Search results

It is commonly taken for granted that questions of feasibility are highly relevant to our normative thinking—and perhaps especially our normative thinking about politics. But what exactly does this preoccupation with feasibility amount to, and in what forms if any is it warranted? This article aims to provide an opinionated introduction to, and clearer characterisation of, the feasibility issue. I begin by discussing the question of how feasibility is to be understood. I then turn to the question of feasibility's role, suggesting that there are two quite different kinds of role questions that may be at play, though they are often run together: a question about feasibility's normative significance; and a question about its proper use in informing our normative thinking. Finally, I consider how the feasibility issue differs from certain other related issues: the demandingness issue; the issue of whether "ought" implies "can"; and the "ideal versus non-ideal theory" issue. ; Research for the article was supported by an Australian Research Council‐funded Future Fellowship (FT160100409).

Both the idea of feasibility and the role that it might play within political theory are controversial. Recent discussions have attempted to specify an appropriate overall conceptualization of feasibility. This paper offers a more nuanced account of a number of inter-related aspects of feasibility and argues for a more realistic view of feasibility. Four aspects of feasibility are identified and discussed: resource feasibility, value feasibility, human feasibility and institutional feasibility.

Understanding the composition of the bond return is always a popular topic in the financial markets. There are various factors that influence the bond returns. Therefore, a precise prediction of the bond returns is still under discussion. This paper is enlightened by the papers of Ilmanen (1995, 1997) and Ilmanen and Sayood(2002). They proposed six predictors in forecasting the US government bond excess returns. I analyze the rationale of using those predictors and attempt to calibrate the predictability of the German government bond returns. Firstly, a regression model is used for estimation. Then I use an additive model on the same financial market data set to further improve the model predictability.

Abstract:Both the idea of feasibility and the role that it might play within political theory are controversial. Recent discussions have attempted to specify an appropriate overall conceptualization of feasibility. This essay offers a more nuanced account of a number of interrelated aspects of feasibility and argues for a more realistic view of feasibility. Four aspects of feasibility are identified and discussed: resource feasibility, value feasibility, human feasibility, and institutional feasibility.

While methodological and metatheoretical questions pertaining to feasibility have been intensively discussed in the philosophical literature on justice in recent years, these discussions have not permeated the debate on global democracy. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of importing some of the advancements made in this literature into the debate on global democracy, as well as to develop aspects that are relevant for explaining the role of feasibility in normative political theory. This is done by pursuing two arguments. First, to advance the work on the role of feasibility, we suggest as intuitively plausible two metatheoretical constraints on normative political theorizing–the 'fitness constraint' and the 'functional constraint'–which elucidate a number of aspects relevant in determining proper feasibility constraints for an account in political theory. Secondly, to illustrate the usefulness of this feasibility framework, we sketch an account of global democracy consisting of normative principles which respond differently to these aspects and thus are tied to different feasibility constraints as well as exemplify how it may be applied in practice.

AbstractDoing the best we can in the world as it is requires that appropriate account be taken of "feasibility considerations." The object of this essay is to examine what "appropriate account" amounts to — and specifically how "feasibility" should be conceptualized so as to operate most congenially with "desirability considerations." One element in this exercise is to recognize "feasibility" not so much as a category as "coming in degrees" (just as desirability must be recognized). A second element is to specify evaluands as actions — objects that the advisee controls — rather than as objects that lie somewhere intermediate along the path from actions to final desirability principles. This move serves to collapse all feasibility issues to ones relating to the consequences of genuine actions rather than "feasibility of" other kinds of objects of evaluation. A particular problem in the proper treatment of feasibility considerations is the tendency to begin from the "ought-implies-can" principle, a point of departure that frames feasibility considerations in a dismissive or otherwise inadequate way.

2021 Summer. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; The primary motivation for this Thesis is to understand whether it is in fact feasible for rich countries, like the United States, to fulfill their humanitarian obligations through an international climate treaty. And if this is infeasible, why? Alongside this motivation, is a motivation to bring to light another important dimension to climate justice that is often lost within the scale and the urgency of climate change, namely the misrecognition of Indigenous peoples. My task in Chapter One is to explain how Eric Posner's and David Weisbach's employment of the political feasibility constraint of International Paretianism functions in international climate policy discourse. I work to show how climate policy outcomes solely constrained by International Paretianism will predictably violate basic humanitarian constraints. Posner and Weisbach defend a Two-Track Approach to climate policy, where the ends of justice are best achieved though policy means independent of a climate treaty. Their view entails that climate policies should not be designed with regard to constraints of justice. Rather than satisfy constraints of justice, a climate treaty need only satisfy the political feasibility constraint of International Paretianism. I work to show the policy outcomes that follow from the feasibility constraint of International Paretianism, which are morally unacceptable because they violate basic humanitarian obligations. Posner and Weisbach justify these moral costs by appealing to what is and what is not politically feasible, per International Paretianism. I will work investigate the legitimacy of this feasibility constraint in Chapter Two. My task in Chapter Two is to investigate the political legitimacy of International Paretianism. I begin by clarifying how feasibility constraints function in normative theorizing and I defend what I consider to be an appropriate function for International Paretianism. There are two general functions that feasibility constraints can serve in policy decision making. Hard feasibility constraints function to rule out policy outcomes that are in principle impossible due to invariant conditions, while soft feasibility function inform our practical deliberations about what we can do given our contingent circumstances. Soft constraints allow us to acknowledge that there are limits on what we can realistically accomplish, while also acknowledging that we can work to change these limits. In this Chapter, I will argue that we should not make the mistake of using International Paretianism as a hard constraint. I will argue that it is conceptually possible for states to act for reasons other than the common interest of their citizenry. As such, International Paretianism is a soft feasibility constraint. I conclude with an analysis of why it is that International Paretianism is a soft feasibility constraint for the United States. My task Chapter Three is to present one possible way that institutions can govern themselves towards an interdependent collective continuance, and to identify a soft feasibility constraint that is relevant to the ability of US federal agencies to integrating such institutional capacities. Indigenous people have an epistemic advantage on how to respond to climate change, and in an ameliorative way. Yet, they are not procedurally or culturally recognized for their knowledge. I consider this to be a constraint on our ability to appropriately respond to climate change. In this Chapter, I will present the way in which the Potawatomi Nation, members of the Anishinaabe Intellectual Tradition, have and continue to interdependently govern themselves toward collective continuance. I will argue that Indigenous peoples in fact have an epistemic advantage in this particular subject matter, which is due to a long history of colonially-induced ecological displacement and relocation. I will conclude by identifying and defending what I believe to be a 'soft' cultural feasibility constraint on the ability of federal agencies to work in reciprocal relations of knowledge exchange with Indigenous peoples at the procedural level of climate policy decision-making. The normative upshots of this Thesis are that (1) the citizens of the United States have a responsibility to change their government institutions such that they can be responsive to humanitarian constraints, as well as ecological limits. And (2) one way in which this responsibility may be realized is through members of the United States correcting for an identity prejudice that would preempt the United States government from instituting reciprocal relations of knowledge exchange with Indigenous people.