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The counterfactual comparative account of harm (CCA) faces well-known problems concerning preemption and omission. In a recent article in this journal, Daniel Immerman proposes a novel variant of CCA, which he calls the worse than nothing account (WTNA). According to Immerman, WTNA nicely handles the preemption and omission problems. We seek to show, however, that WTNA is not an acceptable account of harm. In particular, while WTNA deals better than CCA with some cases that involve preemption and omission, it has implausible implications in other similar cases – cases that, moreover, pose no problems for CCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Ploutarkhos is the property of International Plutarch Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I argue that sentences that contain 'omission' tokens that appear to function as singular terms are meaningful while maintaining the view that omissions are nothing at all or mere absences. I take omissions to be fictional entities and claim that the way in which sentences about fictional characters are true parallels the way in which sentences about omissions are true. I develop a pragmatic account of fictional reference and argue that my fictionalist account of omissions implies a plausible account of the metaphysics of omissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People generally accept that there is causation by omission—that the omission of some events cause some related events. But this acceptance elicits the selection problem, or the difficulty of explaining the selection of a particular omissive cause or class of causes from the causal conditions. Some theorists contend that dependence theories of causation cannot resolve this problem. In this paper, we argue that the appeal to norms adequately resolves the selection problem for dependence theories, and we provide novel experimental evidence for it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Criminal law casebooks and treatises frequently mention the possibility that criminal liability for possession is inconsistent with the Voluntary Act Requirement, which limits criminal liability to that which includes an act or an omission. This paper explains why criminal liability for possession is compatible with the Voluntary Act Requirement despite the fact that possession is a status. To make good on this claim, the paper (1) defends the Voluntary Act Requirement, (2) offers an account of the nature of omissions of the kind that need be included in that for which criminal liability is imposed in the absence of a voluntary act, and (3) argues that possession is a status that is constituted in part by an omission of this sort. The result is that to hold people criminally liable for possession is to hold them criminally liable both for a status and for an omission, an omission that is part of what it is to have that status. The paper also distinguishes possession from vagrancy, which is not a proper object of criminal liability, precisely because of constraints placed by the Voluntary Act Requirement. And the paper argues that possession incident to dispossession is not a proper object of criminal liability because it does not involve an omission of the kind that other forms of possession involve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the concepts of omission and commission as marketplace trauma within the theoretical framework of cultural trauma theory. The authors identify the meanings and processes of the people, activities, and outcomes likely when marketplace omission and/or commission occur, as well as the factors that elevate these events from collective to cultural trauma. The authors use concepts of social structure, collective practices, and collective discourse in exploring the interconnectivity of marketplace traumas and their actors, victims, and consequences (i.e., constrained consumption, damaged marketing systems, and institutional privilege). They then leverage the same framework to propose further research and corrective actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a proposal to make a distinction between negative and positive duties as basis of criminal liability. It focuses on the negative duties and the ways of its infringement distinguishing between the infringement by action and the infringement by omission the negative duty. The article aims to highlight the need to interpret the criminal norm that creates Substantive Offences (Special Part) according to the existence of negative duties (and positive duties) beyond the distinction between prohibitions and mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that in our country it is an offence to keep defective food products in stock for sale, conduct which would be criminalized under article 315, paragraph 3 of our Penal Code. In the author's view, the existence of such an offence has passed unnoticed for most of our doctrine, because in the description of the prohibited conduct the law uses words that have, in a first or ordinary meaning, a consolidated use in law practice. In particular, the author analyzes the use of the word "presumption", which has been commonly understood by lawyers as referring to a particular rule of proof. However, that meaning is not the only one that can be attributed to that word: in certain legal contexts, the use of the word "presumption" implies the decision of the law-maker to establish a relation of equivalence between two concepts. This is what the author calls the "constitutive effect" of presumptions in law. Being this an arguable position, this article will try to justify such premise through a series of pragmatic arguments. Once this point has been proven, it will be possible to clearly appreciate the real content of article 315 paragraph 3 of the Penal Code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista CES Derecho is the property of Universidad CES and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ordinary people make moral judgments that are consistent with philosophical and legal principles. Do those judgments derive from the controlled application of principles, or do the principles derive from automatic judgments? As a case study, we explore the tendency to judge harmful actions morally worse than harmful omissions (the ‘omission effect’) using fMRI. Because ordinary people readily and spontaneously articulate this moral distinction it has been suggested that principled reasoning may drive subsequent judgments. If so, people who exhibit the largest omission effect should exhibit the greatest activation in regions associated with controlled cognition. Yet, we observed the opposite relationship: activation in the frontoparietal control network was associated with condemning harmful omissions—that is, with overriding the omission effect. These data suggest that the omission effect arises automatically, without the application of controlled cognition. However, controlled cognition is apparently used to overcome automatic judgment processes in order to condemn harmful omissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]