3,538 research outputs found
Why Animals Have an Interest in Freedom
Do non-human animals have an interest in sociopolitical freedom? Cochrane has recently taken up this important yet largely neglected quest ion. He argues that animal freedom is not a relevant moral concern in itself, because animals have a merely instrumental but not an intrinsic interest in freedom (Cochrane 2009a, 2012). This paper will argue that even if animals have a merely instrumental interest in
freedom, animal freedom should nonetheless be an important goal for our relationships with animals. Drawing on recent work on the value of freedom, it will be argued that freedom is non-specifically instrumentally valuable. Accordingly, freedom is a means to other goods, but often it is not possible to identify those goods in advance or aim for them directly. Some of the reasons that make freedom non-specifically valuable for human relationships, it will be argued, also apply to relationships between humans and animals. Amongst other implications, it will be shown how this argument provides a response to those who fear that stricter animal protection policies might undermine people’s freedom: A concern for freedom actually requires stricter protection policies rather than speak against them
Does collective unfreedom matter? Individualism, power and proletarian unfreedom
When assessing institutions and social outcomes, it matters how free society is within them (‘societal freedom’). For example, does capitalism come with greater societal freedom than socialism? For such judgements, freedom theorists typically assume Individualism: societal freedom is simply the aggregate of individual freedom. However, G.A. Cohen’s well-known case provides a challenge: imagine ten prisoners are individually free to leave their prison but doing so would incarcerate the remaining nine. Assume further that no one actually leaves. If we adopt Individualism plus the standard liberal view of freedom, such incarceration seems to leave societal freedom unaffected. This is an important theoretical challenge: it seems we must either reject Individualism or reject, or at least amend, the liberal view. Cohen also suggests his case, and the collective unfreedom therein, helps us capture how proletarians are unfree under capitalism. In this article, I argue that we can solve Cohen’s puzzle, if we focus on how power can reduce freedom. If we adopt the republican view of freedom, we can say that prisoners are unfree in Cohen’s case because they are dominated by the other prisoners. This solution keeps Individualism but moves beyond liberal freedom. I then also show how this individualistic framework captures proletarian unfreedom
Freedom of choice and the tobacco endgame
Endgame proposals strive for a tobacco-free (or at least cigarette-free) society. Some endgame proposals are radical and include, for example, a complete ban on cigarettes. Setting aside empirical worries, one worry is ethical: would such proposals not go too far in interfering with individual freedom? I argue that concerns around freedom do not speak against endgame proposals, including strong proposals such as a ban on cigarettes. I first argue that when balancing freedom with public health goals in tobacco control, the latter win out. But I also argue that, in principle, a concern with freedom itself already justifies endgame measures. First, such measures can increase people's lifetime freedom, that is, the freedom they have across their entire lives. Second, such measures can facilitate a better interpersonal distribution of freedom by increasing aggregate societal freedom and by reducing inequalities. Overall, freedom does not preclude strict tobacco control but supports it
Renormalization Group Evolution in the type I + II seesaw model
We carefully analyze the renormalization group equations in the type I + II
seesaw scenario in the extended standard model (SM) and minimal supersymmetric
standard model (MSSM). Furthermore, we present analytic formulae of the mixing
angles and phases and discuss the RG effect on the different mixing parameters
in the type II seesaw scenario. The renormalization group equations of the
angles have a contribution which is proportional to the mass squared difference
for a hierarchical spectrum. This is in contrast to the inverse proportionality
to the mass squared difference in the effective field theory case.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures; corrected error due to wrong superfield
normalization in RG equations (24-28,C1-4) as well as error in RG equations
of mixing parameters (38,43); RG equations of mixing angles depend on
Majorana phase
The ethics of nudging:An overview
So-called nudge policies utilize insights from behavioral science to achieve policy outcomes. Nudge policies try to improve people's decisions by changing the ways options are presented to them, rather than changing the options themselves or incentivizing or coercing people. Nudging has been met with great enthusiasm but also fierce criticism. This paper provides an overview of the debate on the ethics of nudging to date. After outlining arguments in favor of nudging, we first discuss different objections that all revolve around the worry that nudging vitiates personal autonomy. We split up this worry into different dimensions of autonomy, such as freedom of choice, volitional autonomy, rational agency, and freedom as nondomination. We next discuss worries that nudging is manipulative, violates human dignity, and prevents more important structural reform. Throughout, we will present responses that proponents of nudging can muster. On the whole, we conclude that the objections fail to establish that the nudge program as a whole should be rejected. At the same time, they give us important guidance when moving towards an ethical assessment of nudges on a case-by-case basis. Towards the end, we provide some possible ways forward in debates around the ethics of nudging
Economic inequality and the long-term future
Why, if at all, should we object to economic inequality? Some central arguments – the
argument from decreasing marginal utility for example – invoke instrumental reasons
and object to inequality because of its effects. Such instrumental arguments, however,
often concern only the static effects of inequality and neglect its intertemporal conse-
quences. In this article, we address this striking gap and investigate income inequality’s
intertemporal consequences, including its potential effects on humanity’s (very)
long-term future. Following recent arguments around future generations and so-called
longtermism, those effects might arguably matter more than inequality’s short-term con-
sequences. We assess whether we have instrumental reason to reduce economic
inequality based on its intertemporal effects in the short, medium, and the very long
term. We find a good short and medium-term instrumental case for lower economic
inequality. We then argue, somewhat speculatively, that we have instrumental reasons
for inequality reduction from a longtermist perspective too, primarily because greater
inequality could increase existential risk. We thus have instrumental reasons to reduce
inequality, regardless of which time-horizon we take. We then argue that from most
consequentialist perspectives, this pro tanto reason also gives us all-things-considered
reason. And even across most non-consequentialist views in philosophy, this argument
gives us either an all-things-considered or at least weighty pro tanto reason against
inequality
Longtermist Political Philosophy: An Agenda for Future Research
We set out longtermist political philosophy as a research field by exploring the case for, and the implications of, ‘institutional longtermism’: the view that, when evaluating institutions, we should give significant weight to their very long-term effects. We begin by arguing that the standard case for longtermism may be more robust when applied to institutions than to individual actions or policies, both because institutions have large, broad, and long-term effects, and because institutional longtermism can plausibly sidestep various objections to individual longtermism. We then address points of contact between longtermism and some central values of mainstream political philosophy, focusing on justice, equality, freedom, legitimacy, and democracy. While each value initially seems to conflict with institutional longtermism, we find that these conflicts are less clear-cut upon closer inspection, and that some political values might even provide independent support for institutional longtermism. We end with a grab bag of related questions that we lack space to explore here
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