A Proposal for a General Resolution on Cyborgization

In addition to “Prolegomena for Cyborgoethics,” this chapter builds a strong case for the necessity of cyoborgoethics to help guide moral actions and protocols for preserving the vitality of life within a rapidly changing technologically society. The introduction of an all-encompassing ethical system of cyborgization of human beings is deemed necessary in addition to establishing cyborgoethic principles and rethinking the developmental stages of cybernetic implants that pose the question whether we as cyborgs perceive ourselves as the only authors of our life history and whether we will recognize ourselves as autonomously active persons. It is important to establish ethical and legal responsibility for potential cyborgization of the entire reality of mankind.

Expletive negation in exclamatives – Evidence from Hungarian

This paper examines expletive negation in root clauses (surprise negation sentences and wh-exclamatives) in Hungarian. We argue that Hungarian has three distinct negation positions, each corresponding to a truth-reversal operation on a different level. When the negator nem ‘no’ is merged in the CP layer (in the head position of the Speaker Deixis Phrase), this yields surprise negation sentences, corresponding to negation at the level of presuppositions (expletive negation). The negator being merged as the head of NegP within the extended TP yields standard negation (at the propositional level). In wh-exclamatives, the negator is head-adjoined to T0, which results in negation at the level of implicatures (expletive negation). In addition to pointing out this mapping between syntactic position and semantic-pragmatic interpretation, we also argue that the data from Hungarian present a strong case against a raising analysis of expletive negation.

No soul to damn? Revisiting the case for corporate manslaughter in New Zealand

<p>Currently a corporation cannot be convicted of manslaughter in New Zealand. Increasingly, this distinction demarcated between individuals and corporations seems out of touch, particularly in light of legislation passed in cognate jurisdictions and the ascendance of a plethora of industrial disasters both in New Zealand and abroad. Taking as its focus the Report of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety (2013), this paper contemplates the above issues, concluding that the offence’s alignment with fundamental criminal law principles makes a strong case for its introduction in New Zealand. Consideration is also given to the format and rules of attribution that should accompany a resolve to prosecute corporate manslaughter, finding that a more comprehensive discussion, going beyond the recommendations of the Taskforce, is necessary before any legislation is settled on.</p>

Echoes of Contracts in the Hebrew Legal Fictions

Three biblical laws—Exod 21:7–11, the case pertaining to the daughter sold as a slave-wife; Deut 21:15–17, the case of the man with two wives and two sons; and Deut 25:5–10, the case of the widow and the reluctant levir—concern matters that regularly occur in private contracts from the ancient Near East: the sale of daughters by fathers in debt, the bequeathing of inheritance shares to multiple sons, and the obligation to care for widowed women. Deuteronomy 25:5–10 makes for a particularly strong case study, in that it exhibits striking parallels to wills from the ancient city of Emar (modern-day Tell Meskene, Syria). Parallels in content between Deut 25:5–10 and the Emarite wills suggests that the biblical law was modeled on comparable Israelite/Judahite contracts and/or lists of contract clauses. The same conclusion applies to Exod 21:7–11 and Deut 21:15–17, two texts that likewise are marked by contract terminology.

Weak integrability breaking and level spacing distribution

Recently it was suggested that certain perturbations of integrable spin chains lead to a weak breaking of integrability in the sense that integrability is preserved at the first order in the coupling. Here we examine this claim using level spacing distribution. We find that the volume dependent crossover between integrable and chaotic level spacing statistics {which marks the onset of quantum chaotic behaviour, is markedly different for weak vs. strong breaking of integrability. In particular}, for the gapless case we find that the crossover coupling as a function of the volume LL scales with a 1/L^{2}1/L2 law for weak breaking as opposed to the 1/L^{3}1/L3 law previously found for the strong case.

Superplurals

Can the step from the singular to the plural be iterated? The resulting superplurals would have many valuable applications but are often met with skepticism. This chapter clarifies what superplural reference would be and distinguishes four grades of superplural involvement, ranging from the possibility of a superplural logic to the existence of superplurals in natural language. While the lower grades are shown to be unproblematic, the chapter provides a careful analysis of arguments for and against the higher grades, concluding, in particular, that a strong case can be made for the existence of superplurals in natural language.

IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ON HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIA

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in gigantic human and economic devastations since its outbreak. The hospitality industries being dependent on the peoples movement has to bear the brunt of this pandemic at the most world over. This crisis brings out the deep and long-lasting adverse impacts of coronavirus on the hospitality industry at a global level. In India, the hospitality industry, having the largest contribution to income and employment, has experienced massive adverse effects of the coronavirus crisis. This makes a strong case for government support to this industry through tax cuts, loans and debt reduction, etc. for enabling this seriously hit industry to survive. In some countries, governments came forward to support the hospitality industry, but India has yet to address this issue.

Reduplication and repetition from a constructionist perspective

In the typological literature, a distinction is often drawn between reduplication (as a morphological process) and repetition (as a syntactic process) (Gil 2005). This squib reconsiders this distinction from the perspective of Construction Morphology (Booij 2010, 2018; Masini and Audring 2019). Drawing upon previously understudied phenomena in Tagalog, an Austronesian language of the Philippines, this paper demonstrates that the Construction Morphology approach provides a suitable framework for analyzing reduplication and repetition. It makes it possible to account for both similarities and differences between reduplication and repetition: both processes create a lexical unit with an iterative form and a conventionalized meaning, although they differ in the size and complexity of the lexical unit they create. Furthermore, this paper makes a strong case for the basic tenets of constructionist approaches, including a hierarchical lexicon and a lexicon-grammar continuum.

LGBT testimony and the limits of trust

In, ‘Forever young: the ethics of ongoing puberty suppression (OPS) for non-binary adults,’ Notini et al discuss the risks, harms and benefits of treating non-binary patients via identity-affirming OPS. Notini et al’s article makes a strong case for OPS’s permissibility, and their conclusion will not be disputed here. Instead, I directly focus on issues that their article addressed only indirectly. This article will use a hypothetical case study to show that while Notini et al’s ethical conclusion might be spot on, that perhaps the method they took to get there was superfluous. If the medical community is to take LGBT testimony seriously (as they should) then it is no longer the job of physicians to do their own weighing of the costs and benefits of transition-related care. Assuming the patient is informed and competent, then only the patient can make this assessment, because only the patient has access to the true weight of transition-related benefits. Moreover, taking LGBT patient testimony seriously also means that parents should lose veto power over most transition-related paediatric care.