In defence of global egalitarianism

This essay argues that David Miller's criticisms of global egalitarianism do not undermine the view where it is stated in one of its stronger, luck egalitarian forms. The claim that global egalitarianism cannot specify a metric of justice which is broad enough to exclude spurious claims for redistribution, but precise enough to appropriately value different kinds of advantage, implicitly assumes that cultural understandings are the only legitimate way of identifying what counts as advantage. But that is an assumption always or almost always rejected by global egalitarianism. The claim that global egalitarianism demands either too little redistribution, leaving the unborn and dissenters burdened with their societies' imprudent choices, or too much redistribution, creating perverse incentives by punishing prudent decisions, only presents a problem for global luck egalitarianism on the assumption that nations can legitimately inherit assets from earlier generations – again, an assumption very much at odds with global egalitarian assumptions

An archaeology of borders: qualitative political theory as a tool in addressing moral distance

Interviews, field observations and other qualitative methods increasingly are being used to inform the construction of arguments in normative political theory. This article works to demonstrate the strong salience of some kinds of qualitative material for cosmopolitan arguments to extend distributive boundaries. The incorporation of interviews and related qualitative material can make the moral claims of excluded others more vivid and possibly more difficult to dismiss by advocates of strong priority to compatriots in distributions. Further, it may help to promote the kind of perspective taking that has been associated with actually motivating a willingness to aid by individuals. Illustrative findings are presented from field work conducted for a normative project on global citizenship, including interviews with unauthorized immigrants and the analysis of artifacts left behind on heavily used migrant trails

Plasmonic resonances and hot spots in Ag octopods

New type of plasmonic nanoparticles - silver octopods that can be synthesized with a variety of shapes - have been demonstrated to show versatile optical response using the discrete dipole approximation. The octopods show a complex behavior at optical (visible, IR) wavelengths, with three major resonances that can be tuned up to a desired response that makes them especially attractive to use in e.g. high-performance surface enhanced Raman (SERS) detectors. The excited resonant modes strongly depend on the geometrical parameters of the stars, while dependence on their orientation with respect to an incident radiation is moderate, owing to cubic symmetry. The field "hot spots" are formed with the local field enhancement up to 50 times compared to an incident field. They are usually localized at the surface between the arms and may be both "electric" and "magnetic". While the former are of primary importance for SERS, the latter may be identified by trapping magnetic nanoparticles in their vicinity. The results are in very good agreement with the data where available and may be used as a type of a "shape spectroscopy" for the nanoparticles.Comment: 12 pages. 6 figure

The Causal Structure of Emotions in Aristotle: Hylomorphism, Causal Interaction between Mind and Body, and Intentionality

Recently, a strong hylomorphic reading of Aristotelian emotions has been put forward, one that allegedly eliminates the problem of causal interaction between soul and body. Taking the presentation of emotions in de An. I 1 as a starting point and basic thread, but relying also on the discussion of Rh. II, I will argue that this reading only takes into account two of the four causes of emotions, and that, if all four of them are included into the picture, then a causal interaction of mind and body remains within Aristotelian emotions, independent of how strongly their hylomorphism is understood. Beyond the discussion with this recent reading, the analysis proposed of the fourfold causal structure of emotions is also intended as a hermeneutical starting point for a comprehensive analysis of particular emotions in Aristotle. Through the different causes Aristotle seems to account for many aspects of the complex phenomenon of emotion, including its physiological causes, its mental causes, and its intentional object

Passive magnetic shielding in static gradient fields

The effect of passive magnetic shielding on dc magnetic field gradients imposed by both external and internal sources is studied for two idealized shield models: concentric spherical and infinitely-long cylindrical shells of linear material. It is found that higher-order multipoles of an externally applied magnetic field are always shielded progressively better for either geometry by a factor related to the order of the multipole. In regard to the design of internal coil systems, we determine reaction factors for the general multipole field and provide examples of how one can take advantage of the coupling of the coils to the innermost shell to optimize the uniformity of the field. Furthermore, we provide formulae relevant to active magnetic compensation systems which attempt to stabilize the interior fields by sensing and cancelling the exterior fields close to the outermost shell. Overall this work provides a comprehensive framework that is useful for the analysis and optimization of dc magnetic shields, serving as a theoretical and conceptual design guide as well as a starting point and benchmark for finite-element analysis."We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada."https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.487371

