2,314 research outputs found

    Collateral Damage

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    The phrase collateral damage refers to harm done to persons, animals, or things that agents are not morally permitted to target in the conduct of war, as a side effect of attacks on persons, animals, or things that agents are morally permitted to target in the conduct of war. Call the first category that is, those persons, animals, or things that agents are not morally permitted to target - illegitimate targets of war, and the second category legitimate targets of war. Collateral damage, then, refers to harm done to illegitimate targets of war as a side effect of attacks on legitimate targets of war. As this characterization indicates, a complete response to the question of when, if ever, acts of war that cause collateral damage are morally justifiable must address harm done to private and public property, domestic and wild animals, and the environment. In this essay, however, I will focus solely on harm done to persons who are illegitimate targets of war, as a side effect of attacks on legitimate targets. My reason for doing so is twofold. First, most historical and contemporary discussion focuses on the rightness or wrongness of this particular kind of collateral damage. Second, rightly or wrongly, most people appear to be more concerned with harm done to persons than they are with harm done to animals, the environment, or inanimate objects

    Egocentrism shapes moral judgements

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    We review past and recent literature on how egocentrism shapes moral judgements. We focus on mechanisms by which egocentric evaluations appear to people as objective, impartial and morally right. We also show that people seem to be unaware of these biases and suggest that understanding how egocentrism impacts moral judgements demands studying morality embedded in a specific social context rather than the social void created in a laboratory. Finally, we argue that egocentric biases in moral judgements are not easily overcome and persist even if people deliberately try to omit attitudes in their judgements or if morally relevant information is present. We conclude thategocentric evaluations triggered by such factors as personal and group interests or attitudes may lay at the core of moral judgements of others because they help maintain a strategic social and personal relationships

    Degrees of Altruism as Dependent Upon Degrees of Relations

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    In David Hume\u27s A Treatise of Human Nature (1738), he asserts that humans act most altruistically toward people in the closest relations to us, e.g., in family or friendship relations, and somewhat less so toward those who are merely in our own ethnic group, of our own nationality, etc., and least altruistically toward people in the most distant relations to us. But, current empirical data appears to indicate vast multitudes of exceptions to Hume\u27s claim. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to determine the cause of this apparent conflict and suggest potential solutions that might allow Hume\u27s theory to account for the data in a way that is consistent with his premise. To that end, the paper seeks to answer questions of whether or not Hume overlooked factors like evolving social, economic, or technological conditions, or underestimated the potential significance of various forces of influence at work in his system. Section 1 of the paper\u27s four-part study introduces fundamental concepts of Hume\u27s general theory of human motivation, as it is detailed in the Treatise. Section 2 presents the current statistical evidence apparently reflecting a habit among US Americans of being more altruistic toward people farthest from us, in terms of the relations Hume stipulates. Section 3 is a three-part, step-by-step analysis of Hume\u27s general theoretical process of motivation to action—from primary stimulation of passions, to forming of associations between passions, and between associations of passions and additional influences, to the branching of some of passions and influences together on a trajectory toward a sentiment of benevolence, finally to an act of altruism. Section 4 assesses proposed solutions offered throughout the paper, flexibility of Hume\u27s theory to accept such suggested modifications, and alternatively, sustainability of the theory as-is. The research finds that the seemingly subtle adjustments suggested for correcting possible small-seeming errors by Hume, when their implications are applied across large populations, should allow his theory to account for the volume of data in question. However, more extensive analysis of more refined data is necessary to determine whether any of the suggested solutions accomplishes that reconciliation

    The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability

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    Application of the doctrine of entity criminal liability, which had only a thin tort-like rationale at inception, now sometimes instantiates a social practice of blaming institutions. Examining that social practice can ameliorate persistent controversy over entity liability\u27s place in the criminal law. An organization\u27s role in its agent\u27s bad act is often evaluated with a moral slant characteristic of judgments of criminality and with inquiry into whether the institution qua institution contributed to the agent\u27s wrong. Legal process, by lending clarity and authority, enhances the communicative impact, in the form of reputational effects, of blaming an institution for a wrong. Reputational effects can flow through to individuals in ways that reduce probability of future wrongdoing by altering individual preferences and forcing reevaluation and reform of institutional arrangements. Blame and utility are closely connected here: the impulse to blame organizations and the beneficial effects of doing so both appear to depend on the degree of institutional influence on the agent. These insights imply that the doctrine should be tailored, unlike present law, to more fully exploit criminal law\u27s expressive capital by selecting cases according to entity blameworthiness. Barriers to describing the phenomenon of organizational influence and culture prevent discovery of a first-best rule of institutional responsibility. A second-best step would be to enhance the existing doctrine\u27s examination of agent mens rea, to impose fault only if the agent acted primarily with the intent to benefit the firm

