Comparing Weak Admissibility Semantics to their Dung-style Counterparts (Extended Abstract)

Semantics based on weak admissibility were recently introduced to overcome a problem with self-defeating arguments that has not been solved for more than 25 years. The recursive definition of weak admissibility mainly relies on the notion of a reduct regarding a set E which only contains arguments which are neither in E, nor attacked by E. At first glance the reduct seems to be tailored for the weaker versions of Dung-style semantics only. In this paper we show that standard Dung semantics can be naturally reformulated using the reduct revealing that this concept is already implicit. We further identify a new abstract principle for semantics, so-called modularization describing how to obtain further extensions given an initial one. Its importance for the study of abstract argumentation semantics is shown by its ability to alternatively characterize classical and non-classical semantics.

‘Think of All the Differences!’: Mixed Marriages in Transcultural Adaptations of Chaucer’s ‘Man of Law’s Tale’

At a historical moment in which we attempt to come to grips with the legacy of racial inequality, this essay considers two twenty-first-century adaptations of Chaucer’s ‘Man of Law’s Tale’, which respond to the xenophobic and imperialist ideology of the original by representing its noble white heroine as a black asylum seeker, and replacing the dynastic genealogy of Chaucer’s tale with a celebration of an inter-racial marriage that defies cultural norms. Chaucer’s text might not seem promising for modern adaptation: its passive heroine embodies the abstract principle of constancy, and the action of the tale serves an ideological purpose that seems, to modern eyes, to be profoundly and unpleasantly imperialist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic. And yet, the 2003 BBC adaptation made the work remarkably legible for a twenty-first-century audience, by highlighting, rather than suppressing, the tale’s concerns with issues of family, race, and religion, and by imagining its central heroine as a Nigerian Christian, fleeing religious persecution. These concerns with migration and racial and religious intolerance are developed brilliantly in Patience Agbabi’s Telling Tales, a poetic revision of Chaucer’s work as filtered through the lens of the television adaptation. In these texts, mixed marriages become a powerful tool with which to challenge the racist legacy of the past and to interrogate the relationship of the adaptation to its canonical forebears.

Comparing Weak Admissibility Semantics to their Dung-style Counterparts -- Reduct, Modularization, and Strong Equivalence in Abstract Argumentation

Semantics based on weak admissibility were recently introduced to overcome a problem with self-defeating arguments that has not been solved for more than 25 years. The recursive definition of weak admissibility mainly relies on the notion of a reduct regarding a set E which only contains arguments which are neither in E, nor attacked by E. At first glance the reduct seems to be tailored for the weaker versions of Dung-style semantics only. In this paper we show that standard Dung semantics can be naturally reformulated using the reduct revealing that this concept is already implicit. We further identify a new abstract principle for semantics, so-called modularization describing how to obtain further extensions given an initial one. Its importance for the study of abstract argumentation semantics is shown by its ability to alternatively characterize classical and non-classical semantics. Moreover, we tackle the notion of strong equivalence via characterizing kernels and give a complete classification of the weak versions regarding well-known properties and postulates known from the literature.

Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty?

Should religious people who conscientiously object to facilitating same-sex weddings, and who therefore decline to provide cakes, photography, or other services, be exempted from antidiscrimination laws? This issue has taken on an importance far beyond the tiny number who have made such claims. Gay rights advocates fear that exempting even a few religious dissenters would unleash a devastating wave of discrimination. Conservative Christians fear that the law will treat them like racists and drive them to the margins of American society. Both sides are mistaken. This is not a matter of abstract principle, and none of the constitutional claims work. This is an appropriate occasion for legislative negotiation. This book is the only systematic accounting of the interests that must be balanced in any decent compromise, in terms that both sides can recognize and appreciate. Koppelman explains the basis of antidiscrimination law, including the complex idea of dignitary harm. He shows why even those who do not regard religion as important or valid nonetheless have good reasons to support religious liberty, and why those who regard religion as a value of overriding importance should nonetheless reject the extravagant power over nonbelievers that the Supreme Court has recently embraced. Koppelman also proposes a specific solution to the problem: that religious exemptions be granted only to the few businesses that are willing to announce their compunctions and bear the costs of doing so. His approach makes room for America’s enormous variety of deeply held beliefs and ways of life. It can help reduce the toxic polarization of American politics.

Introduction

Should religious people who conscientiously object to facilitating same-sex weddings, and who therefore decline to provide cakes, photography, or other services, be exempted from antidiscrimination laws? This issue has taken on an importance far beyond the tiny number who have made such claims. Gay rights advocates fear that exempting even a few religious dissenters would unleash a devastating wave of discrimination. Conservative Christians fear that the law will treat them like racists and drive them to the margins of American society. Both sides are mistaken. This is not a matter of abstract principle, and none of the constitutional claims work. This is an appropriate occasion for legislative negotiation. This book is the only systematic accounting of the interests that must be balanced in any decent compromise, in terms that both sides can recognize and appreciate. This book explains the basis of antidiscrimination law, including the complex idea of dignitary harm. It shows why even those who do not regard religion as important or valid nonetheless have good reasons to support religious liberty, and why those who regard religion as a value of overriding importance should nonetheless reject the extravagant power over nonbelievers that the Supreme Court has recently embraced. The book also proposes a specific solution to the problem: that religious exemptions be granted only to the few businesses that are willing to announce their compunctions and bear the costs of doing so—an approach makes room for America’s enormous variety of deeply held beliefs and ways of life.

