Suchergebnisse

AbstractEpistemic states of uncertainty play important roles in ethical and political theorizing. Theories that appeal to a "veil of ignorance," for example, analyzefairnessorimpartialityin terms of certain states of ignorance. It is important, then, to scrutinize proposed conceptions of ignorance and explore promising alternatives in such contexts. Here, I study Lerner's probabilistic egalitarian theorem in the setting of imprecise probabilities. Lerner's theorem assumes that a social planner tasked with distributing income to individuals in a population is "completely ignorant" about which utility functions belong to which individuals. Lerner models this ignorance with a certain uniform probability distribution, and shows that, under certain further assumptions, income should be equally distributed. Much of the criticism of the relevance of Lerner's result centers on the representation of ignorance involved. Imprecise probabilities provide a general framework for reasoning about various forms of uncertainty including, in particular, ignorance. To what extent can Lerner's conclusion be maintained in this setting?

SOCIALISM HAS ALWAYS INVOKED SOME VISION OF COMMUNITY AND USUALLY FROWNED ON UNRESTAINED INDIVIDUALISM. THE IDEAL HAS BEEN SOLIDARITY RATHER THAN DIVISION, WORKING TOGETHER RATHER THAN ALONE, COLLECTIVE RATHER THAN INDIVIDUAL ACTION. PARTLY THIS IS NO MORE THAN EFFICIENCY: TO CHANGE THE WORLD THEY NEED THE WEIGHT OF NUMBERS; TO END POVERTY THEY NEED THE POWER OF SOCIALIZED PRODUCTION. BUT FOR MOST OF THEM THERE IS A POSITIVE AS WELL AS A PRAGMATIC SIDE. THE "SOCIAL" IN SOCIALISM HAS ALWAYS HAD AT LEAST TWO SENSES. SOCIALISTS BELIEVE IN COORDINATION, ARGUING THAT CONSCIOUS PLANNING WILL SERVE BETTER THAN UNREGULATED COMPETITION. BUT THEY ALSO VALUE THE VERY PROCESS OF WORKING TOGETHER, TENDING TO THE VIEW THAT THIS IS A GOOD IN ITSELF.

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Reinforcing earlier findings from other data, college senior fraternity/sorority members are more likely to consume alcohol frequently. Large reductions in estimates upon controlling for time spent partying, and to a lesser extent cigarette use and intramural sports involvement, suggest considerable unobserved heterogeneity in the relationship. Yet, effects remain substantive and are invariant to conditioning on numerous further measures of socializing, sports participation, academic performance and mental health. The conclusion holds when non-member comparison groups are restricted to drinkers who smoke, party and/or play intramurals, or matched to members based on drinking propensities, suggesting that fraternity/sorority membership raises alcohol use frequency"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Polarization and discrimination linked to religion have been increasing in many parts of the world, including on the two shores of the Mediterranean. Against this background, however, seeds of hope have emerged from a number of religious leaders who have called for a new narrative of human fraternity and inclusive citizenship. This report analyzes the opportunities which human fraternity and inclusive citizenship offer for government-religious partnerships aimed at building more inclusive and peaceful societies across both shores of the Mediterranean and puts forward interreligious engagement as a new policy framework that recognizes and amplifies these novel dynamics. Can the interreligious narrative of human fraternity help to create new inclusive forms of citizenship? How can governments and international organizations better partner with religious leaders and communities to concretely build inclusive societies from the MENA region to Europe?

It is contended that the notion of a free society requires that individuals & groups have access to information & the analytic capacity to utilize & manipulate such information. The Margaret Thatcher administration's elimination of the Central Policy Review Staff & creation of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit is interpreted as exemplifying the British government's disregard for analytical reasoning in political & social decision making. It is contended that the state's "semimystical" belief in the advantages of markets prompted the repudiation of analytical policy decision making. The Thatcher administration's abandonment of rational analysis is viewed as effecting the destruction of multiple advocacy. Dutch & British examples of institutions that provide analytical advice illustrate how analytical reasoning can be reimplemented into the British government. 11 References. J. W. Parker

The Papers, 1933-1981, of Stetson Kennedy comprise correspondence; subject files on various organizations, individuals, and ideas; typescripts of articles written by Kennedy; newsclippings; press releases; bulletins and fliers; pamphlets; periodicals; and photographs. The subject files pertain to economic conditions, labor and anti-black violence, peace groups, peonage, Southern politicians, Mexico, the Spanish Civil War, and Kennedy's own campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Florida in 1950. Articles, clippings, and pamphlets concern civil rights, international affairs, the Ku Klux Klan, labor (particularly CIO) organizing, and southern politics. The photographs depict WPA work in progress, attacks against Negroes (including lynching), and various organizations. The many periodicals include two issues (1947) of Eugene Talmadge's The Statesman, twenty-one issues (1943-1950) of The Southern Patriot, and eight issues (1939-1943) of Lillian Smith's North Georgia Review. The correspondence covers the period 1935-1979, and includes as correspondents students and peace groups, several committees to aid Spanish loyalists, social reform and civil liberties groups, government agencies, writer's organizations, publishers, literary agents, newspapers and magazines, and the New York Public Library, which obtained some Kennedy manuscripts for its Schomburg Collection in 1952. [L1979-37]

This study was designed to look at differences between Greek and non-Greek college students' perceptions of a hazing incident that had taken place in a fraternity setting. Subjects were 231 students (112 Greeks, 119 independents) at a moderate size state university in the eastern United States with a moderate Greek presence. Subjects read one of four conditions of a hazing scenario involving an overdose of alcohol consumed voluntarily or involuntarily administered by a fraternity president or fraternity brother. Dependent measures included attributions of responsibility as well as causal attributions. Authoritarianism was explored as well. Responsibility attributions and causal attributions varied with the voluntary versus involuntary nature of the overdose and with membership in Greek organizations. Finally, Greek students were found to score higher on authoritarianism than were non-Greek students.

In this article in the special symposium On Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933 - 2005), the demanding & discomforting conclusions about modern society and American politics held by the political theorist are asserted to be reflected in his views of human nature. The endemic need for fraternity is an essentialist project for a deliberative expression of fraternity, politics, & democracy. The specific political, cultural & economic conditions necessary for the cultivation & growth of fraternity are asserted to be at odds with the impositions that modern society places on individuals. The inhospitability of modern society to the practice of fraternity were acknowledged by the philosopher to make the prospects of achieving that virtue slim. The author concludes by delineating three imperatives for the development of fraternity in modern times, all of which include the obligation to set an example. References. J. Harwell