A One-sided Sustainability Test With Multiple Consumption Goods

In an economy with multiple consumption goods (including environmental amenities) that uniquely maximises the present value of utility with constant discounting, constant or falling augmented green net national product, or zero or negative augmented net investment, at any time implies that the economy is unsustainable then. "Augmented" means that time is treated as a productive stock, so augmented net investment includes the value of time. This allows future exogenous technical progress and changes in world prices to be included in a unified accounting framework, along with features such as resource depletion, pollution and foreign investment. The practical and philosophical rationale for testing sustainability in a present-value maximising, and therefore fully prescribed, development path are discussed.

One-sided Unsustainability Tests and NNP Measurement with Multiple Consumption Goods

In an economy with multiple consumption goods (including environmental amenities) that uniquely maximises the present value of utility with constant or falling augmented green net national product, or zero or negative augmented investment, at any time implies that the economy is unsustainable then. "Augmented" means that time is included as a productive stock, which incorporates future exogenous technical progress and changes in world prices in a unified accounting framework. Examples are given of calculating accounting prices for multiple goods. The practical and philosophical rationale for testing sustainability in a present-value maximising, and therefore fully prescribed, development path is discussed.sustainability, net investment,net national product, optimality,green accounting

A One-Sided Sustainability Test with Multiple Consumption Goods

In an economy with multiple consumption goods (including environmental amenities) that uniquely maximises the present value of utility with constant discounting, constant or falling augmented green net national product, or zero or negative augmented net investment, at any time implies that the economy is unsustainable then. "Augmented" means that time is treated as a productive stock, so augmented net investment includes the value of time. This allows future exogenous technical progress and changes in world prices to be included in a unified accounting framework, along with features such as resource depletion, pollution and foreign investment. The practical and philosophical rationale for testing sustainability in a present-value maximising, and therefore fully prescribed, development path are discussed

Who? How and How Much? When and Where? On Why We Need to Be Pragmatic about Critique

As critique appears to have run out of steam, become a culprit in the culture wars, and a source of capitalization in the market place of social media prestige, the following discussion embraces these dynamics not as epiphenomena to be overcome but as critical styles that be restyled within a consequentialist and pragmatist frame. Dramatizing critique in this way shifts the methodological focus away from the redemptive gesture that guides the critique of critique toward the creative exploration of what can be done to make critique work within the gamified battlefield of contemporary social media environments. Doing so invites a provocative change of critical tone, reflections upon who counts as a critic, and an encounter with everyday moral calculations. It culminates in a deflationary image of critique as everyday practice

Corporate Taxation and the Welfare State

The paper compares the impact of corporate taxation and social insurance on foreign direct investment (FDI) and unemployment. Four main results are derived: (i) the optimal size of the welfare state depends on the degree of risk-aversion and the unemployment rate as a measure of labor income risk. The unemployment rate partly reflects the country’s exposure to globalization; (ii) corporate taxation and social insurance have equivalent effects on unemployment and outbound FDI; (iii) while an increase in the corporate tax can raise corporate tax revenue, it is rather likely to worsen the government’s total fiscal stance. A corporate tax cut can thus be self-financing due to fiscal increasing returns in the presence of a large public sector; (iv) a corporate tax should be used to contribute to welfare state financing only in exceptional cases when job creation is excessive and unemployment is inefficiently low. These conditions are probably unlikely to hold in Europe’s generous welfare states with high structural unemployment rates.corporate tax, foreign direct investment, unemployment, welfare state

Applying fuzzy-set theoretic poverty measures within a developmental local government context : the Khayelitsha - Mitchell's Plain case study

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-108).This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of the linkage between the presence of poverty and the nature of governance, something largely omitted from poverty studies in South Africa. The context of this investigation was the establishment of the new local government model (i.e. Developmental Local Government), which puts governance at the forefront of addressing poverty effectively. The new governance model adopts a multidimensional poverty paradigm in its Integrated Development Planning (IDP). However, in this study we have examined whether the approach adopted (i.e. Basic Needs) is necessarily the best multidimensional approach available. We have given preference to the capabilities approach with its emphasis on well-being where people are the beneficiaries of development rather than the basic needs approach where the emphasis is on goods and services as a means to good life. Sen's Capabilities Approach was operationalised by adopting a relatively new methodology (Le. fuzzy-set theoretic poverty measures) for measuring multidimensional poverty in the Khayelitsha Mitchell's Plain (KMP) magisterial district using the Census 2001 dataset. Our results show that unemployment, housing and low incomes need the most attention in KMP. Furthermore, the fuzzy-set measures, which view poverty as opaque and vague, yield more detailed policy information, thus preventing the single-policy response dominating many IDPs at present. As a medium term policy response, it is suggested that the implementation of the extended public works programme in KMP has the potential to significantly address both the material and non-material capability failure existing in KMP

