Search

"The Point Is to Change It" by Jason Read explores the concept of negative solidarity in the context of work and labor relations. The book delves into the attachment many workers have to work, despite deteriorating conditions and real wage decline. By combining Marx's and Spinoza's perspectives, Read offers insights into the affective dimensions of work and the societal implications of labor practices. The text also analyzes popular culture representations of work and suggests avenues for liberation from the prevailing ideology of work. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses Gematria in the Hebrew Bible, focusing on the application of numerical values to letters. It explores the historical use of Gematria in Jewish religious literature and the dispute over its recognition in the Hebrew Bible. The text presents examples of both "overt" and "secret" Gematria in the Hebrew Bible, highlighting the application of numerical values to letters in ancient Israel. The article also delves into the use of alphabetic numerals in ancient Greek and the significance of numbers in biblical texts, offering insights into the complex practice of Gematria. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the conflict between liberal egalitarianism and the principles of liberalism, arguing that the former's commitment to distributive justice undermines the latter's respect for personal property and occupational choice. Topics include a reinterpretation of Robert Nozick's critique of distributive justice, the argument against the notion that Nozick's critique is question-begging, and the implications for the state's role in enforcing egalitarian distribution.

The article focuses on Robert Nozick's refusal to concede the moral high ground to socialist ideologies, as advised by his mentor David Schmidtz. Topics include the contrast between socialism's historical failures and capitalism's successes, the paradox of socialism's moral appeal despite its track record, and the differing interpretations of socialism among millennials.

The article focuses on Robert Nozick's influential work Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which builds on the intuitive notion of property rights and challenges prevailing political philosophies. Topics include Nozick's critique of distributive justice, the impact of his ideas on political philosophy, and the contrasting views of John Rawls as discussed in a recent symposium.

This text explores the implications of China's rise to global power status on international distributive justice. It argues that the traditional categorization of states into developed and developing countries is no longer sufficient, and proposes a more nuanced approach based on a state's capacity to achieve a minimally decent standard of justice. The text discusses China's responsibilities towards least-developed countries and explores practical and theoretical implications in areas such as trade restrictions and agricultural subsidies. It also discusses the concept of state capacity and its relationship to the realization of Minimum Domestic Social Justice (MDSJ), categorizing states into three groups based on their capacity. The text concludes that capacity improvements are necessary for the realization of MDSJ and proposes a tripartite framework for understanding states in the international order. [Extracted from the article]

The article explores the challenges faced by disadvantaged individuals in the labor market and presents the empowerment model as a distinctive approach to justice. It discusses the virtues of equalizing bargaining power and promoting egalitarianism by addressing inequalities based on gender, race, disability, and social class. The article acknowledges practical limits to achieving equal bargaining power but suggests that governments should consider individuals' own views and preferences. It also discusses the goods of work model and argues that the empowerment model is more practical and effective in guiding policy decisions. The article emphasizes the importance of considering global and environmental challenges in discussions of justice in the labor market. [Extracted from the article]

