Institutions, technology, and instrumental value

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-48
Author(s):  
William T. Waller
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Value

The Place of the Market in a Rawlsian Economy

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jahel Queralt
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Just Society

AbstractRawls identifies only two arrangements, the liberal socialist regime and the property-owning democracy, as being compatible with justice. Both are market-based economies, suggesting that a just society must include the market. This article questions this idea by looking at three Rawlsian arguments in favour of the market. Two arguments, which link the market to certain basic liberties, are unsound because the market is shown to be nonessential in protecting these liberties. A third argument points at the instrumental value of the market to make the least advantaged as well off as possible. R. is based on an interpretation of the difference principle in which justice requires maximizing the position of the worst off within the most productive economic system. Although commonly accepted, this reading of the principle should be questioned, and thus the third argument is also inconclusive.

Human Physical Aggression as a Function of Frustration: Role of Aggressive Cues

1986 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Physical Aggression ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
Pull Out ◽  
Within Subjects

An experiment was performed testing whether aggressive cues are necessary or only facilitative in increasing aggression to a frustration and whether their role is to “pull out” aggression directly or to add to the experience of displeasure. 20 subjects participated and a modified version of the Buss' “aggression machine” was used in which frustration was manipulated within subjects and aggressive cues between subjects. Frustration was of an arbitrary kind and aggression was defined to subjects to have instrumental value in overcoming the frustrative event Results indicated that (1) frustration alone is a weak antecedent of aggression, (2) at low frustration aggressive cues seem to be necessary for aggression to increase, and (3) aggressive cues apparently elicit aggression directly. Results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz' reformulation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.

scholarly journals An interdisciplinary perspective on the value of envy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Lange ◽  
Sara Protasi
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
The Self ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multiple Components ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Theoretical Investigations ◽  
The Way

The public and scholars alike largely consider envy to be reprehensible. This judgment of the value of envy commonly results either from a limited understanding of the nature of envy or from a limited understanding of how to determine the value of phenomena. Overcoming this state requires an interdisciplinary collaboration of psychologists and philosophers. That is, broad empirical evidence regarding the nature of envy generated in psychological studies must inform judgments about the value of envy according to sophisticated philosophical standards. We conducted such a collaboration. Empirical research indicates that envy is constituted by multiple components which in turn predict diverse outcomes that may be functional for the self and society. Accordingly, the value of envy is similarly nuanced. Sometimes, envy may have instrumental value in promoting prudentially and morally good outcomes. Sometimes, envy may be non-instrumentally prudentially and morally good. Sometimes, envy may be bad. This nuanced perspective on the value of envy has implications for recommendations on how to deal with envy and paves the way toward future empirical and theoretical investigations on the nature and the value of envy.

scholarly journals La expansión de la responsabilidad humana ante la naturaleza

2007 ◽  
pp. 67-85
Author(s):  
Jorge Enrique Linares
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Consideration ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
Living Organisms

For the predominant anthropocentric tradition of our civilization, nature and living organisms possess only an instrumental value, and that is the reason why they have not been subjects of ethical consideration until recently. Enviromental ethics has arisen with the purpose to surpass the arbitrary and prepotent anthropocentrism, but it has to consolidate itself as an ethics of the human resposibility towards nature. This responsibility implies to be in charge of the already provoked damages as well as to prevent future alterations caused by the huge capacity of our technological power. My argument in this article is that it is necessary to find a mediation between an anthropocentric and a biocentric ethic that allows us to establish a new ethical paradigm feasible morally as well as politically.

Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludvig Beckman
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Egalitarian Attitude ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Normative Issues

Democracy is a term that is used to denote a variety of distinct objects and ideas. Democracy describes either a set of political institutions or an ideal of collective self-rule. Democracy can also be short for a normative principle of either legitimacy or justice. Finally, democracy might be used to denote an egalitarian attitude. These four uses of the term should be kept distinct and raises separate conceptual and normative issues. The value of democracy, whether democratic political institutions or democratic self-rule, is either instrumental, non-instrumental, or both. The non-instrumental value of democracy derives either from the alleged fairness of majority rule or from the value of the social relationships enabled by participation in democratic procedures. The instrumental value of democracy lends support from a growing body of empirical research. Yet, the claim that democracy has a positive causal effect on public goods is inconclusive with respect to the moral justification of democratic institutions. Normative reasons for democracy’s instrumental value must instead appeal to the fact that it contributes to equality, liberty, truth, or the realization of popular will. Democracy as a principle of either political legitimacy or justice is a normative view that evades concerns with the definition and value of democracy. Normative democracy is a claim about the conditions either for legitimacy or justice of either public authority or coercion. Debates in normative democracy are largely divorced from the conceptual and empirical concerns that inform studies of democracy elsewhere. The boundaries of the people entitled to participate in collective decisions is a question that applies to all four uses of democracy. The boundary question raises three distinct issues. The first is the extent of inclusion required among the members of the unit. The second is if membership in the unit is necessary for inclusion or if people that are not recognized as members are on certain conditions also entitled to participate. The third and final issue concerns the boundaries of the unit itself.

Is Political Engagement Better Than Sex?

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Berger
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Attention Deficit ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
Better Than

This chapter examines the most prominent arguments for political engagement's importance to democratic polities, including those put forward by Alexis de Tocqueville, and shows that each presents circumstantial and ultimately inconclusive evidence. It first considers the benefits that political engagement offers to individuals and communities before discussing how essential those benefits are to the health of liberal democracy. It then evaluates defenses of political engagement's intrinsic and instrumental value and proceeds to build a case for the importance of political engagement that can stand up to critical scrutiny. It contends that were should avoid very low political engagement because it might badly undermine a democracy's claims to political legitimacy. Instead, we should care about the increased, voluntary political engagement that might ensue if political institutions were more responsive, political education were more effective, and if our attention deficit democracy could be treated through liberal means.

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