    Agents with faces : a study on the effects of personification of software agents

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    Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-133).by Tomoko Koka.M.S

    Social Psychology And Marketing: The Consumption Game. Understanding Marketing And Consumer Behavior Through Game Theory

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    Consumer psychology provides enough evidence that consumer behavior is not just one side of our existence, but, as a matter of fact, it is a central dimension of our everyday lives, engaging us into changing and defining our identity, beliefs, attitudes and practices. In relation to this, commodification has reached us on all levels: everything that people created, produced and developed over the years, during the post-industrial era, can be commodified and sold to a specific market. Commodification and increased consumption are crossing the line between values and needs, production and creation, identity and capital accumulation, thus making people constantly expecting a payoff while engaging in social, cultural and economic transactions. In this article we argue that we can use the models of game theory to understand socio-economic phenomena such as consumption, B2C marketing and market dynamics.Game Theory, consumer behaviour, commodification, decision theory, marketing

    Habits in action: a corrective to the neglect of habits in contemporary philosophy of action

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    I propose that if we pay proper attention to habits, we can correct distortions in prevailing accounts of action, and make progress in a number of contemporary debates. First I describe the everyday phenomenon of habit, and sketch the context as we find it within contemporary analytic philosophy. I then develop a notion of habit which has its origins in Wittgenstein, Ryle and Aristotie. The generic notion upon which all three thinkers draw is that of a kind of behaviour which is repeated; automatic, in the sense that it does not involve deliberation or trying; and responsible, since it is under the agent's control. I call such behaviour habitual action. Third, I reject the widely held view that the class of rational actions and the class of actions which we perform "for reasons" are equivalent. This view, made popular by Davidson, distorts our conception of rational actions by taking deliberated actions to be the sole paradigm. I suggest that this is an "intellectualist" error, which gives too prominent a place to our deliberative capacity in our picture of rational actions. 1 argue, against this, that on many of the occasions that we act habitually, we do not act for reasons, although we do act rationally, in ways that 1 spell out. Fourth and finally I outline how broadening our conception of rational actions to include many of those we perform habitually allows us to make progress in contemporary debates. I focus on the debate in meta-ethics between Humean (Smith, Blackburn) and anti-Fiumean (McDowell) accounts of moral motivation. I argue that properly understood, habits form a crucial part of the anti-Flumean argument - one which has hitherto been obscure in McDowell. I suggest other debates to which an understanding of habits could contribute, such as the project of "naturalising" rational action

    Waiver and Estoppel in Insurance Law

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    The twenty-two years that have passed since the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its opinion in the case of Northern Assurance Co. v. Grand View Building Assoc. have done little to clear away the wordy fog which that famous case did so much to raise about the doctrines of waiver and estoppel in insurance law. Stripped of trappings, the main point determined by that case was that an insurance company might deliver to an honest applicant for insurance a piece of paper having the appearance of an insurance policy, take from him the price of a sound contract, and leave him under the belief that he had actually secured the protection for which he had applied and paid, and still be allowed in an action at law to show that, by reason of the breach of a condition precedent, known all the time to its officiatinga gent, it had assumedn o obligationt o pay. Incidentally, in assessing the fireside equities, one recalls that in practice the insurer would not be required to return the premium unless the occurrence of a loss should afford unhappy occasion to the duped applicant to learn that he had received no consideration for his premium payment. The essential inequity of this result was recognized when in a later appeal in a case involving the same transaction and the same parties, the Supreme Court held that the insured was entitled to his money if only he went about getting it in the right way, viz.,. by a bill in equity to reform the contract
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