A model intervenes: the many faces of moral hazard

This article builds on advances in social ontology to develop a new understanding of how mainstream economic modelling affects reality. We propose a new framework for analysing and describing how models intervene in the social sphere. This framework allows us to identify and articulate three key epistemic features of models as interventions: specificity, portability and formal precision. The second part of the article uses our framework to demonstrate how specificity, portability and formal precision explain the use of moral hazard models in a variety of different policy contexts, including worker compensation schemes, bank regulation and the euro-sovereign debt crisis.

Expecting moral philosophers to be reliable

Are philosophers’ intuitions more reliable than philosophical novices’? Are we entitled to assume the superiority of philosophers’ intuitions just as we assume that experts in other domains have more reliable intuitions than novices? Ryberg raises some doubts and his arguments promise to undermine the expertise defence of intuition-use in philosophy once and for all. In this paper, I raise a number of objections to these arguments. I argue that philosophers receive sufficient feedback about the quality of their intuitions and that philosophers’ experience in philosophy plausibly affects their intuitions. Consequently, the type of argument Ryberg offers fails to undermine the expertise defence of intuition-use in philosophy.

Pippi Longstocking, juvenile delinquent? Hachette, self-censorship and the moral reconstruction of postwar France

This paper looks at the blockages to the publication of children’s literature caused by the intellectual climate of the postwar era, through a case study of the editorial policy of Hachette, the largest publisher for children at this time. This period witnessed heightened tensions surrounding the social and humanitarian responsibilities of literature. Writers were blamed for having created a culture of defeatism, and collaborationist authors were punished harshly in the purges. In the case of children’s literature, the discourse on responsibility was made more urgent by the assumption that children were easily influenced by their reading material, and by the centrality of the young to the discourse on the moral reconstruction of France. As the politician and education reformer Gustave Monod put it: “penser l’avenir, c’est penser le sort des enfants et de la jeunesse.” These concerns led to the expansion of associations and publications dedicated to protecting children and promoting “good” reading matter for them, and, famously, to the 1949 law regulating publications for children, which banned the depiction of crime, debauchery and violence that might demoralise young readers. Using the testimonials of former employees, along with readers’ reports and editorial correspondence preserved in the Hachette archives, this paper will examine how individual editorial decisions and self-censorship strategies were shaped by the 1949 law with its attendant discourse of moral panic on children’s reading, and how national concerns for future citizens were balanced with commercial imperatives.

Reliable but not home free? What framing effects mean for moral intuitions

Various studies show moral intuitions to be susceptible to framing effects. Many have argued that this susceptibility is a sign of unreliability and that this poses a methodological challenge for moral philosophy. Recently, doubt has been cast on this idea. It has been argued that extant evidence of framing effects does not show that moral intuitions have a unreliability problem. I argue that, even if the extant evidence suggests that moral intuitions are fairly stable with respect to what intuitions we have, the effect of framing on the strength of those intuitions still needs to be taken into account. I argue that this by itself poses a methodological challenge for moral philosophy.

Moral uncertainty and permissibility: evaluating option sets

In this essay, we explore an issue of moral uncertainty: what we are permitted to do when we are unsure about which moral principles are correct. We develop a novel approach to this issue that incorporates important insights from previous work on moral uncertainty, while avoiding some of the difficulties that beset existing alternative approaches. Our approach is based on evaluating and choosing between option sets rather than particular conduct options. We show how our approach is particularly well-suited to address this issue of moral uncertainty with respect to agents that have credence in moral theories that are not fully consequentialist.

Attribution i moral och etik : hur tillskriver människor orsaker till beteenden?

Rapporten handlar om hur människor attribuerar, det vill säga tillskriver, orsaker till beteenden i moralbaserade situationer och om det finns skillnad i hur män och kvinnor attribuerar beteenden. För att undersöka hur människor attribuerar har man i denna undersökning låtit män och kvinnor göra bedömningar om varför man själv eller ”någon av samma ålder och kön” gör som de gör i specifika situationer. Detta gjordes i en enkät innehållande två situationer med vardera fyra orsaker som rangordnas efter hur troliga de är som anledning till vad som hände i situationen. Enligt resultaten finns det en signifikant skillnad i hur människor attribuerar beteenden men det beror på vilken situation de befinner sig i. Resultaten påvisar inte någon signifikant skillnad i hur män och kvinnor attribuerar sitt och andras beteenden.

Life and Death: The Religious, Philosophical and Moral Dilemmas in Medicine

Religious beliefs often play a major role in the decisions that are made in the home and the hospital concerning issues at the beginning and end of life. Only recently, however, due to rapidly advancing medical technology, have religious, moral, and philosophical beliefs taken such a controversial role. One of the major questions that has arisen from these various controversies is whether or not we have the right to posses control over the biological functions of our bodies. The answer is a difficult one, and it may be one that cannot be answered, but the attempt at an answer is what is at the heart of medical ethics.

O dano moral nas relações de trabalho

O presente trabalho consiste em conceituar, demonstrar as características, objetividade do Dano e sua indenização. Por tratar-se de uma relação onde um lado é hipossuficiente, destaca-se, em face do presente estudo, a prática do ato ilícito pelo empregador. O Dano Moral, no Direito do Trabalho nasceu juntamente com a revolução industrial, onde constatamos mais efetivamente o aumento da subordinação e inicio das relações entre empregador e empregado, pois a partir daí surgem ambientes propícios para causar prejuízo a um bem extrapatrimonial, uma vez que tais relações se dão entre seres humanos capazes de ferir e de serem feridos na sua esfera intima, subjetiva. O estudo do presente tema, nos demonstra que os sujeitos da relação de trabalho são diferenciados um, o empregador, detentor do poder de comando, disciplina e fiscalização e o outro, o empregado, sujeito à subordinação, à disciplina e fiscalização. É justamente nesta diferenciação entre os sujeitos de tais relações que reside a origem do Dano Moral, pois, o mais fraco, o empregado, acaba sendo, pela prática do ato ilícito, prejudicado numa relação em que não respeita-se os limites entre as partes. Sendo o Dano Moral o resultado de uma ação ou omissão não estribada em exercício regular de um direito, em que o agente causa prejuízo ou viola direito de outrem, tem o autor da conduta lesionante a obrigação de repará-lo seja qual for a modalidade o dano. Assim, tanto os danos patrimoniais quanto os danos morais estão abrangidos no comando do artigo 927 do Código Civil.