The Destruction of Theater

This chapter discusses how the destruction of the metaphysics of right is at the same time the destruction of the metaphysics of representation. It explains how the destruction of the metaphysics is involved in the destruction of metaphysical theater and Western theater. Strikes and progressive, foundational revolutionary movements have happened and left the marks of both critique and crisis on theater. The chapter analyzes strikes and movements that have nourished the abstract principle of representation and its oppositional dialectic, the topos, dynamic and transferential economy between stage and stalls, state and people. It mentions the Benjaminian pure strike, which is involved in the unworking of theatre, the fetish of revolution, and sovereign strikes whose evangelist version of the extinction of bourgeois theatre has constituted ratification in the negative.

Defense of a Basic Voluntary Act Requirement in Criminal Law from Philosophies of Action

When looking to identify the basic ingredients of criminal responsibility, reference is standardly made to a voluntary act requirement (VAR). We blame a defendant (D) for what she has done or (perhaps) failed to do where such doing or failing to do is proscribed by law; we do not punish mere thoughts or character. However, despite the continued appeal of the VAR in abstract principle, the precise definitions and restrictions entailed within it are not always clear, and its usefulness in preventing inappropriate criminalization is openly (and in many cases correctly) challenged. Principally, and crucially, the VAR has received sustained attack in recent years from critics within the philosophies of action, highlighting its descriptive and normative shortcomings. It is contended that such criticism is misplaced. This article provides defense to a stripped-back definition of the VAR, distinguishing the general definition of action in philosophy from the definition of action within the criminal law, and seeking to identify and preserve a doctrinally workable model of the latter.

Everyday Political Whiteness and Diversity University

There is a paradoxical situation in higher education today: the discourse around the concept of “diversity” has become widely institutionalized, but advocates of equality still struggle to operate within a broader and deeper racialized political and everyday cultural context that is hostile to their success. A besieged current climate for the hopes and projects of pluralism, social equality, peace, and justice imbues the higher education concept and discourse of diversity with an enhanced aura of progressive institutional value and perhaps even a residual locus of political hope. The vast majority of academic workers would not, in the abstract principle, object to the general good of diversity and educational pluralism, even as ideological and political currents may differ. Daily encounters with students and face-to-face relationships, in teaching, mentoring, or advising situations, provide many regular opportunities to engage with the lived experiences of diversity but often within an antagonistic context, where hierarchical institutions routinely place inclusion and equality as subordinate priorities in relation to other values, goals, and projects. As Sara Ahmed notes, “Diversity work is hard because it can involve doing within institutions what would not otherwise be done by them. . . . The social desire to institutionalize diversity does not mean the institution is opened up; indeed, the wall might become all the more apparent, all the more a sign of immobility, the more the institution presents itself as being opened up.” Diversity in higher education is therefore a moral and polemical concept that points to a tacit awareness and often grudging collective recognition, despite the prevailing political mood, that the university as it is currently configured is a place of injustice and inequality and in need of social change.

Privacy-centered design for social robots

Social robots as companions play an increasingly important role in our everyday life. However, reaching the full potential of social robots and the interaction between humans and robots requires permanent collection and processing of personal data of users, e.g. video and audio data for image and speech recognition. In order to foster user acceptance, trust and to address legal requirements as the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU, privacy needs to be integrated in the design process of social robots. The Privacy by Design approach by Cavoukian indicates the relevance of a privacy-respecting development and outlines seven abstract principle. In this paper two methods as a hands-on guideline to fulfill the principles are presented and discussed in the content of the Privacy by Design approach. Privacy risks of a typical robot scenario are identified, analyzed and solutions are proposed on the basis of the seven types of privacy and the privacy protection goals.

Grotius, Necessity and the Sixteenth-Century Scholastic Tradition

The essay investigates elements of sixteenth-century scholastic thought that have played a role in Grotius’s doctrine of necessity: the nature of the rights of the person in extreme need; the relation of the right of necessity to self-preservation; the compact that lies at the origin of property rights; and finally the obligation of restitution once the emergency is over. Grotius did not develop the doctrine of necessity as an abstract principle about the relationship between private property and subsistence rights. Instead, he used it primarily as a normative principle on permissible behavior in times of war. The comparison with sixteenth-century thought and the practical purposes for which he developed the principle help to understand better the Grotian conception about the subjective nature of the right of necessity and its normative foundation.