Williams’s integrity objection as a psychological problem

Utilitarianism is the view that as far as morality goes, one ought to choose the option which will result in the most overall well-being—that is, that maximises the sum of whatever makes life worth living, with each person’s life equally weighted. The promise of utilitarianism is to reduce morality to one simple principle, easily incorporated into policy analysis, economics and decision theory. However, utilitarianism is not popular amongst moral philosophers today. This is in large part due to the infuence of Williams’s ‘Integrity Objection’ (1973). Though the Integrity Objection has been infuential in turning philosophers against utilitarianism, it is also difcult to make precise, evidenced by the myriad interpretations in the literature. In this paper I interpret the objection as holding that agents who accept utilitarianism cannot, as a matter of psychology, be committed to their projects. I explore other interpretations, fnding some to be inconsistent with Williams’s approach, and others to be relatively easily answerable by the utilitarian. The psychological problem I identify is harder for utilitarians to avoid, though I have begun to ofer a response in other work

New year, new you? Forget it if you're an academic

Starting the new year with a surge of self improvement ignores the contemporary realities of precarious and casualised academic life. It’s time to ditch the self-help mantras for collective action, argues Valeria Ruiz-Pere

Homo anthropologicus: unexamined behavioural models in sociocultural anthropology

Inferences from ethnography in sociocultural anthropological arguments frequently rely on an unexamined model of the human mind and behaviour. Across a range of theoretical approaches, human thought and behaviour are implicitly understood as coherently following a single underlying cultural logic, described in terms such as of ‘ontology’, habitus, political strategy. We term this implicit model Homo anthropologicus, by analogy with Homo economicus. Both simplify human behaviour and can thus lead to errors in its interpretation. We examine examples of Homo anthropologicus in anthropological approaches to ontology, caste, state evasion, and habitus. We propose that such accounts are erroneous in light of the multiple cognitive systems involved in human thought and behaviour, discussed with close reference to dual process theory. Unlike Homo anthropologicus, Homo sapiens’ behaviour is frequently inconsistent. Whilst anthropologists have long acknowledged this is the case, in practice, as we demonstrate through our examples, inconsistency is frequently seen as a problem to be explained away rather than as a feature of behaviour to be accounted for in its own right. We therefore conclude by calling for a greater degree of methodological reflexivity when making inferences from ethnography

Cultural persistence and the ‘Herbal Medicine Paradox’: evidence from cross-section European data

The continued use of herbal or traditional remains despite the proliferation of modern medicine has been labelled as the "herbal medicines paradox" (HMP). This hypothesis can be explained by the persistence of attitudes across cultural boundaries. We draw on evidence form secondary analysis of individual level migration data to test the persistence in the use of herbal medicines in relation to norms in the person’s country of birth (or home country). We study the association between attitudes towards herbal medicine treatments of first (N=3630) and second generation (N=1618) immigrants in thirty European countries and those of ninety different sending country origins. We find robust evidence of an association which is stronger for the second migrants on maternal and paternal lineages, which exhibits significant heterogeneity based on migrants’ country of origin, and is robust to different samples. Our estimates are consistent with a cultural explanation for the HMP

Walking the talk for dementia: a unique immersive, embodied, and multi‐experiential initiative

Coping with dementia requires an integrated approach encompassing personal, health, research, and community domains. Here we describe “Walking the Talk for Dementia,” an immersive initiative aimed at empowering people with dementia, enhancing dementia understanding, and inspiring collaborations. This initiative involved 300 participants from 25 nationalities, including people with dementia, care partners, clinicians, policymakers, researchers, and advocates for a 4-day, 40 km walk through the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Spain. A 2-day symposium after the journey provided novel transdisciplinary and horizontal structures, deconstructing traditional hierarchies. The innovation of this initiative lies in its ability to merge a physical experience with knowledge exchange for diversifying individuals' understanding of dementia. It showcases the transformative potential of an immersive, embodied, and multi-experiential approach to address the complexities of dementia collaboratively. The initiative offers a scalable model to enhance understanding, decrease stigma, and promote more comprehensive and empathetic dementia care and research

Firms’ margins behaviour in response to energy shocks: evidence from the UK

How have profits behaved in the current period of sustained inflation? In part, the answer depends on how ‘profits’ are defined. Some broad measures suggest increasing profits, but conflate market and non-market sector dynamics and omit important corporate costs. This paper constructs an alternative measure of corporate profits to capture UK firm earnings in excess of all production costs. This measure has been declining since the start of 2022, consistent with evidence from historical energy shocks. This decline has not been uniform across firms, however: firms with higher market power have been better able to protect their margins; others have experienced large declines

Trading votes: what drives MEP support for trade liberalisation?

Which factors drive support of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for trade liberalisation? The literature suggests that economic factors, ideology, and politicization shape MEP voting behaviour. Drawing on a new dataset encompassing all trade-related MEP votes (2009-2019), this study offers a quantitative assessment of the determinants of MEP support for trade liberalisation. It finds that ideological factors have the strongest and most persistent effect on MEP support for trade liberalisation. The economic competitiveness of MEPs’ home regions, in turn, has only a limited effect. Politicization, lastly, has an unclear effect on its own and mostly influences MEP voting behaviour through interactions with ideological and economic factors. The study offers the first comprehensive assessment of the determinants of MEP voting on trade liberalisation and contributes to political economy research on electoral institutions and trade, the European Parliament’s role in trade policy and the effects of politicization on policy-making

Rapid evidence analysis of diversity in UK public service television: what do we know and what should we find out?

This article reports the results of a rapid evidence analysis (REA) of academic research focused on diversity in UK public service television broadcasting, published between 2016 and 2021. The aim of the REA was to establish the scale and quality of academic research on diversity in the context of public service television production, representation and reception, as well as to understand trends in research and gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed. The findings show that research is both sparse and fragmented. It is dominated by studies of on-screen diversity, rather than production or reception, and BBC content receives most attention, while other public service broadcasters are analysed much less frequently. In light of the findings, we propose a number of new directions for research, including a broader range of topics and methods and a more inclusive approach to the broadcast landscape. Analyses should facilitate an understanding of the impact of diversity across production, on-screen and among audiences, and adopt a longitudinal design, so that progress towards diversity over time can be evaluated

On the coevolution of cooperation and social institutions

This paper examines an environment inhabited by self-interested individuals and unconditional cooperators. The individuals are randomly paired and engage in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game. Cooperation among players is incentivized by institutional capital, and selfish individuals incur a cost to identify situations where defection goes unpunished. In this environment, we explore the coevolution of types and institutional capital, with both the distribution of types and capital evolving through myopic best-response dynamics. The equilibria are shown to be Pareto-ranked. The main finding is that any equilibrium level of institutional capital exceeds the optimal amount in the long run. Thus, forward-looking optimal institutions not only foster a more cooperative culture but are also more cost-effective compared to the myopically optimal ones