Kurt Baier on Reason and Morality

Dialogue ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-818
Author(s):  
Ishtiyaque Haji
Keyword(s):  
Moral Order ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Rationality Problem ◽  
Do So

The Rational and the Moral Order, a work of sweeping scope and depth, opens with three problems: the Rationality Problem, briefly, is that the following set is inconsistent, although each of its elements seems true: our conduct cannot be rationally justified unless it promotes our own good; moral conduct is rationally justified; but morality often requires that we do things that do not promote our own good. The Motivation Problem distills to this: can something be a reason for someone to do something without its actually motivating him to do so (the so-called “externalist” position), or is being a motivator a necessary condition of being a reason for that person (the “internalist position”)? Finally, the Sanction Problem notes that, although it seems plausible and generally accepted that immorality should be sanctioned, it seems neither plausible, nor is it generally accepted, that irrationality should be. Why this asymmetry? I restrict my attention, in what follows, to aspects of Baier's fascinating discussion on the Rationality Problem and the Motivation Problem.

scholarly journals A product form for the general stochastic matching model

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-468
Author(s):  
Pascal Moyal ◽  
Ana Bušić ◽  
Jean Mairesse
Keyword(s):  
Stationary Distribution ◽  
Product Form ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Matching Model ◽  
Bipartite Matching ◽  
Compatibility Graph ◽  
Stochastic Matching ◽  
Dynamic Reversibility ◽  
Original Dynamic ◽  
Do So

AbstractWe consider a stochastic matching model with a general compatibility graph, as introduced by Mairesse and Moyal (2016). We show that the natural necessary condition of stability of the system is also sufficient for the natural ‘first-come, first-matched’ matching policy. To do so, we derive the stationary distribution under a remarkable product form, by using an original dynamic reversibility property related to that of Adan, Bušić, Mairesse, and Weiss (2018) for the bipartite matching model.

scholarly journals An Objective Algorithm for Detecting and Tracking Tropical Cloud Clusters: Implications for Tropical Cyclogenesis Prediction

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (8) ◽  
pp. 1007-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher C. Hennon ◽  
Charles N. Helms ◽  
Kenneth R. Knapp ◽  
Amanda R. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Ocean Basin ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Tropical Cyclogenesis ◽  
Movement Vector ◽  
Cloud Clusters ◽  
Real Time Tracking ◽  
Do So

Abstract An algorithm to detect and track global tropical cloud clusters (TCCs) is presented. TCCs are organized large areas of convection that form over warm tropical waters. TCCs are important because they are the “seedlings” that can evolve into tropical cyclones. A TCC satisfies the necessary condition of a “preexisting disturbance,” which provides the required latent heat release to drive the development of tropical cyclone circulations. The operational prediction of tropical cyclogenesis is poor because of weaknesses in the observational network and numerical models; thus, past studies have focused on identifying differences between “developing” (evolving into a tropical cyclone) and “nondeveloping” (failing to do so) TCCs in the global analysis fields to produce statistical forecasts of these events. The algorithm presented here has been used to create a global dataset of all TCCs that formed from 1980 to 2008. Capitalizing on a global, Gridded Satellite (GridSat) infrared (IR) dataset, areas of persistent, intense convection are identified by analyzing characteristics of the IR brightness temperature (Tb) fields. Identified TCCs are tracked as they move around their ocean basin (or cross into others); variables such as TCC size, location, convective intensity, cloud-top height, development status (i.e., developing or nondeveloping), and a movement vector are recorded in Network Common Data Form (NetCDF). The algorithm can be adapted to near-real-time tracking of TCCs, which could be of great benefit to the tropical cyclone forecast community.

The Illusion of Power and the Disruption of Moral Norms: Thucydides' Critique of Periclean Policy

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Sara Monoson ◽  
Michael Loriaux
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Do So

Scholars in both international relations and political theory have been turning their attention to Thucydides with increasing frequency but with dissimilar questions. We draw on both traditions of inquiry to reexamine Thucydides' view of Pericles. We argue that antithetical reasoning is present in the treatment of Pericles and is manifested in the opposition between the statesman's brilliance and the infelicitous consequences of his statecraft, as become evident in the work as a whole. This antithesis undermines the claim advanced by certain figures in the History, as well as by contemporary realists, that states (statesmen) should not be held to the same moral standards as individuals because to do so subverts their capacity to conduct prudent policy. We propose that Thucydides' work suggests, instead, that it is precisely when the norms of moral conduct are disrupted that states and individuals find it next to impossible to chart a prudent course of action.

