scholarly journals How Are We to Think of God's Freedom?

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Paul Helm
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Traditional Account ◽  
Divine Freedom ◽  
Do So

The paper discusses two conceptions of divine freedom. The first, Hugh McCann’s, proposes that God is a timelessly eternal act, whose agency is not deliberative and who, in that act, creates himself and the contents of his will. God is such an act. Following discussion of this view, its costs and benefits, a more traditional account of God’s freedom, in which he possesses vestigial alternativity, the freedom to choose an alternative should there have been a sufficient reason to do so.

Metaphysical Explanation

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-218
Author(s):  
Michael Della Rocca
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Ockham’S Razor ◽  
Ockham's Razor ◽  
Do So

In chapter 8, the Parmenidean, Bradleyan methodology turns its sights on metaphysical explanation. The Parmenidean Ascent in this chapter does not proceed—as in previous chapters—by showing that proponents of this notion fail to meet an explanatory demand. Rather, the argument is that proponents of metaphysical explanation are committed to irrational actions in positing certain facts. These actions are arbitrary, performed without sufficient reason, and violate Ockham’s Razor, which counsels us not to multiply entities without needing to do so. This chapter shows how attempts by Schaffer to avoid the force of this argument by modifying Ockham’s Razor are inadequate. Throughout the chapter, connections between this argument and Quine’s arguments against modality are highlighted. The upshot is that differentiated, relational metaphysical explanation needs to be given up, that a structured ontology must be rejected, and that we must make a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to metaphysical explanation.

A STRAWSON–LEWIS DEFENCE OF SOCIAL PREFERENCES

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelle de Boer
Keyword(s):  
Social Preference ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reactive Attitude ◽  
Do So

This paper examines a special kind of social preference, namely a preference to do one's part in a mixed-motive setting because the other party expects one to do so. I understand this expectation-based preference as a basic reactive attitude (Strawson 1974). Given this, and the fact that expectations in these circumstances are likely to be based on other people's preferences, I argue that in cooperation a special kind of equilibrium ensues, which I call a loop, with people's preferences and expectations mutually cross-referring. As with a Lewis-norm, the loop can get started in a variety of ways. It is self-sustaining in the sense that people with social preferences have sufficient reason not to deviate.

scholarly journals Uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (31) ◽  
pp. 8658-8663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian J. Jordan ◽  
Moshe Hoffman ◽  
Martin A. Nowak ◽  
David G. Rand
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Present Experimental Evidence ◽  
Do So

Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers. We present two economic game experiments in which uncalculating versus calculating decision-making is operationalized by either a subject’s choice of whether to reveal the precise costs of cooperating (Exp. 1) or the time a subject spends considering these costs (Exp. 2). In both experiments, we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs. Our results thus help to explain a range of puzzling behaviors, such as extreme altruism, the use of ethical principles, and romantic love.

Parties and ICTs

2011 ◽  
pp. 355-376
Author(s):  
Ana Sofía Cardenal
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Website Analysis ◽  
Do So

This chapter asks whether, and to what extent, parties are using the Internet for political mobilization. Internet offers new opportunities for political mobilization. If we believe that parties want above all to win elections, the question that follows is, how are they using the Internet to further this goal? I argue that if parties are not fully exploiting the Internet for political mobilization is because it is not always in their interest to do so. A key argument of this chapter is that using the new media to mobilize support may have different costs and benefits for parties depending on their characteristics. To test hypotheses concerning the characteristics of parties that matter for online mobilization, I propose and develop a methodology to assess the efficacy of party websites as platforms for political mobilization. To test the argument, I engage in website analysis using evidence from parties in Spain and Catalonia.

Selling Environmental Indulgences

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Goodin
Keyword(s):  
Common Property ◽  
Social Costs ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Common Property Resources ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
Do So

According to a common and currently influential diagnosis, the environmental crisis has essentially economic roots. The problem is not just that there are too many people, or even that they are on average enjoying too high a standard of living. All that is true, too, of course. More fundamentally, however, problems of environmental despoliation are said to derive from skewed incentives facing agents as they pursue their various goals. For some things, people must pay full price. For others, they pay only partially or indirectly or belatedly. To an economist, it goes without saying that the lower the costs, the more people will consume of any particular commodity. Where some of the costs of their activities will be borne by others, agents looking only to their own balance sheets will overengage in those activities. Because some of the costs are “external” (which is to say, are borne by others, rather than themselves), agents will undertake more of those activities than they would have done had they been forced to pay their full costs. They will do more of them than is socially optimal, taking due account of costs and benefits to everyone concerned (Pigou 1932). Environmental despoliation poses problems of economic externalities of just that sort. Environmental inputs are typically “common property resources.” Clean air and water, fisheries, the ozone layer, the climate are everyone’s business—and no one’s. No one “owns” those things. There is no one with standing to sue you if you take them without paying; nor is there anyone you could pay for permission to impinge on them, even if you wanted to do so. That fact inevitably gives rise to a divergence between the full social costs created by your actions and the portion of those costs sheeted back to you as private costs, to be entered on your own ledger. It is, of course, only the latter sorts of costs to which economically rational agents can be expected to respond (Freeman et al. 1973; Fisher 1981; Pearce et al. 1989, esp. p. 5).