What concepts do people use to construct narratives about how to get ahead in contemporary society? To what extent do these narratives reflect distinctive constellations of beliefs? What are these constellations and is their usage contingent on social position? With these questions in mind, we used the qualitative data associated with the American Voices Project to systematically explore and map constellations of beliefs. Adopting a natural language analysis, we identify linguistic patterns that signal the relative importance of different get-ahead outlooks as cultural frames. These outlooks include not only traditional meritocratic factors, but also a range of nonmeritocratic influences, including nonrational factors such as luck and religion. Our analysis identifies three distinctive versions of meritocracy--frustrated, complex, and detached--in how people describe their life trajectories. Our findings suggest that the idea of meritocracy hides meaningful variations and nuances in the ways people construct visions of what meritocracy means and how it is constituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At Euthydemus 278–282, Socrates produces an argument that has almost universally been agreed to entail that wisdom is sufficient for happiness, necessary for happiness, or both. According to these standard readings, this is because Socrates ties wisdom to correct use of one's assets. Since wisdom is necessary or sufficient for correct use and correct use is necessary or sufficient for happiness, wisdom bears the same relation(s) to happiness, mutatis mutandis. I propose a split-level reading of this passage. On the level of natures, Socrates aims to establish that a causal-explanatory relation holds between the nature of wisdom and correctness such that wisdom by nature always produces correctness; ignorance, conversely, by nature never produces correctness. However, on the level of individuals, the causal relations are defeasible such that the wise sometimes fail and the ignorant sometimes succeed. Thus this reading does not entail that having wisdom is necessary or sufficient for correct use or for happiness. If this split-level reading is correct, then this passage, the locus classicus for the necessity and sufficiency theses, fails to establish either. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers an account of luck, fate, and fortune. It begins by showing that extant accounts of luck are deficient because they do not identify the genus of which luck is a species. That genus of properties, the tychic, alert an agent to occasions on which the external world cooperates with or frustrates their goal-achievement. An agent's sphere of competence is the set of goals that it is possible for them to reliably achieve. Luck concerns occasions on which there is a mismatch between attempt and result; in bad luck the external world thwarts goal-achievement within the agent's sphere of competence, in good luck the external world assists goal-achievement beyond the agent's sphere of competence. Fateful events are those where, more passively, the agent finds the external world achieving or frustrating their goals. Fortune concerns the contraction and expansion of the agent's sphere of competence. Eight reasons are given for accepting the account; its theoretical virtues and various things it explains. Lastly, three objections are answered; that the tychic properties relate to well-being rather than agency, that there are alternative theories of fortune available in the contemporary literature, that the account draws arbitrary distinctions between synonyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a concise overview of the life and work of T.J. Starker, an influential Oregon forester. Starker played a significant role in the development of forest science and practices in the Douglas fir region during the early 20th century. He advocated for selective logging practices that encouraged natural regrowth, which put him at odds with movements to stop logging on old-growth forests. Today, Starker Forests, Inc. manages over 90,000 acres of forest land in western Oregon, and the Starker family continues to support local civic organizations and sponsor the Starker Lecture Series at Oregon State University. The article also includes a list of sources that provide valuable information for library patrons conducting research on topics related to forestry and the history of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. [Extracted from the article]

