The Ethics of Exploitation

Philosophical inquiry into exploitation has two major deficiencies to date: it assumes that exploitation is wrong by definition; and it pays too much attention to the Marxian account of exploitation. Two senses of exploitation should be distinguished: the ‘moral’ or pejorative sense and the ‘non-moral’ or ‘non-prejudicial’ sense. By demonstrating the conceptual inadequacy of exploitation as defined in the first sense, and by defining exploitation adequately in the latter sense, we seek to demonstrate the moral complexity of exploitation. We contend, moreover, that moral evaluation of exploitation is only possible once we abandon a strictly Marxian framework and attempt, in the long run, to develop an integral ethic along Godwinian lines

Bakunin i Feuerbach o naturalizmie

P. McLaughlin, „Bakunin and Feuerbach: On Naturalism”, [w:] P. McLaughlin, Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Anarchism, Algora Publishing, New York 2002, rozdz. 2.18, s. 197–206. Za zgodą Autora i Wydawnictwa z języka angielskiego przełożyli: Ewelina Topolska i Dariusz Sagan.In the article, Feuerbach’s naturalism is analyzed and compared with Bakunin’s thought. Unlike Bakunin, Feuerbach suggests a distinction between the natural and the human. He excludes human activity and thought from the natural realm, and implies that while man is the product of nature and is dependent on it, he is somehow distinct from it and merely enclosed by it. Thus, despite Feuerbach’s naturalism, a certain dualism persists — a dualism Bakunin was to reject. Feuerbach’s political ideas are essentially Hegelian, that is, statist, and Bakunin has nothing but contempt for such a position. Feuerbach uncovers the ground of religious authority and establishes, at least provisionally, the relation between religious authority — divine and ecclesiastical — and political authority. Bakunin would maintain, however, that Feuerbach — following Hegel — misunderstands or mystifies political authority in “rationalizing” it, and this mystification of political authority is something Bakunin deplores. This mystification occurs with the claim that the State exists over and above “the strictly political state” as “the actuality of the ethical Idea”, that is, as an ethical community, or as “the actuality of concrete freedom”. The notion that the political and the ethical are in any way related, that the State is anything other than political, or that the State is the domain of concrete freedom, is unacceptable to Bakunin. While Feuerbach’s achievement lies, therefore, in exposing the mystification of religious authority, Bakunin’s lies in exposing the mystification of political authority and, by extension, scientific authority. As such Bakunin’s thought represents the culmination of the Left Hegelian project. Among all the proponents of this project (such as Bruno Bauer, Ruge, and Marx) Bakunin was the only one to hold that just as the conclusion of the critique of theology is anti-theologistic, that is, naturalistic and atheistic, so the conclusion of the critique of politics is anti-political, that is, anarchistic. Bakunin is the sole Left Hegelian to bring the project to its logical conclusion

Computational Modelling and Experimental Verifcation of Quasioptical Components at Millimetre Wavelengths

This thesis describes various analysis techniques used in the optical characterisation of millimetre wave radiation. The results presented relate to both computational simulation and experimental measurements carried out at NUI Maynooth. The majority of the analysis is centred around a frequency of 100 GHz, or a corresponding wavelength of 3 mm. Experimental measurements were performed on diffractive optical elements known as axicons, and the results were presented and compared with simulations. An introduction to KID devices was given, along with their potential uses and a potential analysis method using CST was outlined. These techniques using plane wave illumination in CST were compared and verifed with Gaussian Beam Mode Analysis. A method of analysing the form of standing waves present in a system involving metallic rings was described. A method previously used for the analysis of standing waves between feedhorns was adapted to examine the form of the modes present in the resonant Fabry-Perot cavity. Detailed analysis was performed using CST, a full electromagnetic modelling package on resonant metallic cavities related to describing a waveguide coupled bolometer for the SAFARI instrument on the proposed SPICA space telescope mission. A cavity geometry was optimsed manually for optimum cavity size and absorber size and location by performing a large number of simulations. SCATTER, an in-house mode matching software was used to verify the results from CST in a simple case. Various other cavity geometries were also investigated briefy. A simplifed cavity model which could potentially be manufactured to perform measurements at NUI maynooth was outlined, as well as a potential detector method known as a patch antenna. Patch antennas were designed for use at 100 GHz and briefy examined in operation within a cavity using CST

Volatiles associated with Formosan subterranean termites and related methods development

An investigation was conducted to identify volatiles associated with active Formosan termites. Using a combined technique of short path thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (SPTD-GC/MS), qualitative comparisons were made between compounds detected in treatments containing active Formosan termites versus those detected in controls without Formosan termites. Except for dimethyl disulfide, none of the compounds were consistently detected in the treatments but not the controls for the four termite groups tested. However, in each of the three groups that dimethyl disulfide was detected, dead termites that were decomposing along with active termites were present. Therefore, none of the compounds could be classified as volatiles associated with active Formosan termites. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons were made between compounds detected in treatments that contained carton nests with active Formosan termites and controls that contained neither Formosan termites nor carton nests. Two methods were used, one using unwashed Nalgene 550 platinum-cured silicone tubing and the other using unwashed fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) teflon tubing in the experimental set-up. Qualitative analysis for both methods indicated that none of the compounds could be consistently detected in treatments but not the controls. Quantitative analysis for both methods indicated that the concentrations of naphthalene, and butylated hydroxytoluene and nine unknown volatiles were not significantly different between the treatments and controls at the 0.01 level as determined by the paired t-test. Therefore, using the methods described herein, none of the analyzed compounds could be classified as volatiles associated with active Formosan termites. However, changes in the methods may enable the detection of volatiles associated with active Formosan termites. The concentrations of three suspect reporter molecules, which include naphthalene and two unknown compounds, were significantly lower using fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) teflon tubing than using unwashed Nalgene 550 platinum-cured silicone tubing in the experimental set-up as determined by 95% confidence intervals. This suggested that a source of these volatiles was unwashed silicone tubing, which was relevant to this study because it aided in the determining whether the volatiles are associated with active Formosan termites

