Doubts about “Genuinely Normative” Epistemic Reasons

2018 ◽  
pp. 122-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hille Paakkunainen
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  

Instrumentalist and teleologist views in metaepistemology hold that epistemic reasons are goal-relative or value-relative. In the face of counterexamples involving apparently pointless or counterproductive beliefs that are nonetheless supported by excellent epistemic reasons, some have retreated to the following view: while even pointless or counterproductive beliefs can be supported by excellent epistemic reasons in a not-genuinely-normative sense, we can have genuinely normative epistemic reasons only for beliefs that do serve some goal or value. In this chapter doubts are raised about the distinction between genuinely normative and not-genuinely-normative epistemic reasons employed here. It is suggested that there’s no real need or intuitive motivation for the distinction, beyond the ad hoc need of salvaging instrumentalist and teleologist views from counterexamples. The sense in which all epistemic reasons—even reasons for apparently pointless or counterproductive beliefs—seem to be equally normative is explained; and the implications for instrumentalists and teleologists are outlined.

Author(s):  
A. Dragun

The general issue of forest use has been highly contentious in Victoria and considerable human effort has been exerted to establish the “best” use of forests. This economic, bureaucratic and political contemplation has yielded a multitude of different policy prescriptions with quite variable efficiency and equity outcomes. However, a feature of the analysis is that nowhere-on the grounds of efficiency or equity-is forestry logging the clearly desired outcome. Yet in the face of insurmountable evidence against logging, governments in Victoria prevaricate over making a formal decision not to log the forests-in fact the ad hoc approach to forest management favours the established forest interests. Clearly the narrow economic power and interests of a few logging companies are sufficient to counterbalance the much greater-but diffuse-well being of the many citizens in the state.


Author(s):  
Indrajit Ray ◽  
Indrakshi Ray ◽  
Sudip Chakraborty

Ad hoc collaborations often necessitate impromptu sharing of sensitive information or resources between member organizations. Each member of resulting collaboration needs to carefully assess and tradeoff the requirements of protecting its own sensitive information against the requirements of sharing some or all of them. The challenge is that no policies have been previously arrived at for such secure sharing (since the collaboration has been formed in an ad hoc manner). Thus, it needs to be done based on an evaluation of the trustworthiness of the recipient of the information or resources. In this chapter, the authors discuss some previously proposed trust models to determine if they can be effectively used to compute trustworthiness for such sharing purposes in ad hoc collaborations. Unfortunately, none of these models appear to be completely satisfactory. Almost all of them fail to satisfy one or more of the following requirements: (i) well defined techniques and procedures to evaluate and/or measure trust relationships, (ii) techniques to compare and compose trust values which are needed in the formation of collaborations, and (iii) techniques to evaluate trust in the face of incomplete information. This prompts the authors to propose a new vector (we use the term “vector” loosely; vector in this work means a tuple) model of trust that is suitable for reasoning about the trustworthiness of systems built from the integration of multiple subsystems, such as ad hoc collaborations. They identify three parameters on which trust depends and formulate how to evaluate trust relationships. The trust relationship between a truster and a trustee is associated with a context and depends on the experience, knowledge, and recommendation that the truster has with respect to the trustee in the given context. The authors show how their model can measure trust in a given context. Sometimes enough information is not available about a given context to calculate the trust value. Towards this end the authors show how the relationships between different contexts can be captured using a context graph. Formalizing the relationships between contexts allows us to extrapolate values from related contexts to approximate a trust value of an entity even when all the information needed to calculate the trust value is not available. Finally, the authors develop formalisms to compare two trust relationships and to compose two or more of the same – features that are invaluable in ad hoc collaborations.


Author(s):  
Beth Van Schaack

This book situates the war in Syria within the actual and imagined system of international criminal justice. It explores the legal impediments and diplomatic challenges that have led to the fatal trinity that is Syria: the massive commission of international crimes that are subject to detailed investigations and documentation but whose perpetrators have enjoyed virtually complete impunity. The book tracks a number of accountability solutions to this tragic state of affairs that are being explored within multilateral gatherings, by states, and by civil society actors, including innovations of institutional design; the reactivation of a range of domestic jurisdictional principles (including universal jurisdiction in Europe); the emergence of creative investigative and documentation techniques, technologies, and organizations; and the rejection of state consent as a precondition for the exercise of jurisdiction. Engaging both law and policy around international justice, the text offers a set of justice blueprints, within and without the International Criminal Court. It also considers the utility, propriety, and practicality of establishing an ad hoc tribunal and pursuing a transitional justice program without a genuine political transition. All told, the book attempts to capture the creative energy radiating from members of the international community intent on advancing the accountability norm in Syria even in the face of geopolitical blockages within the U.N. Security Council. In so doing, it presents the range of juridical measures—both criminal and civil—that are available to the international community to respond to the crisis, if only the political will existed.