Mediation analysis is used to study the relationship between stimulus and response in the presence of intermediate, generative variables. The traditional approach to the analysis utilizes the results of an aggregate regression model, which assumes that all respondents go through the same data-generating mechanism. We introduce a new approach that is able to uncover the heterogeneity in mediating mechanisms and provides more informative insights from mediation studies. The proposed approach provides individual-specific probabilities to mediate as well as a new measure of the degree of mediation as the prevalence of mediation in the sample. Covariates in the proposed model help describe the variation in the probability to mediate among respondents. The empirical examination of published studies demonstrates the presence of heterogeneity in mediating processes and supports the need for this new approach. We present evidence that the results of our more flexible heterogeneous mediation analysis do not necessarily agree with the traditional aggregate measures. We find that the conclusions from the aggregate analysis are neither sufficient nor necessary to claim mediation in the presence of heterogeneity. A web-based application allowing researchers to analyze the data with the proposed model in a user-friendly environment is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly supposed that one can build Aristotle's account of luck (τύχη) and good fortune (εὐτυχία) from Ph. II 4–6 and Eth. Eud. VIII 2. Indeed, in these texts, he is concerned with providing a general account of each. There has, however, been some dispute on the relationship between the texts. Some argue that the two accounts conflict, and the notion of τύχη or εὐτυχία we find in the Ph. is not the one that Aristotle has in mind in Eth. Eud. Others argue that there are two notions of "luck" in Eth. Eud.: one that fits with the account in the Ph. and another that is more stable. Almost no one argues that εὐτυχία in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 is a subspecies of τύχη. I will argue that Aristotle does indeed have two notions of εὐτυχία, a narrow and a broad one. But I show that the distinction is set aside in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 where Aristotle only discusses εὐτυχία as a subspecies of τύχη. We see this especially if we compare the account in Eth. Eud. with what Aristotle says about εὐτυχία in his other ethical treatises. The upshot is that there is a narrower focus in Eth. Eud. than in the other treatises when it comes to εὐτυχία. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With regard to Aristotle's discussion of chance and fortune in Phys. II.5–6, interpreters maintain that, after having provided a specific definition of fortune, applicable to intentional chance processes, in ch. 5, Aristotle is, in ch. 6, seeking to identify a specific meaning of αὐτόματον, which exclusively applies to strictly natural chance processes. When understood in such terms, however, ch. 6 turns out to be problematic, insofar as the examples Aristotle uses to illustrate αὐτόματον refer to mixed natural and intentional chance processes. To show that ch. 6 is internally consistent, I will argue that Aristotle's goal simply is to emphasise the generic quality of the notion of αὐτόματον compared to that of τύχη and that the examples are chiefly geared towards this aim. I will also explain why such a treatment of chance is relevant within his critical analysis of Empedocles' and Democritus' theories of τύχη and αὐτόματον. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, clubs in Big Five leagues enjoyed unstoppable growth in their revenues, largely due to increases in media rights. In contrast, clubs outside the Big Five have much weaker financial capabilities and cannot rely solely on income from media rights, so they use the transfer market to increase their revenues and develop a competitive advantage. In the present study, we examined five Swiss Super League clubs’ transfer market strategies from a resource-based perspective to determine the competitive advantages they gain and the importance of transfers to their economic models. Combining data between 2015 and 2020, with semi-structured interviews, we analysed the competitive advantages these clubs developed thanks to the interaction between resources, capability, luck, and market asymmetries. Our results revealed three types of clubs and help fill a research gap, as this issue has barely been addressed in studies on the research-based view or on sports teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an interpretation of Aristotle's understanding of tyche (τύχη), a Greek term that can be alternatively translated as luck, fortune, or fate. The paper disentangles various threads of argument in the primary sources to argue for a realist understanding of what we moderns call "luck." In short, it contends that Aristotle's account of these issues is mostly correct and merits close attention when canvassing recent philosophical debates about luckology. Aristotle argues that science pertains to the general rule; it is not about the particular. Particular events have contingent content that exceeds the scope of science. Even if we could predict all future events with ultimate accuracy, we would still be left wondering why good or bad things happen to specific people. Although luck is not a scientific category, it has an existential reality that leaves momentous events open to metaphysical and even religious interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Objective: Oral examinations or viva is a common mode of assessment for medical students. It is not possible to cover the entire syllabus and students often feel that the "luck factor" plays a major role in deciding their performance. Efforts have been made to address these shortcomings associated with traditional viva exams, mainly by attempting to formulate a format which is both objective as well as structured. With this background, aim of the present study was to create an objective structured viva questions in cardiovascular physiology as a prototype of viva voce in physiology. Materials & Methods: The study included creation of an Objective Structured Viva Examination (OSVE) question bank in cardiovascular physiology. The first year medical (MBBS) students were randomized by use of random number table and attended all three formats of theory viva (OSVE, traditional & blended) on designated dates and time slots. Feedback was obtained from the participants using standard format and the feedback from faculty involved in the study was collected in a qualitative format at the end of the assessment. Results: There was significant difference in the mean value of marks obtained by the students in the OSVE format when compared to traditional and blended format (p < 0.05). No correlation was observed between marks scored between the three formats of viva. Student's feedback revealed that OSVE format was well structured and easy to score marks when compared to other formats. Faculty feedback revealed that OSVE format was less time consuming as compared to the other formats. Conclusion: Since there was no correlation between performance of students in the three formats of viva, each type of viva format can be used as a separate assessment tool for the students. Further studies of this kind can help to reorganize the viva assessment and also can give a platform for innovation of newer assessment method in medical education which can be extrapolated to other streams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the European Commission's decision to fine Apple for abusing its dominant position in the market for music streaming apps on its App Store. The Commission found that Apple's anti-steering provisions prevented app developers from informing users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services. The Commission ordered Apple to remove these provisions and comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires Apple to allow app developers to communicate and promote offers in-app, permit third-party app stores, and provide access to the App Store on fair terms. Apple's compliance proposal has been criticized for potentially stifling the development of alternative app stores. The Commission has opened non-compliance investigations to determine if Apple's proposal falls short of its obligations under the DMA. The article explores the relationship between fairness and contestability in the provision of app store services and discusses the need to regulate the division of surplus between gatekeepers and business users. The author suggests that compliance with DMA requirements may not guarantee fairness and that the Commission may need to regulate how surplus is divided to ensure fair treatment of business users. [Extracted from the article]