The Effects of a Wisdom Intervention in a Christian Congregation

Psychological research on the topic of wisdom is limited in its incorporation of religion and spirituality. This gap in psychological literature may serve to limit a thorough understanding of wisdom, which has strong historical and contemporary links to religion and faith communities. Positive psychology, with its interest in both spirituality and wisdom, may allow for some rapprochement in wisdom and spirituality. In collaboration with leaders of a local Friends (Quaker) congregation, this study investigated the effects of a spiritually informed wisdom intervention delivered in the context of a faith community. Participants for the study consisted of 27 young adults (24 completed both the pre and post questionnaire) and a comparison group consisting of 32 young adults. The intervention was designed to increase participants’ abilities in cognitive, affective and moral domains, all of which are essential to the development of wisdom. The cohorts met twice monthly over the course of 3 months and were given assignments between meetings to help promote wisdom. Significant group by time interaction effects were found among measurements of practical wisdom, postformal thinking, and subjective well-being, with those in the experimental group showing changes in the expected direction. Implications are considered

Mobile Holmes: Sherlockiana, travel writing and the co-production of the Sherlock Holmes stories

This thesis is a study of the ways in which readers actively and collaboratively co-produce fiction. It focuses on American Sherlockians, a group of devotees of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. At its centre is an analysis of geographical and travel writings these readers produced about Holmes’s life and world, in the later years of the twentieth century. I argue that Sherlockian writings indicate a tendency to practise what I term ‘expansionary literary geography’; that is, a species of encounter with fiction in which readers harness literature’s creative agency in order to consciously add to or expand the literary spaces of the text. My thesis is a work of literary geography. I am indebted to recent work that theorises reading as a dynamic practice which occurs in time and space. My work develops this theoretical lens by considering the fictional event in the light of encounters which are collaborative, collective and ongoing. I present my findings across four substantive chapters, each of which elucidates a different aspect of Sherlockians’ expansionary literary geography: first, mapping, where Sherlockians who set out to definitively map the world as Doyle wrote it keep re-drawing its boundaries outside of his texts; secondly, creative writing, by which readers make Holmes move while ensuring he never wanders too far from the canon; thirdly, debate, a popular pastime among American Sherlockians and a means for readers to build Holmes’s world out of their own memories and experiences; and fourthly, literary tourism, used by three exemplary readers as a means of walking Holmes into the world. I conclude with a call for literary geography as a discipline to continue to broaden its horizons beyond the writers and readers of self-consciously literary fictions. The kinds of reading practices I discuss here can take us closer to demonstrating the role that literature and encounters with fictions play in the wider production of space in everyday life.Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Studentship Arts and Humanities Research Council International Placement Scheme Award British Research Councils Fellowship at the U.S. Library of Congres

If Animals Are Like Our Children Let Us Treat Them Alike: Creating Tests of an Animal\u27s Intelligence for Determinations of Legal Personhood

The notion that animals could be granted rights under the law was once ridiculed, but now courts and legislatures have begun to move towards granting animals greater protections from cruelty and emotional trauma. Animal law as a course of study was not available in law schools until the early 1970\u27s. It has since grown into a field of debate and study that has drawn in experts from around the world. The rules of law that treat animals as property have been fought by animal rights advocates as being archaic similarly to the laws that once allowed for slavery. Animal owners are now being treated as guardians of animals rather than property owners who may benefit from their animals, but who must also ensure their health. Due to a lack of legal personhood under the law, when animals are injured or their wellbeing is threatened, advocates and owners are often barred from bringing claims on the behalf of animals because of the lack of legal standing to argue for the animals they are attempting to aid. Children have been seen by philosophers and the law as property that are under the control of their parents. Examining the relationship between children and their caregivers has been likened to examining the relationship between other sentient animals and their owners. The earliest anti-child abuse laws stemmed from efforts to end animal cruelty and sought to protect children not only from abusive guardians, but also from exploitation through labor and medical experimentation. Inspired by anti-child cruelty laws, reforms were made to address medical research abuses, availability of education, eugenics, and a variety of other social problems. Interestingly, such reforms were often backed by arguments comparing the legal status of animals and children. The current state of the law is a hodgepodge of common law, statues, and agency regulations which makes it difficult to determine what, if any, choices a child can make and what protections from harm they have

Raising the Impact Factor of the Library: Using the U.S. News & World Report’s Upcoming Academic Impact Law School Rankings to Boost the Academic Standing of Law Librarians

This article recommends that law libraries and their librarians use the upcoming U.S. News & World Report’s academic rankings for law schools as an opportunity to enhance academic law libraries’ standing in the legal profession and to elevate law librarians’ statures within law schools