scholarly journals First report of underwater oviposition by the island bluetail damselfly, Ischnura genei (Zygoptera, Coenagrionidae)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Schifani
Keyword(s):  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
First Report ◽  
Endophytic Oviposition ◽  
Do So

Among odonates that exhibit endophytic oviposition, a few, mostly damselflies, are known to be able to perform underwater oviposition. Among them, just a few species do so very frequently. Here I report the first observation of underwater oviposition for the damselfly Ischnura genei, which becomes the eighth species of its genus known to adopt this strategy after I. asiatica, I. aurora, I. elegans, I. graellsii, I. hastata, I. nursei, and I. verticalis. The reasons why these species or other odonates choose this particular mode of oviposition on rare occasions are not yet known, although a number of possible costs and benefits have been proposed.

The Life Cycle Effects of Corporate Takeover Defenses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C Johnson ◽  
Jonathan M Karpoff ◽  
Sangho Yi
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Firm Value ◽  
Adjustment Costs ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Firm Age ◽  
Young Firms ◽  
Takeover Defenses ◽  
Corporate Takeover ◽  
Life Cycle Effects ◽  
Do So

Abstract We document that the relation between firm value and the use of takeover defenses is positive for young firms but becomes negative as firms age. This value reversal pattern reflects specific changes in the costs and benefits of takeover defenses as firms age and arises because defenses are sticky and rarely removed. Firms can attenuate the value reversal by removing defenses, but do so only when the defenses become very costly and adjustment costs are low. The value reversal explains previous mixed evidence about takeover defenses and implies that firm age proxies for takeover defenses’ heterogeneous impacts on firm value.

The Life Cycle Effects of Corporate Takeover Defenses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C Johnson ◽  
Jonathan M Karpoff ◽  
Sangho Yi
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Firm Value ◽  
Adjustment Costs ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Firm Age ◽  
Young Firms ◽  
Takeover Defenses ◽  
Corporate Takeover ◽  
Life Cycle Effects ◽  
Do So

Abstract We document that the relation between firm value and the use of takeover defenses is positive for young firms but becomes negative as firms age. This value reversal pattern reflects specific changes in the costs and benefits of takeover defenses as firms age and arises because defenses are sticky and rarely removed. Firms can attenuate the value reversal by removing defenses, but do so only when the defenses become very costly and adjustment costs are low. The value reversal explains previous mixed evidence about takeover defenses and implies that firm age proxies for takeover defenses’ heterogeneous impacts on firm value.

Soft Balancing against the United States

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Pape
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Economic Statecraft ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Soft Balancing ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

The George W. Bush administration's national security strategy, which asserts that the United States has the right to attack and conquer sovereign countries that pose no observable threat, and to do so without international support, is one of the most aggressively unilateral U.S. postures ever taken. Recent international relations scholarship has wrongly promoted the view that the United States, as the leader of a unipolar system, can pursue such a policy without fear of serious opposition. The most consequential effect of the Bush strategy will be a fundamental transformation in how major states perceive the United States and how they react to future uses of U.S. power. Major powers are already engaging in the early stages of balancing behavior against the United States, by adopting “soft-balancing” measures that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but use international institutions, economic statecraft, and diplomatic arrangements to delay, frustrate, and undermine U.S. policies. If the Bush administration continues to pursue aggressive unilateral military policies, increased soft balancing could establish the basis for hard balancing against the United States. To avoid this outcome, the United States should renounce the systematic use of preventive war, as well as other aggressive unilateral military policies, and return to its traditional policy governing the use of force-a case-by-case calculation of costs and benefits.

scholarly journals Laços de amizade e a fundação de direitos: uma análise dos livros VIII e IX da Ética Nicomaqueia

Problemata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 140-153
Author(s):  
Camila Pilotto Figueiredo
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Viii And Ix ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Do So

The purpose of this article is to carry out an analysis of books VIII and IX of the work EN, in order to verify whether it is possible to find different types of rights through the various bonds of friendship (philia) described in these books. To this end, we will first carry out a detailed analysis of the aforementioned books, describing the main characteristics listed by Aristotle to define a relationship of friendship, having as a background the notion of proper function (ergon). Finally, we will analyze which of these relationships create rights, and we will do so through the the concept of sufficient reason and the Holfedian apparatus.

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