The Definition of Prima Facie Duties

1974 ◽  
Vol 24 (96) ◽  
pp. 235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Snare
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Tsvetelina van Benthem

Abstract This article examines the redirection of incoming missiles when employed by defending forces to whom obligations to take precautions against the effects of attacks apply. The analysis proceeds in four steps. In the first step, the possibility of redirection is examined from an empirical standpoint. Step two defines the contours of the obligation to take precautions against the effects of attacks. Step three considers one variant of redirection, where a missile is redirected back towards the adversary. It is argued that such acts of redirection would fulfil the definition of attack under the law of armed conflict, and that prima facie conflicts of obligations could be avoided through interpretation of the feasibility standard embedded in the obligation to take precautions against the effects of attacks. Finally, step four analyzes acts of redirection against persons under the control of the redirecting State. Analyzing this scenario calls for an inquiry into the relationship between the relevant obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.


Author(s):  
Marshall Swain

Based upon an analogy with the legal and ethical concept of a defeasible, or prima facie, obligation, epistemic defeasibility was introduced into epistemology as an ingredient in one of the main strategies for dealing with Gettier cases. In these cases, an individual’s justified true belief fails to count as knowledge because the justification is defective as a source of knowledge. According to the defeasibility theory of knowledge, the defect involved can be characterized in terms of evidence that the subject does not possess which overrides, or defeats, the subject’s prima facie justification for belief. This account holds that knowledge is indefeasibly justified true belief. It has significant advantages over other attempts to modify the traditional analysis of knowledge in response to the Gettier examples. Care must be taken, however, in the definition of defeasibility.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Malvina Ongaro

Abstract In this paper, I propose an assessment of the interpretation of the mathematical notion of probability that Wittgenstein presents in TLP (1963: 5.15 – 5.156). I start by presenting his definition of probability as a relation between propositions. I claim that this definition qualifies as a logical interpretation of probability, of the kind defended in the same years by J. M. Keynes. However, Wittgenstein’s interpretation seems prima facie to be safe from two standard objections moved to logical probability, i. e. the mystic nature of the postulated relation and the reliance on Laplace’s principle of indifference. I then proceed to evaluate Wittgenstein’s idea against three criteria for the adequacy of an interpretation of probability: admissibility, ascertainability, and applicability. If the interpretation is admissible on Kolmogorov’s classical axiomatisation, the problem of ascertainability brings up a difficult dilemma. Finally, I test the interpretation in the application to three main contexts of use of probabilities. While the application to frequencies rests ungrounded, the application to induction requires some elaboration, and the application to rational belief depends on ascertainability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 1086-1110
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Duerr ◽  
James Read

Abstract The paper investigates the status of gravitational energy in Newtonian Gravity (NG), developing upon recent work by Dewar and Weatherall. The latter suggest that gravitational energy is a gauge quantity. This is potentially misleading: its gauge status crucially depends on the spacetime setting one adopts. In line with Møller-Nielsen’s plea for a motivational approach to symmetries, we supplement Dewar and Weatherall’s work by discussing gravitational energy–stress in Newtonian spacetime, Galilean spacetime, Maxwell-Huygens spacetime, and Newton–Cartan Theory (NCT). Although we ultimately concur with Dewar and Weatherall that the notion of gravitational energy is problematic in NCT, our analysis goes beyond their work. The absence of an explicit definition of gravitational energy–stress in NCT somewhat detracts from the force of Dewar and Weatherall’s argument. We fill this gap by examining the supposed gauge status of prima facie plausible candidates—NCT analogues of gravitational energy–stress pseudotensors, the Komar mass, and the Bel-Robinson tensor. Our paper further strengthens Dewar and Weatherall’s results. In addition, it sheds more light upon the subtle link between sufficiently rich inertial structure and the definability of gravitational energy in NG.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yutaka Kato

