How Common is Common Human Reason?:The Plurality of Moral Perspectives and Kant’s Ethics

In his practical philosophy, Kant aims to systematize and ground a conception of morality that every human being already in some form is supposedly committed to in virtue of her common human reason. While Kantians especially in the last few years have explicitly acknowledged the central role of common human reason for a correct understanding of Kant’s ethics, there has been very little detailed critical discussion of the very notion of a common human reason as Kant envisages it. Sticker critically discusses in what ways Kant is committed to the notion that there are certain rational insights and rational capacities that all humans share, and thus investigates critically how Kant thinks moral normativity appears to the common human being, the rational agent who did not enjoy special education or philosophical training

Institutionalising Kant's political philosophy: Foregrounding cosmopolitan right

There exists a longstanding debate over the global institutional implications of Immanuel Kant's political philosophy: does such a philosophy entail a federal world government, or instead only a confederal ‘league of nations’? However, while the systematic nature of Kant's tripartite ‘doctrine of right' is well recognised, this debate has been conducted with all but exclusive focus on ‘international right' in particular. This article, by contrast, brings ‘cosmopolitan right' firmly into view. It proceeds by way of engagement with the two Kantian arguments made in defence of a ‘league of nations’ in discussion of international right, each of which appeals to aspects of states’ supposed ‘personhood’: the first appeals to states’ distinctive moral personality; the second to states’ physical manifestation. The article considers what happens when we assess these arguments not just in light of the demands of international right, but also in light of cosmopolitan right, and thus in light of public right more comprehensively. The answer is that such arguments cannot succeed as full defences of a league of nations. Indeed, when we assess such arguments with cosmopolitan right in view, they point instead – either tentatively or definitively – in the direction of world government

2006), Experimental study of dynamic capillary pressure effect in two-phase flow in porous media

ABSTRACT There is strong evidence in the literature that traditional equations describing two-phase flow processes in porous media may be inadequate under non-equilibrium or dynamic conditions. There exist theories that propose that the capillary pressure depends not only on saturation but also on the time rate of change of saturation. In this work, the significance of dynamic effects in the capillary pressure-saturation relationship is investigated through experiments in a homogeneous porous medium. A series of laboratory experiments were performed involving flow of two immiscible fluids, water and Tetrachloroethylene (PCE), in a homogeneous column. The experiments consist of a continuous cycle of drainage, imbibition, and drainage, where a large pressure of 20 kPa is applied to the displacing fluid. Contrary to traditional procedure, no hydrophobic or hydrophilic membranes were used in this experimental set-up. In this paper, the experimental set-up is described and preliminary results are presented. Capillary pressure and saturation curves measured under dynamic and static conditions are shown. The data are analyzed and the value of the dynamic coefficient τ is calculated

Revisiting the horizontal redistribution of water in soils : Experiments and numerical modeling

A series of experiments and related numerical simulations were carried out to study one-dimensional water redistribution processes in an unsaturated soil. A long horizontal Plexiglas box was packed as homogenously as possible with sand. The sandbox was divided into two sections using a very thin metal plate, with one section initially fully saturated and the other section only partially saturated. Initial saturation in the dry section was set to 0.2, 0.4, or 0.6 in three different experiments. Redistribution between the wet and dry sections started as soon as the metal plate was removed. Changes in water saturation at various locations along the sandbox were measured as a function of time using a dual-energy gamma system. Also, air and water pressures were measured using two different kinds of tensiometers at various locations as a function of time. The saturation discontinuity was found to persist during the entire experiments, while observed water pressures were found to become continuous immediately after the experiments started. Two models, the standard Richards equation and an interfacial area model, were used to simulate the experiments. Both models showed some deviations between the simulated water pressures and the measured data at early times during redistribution. The standard model could only simulate the observed saturation distributions reasonably well for the experiment with the lowest initial water saturation in the dry section. The interfacial area model could reproduce observed saturation distributions of all three experiments, albeit by fitting one of the parameters in the surface area production term