Entropy and Insufficient Reason: A Note on the Judy Benjamin Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 1113-1141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anubav Vasudevan
Keyword(s):  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
Judy Benjamin Problem

SHOULD ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAWS LIMIT FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION? THE DANGEROUS ALLURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Line Drawing ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Moral Case ◽  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Antidiscrimination Laws

This article defends the classical liberal view of human interactions that gives strong protection to associational freedom except in cases that involve the use of force or fraud or the exercise of monopoly power. That conception is at war with the modern antidiscrimination or human rights laws that operate in competitive markets in such vital areas as employment and housing, with respect to matters of race, sex, age, and increasingly, disability. The article further argues that using the “human rights” label to boost the moral case for antidiscrimination laws gets matters exactly backwards, given that any program of forced association on one side of a status relationship (employer, not employee; landlord, not tenant) is inconsistent with any universal norm governing all individuals regardless of role in all associative arrangements. The articled also discusses the tensions that arise under current Supreme Court law, which protects associational freedom arising out of expressive activities (as in cases involving the NAACP or the Boy Scouts), but refuses to extend that protection to other forms of association, such as those involving persons with disabilities. The great vice of all these arrangements is that they cannot guarantee the stability of mandated win/lose relationships. The article further argues that a strong social consensus against discrimination is insufficient reason to coerce dissenters, given that holders of the dominant position can run their operations as they see fit even if others do otherwise. It closes with a short model human rights statute drafted in the classical liberal tradition that avoids the awkward line drawing and balancing that give rise to modern bureaucracies to enforce modern antidiscrimination laws.

scholarly journals The rationality of belief change and the unexpected effects of a conflict of values

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romy Sauvayre
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance Theory ◽  
Explanatory Hypothesis ◽  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
Fundamental Value ◽  
Belief Changes ◽  
Dissonance Theory

This article is based on a question that is already present in the work of Festinger et al.: Why is the unequivocal disproof of a given belief an insufficient reason for abandoning that belief? We will first outline the cognitive dissonance theory and then discuss how, in a seemingly counterintuitive way, beliefs that are contradicted by facts—that is, factual contradictions—lead only to minimal belief changes, whereas beliefs that are in contradiction with some fundamental value held by an individual—that is, axiological contradictions—represent a challenge to the individual’s entire belief system and may lead to disaffiliation. The objective of this article is to propose an alternative explanatory hypothesis to that of Festinger—which is now disputed—and thus provide new answers to help understand the process by which beliefs are abandoned. This article has epistemological ambitions insofar as it aims to demonstrate that by means of a paradigm based on reasons and abduction—the Boudon-Peirce Paradigm—it is possible to propose an alternative, explanatory hypothesis to that of Festinger’s and to provide new answers to facilitate understanding the process of abandonment of beliefs. This comprehensive paradigm has allowed the discovery that conflicts of values—axiological contradictions—can cause disaffiliation.

scholarly journals Comparative audit of induction of labour at Furness General Hospital

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 294-296
Author(s):  
R Ghani ◽  
MR Said ◽  
IY Hussein ◽  
BE Teague ◽  
E Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Age ◽  
Uterine Contraction ◽  
Fetal Death ◽  
Induction Of Labour ◽  
Fetal Abnormality ◽  
Rhesus Incompatibility ◽  
Prolonged Pregnancy ◽  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Comparative Audit

Induction of labour (IOL) is the artificial initiation of uterine contraction prior to their spontaneou onset, leading to progressive dilatation, effacement of the cervix and delivery of the baby. The purpose of induction is to achieve benefit to the health of the mother and/or baby, greater than if the pregnancy continued. In recent years, the major fetal and maternal indications for IOL have not altered greatly. They still include prolonged pregnancy, pre-eclampsia, dysmaturity, antepartum haemorrhage, gross fetal abnormality, rhesus incompatibility, diabetes mellitus and fetal death in utero. In the UK the commonest indication is prolonged pregnancy. In addition, IOL is often performed now for cumulative indications, any of which if considered in isolation would probably constitute an insufficient reason: for example, increasing maternal age, previous infertility, poor obstetric history. Whatever the indication for induction it is essential that gestational age is calculated accurately. The rate of induction varies widely in different unit , and between individual obstetricians within the same unit.

The Principle of Insufficient Reason

1942 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Homer H. Dubs
Keyword(s):  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
Principle Of Insufficient Reason

The Speculative Hopper: Toward a Geology of a Toxic Absolute

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 117-134
Keyword(s):  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Vertical Dimension ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Speculative Thought ◽  
Quentin Meillassoux

The paper examines the overall course of the so-called “speculative turn” in contemporary Continental philosophy with regard to the ecology of the Absolute. Following the radical redefinition of the mechanics of speculation that has been proposed by theorists of the speculative turn (especially Quentin Meillassoux) as rejection of the absolute essence of classical metaphysics, the author concentrates on the tension between speculative rejection and the problem of grounds which arises from putting the question this way. By rejecting the Absolute as sufficient reason and therefore undermining the grounds of thought, speculative philosophy expands the field of grounds. The logic of sufficient reason is augmented by insufficient reason, sufficient unreason, and insufficient unreason. This field of grounds encompasses the whole “kinesis” of the speculative turn, including the current attempts to turn away from speculation and move beyond the grounds and absolute relied upon in the “new geophilosophy.” The author notes that the shift from the question of “what?” to the question of “where?” indicates that the new geophilosophy is a “territorial geophilosophy.” Even though it nullifies the problem of grounds, it remains subject to grounds as insufficient reason, and thereby exemplifies the vulgar understanding of speculative thought as mere speculation. At the same time, the speculative turn replaces territorial geophilosophy with a resource-based geophilosophy which is more concerned with the question of “when?”. The author maintains that precisely this kind of questioning forces speculative philosophy both to the edge of the field of the Absolute and to a solution for the problem of rejecting grounds as insufficient unreason, Insufficient unreason unlocks a vertical dimension to strata of the Absolute, through which speculation turns into a trowel that unearths the absolutus and discards the Absolutes.

Postcolonial Proportionality

2020 ◽  
pp. 190-209
Author(s):  
Sujit Choudhry
Keyword(s):  
British India ◽  
Indian Constitution ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Insufficient Reason ◽  
Indian Mutiny ◽  
The Right ◽  
Indian Penal Code

In Johar, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalized same-sex relations. The idea of transformative constitutionalism figured centrally, as did a piece of the global template of rights-protection—proportionality. In Johar, the Indian Constitution was envisioned as a transformative document, in two senses: anti-colonial and cosmopolitan. It gave birth to a radically new constitutional order that conferred citizenship and political power on the previously disenfranchised living under the yoke of British imperial rule. The Indian Constitution was also a cosmopolitan constitution in its fidelity to the universal principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. These two conceptions of transformative constitutionalism define the scope of admissible reasons for proportionality analysis. Section 377 of the Indian Penal was unconstitutional on the cosmopolitan ground that mere social morality was an insufficient reason to limit the right to engage in harmless, constitutionally protected activity, the basis on which courts around the world have struck down parallel provisions. I argue that Section 377 was also unconstitutional for the anti-colonial reason that it was an element of the Imperial constitutional order in British India in the period after the Indian Mutiny in 1857 of indirect colonial rule.

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