discussion we introduce an alternative framework of causal reasoning in Tort Law. We will show how our model yields a way of allocating liability in terms of a causal apportioning rule. The outcomes obtained through this procedure are closer to efficiency than those prescribed by the mainstream.

Robert White and the Study of Lives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond E. Fancher
Keyword(s):  
Life Histories ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Case Histories ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Life Study ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
Early Case ◽  
Innate Tendency

Robert Winthrop White was an important psychologist and personality researcher at Harvard University during the middle years of the 1900s. First as a student and then chief lieutenant and colleague of Henry A. Murray at the Harvard Psychological Clinic, White became a leading proponent of Murray’s intensively case study-oriented “personological” approach to personality analysis and description. This approach emphasized that personality is not a fixed entity but a constantly changing and developing configuration of many different factors, which must be appreciated as a whole and is best conveyed in the context of individual life histories. Although sometimes overshadowed by both Murray and Harvard personality psychologist Gordon Allport, who both promoted the life study approach, White became the most prolific and skilled early practitioner of that approach. His early case study of “Earnst” was the only one selected to illustrate the Murray project’s personological approach in the seminal 1938 work Explorations in Personality. As the “caretaker” director of the clinic in the late 1930s and early 1940s, White oversaw the collection of numerous further case histories, several of which became the foundations of four highly influential books: The Abnormal Personality, Lives in Progress, Opinions and Personality, and The Enterprise of Living. In 1959, White made important contributions to the theory of motivation by asserting that the standard conception of motives as tension-reducing instincts or drives was severely limited and should be complemented by an innate “effectance” motive: an innate tendency to seek rather than reduce tension while achieving “competence” in dealing with the outside world.

Near-mergers and the suspension of phonemic contrast

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Labov ◽  
Mark Karen ◽  
Corey Miller
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Close Approximation ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
History Of ◽  
Word Classes

ABSTRACTIn 1972, Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner reported a series of “near-mergers” that have since proved to be difficult to assimilate to the standard conception of the phoneme and that challenged our current understanding of how language production is related to perception and learning (Labov, Yaeger, & Steiner, 1972). In these situations, speakers consistently reported that two classes of sounds were “the same,” yet consistently differentiated them in production. Labov (1975a) suggested that this phenomenon was the explanation for two “falsely reported mergers” in the history of English, where word classes were said to have merged and afterward separated. It appears that sound change may bring two phonemes into such close approximation that semantic contrast between them is suspended for native speakers of the dialect, without necessarily leading to merger. This article reports on further observations of near-mergers, which confirm their implications for both synchronic and diachronic issues, and presents the results of experiments that show how phonemic contrast is suspended for an entire community.

Target Centred Virtue Ethics and Role Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 181-198
Author(s):  
Christine Swanton
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Legal Ethics ◽  
Role Differentiation ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
Role Ethics

The development of ‘virtue jurisprudence’ (a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics for law) has highlighted the importance of virtue in legal ethics. Yet it has been criticized because it cannot account for “robust” role differentiation. In this chapter I argue that Target Centred Virtue Ethics can account for two features which constitute the ‘Role Dilemma’: (a) There is robust role differentiation; that is, role differentiation as conceived by the Standard Conception of law (and, e.g., business).(b) Occupiers of legal roles are not permitted to act immorally (except perhaps in “tragic” dilemmas).Virtue ethics and Standard Conceptions of law (and, e.g., business) are standardly thought to be incompatible. This may be true where virtue ethics is conceived in “orthodox” neo-Aristotelian terms. I reject this version of virtue ethics for role ethics and show that Target Centred Virtue Ethics can subscribe to both horns of the dilemma (a) and (b) above.

The world in Arab eyes: A reassessment of the climes in medieval Islamic scholarship

2014 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.T. Olsson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Psychological Benefits ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Far North ◽  
Humoral Pathology ◽  
The World ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
Human Habitation ◽  
North And South

AbstractMany Arabic geographical texts from the medieval period portray the oecumene as comprising seven latitudinal climes. In general the middle clime, in which the majority of Muslim territories were located, was viewed as possessing the best environmental conditions, which progressively deteriorated the further one travelled north or south of this central territory. This theory of the climes was combined with ideas of humoral pathology in order to argue that those living in the central zones of the oecumene received numerous physiological and psychological benefits. Conversely, those like the Africans and the Turks, living at the peripheries of the oecumene, had neither rationality nor proportionate physiognomies because their humours were distorted by the harsh environmental conditions of these regions. This article, however, seeks to nuance the outline given above. While secondary studies have generally been happy to adopt uncritically this superficial understanding of the medieval Islamic worldview, which is gained from skimming the introductions to a few geographical works, few have questioned what (and where) is meant by the centre of the world, where did human habitation supposedly end, and was the medieval understanding of the seven climes uniform. These are some of the questions posed by the present investigation. I then go on to assess how far the notions derived from the theory of the climes were implemented in ethnological accounts of the inhabitants of the far north and south. In doing so I shall conclude that the standard conception of the medieval Islamic worldview masks numerous disagreements and debates in the writings of medieval scholars.

Truth and Transcendence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gila Sher ◽  
Bradley Armour-Garb
Keyword(s):  
Liar Paradox ◽  
Theories Of Truth ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
Standard Conception ◽  
The Liar ◽  
The Liar Paradox

This chapter turns the tables on the standard conception of the relation between the liar paradox and theories of truth. We should not look to the liar paradox as constraining the development of a materially adequate theory of truth; rather, we should see the development of a materially adequate theory of truth as sufficient to block the Liar. This evident reversal has important consequences for a number of issues that are widely discussed in the literature. The chapter advocates a substantivist theory of truth and conceives of such a theory as a cluster of interconnected principles of truth. In particular, according to the chapter, there is some material principle of truth, which is arrived at by investigating the nature of truth itself. This material principle, which the chapter calls ‘IMMANENCE’, has three subprinciples, ‘immanence’, ‘transcendence’, and ‘normativity’. Given the combination of the first two subprinciples, the chapter argues that the liar paradox does not arise.

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