The Matrix of Contractarian Justice

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Buchanan ◽  
Loren E. Lomasky
Keyword(s):  
External Source ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Institutional Evaluation ◽  
External Standard ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Contracting Process ◽  
Point Of Departure

There are no first principles etched in stone from which all moral philosophers must take their bearings. We must deliberately choose our point of departure in any attempt to respond to the question: “Must any defensible theory of justice incorporate both a commitment to personal liberty and to economic equality?” Basic to our own approach is a suspicion of seers and visionaries who espy an external source of values independent from human choices. We presuppose, instead, that political philosophy commences with individual evaluation.1 A near-corollary of this presupposition is that each individual's preferences ought to be taken into account equally with those of others. That is, we suppose that there is no privileged evaluator, whose preferences are accorded decisive weight. Conceptual unanimity as a criterion for institutional evaluation follows naturally from the other two presuppositions. If there is neither an external standard of value nor a corps of resident value experts, only unanimity can ultimately be satisfactory as a test of social desirability. Our perspective then is subjectivist, individualist, and unanimitarian.These presuppositions inform our contractarian analysis. There are, however, two separate contractarian traditions that we shall find useful to distinguish, the “Hobbesian” and the “Rawlsian.” In the first, persons find themselves in the anarchistic war of each against all. They contract away their natural liberties in exchange for the order that civil society – through its sovereign – affords. In this contracting process, individuals are assumed to possess full self-knowledge; they know who they are, what conceptions of the good they hold, and what their endowments are.

Human rights, reciprocal recognition and the state. A durkheimian contribution

Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-310
Author(s):  
Luiz Gustavo Da Cunha De Souza
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Positive Individual ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract The paper deals with a possible tension within Axel Honneth’s theory of justice as presented in his Freedom’s Right. It takes as its point of departure Georg Lohmann’s objection that Honneth loses sight of the critical potential associated with positive right and tries to discuss it critically both exposing Lohmann’s and Honneth’s position. From the complex of problems identified thereby, the paper moves to a discussion of Émile Durkheim’s theory of State, with which it helps to provide a possible contribution to the discussion between positive, individual rights and the normative framework of social freedom.

Post-recrystallisation mobilisation phenomena in metamorphosed stratabound sulphide ores

1993 ◽  
Vol 57 (386) ◽  
pp. 19-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Vokes ◽  
J. R. Craig
Keyword(s):  
Solid Phase ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Fluid Phase ◽  
Shear Zones ◽  
External Source ◽  
Triple Junctions ◽  
Sulphide Ores ◽  
Extreme Degree ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Retrograde Shear

AbstractMetamorphosed stratabound iron- and base-metal sulphide deposits often exhibit microtextures in which fractures in cataclastically-deformed pyrite porphyroblasts are filled with matrix sulphides; chalcopyrite, sphalerite, pyrrhotite or galena. Discussions of such textures have mostly centred on whether solid-phase or fluid-phase mechanisms were responsible for the movement of the matrix sulphides.The small Zn-Cu sulphide body at Gressli, in the central Norwegian Caledonides, shows these textural features to an extreme degree. Both chalcopyrite and sphalerite show heavy replacive relations to the cataclastically deformed metablastic pyrite, along fracture walls and grain boundaries. They also occur injected along the opened-up triple junctions of foam-textured pyrite. In addition, parts of the ore show patchy quartz with clear replacive relationship to all three sulphides, a feature not often reported from such ores. Such textures can be interpreted to support a mobilisation sequence chalcopyrite-sphalerite-quartz within the Gressli ore. Their extent and degree of development indicate that fluid-phase mobilisation of the three minerals must have played a dominant role. Chalcopyrite and sphalerite are most likely derived from within the ore-mass itself; an external source for the SiO2 seems most probable, in the form of metahydrothermal solutions moving along retrograde shear zones at or near ore-walls.

