Quasi-Naturalism and the Problem of Alternative Normative Concepts

The following scenario seems possible: a community uses concepts that play the same role in guiding actions and shaping social life as our normative concepts, and yet refer to something else. As Eklund (2017) argues, this apparent possibility poses a problem for any normative realist who aspires to vindicate the thought that reality itself favors our ways of valuing and acting. How can realists make good on this idea, given that anything they might say in support of the privileged status of our normative concepts can be mirrored by the imagined community? E.g., the realist might claim that using our concepts is what we ought to do if we are to describe normative facts correctly, but members of the other community can claim the same about their concepts, using their own concept of ought. A promising approach to this challenge is to try to rule out the possibility of alternative normative concepts, by arguing that any concepts that have the same normative role must share a reference as well. (Eklund calls this referential normativity.) In this paper I argue that normative quasi-naturalism, a view that combines expressivism about normative discourse with a naturalist metaphysics of normativity, supports referential normativity and solves the problem of alternative normative concepts.

Publicity and Common Commitment to Believe

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions.

The Emerging Contribution of Director Disqualification in UK Competition Law

Peter Whelan assesses a developing and increasingly significant enforcement tool in the UK competition authority’s armoury in Chapter 11. In it, Whelan notes that the enforcement of UK competition law is deterrence-focused and comprises both criminal and non-criminal (i.e. civil/administrative) elements. The chapter concentrates on the non-criminal enforcement apparatus that has been developed over the last twenty years. More specifically, it critically evaluates a particular enforcement mechanism that has been gaining increasing importance throughout the recent development of UK competition enforcement practice: the use of director disqualification. It first establishes the normative role of director disqualification in the UK’s armoury of non-criminal antitrust sanctions (i.e. its complementing of the deterrent function of corporate antitrust fines), following which it highlights their potential for performing this role effectively. It then outlines the legal basis for the use of director disqualification within the UK and evaluates the policy and enforcement practice to date with respect to such orders, before proceeding to outline some of the insights that the UK director disqualification regime can provide to other jurisdictions. Ultimately it concludes that, on the basis of the promising, albeit nascent, UK experience to date, director disqualification should be seriously considered by jurisdictions that wish to operate a robust competition law enforcement regime.

The Master Key to the Problem of Reversible Chemical Hydrogen Storage is 12 kJ (mol H2)-1

<p>This article shows up the intrinsic thermodynamic boundaries to reversible mass transfer on basis of the ideal gas law and classic equilibrium thermodynamics in relation to chemical hydrogen storage. In the event, a global picture of reversible chemical hydrogen storage is unveiled, including an explanation of partial reversibility. The findings of this work help to clarify problems of metal hydride chemistry which otherwise are difficult if not impossible to solve in convergent manner, e.g. why the substitution of 4 mol % Na by K in Ti-doped NaAlH₄ raises the reversible storage capacity by 42 % or the way the dopants take effect in (Rb/K)-co-doped Mg(NH₂)₂/2LiH. This work's result is of a wider significance since based on two cornerstones of physical chemistry and particularly for the normative role of hydrogen electrodes to electrochemistry.</p>

What Makes Normative Concepts Normative

When asked which of our concepts are normative concepts, metaethicists would be quick to list such concepts as good, ought, and reason. When asked why such concepts belong on the list, metaethicists would be much slower to respond. Eklund (2017) is a notable exception. He argues by elimination for “the Normative Role view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of having a “normative role” or being “used normatively” (2017, p. 79). One view that Eklund aims to eliminate is “the Metaphysical view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of referring to normative properties (2017, p. 71).2 In addition to arguing that Eklund’s objection looks doubtful by its own lights, we argue that there are several plausible versions of the Metaphysical view that Eklund doesn’t eliminate, defending various claims about normative concepts and their relationships to deliberation, competence, reference, and possession along the way.

Normativity in Plato’s Philebus

This paper extracts and articulates the account of normativity in Plato’s Philebus. Central to this account is the concept of measure, which plays both an ontological and a normative role. With regard to the former, measure is what makes particular things to be the specific kind of thing they are; with regard to the latter, measure supplies the appropriate standard for determining whether or not those things are good or bad instances of their kind. As a result of measure playing these two roles, normative evaluation is grounded in the ontological structure of the thing being evaluated.

Introduction

This more theoretical chapter focuses on the normative role of the government, in democratic countries with a market economy, and how that role has been tied to the prevalent view of the assumed relationship between individual citizens and their government. That view has been different in different countries. The chapter stresses the difference between choices made in and by the free market and those made through the political market. In the former, income distribution and individual liberty are important. In the political market, with one person one vote, the income of the voters should be less important. However, it often is important. Some societies place a lot of importance on individual liberty. Others give more weight to community goals. These attitudes influence government policies.

What does solidarity do for bioethics?

Bioethical work on solidarity has yielded an array of divergent conceptions. But what do these accounts add to normative bioethics? What is solidarity’s distinctive social normative role? Prainsack and Buyx suggest that solidarity be understood as the ‘putty’ of justice. I argue here that the putty metaphor is deeply insightful and—when spelled out in detail—successfully explicates solidarity’s social normative function. Unfortunately, Prainsack and Buyx’s own account cannot play this role. I propose instead that the putty metaphor supports a conception of solidarity as equity. This proposal enables us to answer whether and when we should act in solidarity, and with whom, while also capturing the putty metaphor and hence answering a basic question: what is solidarity for?

Conclusion

Eklund’s Bad Guy raises questions that are related to the semantic stability of practical terms, but highlights some important consequences of stability that go beyond mere facts about disagreement. Bad Guy applies his normative ‘ought’ systematically to actions we would say are not obligatory. If Bad Guy should be interpreted as using his ‘ought’ to refer to obligation—the same property we refer to—then it follows that there is a measure of semantic stability for ‘ought.’ If not, then Bad Guy can say things like, “One ought not give money to the poor,” using an ‘ought’ with a normative role, and say something that is ...

Gründe, Motivation und Für-etwas-Sprechen

The aim of this article is to explicate and to defend a desire-based conception of practical reasons. Often such a conception is suspected of reducing reasons to a mere motivational function and to spirit the central normative role away. It is, I think, totally correct that the primary function of reasons is to speak in favour of an action and to make an action right. But an analysis of this normative side shows that the speaking-in-favour-of itself presupposes a desire-relationship.