1985 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
O Velho

This paper underlines the importance of the debate now being carried on in Brazil with reference to Amazonia and stresses the symbolical character with which it has been clothed. This debate is more than a clash between intellectual and political conceptions, the conflict-ridden encounter of the nation with its own destiny is dramatized within it. Seven theses stand out, representing the main prospects in question and their variants. In dismantling them one by one, the author proposes alternatives and above all suggests a kind of analysis epistemologically oriented by successive shiftings of viewpoint. This mobile approach makes it possible to reveal the partial truth of each thesis over the others. Theses (1) and (3) refer to the inexorable and all-encompassing character of capitalist expansion in rural areas, qualities which are regarded as likely to cause the reactive social movements themselves to succumb. It is shown that economic and political processes are often episodic, reversible, and subject to political interventions, especially to selective action on the part of the State. Theses (2), (4), and (5) affirm that the peasantry possesses its own conceptions of the land, that it is autonomous at productive level, and that it resists the advance of capitalism. It is demonstrated that these theses oversimplify, deny ambiguities, and are based on a logic that wrongly presupposes two homogenized social processes and blocs. Alternatively, the existence of multiple actors should be recognized, oriented by various strategies which are redefinable because they are not deterministically derived from socioeconomic conditions; the peasantry is not fighting to defend the essence of an idealized peasant being, but a particular series of ad hoc negotiable values, in the face of different concrete situations. In the discussions of theses (6) and (7), the author comes to grips, on the one hand, with the view that explains the apparent mobilizing success of the Roman Catholic Church through its ‘option on behalf of the poor’ and, on the other hand, the political criticisms usually directed at intellectuals who question traditional conceptions, when these supposedly favour the underprivileged.


Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Belén Puebla-Martínez ◽  
Nuria Navarro-Sierra ◽  
Gema Alcolea-Díaz

We live in a hyper-informed society that is constantly being fed with information stimuli. That information may not be correct, and society may be vulnerable to it. We present a methodological proposal with a mixed approach that allows the learning of the characteristics and weaknesses of news consumers in the face of disinformation. Said methodology moves away from the traditional model, and with it a new, much more complete and complex way of conducting discussion groups is carried out. The qualitative approach is carried out through the creation of an online community in which subjects are encouraged to participate in different activities and tests. On the other hand, in order to obtain quantitative data, a quasi-experimental survey where respondents are exposed to various stimuli created ad hoc, which seeks to measure the interest and credibility of different news items through an orthogonal design, is carried out. The use of this methodology will allow for an expansive and intensive approach to the knowledge of societal vulnerability factors, and with the subsequent results, a solid basis of disinformation can be established, which will allow for the development of a series of strategies to combat disinformation.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. e0241538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocío Muñoz-Moreno ◽  
Alfonso Chaves-Montero ◽  
Aleix Morilla-Luchena ◽  
Octavio Vázquez-Aguado

During the state of alarm declared in Spain by COVID-19 due to the pandemic, the country's authorities declared Social Services and their workers to be essential, considering that the activity of these professionals with the vulnerable population was crucial and that services should continue to be provided to guarantee the well-being of users in this exceptionally serious situation. This article analyzes the impact that the COVID-19 and the state of alarm has had on Spanish social service professionals. An ad hoc questionnaire was used, administered on-line, individually, voluntarily and anonymously to 560 professionals working in social services, both in the public and private sectors, based throughout Spain. This questionnaire has five different parts: socio-demographic profiling, impact that the health crisis has had on the practice of professional functions, degree of knowledge of the measures imposed to guarantee the protection and safety of professionals and users, impact that it has had on the professional and personal development of social services professionals and, the fifth and last part, degree of adaptation of the measures aimed at the care of the vulnerable population. These results are discussed based on the situation in which professionals working in this sector find themselves in the face of the changes they are experiencing in the development of their work, and we are able to determine the profile of the workers who have felt most affected by the situation, with the consequent and foreseeable mental and emotional affectation that this implies. These professionals tend to value more negatively the set of measures developed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on Spanish social services.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Paula Herrero-Diz ◽  
Clara López-Rufino