scholarly journals Mitigating Commitment through Negation

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 685-706
Author(s):  
María Jesús Pérez Quintero
Keyword(s):  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Discourse Grammar ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to show that the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar constitutes a powerful model to account for the complex phenomenon of Neg-Raising in a consistent and systematic way. Previous studies on Neg-Raising, the phenomenon involving the transfer of the negative from a complement clause to the matrix clause, have traditionally characterized it in terms of syntactic and, more extensively, semantic criteria. These studies have focused on the delimitation of the type of verbs involved in this construction, since Neg-Raising is only allowed by some complement taking verbs, all related to certain kinds of modality. However, despite having been studied extensively, Neg-Raising remains an unclear phenomenon in certain respects. Taking as a point of departure the classification of Complement Clauses resulting from the application of the three parameters (Entity Type, Presupposition and Factuality) proposed within Functional Discourse Grammar, it is possible to arrive at a consistent delimitation of the constructions exhibiting Neg-Raising. Furthermore, the Morphological Level allows accounting for Neg- Raising without resorting to any kind of movement rule. It is through the operation of Morphological Encoding that the negative comes to occupy its position in the matrix clause.

Descartes in the Matrix

Janus Head ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-449
Author(s):  
Gilbert Garza ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Virtual Experiences ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Empirical Positivism

With the 1999 film The Martix as its point of departure, this work explores the meaning of ‘reality’ outside the scope of empirical positivism. Drawing on the phenomenological epistemology of the interplay of noetic and noematic dimensions of experience postulated by Husserl, and on the works of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, this work considers how the reality of our experience derives not from some correspondence to a universal ‘objective’ point of view, but from our concernful involvement with our lived world as the horizon of our lived and known projects. Finally, in light of Ricoeur’s work on imagination and productive reference, this work considers whether and on what grounds the distinction between so called ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ experiences is meaningful.

scholarly journals The Secular Beyond: Free Religious Dissent and Debates over the Afterlife in Nineteenth-Century Germany

2008 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Weir
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
Point Of Departure

Toward the end of the first third of the nineteenth century, German writers began to favor a new metaphor for the afterlife: “das Jenseits” (“the Beyond”). At first glance, the emergence of such a term may appear to have little bearing on our understanding of the history of religious thought. However, as the late historian Reinhart Koselleck maintained, the study of semantic changes can betray tectonic shifts in the matrix of ideas that underpin the worlds of politics, learning, and religion. Drawing on Koselleck's method of conceptual history, the following essay takes the popularization of “the Beyond” as a point of departure for investigating secularization and secularism as two linked, yet distinct, sources of pressure on the fault lines of nineteenth-century German religious thought.

Determination of Three Kinds of Volatile Residue of Ozone-Depleting Substances in Polyurethane Foam by Gas Chromatography

2011 ◽  
Vol 480-481 ◽  
pp. 609-613
Author(s):  
Hai Feng Chen ◽  
Feng Cao
Keyword(s):  
Gas Chromatography ◽  
Polyurethane Foam ◽  
Matrix Interference ◽  
External Standard Method ◽  
Relative Standard ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
External Standard ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Ozone Depleting Substances

This paper developed a gas chromatography for the determination of volatile residue of ozone-depleting substances (OSD) in polyurethane foam. The sample was detected by gas chromatography - electron capture detector (GC-ECD) under the condition of 120 oC, 5 oC of condensing reflux temperature, 30 min of extraction time and external standard method for quantification. The experimental results of spike recovery showed that: the average recovery of residue of Trichloromonofluoromethane, difluoromonochloroethane and 1, 1, 2 - trifluoro -1, 2, 2 – trichloroethane, the three volatile organic solvent, was 72.7% ~ 116.1%, and the relative standard deviations were less than 5%. This method can effectively overcome the matrix interference, and one introduction of samples can separate and detect three kinds of volatile organic compounds in polyurethane, which has the characteristics of wide linear range and short response time and improves the analytical efficiency.

Distributive Justice

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Fried
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
1 John ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Point Of Departure

1. John Rawls' A Theory of Justice represented a rare intellectual event. It advanced a fresh, detailed and powerful conception of political economy, and rooted that conception in an elaborately worked out political and moral philosophy. Rawls' two principles of justice, with the celebrated maximin standard of distributive justice, represent the point of departure for any serious discussion of this subject. The details of Rawls' proposal are too well known to require summary. Instead, I shall call attention to the basic premise of his work and to a significant anomaly in it, as setting the stage for my own proposal.

scholarly journals Country of my skull/Skull of my country: Krog and Zagajewski, South Africa and Poland

Literator ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Van Schalkwyk
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Public History ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
New South ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Point Of Departure