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to elaborate and expand a list of ethical issues of (mainly medical) applications of nanotechnologies, focusing on the current situation in Japan. Nano-ethics needs to be designed to comprehensively cover ethical issues (irrespective of their uniqueness) arising in the field of nanotechnologies and provide a platform to facilitate cooperation and mutual access among researchers of related ethical issues. One of the prima-facie goals of nano-ethics is to enumerate and elaborate the ethical implications of nanotechnologies so that they can be discussed and addressed effectively as global issues. The definition of nanotechnologies should be inclusive in elaborating the list of nano-ethics. Recognizing the plurality of nanotechnological applications and the resulting composite/multiple nature of nano-ethics, the partiality in inquiry into the ethical issues of nanotechnologies in present-day Japan indicates the necessity for nano-ethics to function as a platform of ethics researches on related technologies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 432-434
Author(s):  
Nicolas Zaks

The διακριτικὴ τέχνη (the art of separating or discriminating), from which the sixth definition of the Sophist starts (226b1–231b9), is puzzling. Prima facie the art of separating does not fit the initial division of art between ποιητικὴ τέχνη (production) and κτητικὴ τέχνη (acquisition) at 219a8–c9. Therefore, scholars generally agree that, although mutually exclusive, ποιητική and κτητική are not exhaustive and leave room for a third species of art, διακριτικὴ τέχνη, on a par with ποιητική and κτητική. However, I argue that textual evidence suggests otherwise.


1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Auinger

For regular semigroups, the appropriate analogue of the concept of a variety seems to be that of an e(xistence)-variety, developed by Hall [6,7,8]. A class V of regular semigroups is an e-variety if it is closed under taking direct products, regular subsemigroups and homomorphic images. For orthodox semigroups, this concept has been introduced under the term “bivariety” by Kaďourek and Szendrei [12]. Hall showed that the collection of all e-varieties of regular semigroups forms a complete lattice under inclusion. Further, he proved a Birkhoff-type theorem: each e-variety is determined by a set of identities. For e-varieties of orthodox semigroups a similar result has been proved by Kaďourek and Szendrei. At variance with the case of varieties, prima facie the free objects in general do not exist for e-varieties. For instance, there is no free regular or free orthodox semigroup. This seems to be true for most of the naturally appearing e-varieties (except for cases of e-varieties which coincide with varieties of unary semigroups such as the classes of all inverse and completely regular semigroups, respectively). This is true if the underlying concept of free objects is denned as usual. Kaďourek and Szendrei adopted the definition of a free object according to e-varieties of orthodox semigroups by taking into account generalized inverses in an appropriate way. They called such semigroups bifree objects. These semigroups satisfy the properties one intuitively expects from the “most general members” of a given class of semigroups. In particular, each semigroup in the given class is a homomorphic image of a bifree object, provided the bifree objects exist on sets of any cardinality. Concerning existence, Kaďourek and Szendrei were able to prove that in any class of orthodox semigroups which is closed under taking direct products and regular subsemigroups, all bifree objects exist and are unique up to isomorphism. Further, similar to the case of varieties, there is an order inverting bijection between the fully invariant congruences on the bifree orthodox semigroup on an infinite set and the e-varieties of orthodox semigroups. Recently, Y. T. Yeh [22] has shown that suitable analogues to free objects exist in an e-variety V of regular semigroups if and only if all members of V are either E-solid or locally inverse.


1966 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
W. W. Morgan

1. The definition of “normal” stars in spectral classification changes with time; at the time of the publication of theYerkes Spectral Atlasthe term “normal” was applied to stars whose spectra could be fitted smoothly into a two-dimensional array. Thus, at that time, weak-lined spectra (RR Lyrae and HD 140283) would have been considered peculiar. At the present time we would tend to classify such spectra as “normal”—in a more complicated classification scheme which would have a parameter varying with metallic-line intensity within a specific spectral subdivision.


1975 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 21-26

An ideal definition of a reference coordinate system should meet the following general requirements:1. It should be as conceptually simple as possible, so its philosophy is well understood by the users.2. It should imply as few physical assumptions as possible. Wherever they are necessary, such assumptions should be of a very general character and, in particular, they should not be dependent upon astronomical and geophysical detailed theories.3. It should suggest a materialization that is dynamically stable and is accessible to observations with the required accuracy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document