bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Parfit’s Final Arguments in Normative Ethics
Authors: Hooker Brad
Published: June 2021

This paper starts by juxtaposing the normative ethics in the final part of Parfit’s final book, On What Matters, volume iii (2017), with the normative ethics in his earlier books, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters, volume i (2011). The paper then addresses three questions. The first is, where does the reflective-equilibrium methodology that Parfit endorsed in the first volume of On What Matters lead? The second is, is the Act-involving Act Consequentialism that Parfit considers in the final volume of On What Matters as plausible as Rossian deontology? The third is, how is the new argument that Parfit puts forward for Rule Consequentialism supposed to work?
Nonlegislative Justification
Authors: Murphy Liam
Published: June 2021

If moral theorists who otherwise disagree, all approach moral theorizing as a search for a set of desirable moral principles for the general regulation of behavior, then there is a sense in which they are all, as Parfit says, climbing the same mountain. But it is the wrong mountain. Morality should not be understood as hypothetical legislation; it is a mistake to set about constructing morality as if we were making law. Real legislators evaluate possible legal rules by considering the effects they would have. They can do this because enforcement and acceptance of law ensure a high level of compliance. Moral legislators have no reason to assume any particular level of acceptance; the effects of counterfactual acceptance of a principle are not morally relevant. The argument targets rule consequentialism and Scanlon’s official version of contractualism. The paper begins in a positive mode by arguing that a nonlegislative version of Scanlon’s approach, that seeks justification for conduct of such-and-such a kind in such-and-such circumstances by comparing the reasons in favor and the reasons others have to object, is a very attractive way to think about what we owe to each other.
Relational Egalitarianism
Authors: Lippert-Rasmussen Kasper
Published: June 2021

Derek Parfit famously introduced a now commonly adopted distinction between telic and deontic distributive egalitarianism. This chapter argues that we can draw a similar distinction between telic and deontic relational egalitarianism. Interestingly, telic relational egalitarianism might be less vulnerable to the levelling-down objection than telic distributive egalitarianism. However, while some relational egalitarian concerns are best captured by telic relational egalitarianism, other concerns are better captured by deontic relational egalitarianism and yet others relating to intergenerational justice are better captured by telic distributive egalitarianism. Accordingly, insofar as we are egalitarians, we should be pluralist egalitarians in a more thoroughgoing way than Parfit entertained.
Duties That Become Supererogatory or Forbidden?
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: June 2021

This chapter first examines certain of Derek Parfit’s views in his On What Matters, volume iii on the relation between not harming, aiding, and making personal sacrifices to achieve each. It compares his views with those of the author on two different measures of the stringency of duties and the distinction between supererogation and obligation. The chapter goes on to consider implications of these views for cases in which an agent must choose whether to save many people by either (i) not saving or harming someone else or (ii) suffering some large personal loss himself. The chapter continues by arguing against one way in which Parfit thinks an agent-relative deontological conception of one’s duty incorrectly bars our having common aims by requiring each person to minimize the harm he does.
Spatiotemporal Structure
Authors: North Jill
Published: June 2021

This chapter applies our reasoning about structure in physics to the debate about spacetime ontology. The discussion starts by explaining why the traditional debate about the existence of space(time) may well be at a stalemate: each side has plausible responses to the usual cases aimed against it. It then argues that reconstruing the debate as being about the fundamentality of spatiotemporal structure yields a substantive dispute that is relevant to current and future physics. It argues that the epistemic principles governing structure support substantivalism over relationalism, given current formulations of physics, and challenges the relationalist to come up with reformulations that meet certain criteria. The idea of direct formulations of physical theories and why they are preferable is also discussed.
The Successful Communication Principle
Authors: Dougherty Tom
Published: June 2021

This chapter introduces the case for the ‘Successful Communication Principle’ for the scope of consent, according to which an action falls within the scope of someone’s consent when the consent-giver successfully communicates an intention to permit this action. This principle pairs with a view of consent as consisting in successful communication between the consent-giver and the consent-receiver. This principle and view can be motivated by the Control Argument, which appeals to the idea that an agent wrongs a victim by acting in the victim’s personal domain in a way that the victim does not control. For a consent-giver to control a consent-receiver’s conduct in virtue of the consent-receiver being guided by their consent, there must be successful communication between the consent-giver and the consent-receiver.
Why We Should Reject the Uptake Condition
Authors: Dougherty Tom
Published: June 2021