According to the modal account of luck it is a matter of luck that p if p is true at the actual world, but false in a wide‐range of nearby worlds. According to the modal account of risk, it is risky that p if p is true at some close world. I argue that the modal accounts of luck and risk do not mesh well together. The views entail that p can be both maximally risky and maximally lucky, but there is nothing which is both maximally lucky and maximally risky. I offer a novel theory of risk that fits together with the modal account of luck and demonstrate that it is both extensionally and formally superior to extant proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southeast Asian states are frequently viewed as jealously guarding their sovereignty and unwilling to delegate authority to multilateral organisations or private actors. In the contemporary response to regional piracy and armed robbery at sea (PAR), however, insurers and shippers have come to occupy a central governance role while the fortunes of private security actors (PSAs) have declined. Why? This paper conducts a qualitative case study analysis examining the evolving role of shipping and insurance companies and PSAs in the development and implementation of anti-PAR policies in Southeast Asia today. It argues that while the role of PSAs has diminished due to growing regional governance capacities, regional countries and multilateral regulatory frameworks have enlisted insurers and shippers as governance stakeholders, elevating them from beneficiaries of good order at sea to active shapers of this maritime order. The diverging experiences of PSAs and insurers/shippers demonstrate that the regulatory power relationship between states and private actors is not necessarily zero-sum as the role of insurers and shippers has grown even as state capacities have expanded. Ultimately, the paper illustrates the need to go beyond state- and PSA-centric analyses of maritime governance mechanisms in contemporary Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a critique of the current version of Derk Pereboom's "disappearing agent argument" against event-causal libertarianism. Special attention is paid to a notion that does a lot of work in his argument—that of settling which decision occurs (of the various decisions it is open to the agent to make at the time). It is argued that Pereboom's disappearing agent argument fails to show that event-causal libertarians lack the resources to accommodate agents' having freedom-level control over what they decide. The connection between the disappearing agent argument and the problem of present luck is explored, as is the connection between settling which decision one makes and luck. Pereboom's disappearing agent argument also is distinguished from another argument with the same name that targets intentional action itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the illusion of control by proxy in games of chance - an attempt to exert control by assigning it to others who are perceived as more capable, communable or luckier. Following up on research by Wohl & Enzle, who showed participants' preference to ask lucky others to play a lottery instead of doing it themselves, we included proxies with positive and negative qualities in the domains of agency and communion, as well good and bad luck. In three experiments (total N = 249) we tested participants' choices between these proxies and a random number generator in a task consisting of obtaining lottery numbers. We obtained consistent preventative illusions of control (i.e. avoidance of proxies with strictly negative qualities, as well as proxies with positive communion but negative agency), however we observed indifference between proxies with positive qualities and random number generators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The received view of Kant's moral philosophy is that it precludes all moral luck. But I offer a plausible interpretation according to which Kant embraces moral luck in circumstance and constitution. I interpret the unconditioned nature of transcendental freedom as a person's ability to do the right thing no matter how she is inclined by her circumstantial and constitutive luck. I argue that various passages about degrees of difficulty relating to circumstantial and constitutive luck provide a reason to accept a pro‐moral luck interpretation of Kant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The House of Representatives election of 2 December, 1972, was a watershed in Australian political history. That election saw the Australian Labor Party terminate the Liberal–Country Party (LCP) Coalition's twenty‐three‐year hegemony and bring to office not only a different type of Labor government but a different prime ministerial style in leader Gough Whitlam. Yet, just six years before, Labor at the 1966 election had suffered a 4.30 per cent two‐party preferred (2PP) swing and the loss of nine seats following Labor's lowest primary vote since 1934. Labor's dramatic reversal of fortunes in just six years therefore remains of enormous historical interest. But, given the 1972 election saw a modest 2.5 per cent 2PP swing to Labor, with the party seizing twelve seats from the Coalition and losing four back to the LCP, the 1969–72 triennium offers little insight into Labor's recovery. In that context, this article, via analyses of House of Representatives election results and public opinion poll data, explores the chronology, demography, and geography of Labor's electoral recovery to argue the 1966–69 triennium remains of far greater value when identifying exactly when, among whom, and where Labor began its pathway to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the work of John Rawls and its relevance to American political traditions. Rawls developed the concept of "justice as fairness" as a means to guide American citizens in their political actions. He also extended his ideas to the international level, proposing principles for international political and law-making activities. Rawls drew from various disciplines and thinkers to develop a framework for understanding the evolving conscience of the American people. The article also discusses the influence of other scholars, such as Edward Corwin and Alpheus Mason, on Rawls's political philosophy. Additionally, the article examines the ideas of Herbert Croly and Frank Knight, who offered different perspectives on American democracy. The text concludes by emphasizing the need for a stable understanding of America's constitutional republican liberal democracy and the possibility of finding alternative solutions to current challenges. [Extracted from the article]

