Taking the Straight Path. P.F. Strawson's Later Work on Freedom and Responsibility

I highlight three features of P.F. Strawson’s later, neglected work on freedom and responsibility. First, in response to a criticism by Rajendra Prasad, Strawson explicitly rejects an argument put forward in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ against the relevance of determinism to moral responsibility. Second, his remarkable acceptance of Prasad’s criticism motivates him to take the ‘straight path’, that is, to be straightforward about the relation between determinism, freedom, the ability to do otherwise and the conditions of responsibility. He claims that the ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition of responsibility and provides a list of additional conditions, including a knowledge condition. Third, he clarifies the relation between responsibility, quality of will and the reactive attitudes. The latter do not figure essentially in his answer to the question, ‘What are the conditions of responsibility?’, but they do play an essential role in his answer to the question, ‘Why do we have the concept of responsibility?’ We have it, Strawson suggests, because of our natural concern about the quality of will with which people act, a concern expressed in our reactive attitudes. I argue that, although Strawson’s later work definitely involves a shift of emphasis when compared to ‘Freedom and Resentment’, his overall account of freedom and responsibility is coherent. The later work helps to better understand the nature and significance of Strawson’s contribution, and to identify problems with common interpretations of and objections to ‘Freedom and Resentment’. 

Legal basis for the fraud exception in letters of credit under English Law

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the status of the bank’s knowledge and the hardship related to the clear evidence requirement with regard to establish the fraud exception rule in English courts. Design/methodology/approach Traditional analysis method and critical legal thinking. Findings To trigger such an exception in England, two conditions, bank’s knowledge and clear evidence, must be met to establish the fraud rule, which will be applied only if it appears in documents. The bank’s knowledge condition, the awareness of the fraud that the bank should have before the payment, is material to determine whether if the fraud rule will trigger in most of the English cases. However, if the bank is not aware of the fraud, they must honour the credit if the documents are compliant, meaning the paying bank is protected if the documents against which it made payment are tainted with fraud, even if it is not aware of the fraud. Moreover, it is not a bank’s responsibility to investigate allegations of fraud. Nonetheless, there are some reservations regarding the bank’s knowledge and clear evidence conditions, as explained above. In short, such an approach does not lead to fairness and justice for the applicant. Originality/value English courts focus more on evidence of the fraud rather than making unnecessary distinctions pertinent to the fraud exception scope. The absence of such evidence will not trigger the exception rule. Conversely, injunctions are not easily granted in England where the requirement for heavy evidence and proof of the bank’s knowledge will be obstacles. That is to say, banks are more protected in England simply because the courts want to uphold the integrity of the banking system when affirming the autonomy principle. In a case where the applicant becomes aware of the fraud, there is no other option for the applicant except to ask for an injunction from the court, which is not easy to gain under English courts. In addition, it is unclear how the court will prove that the bank is aware if there is fraud in the presented documents. In addition, the question arises as to whether the same strict standard will be required by both the applicant and the party who notified the fraud.

A history of brand misdefinition – with corresponding implications for mismeasurement and incoherent brand theory

Purpose This paper aims to dissect conceptual and semantic issues surrounding the word “brand.” Theoretical, operational and practical concerns resulting from the term’s use and misuse are exposed, some derived managerial problems are highlighted, and alternatives for resolving the confusing and dysfunctional brand nomenclature are offered. Design/methodology/approach Comprehensive literature review, i.e. review of an entire population of literature, incorporating content analysis. Findings A large fraction of empirical brand literature is ambiguous because the definition, meaning and therefore measurement of the focal construct, brand, is unclear. In other words, empirical results throughout the brand literature may apply to “brand” – by one definition or another – but there is no way of knowing which brand interpretation is in use. Originality/value A large part of the marketing field does not know what the word “brand” means anymore, a lapse that is widely unrecognized. This paper illuminates the lost knowledge condition and proposes resolution. The present state of theoretical and empirical ambiguity is untenable because so many empirical findings throughout the literature are vitiated.

I know that I don’t know: Structural and functional connectivity underlying meta-ignorance in pre-schoolers

Research Highlights[1] Children develop the ability to report that they do not know something at around five years of age.[2] Children who could correctly report their own ignorance in a partial-knowledge task showed thicker cortices within medial orbitofrontal cortex.[3] This region was functionally connected to parts of the default-mode network.[4] The default-mode network might support the development of correct metacognitive monitoring.AbstractMetacognition plays a pivotal role in human development. The ability to realize that we do not know something, or meta-ignorance, emerges after approximately five years of age. We aimed at identifying the brain systems that underlie the developmental emergence of this ability in a preschool sample.Twenty-four children aged between five and six years answered questions under three conditions of a meta-ignorance task twice. In the critical partial knowledge condition, an experimenter first showed two toys to a child, then announced that she would place one of them in a box behind a screen, out of sight from the child. The experimenter then asked the child whether or not she knew which toy was in the box.Children who answered correctly both times to the metacognitive question in the partial knowledge condition (n=9) showed greater cortical thickness in a cluster within left medial orbitofrontal cortex than children who did not (n=15). Further, seed-based functional connectivity analyses of the brain during resting state revealed that this region is functionally connected to the medial orbitofrontal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and precuneus, and mid- and inferior temporal gyri.This finding suggests that the default mode network, critically through its prefrontal regions, supports introspective processing. It leads to the emergence of metacognitive monitoring allowing children to explicitly report their own ignorance.

Influence of Knowledge Distribution on Children’s Information Seeking Strategies

Early in development, children rely on others to obtain information about unfamiliar situations or objects. They can exploit sources of information, by asking a familiar informant, or explore new sources by asking an unfamiliar informant. Children’s choices are guided by their previous experience with each informant. Children as young as 4-years-old have been shown to track informant accuracy and direct future questions to the more accurate informant (Fitneva & Dunfield, 2010; Koenig & Harris, 2005). Moreover, the distribution of knowledge may also have an impact on children’s information seeking strategies. In the current study, children were presented with an informant who correctly answered some questions. For the final question of a category, they were asked to make a choice between the familiar and unfamiliar informant. The key manipulation of this study was the knowledge distribution, as children were explicitly told either one informant or all the informants know the names of the objects in question. We expect that, in the narrowly- distributed knowledge condition, children will be more likely to exploit. On the contrary, we expect that they will be more likely to explore in the broadly-distributed knowledge condition.

Number of Firms, Rationing, Matching, and Knowledge: A Comprehensive Study of Variations in Experimental Kreps–Scheinkman Markets

This study provides a comprehensive picture of experimental Kreps–Scheinkman markets with capacity choice in the first stage and subsequent price competition in the second. We conduct seven different treatments of such markets, varying the number of firms, demand rationing, subject matching, and subjects’ knowledge about the market mechanism. We find that only the number of firms has a persistent effect on capacity choices, whereas price choices are affected by both the number of firms and the rationing scheme. From the outset, subjects in the high-knowledge condition behave in the same way as subjects with low knowledge do in later periods after gaining experience. In all treatments, conduct is more competitive than the Cournot outcome, irrespective of the Nash equilibrium prediction. Nevertheless, the Cournot model does pack some predictive power. Under efficient demand rationing where the Cournot outcome is predicted, exact Cournot choices are more likely for both capacities and prices.

Knowing the Good and Knowing What One Is Doing

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention (especially on intention in action) and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case.