The universe without us: a history of the science and ethics of human extinction

This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I is an intellectual history of thinking about human extinction (mostly) within the Western tradition. When did our forebears first imagine humanity ceasing to exist? Have people always believed that human extinction is a real possibility, or were some convinced that this could never happen? How has our thinking about extinction evolved over time? Why do so many notable figures today believe that the probability of extinction this century is higher than ever before in our 300,000-year history on Earth? Exploring these questions takes readers from the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, through the 18th-century Enlightenment, past scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century like thermodynamics and evolutionary theory, up to the Atomic Age, the rise of modern environmentalism in the 1970s, and contemporary fears about climate change, global pandemics, and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Part II is a history of Western thinking about the ethical and evaluative implications of human extinction. Would causing or allowing our extinction be morally right or wrong? Would our extinction be good or bad, better or worse compared to continuing to exist? For what reasons? Under which conditions? Do we have a moral obligation to create future people? Would past “progress” be rendered meaningless if humanity were to die out? Does the fact that we might be unique in the universe—the only “rational” and “moral” creatures—give us extra reason to ensure our survival? I place these questions under the umbrella of Existential Ethics, tracing the development of this field from the early 1700s through Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, the gloomy German pessimists of the latter 19th century, and post-World War II reflections on nuclear “omnicide,” up to current-day thinkers associated with “longtermism” and “antinatalism.” In the dissertation, I call the first history “History #1” and the second “History #2.” A main thesis of Part I is that Western thinking about human extinction can be segmented into five distinction periods, each of which corresponds to a unique “existential mood.” An existential mood arises from a particular set of answers to fundamental questions about the possibility, probability, etiology, and so on, of human extinction. I claim that the idea of human extinction first appeared among the ancient Greeks, but was eclipsed for roughly 1,500 years with the rise of Christianity. A central contention of Part II is that philosophers have thus far conflated six distinct types of “human extinction,” each of which has its own unique ethical and evaluative implications. I further contend that it is crucial to distinguish between the process or event of Going Extinct and the state or condition of Being Extinct, which one should see as orthogonal to the six types of extinction that I delineate. My aim with the second part of the book is to not only trace the history of Western thinking about the ethics of annihilation, but lay the theoretical groundwork for future research on the topic. I then outline my own views within “Existential Ethics,” which combine ideas and positions to yield a novel account of the conditions under which our extinction would be bad, and why there is a sense in which Being Extinct might be better than Being Extant, or continuing to exist

Doing Good with Virtual Reality: The Ethics of Using Virtual Simulations for Improving Human Morality

Much of the excitement and concern with virtual reality (VR) has to do with the impact of virtual experiences on our moral conduct in the “real world”. VR technologies offer vivid simulations that may impact prosocial dispositions and abilities or emotions related to morality. Whereas some experiences could facilitate particular moral behaviors, VR could also inculcate bad moral habits or lead to the surreptitious development of nefarious moral traits. In this chapter, I offer an overview of the ethical debate about using VR to improve morality. I start by clarifying the rationale of using VR for good, drawing on moral enhancement literature, branches of the science of morality, and the specific potentials of this technology. Then, I will briefly focus on three prominent domains of socio-moral improvement: the use of VR for enhancing empathy, reducing implicit biases, and improving pro-environmental behavior. After that, I shall consider three ethical objections to the enthusiasm for using VR in order to improve human morality. Finally, I will recapitulate the main points of the chapter and provide a few concluding thoughts on future avenues of discussion on how VR can make us act (morally) better

Air and Public Health An Investigation Using Four Historical Case Studies

This MD thesis explores the relationship between air and public health from early civilisations to the present day. Through examination of the changing relationships the thesis aims to identify, and critically explore, contemporary problems in public health theory and practice. This is a thesis primarily in the history of medicine or, more specifically, the history of public health. The thesis adopts an accepted five-stage framework for historical research. Within the framework, the thesis utilises two further, well established aspects of historical enquiry. First, it addresses the research questions by using historical case studies. Secondly, the historical research incorporates inter-disciplinary components, in particular the inclusion of ethics. The first case study initially explores air and health in ancient civilisations, especially within Greek medicine and philosophy, and then examines connections and relationships with ideas about air and health in mid-nineteenth century Britain. The second case study traces the changing relationship between air and public health from the mid-nineteenth century until about 1970, through examining developments in smoke pollution policy and scientific understanding of the effects of smoke on health. The third case study covers a period of three decades up to the present day. A piece of air pollution epidemiological research called quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is used as a vehicle through which to investigate philosophical, ethical and policy considerations in contemporary public health theory and practice. The fourth case study explores the approach to dealing with climate change. The approach is used as an instrument to probe utilitarianism as the moral foundation of public health, to explore other ethical frameworks, and to examine the relevance for environmental work within public health. Conclusions from each case study are drawn, and analysis of the links between the four case studies provides recommendations for public health theory and practice

Proceedings of the GPEA Polytechnic Summit 2022: Session Papers

Welcome to GPEA PS 2022 Each year the Polytechnic Summit assembles leaders, influencers and contributors who shape the future of polytechnic education. The Polytechnic Summit provides a forum to enable opportunities for collaboration and partnerships and for participants to focus on innovation in curriculum and pedagogy, to share best practices in active and applied learning, and discuss practice-based research to enhance student learning. This year a view on the aspects of applied research will be added. How to conduct research in a teaching first environment and make use of this. Which characteristics of applied research are important to be used in teaching and vice versa?The Summit will – once again - also provide an opportunity to examine the challenges and opportunities presented by COVID-19 and will offer us all an opportunity to explore the ways in which we can collaborate more effectively using our new-found virtual engagement skills and prepare for a hybrid future. PS2022 Themes: Design (Programmes, Curriculum, Organisation);Practice-Based Learning;Applied Research; Employability and Graduate Skills; Internationalisation, Global Teaching & Collaboration and Sustainability Theme