It is an irony of history that since texts transcend the intentions and purposes of their authors, their meaning and significance are often contested anew as they enter new historical contexts; even historical texts are thus subject to reading and criticism over time. This article discusses the posthumous fate of Henry Stubbe's own text on Islamic history, The Rise and Progress of Mahometanism—seen by some to represent a Copernican revolution in the study of Islam. The fate of this work is a clear example of the critical contingencies and fluctuating fortunes experienced by a corpus of texts. The continuing existence of a text as an object open to reconfiguration and re-evaluation is termed its after-history (Nachgeschichte) or afterlife (Nachleben). This notion of the afterlife of an object as a period of critical appreciation and political appropriation aptly defines the fate and fame of The Rise and Progress of Mahometanism. The present study seeks to explore the narrative surrounding a publication authored by Stubbe in the 17th century and finally published by Hafiz Mahmud Khan Shairani, with the critical support of Ottoman intellectual Halil Halid Bey, nearly two centuries later. Its objective is to investigate how the life and contributions of a figure whose work has transcended generations was resurrected within the political backdrop of the 20th century, as evidenced in the columns of Ottoman newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defaunation and extinction undermine the resilience and functioning of ecological communities and ecosystems. Relative to other disturbances, overexploitation for the global wildlife trade presents a unique case of trait‐based selection, as demand for specific individuals is often tied to unique morphological or aesthetic traits desired by consumers ('market traits'). Because evolutionary history leads to species that share both market and functional traits, we posit that non‐random patterns of exploitation will result in non‐random loss of functional diversity.We applied a trait‐based framework to the global songbird trade for 4616 species, 148 of which are plausibly threatened by the trade. We quantified select market traits, such as unique coloration and song quality, and ecological traits related to body size, diet, and foraging strategy to assess whether the trade disproportionately threatens particular functional groups. We additionally looked for patterns of association between market traits and functional traits to assess whether selection on certain market traits could drive selection on associated functional traits.We found that overexploited birds are a distinct functional subset of the global songbird pool, with the trade disproportionately threatening large bodied, frugivorous, and seed eating birds. Across all songbirds, there were multiple non‐random associations between market traits and functional traits, with the strongest associations observed among trade‐threatened birds; this was consistent with our theory that consumer‐driven selection on market traits could theoretically result in selection on functional traits. However, there was mixed evidence for this hypothesis at a global scale, suggesting that disproportionate threat to functional diversity may be more likely in regions where there is heavy demand for associated market traits.Policy implications. Our results highlight the need for increased focus on the mechanistic drivers of trait‐based selection on the consumer side of wildlife trade, and how patterns of overexploitation can systematically affect ecological communities and ecosystem services. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Thomas Jefferson's perspective on poverty in early America. Jefferson believed that poverty was a problem that needed to be addressed and that capable individuals had a responsibility to assist the needy. However, his definition of poverty was limited to white male laborers, excluding women, children, slaves, and Native Americans. Jefferson supported localized poor relief systems and viewed beggars as immoral and outside the organized charity system. He recognized the challenges faced by farmers and planters who struggled to make ends meet. Despite his optimism about the American poor-relief system, poverty remained a persistent issue in the country. [Extracted from the article]

Chaucer's Boethian lyrics repay a critical approach that views them not only as court poetry but also as sophisticated responses to their source, The Consolation of Philosophy. This article demonstrates how the lyric Fortune engages ambitiously with Boethius's central arguments about randomness, providence, and human moral action. Spoken by two voices, the poem dramatizes a conflict not between its speakers, but between rational knowledge and emotional experience, building to a climax in which Fortune declares herself nonexistent. This paradoxical moment captures the Boethian insight that although Fortune is not real, it is necessary for humans to invent her. Chaucer's approach in this poem is to heighten the subtle tensions he found in the Consolation between the rational apprehension of higher truth and the emotional experience of life in a contingent world. Fortune thus illustrates Chaucer's approach to Boethius as a source not of otherworldly consolation but of this-worldly wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines John Rawls's perspective on justice between generations, specifically focusing on his concept of a just savings principle. Rawls argues that justice between generations is primarily concerned with economic matters, particularly the rate of savings for capital investment in a just society. The article explores Rawls's explanation of how the parties in the original position could be motivated to save for future generations, as well as the objections and limitations of his approach. It also proposes alternative intergenerational savings principles and argues for expanding Rawls's justificatory approach to the issue of justice between generations. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the experiences of Samuel J. Masters, the first and only United States consul to Guam from 1854 to 1856. Masters faced numerous challenges during his time in Guam, including conflicts with Spanish governors and difficulties in obtaining permission to repair his home. The article explores the expansionist policies of the Franklin Pierce administration and the Democratic Party's Young America wing, highlighting the importance of Guam in U.S. economic, ideological, and strategic interests. It also discusses the weakening of Spain's hold on its Pacific colonies and the role of foreign trade, particularly with British and American whalers, in Guam's economy. The author argues that Masters' career in Guam reflects the wider expansionist goals of the Pierce administration and the Democratic Party. The article criticizes previous research for not considering the political context and relying too heavily on Masters' memoir rather than his contemporary communications. It suggests that Masters' understanding of his duty as consul was shaped by a belief in Manifest Destiny in the Pacific. The article concludes by discussing the role of U.S. consuls in promoting American commerce and protecting American citizens abroad. [Extracted from the article]