‘(Luck and Relational) Egalitarians of the World, Unite!’

Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

In recent years, egalitarian political philosophy has been marred by a family dispute between luck and relational egalitarianism. This chapter presents a certain view about what constitutes the core difference and disagreement between the two views. This enables us to set aside a number of issues, e.g., the role of responsibility, which are better discussed as intraluck or intrasocial relational egalitarian issues. Second, a defense is made of a guarded reductionist claim that any objectionable inegalitarian social relation can be analyzed as an unequal distribution of a relevantly related social good. Third, the chapter ends with a proposal of an ecumenical egalitarian theory that incorporates insights from both views, as well as a third egalitarian view: dispositional egalitarianism, which seems implicit in Samuel Scheffler’s work. A specific luck-ist version of the ecumenical view, which is grounded in the value of fairness, is tentatively suggested.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihui Chen ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Wu Zhu ◽  
Yehong Kuang ◽  
Tao Liu ◽  
...  

Psoriasis affects the health of myriad populations around the world. The pathogenesis is multifactorial, and the exact driving factor remains unclear. This condition arises from the interaction between hyperproliferative keratinocytes and infiltrating immune cells, with poor prognosis and high recurrence. Better clinical treatments remain to be explored. There is much evidence that alterations in the skin and intestinal microbiome play an important role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and restoration of the microbiome is a promising preventive and therapeutic strategy for psoriasis. Herein, we have reviewed recent studies on the psoriasis-related microbiome in an attempt to confidently identify the “core” microbiome of psoriasis patients, understand the role of microbiome in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and explore new therapeutic strategies for psoriasis through microbial intervention.


Author(s):  
Vadzim S. Mikhailouski

Neo-Marxism world-system analysis was an effective means of the understanding of the postcolonial global order. The concepts of «core», «periphery» and «semi-periphery» reflected the dependent development of states in the global capitalist system. Capitalism structured the global order in the classical Marxist dichotomy of exploiters and exploited which can be represented with various subjects (states, groups of states, territories) and which according to neo-Marxism can’t disappear, because it reflects the essence of global antagonism. However, the realities of global development at the end of the 20th century demanded that neo-Marxism should reconsider the rigid link between the core-peripheral approach and the horizontal vision of the world: globalisation caused massive flows of migrants to highly developed countries and the gradual blurring of the boundaries between the core and periphery. There was the question in neo-Marxism which was about the ability of capitalism to preserve the core-peripheral organisation of the global division of labour. There was the idea that capitalism was able to reproduce core-periphery relations within the core states by including immigrants in the super-exploitation of labour through a covert policy of neo-racism. Such a vertical organisation of the core-peripheral model around the world, which was called dual society in neo-Marxism, would mean the formation of the global semi-periphery. The purpose of the article is to verify the neo-Marxist concept of the global semi-periphery using the example of the role of the migration factor in its formation. The study is based on UN data, as well as studies with a pronounced statistical component. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that the neo-Marxist concept of the global semi-periphery had not been verified by actual empirical material (on the example of the role of the migration factor). The available statistical and analytical data do not allow to totally confirm the neo-Marxist position that the global order under the influence of migration has been transformed and that it works in the conceptual model of a dual society. Globally, migration is not a determining factor in the widespread formation and unification of the dual method of labour exploitation within states. The quantitative data on the flow of migrants, comparative data on salaries in the countries of the core and the degree of concentration of income among certain groups of the population in the countries of the capitalist system state that the world is still largely reproduced in the horizontal core-peripheral model. Thus, there are no empirical grounds for stating the presence of a global dual society under the influence of the migration factor and consequently the presence of a global semi-periphery within the neo-Marxist approach of E. Balibar, I. Wallerstein, M. Hardt and A. Negri.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Abdullah A. Abdullah

Abstract This article examines challenges and proposes legal solutions for the enforcement of contracts especially after the transformation of the economy following Covid-19 and related governmental measures that have swept throughout the world since December 2019. Maximising the role of the judge and increasing the contractual parties’ involvement in phases of contractual disputes constitute the core of this research. This article argues for strengthening the contractual guarantees by advocating for the use of the two contract doctrines of force majeure that normally lead to termination of contractual obligations, and changed circumstances that may trigger intervention of the judge to lift the economic burden of the debtor and reach a fair solution. This article also argues for adopting a more flexible approach to the application of the doctrine of change of circumstances during the performance of the contract that not necessarily relies on this traditional distinction between force majeure and hardship.


Author(s):  
Joana Costa

Entrepreneurship is a worldwide reality. Since the beginning of times and all around the world people have created businesses. Entrepreneurial orientation, from a macroeconomic perspective, allows income and employment generation, thus boosting growth. At the microeconomic level, it is a competition booster playing a central role in a globalized market. In this entrepreneurial ecosystem in which knowledge-based activity is the core booster of employment, economic growth, and competitiveness, universities and, in particular, entrepreneurial universities play either the role of knowledge production and dissemination. The present work aims to understand the role of education (formal and entrepreneurship) on entrepreneurial activity combined with heterogeneous individual characteristics and different cultures and geographies. Specifically, the study identifies substitution and complementary effects among both types of education according to individual taxonomies.