Domination and Assertion Towards a theory of educational change

1968 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Margaret Scotford Archer ◽  
Michalina Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Educational Change ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domination ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

In the sociology of Max Weber, the history of any social institution corresponds to the constant interplay of a dominant and an assertive group and their supportive ideologies. While Weber himself posited the relevance of such interaction for the study of educational change, he limited himself to the description of historical stages in this process without attempting to account for their sequence. To do so requires a specification of the necessary condition for successful educational domination or assertion by any group. The factors of such domination over the social institution of education may at times coincide with those required for social domination–defined as domination over the main institutions of a society. This coincidence will depend on the degree to which education is integrated with other social institutions. When education is largely unintegrated with such institutions, the group dominating it will tend to be distinct from the ruling group in society. A corresponding statement can be made about assertion. However, as education is never completely autonomous, a theory of educational change (1) necessarily goes beyond this institution to the extent to which it is integrated with others.

Critical pressures required for generation of forced expiratory wheezes

1989 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 1136-1142 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Gavriely ◽  
K. B. Kelly ◽  
J. B. Grotberg ◽  
S. H. Loring
Keyword(s):  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Gas Velocity ◽  
Suction Pump ◽  
Collapsible Tubes ◽  
High Impedance ◽  
Airway Opening ◽  
Air Speed ◽  
Theoretical Results ◽  
Do So

Flow limitation (FL) has recently been shown to be a necessary condition for the generation of forced expiratory wheezes (FEW) in normal subjects. The present study was designed to investigate whether it is also a sufficient condition. To do so we studied the effects of varying expiratory effort on generation of FEW. Six normal subjects exhaled with varying force into an orifice in line with a high-impedance suction pump. Esophageal (Pes), airway opening, and transpulmonary (Ptp) pressures were measured alongside flow rate, lung volume, and tracheal lung sounds. In each subject a certain critical degree of effort had to be attained before FEW were generated. This effort, measured as Pes at the onset of wheezes, varied among the subjects (range -11 to 45 cmH2O). Similarly, a minimal Ptp had to be reached for FEW to evolve (mean +/- SD -34 +/- 12 cmH2O, range -18 to -50 cmH2O). These critical Pes and Ptp values were significantly higher than those required for FL. It was concluded that, in addition to the requirement for FL, sufficient levels of effort and negative Ptp must exist before FEW can be generated. By analogy to experimental and theoretical results from studies on flow-induced oscillations in self-supporting collapsible tubes, it was further concluded that these pressures are required to induce flattening of the intrathoracic airways downstream from the choke point. It is this configurational change that causes air speed to become equal to or exceed the critical gas velocity needed to induce oscillations in soft-walled tubes.

Experience, Understanding, and the Translational Transformation of Reality

2018 ◽  
pp. 213-234
Author(s):  
Simon Glynn
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Syntactic Relations ◽  
Independent Criterion ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Do So

The success of linguistic communication in general, and translation in particular, is dependent upon the veracity of our understanding of the meaning of concepts signified in or by a language or languages. This raises the question as to how such understanding may be accomplished and ensured. And while Platonists and their ilk rely upon the transcendental intuition of supposedly absolute concepts, purportedly inscribed in their souls, those skeptical of such metaphysics have tended to attempt to derive the meaning of the concepts signified by language ostensively from observations of the supposedly “Real” world. However, in this essay, I argue that this is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least being that, as Husserl, following Hume, has noted, even the existence, much less the nature, of a (quasi-Noumenal) “Real” world, outside or transcending our experiences of phenomenal “Appearances,” is no more empirically verifiable than is Plato’s transcendental realm. Nor may understanding of (the meaning of ) the concepts signified by the linguistic communications of others be derived from these appearances, since my understanding of how things appear to others presupposes my understanding of the language they must employ to communicate this to me. Furthermore, and contra Husserl, as Hermeneutic Phenomenologists such as Heidegger recognized, the very appearances from which we may seek to drive our concepts are always already mediated by our conceptions or preconceptions. All of this being so, then as we shall perhaps not be surprised to see, the (semantic meaning of ) concepts signified by language are, as de Saussure has argued, derived from the syntactic relations which delineate them. Consequently, as Derrida has shown, they change over time (or diachronically) as such relations change. Unable therefore to establish the veracity of individuals’ understanding of concepts communicated either within a single language, or between languages, by appealing outside language to an independent criterion of arbitration, we must instead rely upon the coherence of linguistic articulation and communication; a coherence which, although a necessary condition of ensuring the correspondence of our understanding with that of others, can never be sufficient to do so. However, confidence in our understanding increases with the specificity and number of communications achieved without the occurrence of incoherence.

