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Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy

Mindscapes And Landscapes: Hayek And Simon On Cognitive Extension, Leslie Marsh Oct 2012

Mindscapes And Landscapes: Hayek And Simon On Cognitive Extension, Leslie Marsh

Leslie Marsh

Hayek’s and Simon’s social externalism runs on a shared presupposition: mind is constrained in its computational capacity to detect, harvest, and assimilate “data” generated by the infinitely fine-grained and perpetually dynamic characteristic of experience in complex social environments. For Hayek, mind and sociality are co-evolved spontaneous orders, allowing little or no prospect of comprehensive explanation, trapped in a hermeneutically sealed, i.e. inescapably context bound, eco-system. For Simon, it is the simplicity of mind that is the bottleneck, overwhelmed by the ambient complexity of the environmental. Since on Simon’s account complexity is unidirectional, Simon is far more ebullient about the prospects …


The Social Value Of Mortality Risk Reduction: Vsl Vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach, Matthew D. Adler, James K. Hammitt, Nicholas Treich Mar 2012

The Social Value Of Mortality Risk Reduction: Vsl Vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach, Matthew D. Adler, James K. Hammitt, Nicholas Treich

All Faculty Scholarship

We examine how different welfarist frameworks evaluate the social value of mortality risk-reduction. These frameworks include classical, distributively unweighted cost-benefit analysis—i.e., the “value per statistical life” (VSL) approach—and three benchmark social welfare functions (SWF): a utilitarian SWF, an ex ante prioritarian SWF, and an ex post prioritarian SWF. We examine the conditions on individual utility and on the SWF under which these frameworks display the following five properties: i) wealth sensitivity, ii) sensitivity to baseline risk, iii) equal value of risk reduction, iv) preference for risk equity, and v) catastrophe aversion. We show that the particular manner in which VSL …


The Structural Injustice Of Forced Migration And The Failings Of Normative Theory, David Ingram Jan 2012

The Structural Injustice Of Forced Migration And The Failings Of Normative Theory, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

I propose to criticize two strands of argument - contractarian and utilitarian – that liberals have put forth in defense of economic coercion, based on the notion of justifiable paternalism. To illustrate my argument, I appeal to the example of forced labor migration, driven by the exigencies of market forces. In particular, I argue that the forced migration of a special subset of unemployed workers lacking other means of subsistence (economic refugees) cannot be redeemed paternalistically as freedom or welfare enhancing in the long run. I further argue that contractarian and utilitarian approaches are normatively incapable of appreciating this fact …


El Individuo Y La Comunidad. Aeon J. Skoble, Mario Šilar Jan 2012

El Individuo Y La Comunidad. Aeon J. Skoble, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


El Fracaso: Su Utilidad Personal Y Social, Mario Šilar Jan 2012

El Fracaso: Su Utilidad Personal Y Social, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun Jan 2012

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …


Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight Jan 2012

Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

This chapter seeks to demonstrate that investigations in positive economics rely on ethical perspectives and practices, and further, that critical thinking requires a wider ethical viewpoint than normative economics generally permits. Positive economics generally relies, for example, on the unsung virtues of the investigator who demonstrates honesty and transparency in the search for truth. Ethical failures in this regard are not uncommon (DeMartino, 2011). But another unstated ethical perspective appears in the worldview from which a researcher sets out to model behavior. Modelers almost always assume that rationality requires that an economic actor undertake an action in pursuit of a …


The Implications Of Migration Theory For Distributive Justice, Alexander Sager Jan 2012

The Implications Of Migration Theory For Distributive Justice, Alexander Sager

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the implications of empirical theories of migration for normative accounts of migration and distributive justice. It examines neo-classical economics, world-systems theory, dual labor market theory, and feminist approaches to migration and contends that neo-classical economic theory in isolation provides an inadequate understanding of migration. Other theories provide a fuller account of how national and global economic, political, and social institutions cause and shape migration flows by actively affecting people's opportunity sets in source countries and by admitting people according to social categories such as class and gender. These empirical theories reveal the causal impact of institutions regulating …


Legal Promise And Psychological Contract, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan Jan 2012

Legal Promise And Psychological Contract, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Building Democracy In Japan, Mary Alice Haddad Dec 2011

Building Democracy In Japan, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

How is democracy made real? How does an undemocratic country create new institutions and transform its polity such that democratic values and practices become integral parts of its political culture? These are some of the most pressing questions of our times, and they are the central inquiry of Building Democracy in Japan. Using the Japanese experience as starting point, this book develops a new approach to the study of democratization that examines state-society interactions as a country adjusts its existing political culture to accommodate new democratic values, institutions and practices. With reference to the country's history, the book focuses on …


Stigmergy 3.0: From Ants To Economies, Leslie Marsh, Margery Doyle Dec 2011

Stigmergy 3.0: From Ants To Economies, Leslie Marsh, Margery Doyle

Leslie Marsh

No abstract provided.


What Is Law? A Coordination Model Of The Characteristics Of Legal Order, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast Dec 2011

What Is Law? A Coordination Model Of The Characteristics Of Legal Order, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast

Gillian K Hadfield

Legal philosophers have long debated the question, what is law? But few in social science have attempted to explain the phenomenon of legal order. In this article, we build a rational choice model of legal order in an environment that relies exclusively on decentralized enforcement, such as we find in human societies prior to the emergence of the nation state and inmanymodern settings.Wedemonstrate thatwecan support an equilibrium in which wrongful behavior is effectively deterred by exclusively decentralized enforcement, specifically collective punishment. Equilibrium is achieved by an institution that supplies a common logic for classifying behavior as wrongful or not. We …