The work of libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, as facilitators of reliable information on health issues, has shown that these entities can play an active role as verification agents in the fight against disinformation (false information that is intended to mislead), focusing on media and informational literacy. To help citizens, these entities have developed a wide range of actions that range from online seminars, to learning how to evaluate the quality of a source, to video tutorials or the creation of repositories with resources of various natures. To identify the most common media literacy practices in the face of fake news (news that conveys or incorporates false, fabricated, or deliberately misleading information), this exploratory study designed an ad hoc analysis sheet, validated by the inter-judge method, which allowed one to classify the practices of N = 216 libraries from all over the world. The results reveal that the libraries most involved in this task are those belonging to public universities. Among the actions carried out to counteract misinformation, open-access materials that favor self-learning stand out. These resources, aimed primarily at university students and adults in general, are aimed at acquiring skills related to fact-checking and critical thinking. Therefore, libraries vindicate their role as components of the literacy triad, together with professors and communication professionals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 02007
Author(s):  
Radko Radev ◽  
Alexander Naidenov

This article aims to present the ad hoc approach of cost management taken by the companies under the conditions formed due to the COVIDIzation of the economy. Considering the uniqueness of the situation caused by COVID-19, the term COVIDization of the economy is interpreted. In general, it means complex changes in the PESTEL environment, conditioned by the global health crisis. For the majority of companies, these changes had an adverse effect. For others, it was neutral or favorable. The onset of the first wave of COVID-19 found most companies unprepared, with planned revenue, cost, and profit levels. In the face of a sharp change in revenue levels, firms had to respond ad hoc to meet these challenges. The publication brings out the ad hoc approach of cost management as a theoretical statement. It presents the effects on the revenues of the first wave of COVIDization and the companies’ ad hoc actions about their costs. Two studies conducted by the SRC Innovation and Competitiveness (U2B) were used in the current publication. They were conducted during the locked-down in 2020 and April-May 2021.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (24) ◽  
pp. 5741
Author(s):  
África Martos Martínez ◽  
Ana Belén Barragán Martín ◽  
José Jesús Gázquez Linares ◽  
María del Mar Molero Jurado ◽  
María del Mar Simón Márquez ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between burnout, the use of drugs (anxiolytics and antidepressants) and optimism in nurses. At the end of 2018, a cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out with a sample of actively employed nurses recruited by snowball sampling. The sample consisted of 1432 nurses in Andalusia (Spain), aged 22–58, who were working at the time of data collection, 83.2% of whom were women. Data were collected anonymously in an ad hoc questionnaire about sociodemographic information and use of anxiolytics and/or antidepressives: the Brief Burnout Questionnaire—Revised for Nurses (CBB-R) and the Life Orientation Test—Revised (LOT-R). Descriptive, mediation and moderation analyses were performed, with significant results having a p-value less than 0.05. The results on burnout showed significant relationships with use of the drugs. In particular, personal impact, job dissatisfaction and motivational abandonment were positively related to use of certain of the anxiolytics and antidepressants presented, while the correlation with the social climate was negative. Furthermore, optimism correlated negatively with drug use. Knowing that optimism can alleviate the repercussions of the use of drugs opens up new lines of research and the possibility of developing programs aimed at promoting a positive disposition in the face of complicated events.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schertzer ◽  
Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia

<p>The current Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the need to thoroughly revisit our conceptions of managing and developing urban systems and to make them resilient to epidemics. For<span>  </span>instance, it fundamentally questions the long-held goal of continually increasing human mobility. More generally, the definition of optimal Covid-19 mitigation strategies remains worldwide on the top of public health agendas, especially in the face of a second wave. However, the relevance of resilient strategies depends heavily on our understanding and our ability to model epidemic dynamics.</p><p>Epidemic models are phenomenologically based on the paradigm of a cascade of contacts that spreads infection. However, scaling -a fundamental characteristic that easily results from cascade models,- is not taken into account by conventional epidemic models.<span>  </span>The introduction of ad-hoc characteristic times and corresponding rates spuriously break their scale symmetry.</p><p>Here, we theoretically argue and empirically demonstrate that Covid-19 dynamics, during both growth and decline phases, is a cascade with a rather universal scale symmetry whose power-law statistics drastically differ from those of exponential processes. This implies slower but longer phases; which are furthermore linked by a fairly simple symmetry. The resulting variability across space-time scales is a major feature that requires alternative approaches with practical consequences for data analysis and modelling. We illustrate some of these consequences using the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering database.<span> </span></p><p>The obtained results explain biases of epidemic models and help to improve them. By virtue of their generality, these results pave the way for a renewed approach to epidemics, and more generally to growth phenomena, towards more resilient development and management of our urban systems.</p>


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