Controlador de flujo lumínico para alumbrado público

En este trabajo se describen los principales métodos para controlar el flujo lumínico de una línea de alumbrado en donde las lámparas de descarga y en especial las de sodio de alta presión resultan ser las preferidas debido a una prolongada vida útil y a su alto rendimiento. Se estudió especialmente la utilización de un equipo regulador en líneas de alumbrado público que permite ajustar la iluminación al tráfico existente sin alterar la uniformidad de esta. Además, al estar las lámparas alimentadas por tensiones no mayores a las nominales se aumenta la vida útil de éstas logrando a su vez ahorro energético. Se seleccionó una topología basada en el cambio de taps, de la cual se describe su funcionamiento y los mecanismos de protección utilizados

Robot rights? Towards a social-relational justification of moral consideration \ud

Should we grant rights to artificially intelligent robots? Most current and near-future robots do not meet the hard criteria set by deontological and utilitarian theory. Virtue ethics can avoid this problem with its indirect approach. However, both direct and indirect arguments for moral consideration rest on ontological features of entities, an approach which incurs several problems. In response to these difficulties, this paper taps into a different conceptual resource in order to be able to grant some degree of moral consideration to some intelligent social robots: it sketches a novel argument for moral consideration based on social relations. It is shown that to further develop this argument we need to revise our existing ontological and social-political frameworks. It is suggested that we need a social ecology, which may be developed by engaging with Western ecology and Eastern worldviews. Although this relational turn raises many difficult issues and requires more work, this paper provides a rough outline of an alternative approach to moral consideration that can assist us in shaping our relations to intelligent robots and, by extension, to all artificial and biological entities that appear to us as more than instruments for our human purpose

Beyond Purity: Moral Disgust toward Bad Character

Previous studies support a link between moral disgust and impurity, while anger is linked to harm. We challenge this strict correspondence, and show that disgust is sensitive to information about moral character, even for harm violations. By contrast, anger is sensitive to information about actions, including their moral wrongness and consequences. Study 1 examined disgust and anger toward an action that indicates especially bad moral character (animal cruelty) versus an action that is more wrong (domestic abuse). Animal cruelty was associated with more disgust, whereas domestic abuse was associated with more anger. Studies 2 and 3 manipulated character by varying the agent’s desire to cause harm, and also varied the action’s harmful consequences. Desire to harm predicted only disgust (controlling for anger), while consequences were more closely related to anger (controlling for disgust). Taken together, these results indicate disgust responds to evidence of bad moral character, not just to impurity

Emotions and Digital Well-being. The rationalistic bias of social media design in online deliberations

In this chapter we argue that emotions are mediated in an incomplete way in online social media because of the heavy reliance on textual messages which fosters a rationalistic bias and an inclination towards less nuanced emotional expressions. This incompleteness can happen either by obscuring emotions, showing less than the original intensity, misinterpreting emotions, or eliciting emotions without feedback and context. Online interactions and deliberations tend to contribute rather than overcome stalemates and informational bubbles, partially due to prevalence of anti-social emotions. It is tempting to see emotions as being the cause of the problem of online verbal aggression and bullying. However, we argue that social media are actually designed in a predominantly rationalistic way, because of the reliance on text-based communication, thereby filtering out social emotions and leaving space for easily expressed antisocial emotions. Based on research on emotions that sees these as key ingredients to moral interaction and deliberation, as well as on research on text-based versus non-verbal communication, we propose a richer understanding of emotions, requiring different designs of online deliberation platforms. We propose that such designs should move from text-centred designs and should find ways to incorporate the complete expression of the full range of human emotions so that these can play a constructive role in online deliberations