In the ninth poem of the cycle “land van genade en verdriet” (“country of grace and sorrow”) in the collection “Kleur kom nooit alleen nie” (“Colour never comes on its own”), Antjie Krog contends that the old is “stinking along” ever so cheerfully/ robustly in the new South African dispensation. This could also hold true for the new democratic Poland. Krog and the Polish poet Adam Zagajewksi could, in fact, be described as “intimate strangers”, specifically with regard to the mirrored imagery of “country of my skull”/“skull of my country” present in their work. The notion of “intimate strangers” may be seen as pointing toward the feminine dimension of subjectivity, which could be elaborated along the lines of Bracha Ettinger’s concept of “matrixial borderlinking”. Ettinger has made a significant contribution to the field of psychoanalysis, building on Freud and Lacan. She investigates the subject’s relation to the m/Other, and the intimate matrixial sharing of “phantasm”, “jouissance” and trauma among several entities. Critical of the conventional “phallic” paradigm, Ettinger turns to the womb in exploring the “borderlinking” of the I and the non-I within the matrix (the psychic creative “borderspace”). With these considerations as point of departure, and with specific reference to the closing poem in Krog’s “Country of my skull” and Zagajewski’s “Fire” (both exploring “weaning” experiences in recent personal and public history), I intend to show how the public/political is connected to the personal/psychological, and vice versa, and how committed literary works like those of Krog and Zagajewski can be clarified further from a psychoanalytical perspective. The image of the skull in the texts under scrutiny is investigated with recourse to the Lacanian notion of the “cavity”, as adopted and adapted by Ettinger. True to the mirror experience as described within psychoanalysis, this exercise in mirroring Krog and Zagajewski has confirmed the ambiguous, eluding and illusory nature of identification and identity.

scholarly journals Technology Acquisitions: A Process Perspective on Search, Selection and Implementation

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 344
Author(s):  
Annelies S. A. Bobelyn
Keyword(s):  
External Source ◽  
Acquisition Performance ◽  
Acquisition Process ◽  
Search And Selection ◽  
Process Perspective ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Process Component ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Selection Phase

<p><em>Technology acquisitions have become an important external source of innovation. But notwithstanding the abundant literature on the topic, relatively little is known about the acquisition process itself and how it impacts acquisition performance. Some papers have used a process perspective as point of departure, but these studies focus at one component of the acquisition process and neglect to question how these different process components interact to influence acquisition performance. To address this gap, we carefully scrutinize each process component for its influence on the subsequent acquisition stages and performance. Using a case study design, we find that the decisions and managerial actions taken in the search and selection phase have an important impact on the success of implementation. We identify search and involvement of the client department as crucial mechanisms in the acquisition process and reveal their implications for the structure and composition of the team managing the acquisition.</em></p>

Economic Equality: Rawls versus Utilitarianism

1986 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen W. Ball
Keyword(s):  
Marginal Utility ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Coherence Theory ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Theoretic Argument ◽  
Diminishing Marginal Utility ◽  
Economic Goods ◽  
Critical Literature

Perhaps the most salient feature of Rawls's theory of justice (Rawls, 1971) which at once attracts supporters and repels critics is its apparent egalitarian conclusion as to how economic goods are to be distributed. Indeed, many of Rawls's sympathizers may find this result intuitively appealing, and regard it as Rawls's enduring contribution to the topic of economic justice, despite technical deficiencies in Rawls's contractarian, decision-theoretic argument for it (see, e.g., Nagel, 1973, p. 234) which occupy the bulk of the critical literature. Rawls himself, having proposed a “coherence” theory of justification in metaethics, must regard the claim that his distributive criterion “is a strongly egalitarian conception” (Rawls, 1971, p. 76) as independently a part of the overarching moral argument. The alleged egalitarian impact of Rawls's theory is crucial again in normative ethics where Rawls is thought to have developed a major counter-theory to utilitarianism (cf. Braybrooke, 1975, p. 304), one of the most popular criticisms of which has been its alleged inadequacy in handling questions of distributive justice. Utilitarians can argue, however, as Brandt recently has, that the diminishing marginal utility of money, along with ignorance of income-welfare curves, would require a utility-maximizing distribution to be substantially egalitarian (Brandt, 1979, pp. 311f., 315f.; cf. Brandt, 1983, p. 102f.). The challenge is therefore for Rawls to show that his theory yields an ethically preferable degree of equality.

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