John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 53-60

What is the relation between political theory and political practice? In what ways can political philosophy help people to address real injustices in the world? John Rawls argues that an important role of political philosophy is to identify the ideal standards of justice at which we should aim in political practice. Other philosophers challenge this approach, arguing that Rawls’s idealizations are not useful as a guide for action or, worse, that they are an impediment to addressing actual injustices in the world. They argue, instead, that political philosophy ought to be focused on theorizing about the elimination of existing injustice. Still others argue that principles of justice should be identified without any constraint concerning the possibility of implementation or regulation in the real world at all....


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iona Heath ◽  
Anna Stavdal ◽  
Johann Agust Sigurdsson

As doctors, we see every working day the pervasive effects of different forms of structural violence and discrimination that undermine the hopes and aspirations of those on the losing side. This leads to powerlessness, fear and anger. Anger is not only forward facing but also directed toward, systems, institutions, governments—rather than individuals. At its best it is a protest against the status quo. We point out that leadership is one of the core values of our professionalism. In the light of what we see and hear, we have a responsibility to use the anger that this engenders within us to speak truth to power: this speaking is leadership. Our message is: feel the fear and the anger, use it to change the world, and enfold leadership in hope and the pursuit of justice.


Humaniora ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Angeline

This article describes the role of myth and some universal themes of myth, such as the creation of the world, a huge flood, death, and the end of the world. Almost all the world's myths concern this universal themes, as seen from the similarity of some of the myths followed by many cultures in the world. These myths have primary functions to human’s behavior and attitude because people keep telling almost the same myths to their predecessors. The goals for this research are (1) knowing the functions of myths with famous themes from various culture and (2) knowing the background and relationship between myths and modern culture. The result describes the relationship between the cultural myths, where the core of the story is the truth of humanity. In addition, myth acts as a template to organize their daily activities as well as human activity, but it also serves to introduce human to a greater power in the universe. The values in each story will be interpreted as rules and customs that must be met, and this has resulted in the emergence of a culture passed down from generation to generation. 


2019 ◽  
pp. 500-514
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdul Karim Al-Banna ◽  
Ian Michael

The chapter investigates the role Zakat (alms giving) in eradicating poverty around the world. It (Zakat) is one of the five main pillars of Islam; it is the practice of charitable giving by Muslims based on accumulated wealth and is expected to be paid by all practicing Muslims having the financial means. As part of the study, a questionnaire that consisted of five questions to enquire about how Zakat can eradicate poverty was administered to 200 Muslim people living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Further, the questions were designed targeting the core goals of a Zakat institution that also reflected the Muslims psychometric behavioural aspects. Islam has 1.57 billion followers, making up over 23 percent of the world population (Pew Research, 2011). With such a vast population, the role of Zakat in alleviating poverty is an achievable objective.


Author(s):  
Christiana Olfert

Aristotle’s theories of truth, practical reasoning, and action are some of the most influential theories in the history of philosophy. It is surprising, then, that so little attention has been given to his notion of practical truth. In Aristotle on Practical Truth, C. M. M. Olfert gives the first book-length treatment of this notion and the role of truth in our practical lives overall. She offers a novel account of practical truth: it is the truth, in the technical Aristotelian sense of “truth,” about what is good simpliciter (haplôs) for a particular person in her particular situation. Olfert argues that, understood in this way, Aristotle’s notion of practical truth is an attractive idea that illuminates the core of his practical philosophy. But it is also an idea that challenges a common view that in practical reasoning, we aim at action or acting well as our primary goals, not at truth and knowledge. Contrary to this common view, Olfert shows that in dialogues such as Charmides, Protagoras, and Republic, Plato describes practical reasoning as being concerned equally with grasping the truth and with acting well. She argues that Aristotle develops this Platonic picture with the notion of practical truth and with a technical notion of rational action as fitting ourselves to the world. Using key texts from the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, as well as De Anima, Metaphysics, De Interpretatione, and Categories, Olfert demonstrates that practical truth deserves to be treated as a central and plausible Aristotelian idea.


Author(s):  
Keith Lehrer

This monograph is both an intellectual summation as well as a philosophical advancement of key themes of the work of Keith Lehrer on several key topics—including knowledge, self-trust, autonomy, and consciousness. He here attempts to integrate these themes and develop an intellectual system that can constructively solve philosophical problems. The system is indebted to the modern work of Sellars, Quine, and Chisholm, as well as historically to Hume and Reid. At the core of this system lies Lehrer’s theory of knowledge, which he previously called a coherence theory of knowledge but now calls a defensibility theory. Lehrer argues that knowledge requires the capacity to justify or defend the target claim of knowledge in terms of a background system. Defensibility is an internal capacity supplied by that system to meet objections to the claim. This theory however leaves open the problem of “experience,” noted by other philosophers, of how to explain the special role of experience in a background system even granted we are fallible in describing it. Lehrer offers a solution to the problem of experience, arguing that reflection on experience converts the experience itself into an exemplar, something like a sample that becomes a vehicle or term of representation. The exemplar represents itself and extends to represent the external world. It exhibits something about evidence and truth concerning experience that, as Wittgenstein noted, cannot be fully described but can only be shown. Exemplar representation is the missing link of a background system to truth about the world.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document