Inside the political supply of the radical right

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-100
Author(s):  
Koen Damhuis
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Reference Groups ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Marine Le Pen ◽  
Dual Closure ◽  
Do So

This chapter empirically investigates the political supply of radical right-wing parties. Not only to make sure that the FN and the PVV are actually comparable, which is a necessary condition to justify a comparison of their voters. But also to find out whether there are differences in their political messages, which, in turn, might account for different demands within their respective constituencies. Based on a fine-grained analysis of 1,378 hand-coded tweets of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, the chapter shows which reference groups they denounce and which groups they claim to support, which issues they prioritize and how they articulate these issues. The findings indicate that the political supply of the two politicians is highly comparable. Rather than offering standardized ‘products’ to a general electorate, both radical right politicians use relatively similar forms of ‘product differentiation’ (Eatwell, 2000), by articulating the demands and identities of multiple societal groups in a nativist fashion. Importantly, both leaders do so through ‘dual closure’ (Parkin, 1979), denouncing both elites (above) and non-native out-groups (below).

scholarly journals Do fictions explain?

Synthese ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Target System ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Do So

AbstractI argue that fictional models, construed as models that misrepresent certain ontological aspects of their target systems, can nevertheless explain why the latter exhibit certain behaviour. They can do this by accurately representing whatever it is that that behaviour counterfactually depends on. However, we should be sufficiently sensitive to different explanatory questions, i.e., ‘why does certain behaviour occur?’ versus ‘why does the counterfactual dependency invoked to answer that question actually hold?’. With this distinction in mind, I argue that whilst fictional models can answer the first sort of question, they do so in an unmysterious way (contra to what one might initially think about such models). Moreover, I claim that the second question poses a dilemma for the defender of the idea that fictions can explain: either these models cannot answer these sorts of explanatory questions, precisely because they are fictional; or they can, but in a way that requires reinterpreting them such that they end up accurately representing the ontological basis of the counterfactual dependency, i.e., reinterpreting them so as to rob them of their fictional status. Thus, the existence of explanatory fictions does not put pressure on the idea that accurate representation of some aspect of a target system is a necessary condition on explaining that aspect.

scholarly journals Preconditioning of the Weddell Sea Polynya by the Ocean Mesoscale and Dense Water Overflows

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (19) ◽  
pp. 7719-7737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina O. Dufour ◽  
Adele K. Morrison ◽  
Stephen M. Griffies ◽  
Ivy Frenger ◽  
Hannah Zanowski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Gravitational Instability ◽  
Deep Convection ◽  
Vertical Mixing ◽  
Weddell Sea ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Heat Reservoir ◽  
Large Opening ◽  
Horizontal Grid ◽  
Do So

Abstract The Weddell Sea polynya is a large opening in the open-ocean sea ice cover associated with intense deep convection in the ocean. A necessary condition to form and maintain a polynya is the presence of a strong subsurface heat reservoir. This study investigates the processes that control the stratification and hence the buildup of the subsurface heat reservoir in the Weddell Sea. To do so, a climate model run for 200 years under preindustrial forcing with two eddying resolutions in the ocean (0.25° CM2.5 and 0.10° CM2.6) is investigated. Over the course of the simulation, CM2.6 develops two polynyas in the Weddell Sea, while CM2.5 exhibits quasi-continuous deep convection but no polynyas, exemplifying that deep convection is not a sufficient condition for a polynya to occur. CM2.5 features a weaker subsurface heat reservoir than CM2.6 owing to weak stratification associated with episodes of gravitational instability and enhanced vertical mixing of heat, resulting in an erosion of the reservoir. In contrast, in CM2.6, the water column is more stably stratified, allowing the subsurface heat reservoir to build up. The enhanced stratification in CM2.6 arises from its refined horizontal grid spacing and resolution of topography, which allows, in particular, a better representation of the restratifying effect by transient mesoscale eddies and of the overflows of dense waters along the continental slope.

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