Defence Against Parfit’s Torturers

2021 ◽  
pp. 323-354
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
Related Issue ◽  
Defensive Harm

In the literature on ‘moral mathematics’ prompted by the section with that title in Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, one issue is whether, and if so to what extent, it is wrong to cause a negligible harm to each of a large number of people, and in particular whether doing so could ever be as seriously wrong as causing a substantial harm to one person. The topic in this chapter is the closely related issue of proportionality in defence against those who would inflict only such tiny harms, though on a large number of victims. For example, might a person who would otherwise inflict a tiny harm on each of a large number of people be liable to be killed in defence of those people? The chapter suggests that such a person seems liable to be killed in some cases but not in others, depending on what other people might be doing or on other facts about the context in which the harms would occur. It reviews a range of examples involving the infliction of tiny harms, including Parfit’s example of the Harmless Torturers, that reveal some surprising facts about the conditions and limits of liability to defensive harm.

Levinas as a Reader of Jewish Texts

2018 ◽  
pp. 442-458
Author(s):  
Ethan Kleinberg
Keyword(s):  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
And Training ◽  
Do So

This article attempts to understand Levinas as a reader of Jewish texts, with particular attention paid to his Talmudic commentaries. To do so, the entangled relation between oral and written texts is explored; one must be able to properly “read” but also “write,” and there is the related issue of the methodology and training to be able to do so properly. Levinas offers commentary on each issue. Several interpretations of Talmudic texts and an important discussion of reading Scripture are analyzed in order to elucidate Levinas’s reading strategies, what this tells us about his relation to the larger tradition of Talmudic commentary, and Levinas’s particular historical moment, especially the role of the Holocaust for his approach to reading the Talmud and traditional texts.

‘The moral irrelevance of moral coercion’

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Frowe
Keyword(s):  
Correct Account ◽  
Defensive Harm

AbstractAn agent A morally coerces another agent, B, when A manipulates non-epistemological facts in order that B’s moral commitments enjoin B to do what A wants B to do, and B is motivated by these commitments. It is widely argued that forced choices arising from moral coercion are morally distinct from forced choices arising from moral duress or happenstance. On these accounts, the fact of being coerced bears on what an agent may do, the voluntariness of her actions, and/or her accountability for any harms that result from her actions (where accountability includes liability to defensive harm, punishment, blame and compensation). This paper does not provide an account of the wrongness of moral coercion. Rather, I argue that, whatever the correct account of its wrongness, the mere fact of being coerced has no bearing on what the agent may do, on the voluntariness of her action, or her accountability for any resultant harm, compared to otherwise identical cases arising from duress and happenstance.

Medical Genetics in Pediatric Practice

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Genetics ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Problem Solver ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Pediatric Practice ◽  
One Stop

Embodying current Policy of the AAP, this new resource provides practice-focused help for addressing virtually any genetics-related issue you’re likely to confront. It’s replete with expert insights, pediatric-specific solutions, and quick-access aids you won’t find anywhere else. Consult this one-stop problem-solver for: Here’s the how, why, where, and when of pediatric genetic care:

scholarly journals The prison's double bottom

Sociologija ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeljko Krstic
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Prison System ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Prison Management ◽  
Educational Influence

People well acquainted with prisons often wonder what is it that prevents the existence of peaceful prisons, or in other words, is it possible to provide a peaceful serving of one's time to those inmates who wish so. Another related issue is whether such a model of the prison may be designed that will enable the staff, primarily the experts-educators, to work normally. In an ideal-typical prison system everyone should do their job. The jailers should engage in daily supervision of the inmates and take care of their security, while the educators, far less numerous, should concentrate on the resocialization of the inmates. Together with craftsmen-instructors in the workshops, jailers and educators should exert a unified educational influence synchronized by the prison management. In practice, however, such unified educational influence does not exist. Peaceful prison is impossible to establish in practice, since it suits neither the inmates nor the management. Both sides favor compromise or status quo, because they profit from it.

scholarly journals Dispersing Hash Functions

2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus Pagh
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bounds ◽  
Random Function ◽  
Hash Functions ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Independent Interest ◽  
Upper And Lower Bounds ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Logarithmic Factor

A new hashing primitive is introduced: dispersing hash functions. A family<br />of hash functions F is dispersing if, for any set S of a certain size and random<br />h in F, the expected value of |S|−|h[S]| is not much larger than the expectancy<br />if h had been chosen at random from the set of all functions.<br />We give tight, up to a logarithmic factor, upper and lower bounds on the<br />size of dispersing families. Such families previously studied, for example <br />universal families, are significantly larger than the smallest dispersing families,<br />making them less suitable for derandomization. We present several applications<br /> of dispersing families to derandomization (fast element distinctness, set<br />inclusion, and static dictionary initialization). Also, a tight relationship <br />between dispersing families and extractors, which may be of independent interest,<br />is exhibited.<br />We also investigate the related issue of program size for hash functions<br />which are nearly perfect. In particular, we exhibit a dramatic increase in<br />program size for hash functions more dispersing than a random function.

scholarly journals The Image of Lithuania in English Publications in the 17th Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Gintautas Sliesoriūnas
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
English Society ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy ◽  
West European

In the 17th century, as contacts between citizens of England, which was gaining increasing importance in Europe, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) intensified, the phenomenon of the image of Lithuania in English and Scottish societies, as well as the level of their knowledge about the GDL, became more important. The issue of mentioning Lithuania in West European historical sources and the related issue of the image of Lithuania in the region in the 16th–17th centuries has already been analysed in Lithuania, albeit not thoroughly enough. However, the question of the image of Lithuania in English publications in the 17th–18th centuries still requires more detailed analysis. This article discusses Lithuania-related facts that could have been familiar not only to the narrow circle of people that were in close contact with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also to wider well-read English and Scottish society. The few educated members of English society who had an interest in learning more about Lithuania had access to publications in various languages published in different countries. However, this article dwells almost exclusively on publications in the English language dating from the 17th century that facilitated the rendering of knowledge and opinions about Lithuania to a much wider circle of people who read in the English language.

Comments on the Contributors

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 465-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Religious Violence ◽  
Related Issue ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Crucial Question

Abstract In this essay, I comment on the contributions of the six authors who have critically reflected on my notion of a ‘Catholic Modernity’ from their own perspectives. Selecting particular issues from these authors to comment on was challenging due to the richness of each contribution. I comment, among others, on the crucial question of religious violence and intolerance in our world and the related issue of how to deal with pluralism among and within religions: we can no longer identify a particular religion with “its” civilization or nation, be it in the form of Christendom, Islamicate, or religious nationalism.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document