This chapter argues that we should reject the Uptake Condition, according to which an action falls within the scope of consent only if the consent-receiver successfully interprets the consent-giver’s behaviour as motivated by an intention to permit this action. We should reject this condition on the grounds that a public commitment can be sufficient for consent in the absence of uptake with the consent-receiver. Since the Uptake Condition is implied by the Successful Communication Principle for the scope of consent, we must also reject the Successful Communication Principle. However, since the Behavioural View is not committed to the Uptake Condition, it does not follow that we must reject the Behavioural View.
The Expression of Will View I
Authors: Dougherty Tom
Published: June 2021

This chapter begins developing the Expression of Will View, according to which someone consents by expressing their will for how another person behaves. This view is motivated by the Interpersonal Justification Argument, which makes use of the idea that an agent can justify treating an individual in a certain way by appealing to that individual’s consent. By locating consent as a means of interpersonal justification, this approach situates consent alongside forfeiture and waivers as ways that we can give up complaints against other people causally contributing to harms that we suffer. What distinguishes consent from these other bases of interpersonal justification is that consent involves an individual deliberately expressing their will for how an agent behaves.
Pneumatological Emphasis in the Doctrine of Grace
Authors: Ruokanen Miikka
Published: June 2021

Luther’s Pneumatologically accentuated view of grace directs its criticism, first, at Nominalism with its teaching on the concept of free choice, and, second, at Scholasticism with its teaching on justification based on the idea of habitual grace in the human soul created by a process of cooperation between divine grace and its human receiver. Luther follows Augustine: Grace means participation in the personal reality of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and of his Father. The presence of Christ in the sinner—his personal righteousness, his divine life, and his gifts of salvation accomplished on his cross and in his resurrection—is the “alien justice” on the basis of which the sinner is imputed as righteous. The favor (forensic forgiveness) and the donum (the indwelling of the Spirit), the Christological and Pneumatological aspects of justification, are simultaneous and inseparable. For Luther, the Late Medieval teaching of grace, represented by Erasmus, is “cheap grace” contrasting salvation sola gratia. Permitting any human role in salvation promotes secret pride and leads to self-righteousness. In the beginning of creation, the Spirit was the provider of the union between the Creator and the human being. He/she was fully dependent on God’s Spirit, there was no freedom in relation the “things above him/herself.” Sin broke off the relationship, and the humans lost God’s Spirit; consequently, the “slavery of God” was replaced by the slavery of unfaith. The humans became mortal, flesh cannot exist eternally without God’s Spirit; the re-entrance of the Spirit changes the situation.
The Trinitarian Nature of the Pneumatological Grace
Authors: Ruokanen Miikka
Published: June 2021

In his magnum opus Luther follows the Trinitarian logic of John and Paul in the New Testament and the Patristic teaching on the indivisibility of the works of the three persons of the Trinity. When the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son makes known Christ, he simultaneously makes known the Father who sent his Son. The mission of the Son depends entirely on his Father who sent him, and the mission of the Son becomes effective only in the power of the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit makes Christ together with his gifts truly present in the human person, without the Spirit, Christological grace has no impact on the sinner—Christological grace and Pneumatological grace are inseparable and simultaneous. Luther expresses the same truth both in Pneumatological and in Christological terms, the chapter at hand displays extensive evidence on this coincidence. Moreover, Luther creates an explicit analogy between the creation of the universe and of the work of the Holy Spirit enabling the new birth or rebirth of the sinner. The universe was created “from nothing” by the monergistic power of the Triune God, so is the conversion and the faith of the sinner created ex nihilo by God’s Spirit. As human beings “did nothing to create themselves,” likewise they cannot do anything to “newly create” themselves from unbelief to faith; any notion of free choice collapses. The ability of creation and that of new creation are divine properties only: “Let God be God!”
A Theology of Paradoxes
Authors: Ruokanen Miikka
Published: June 2021

Why does God’s Spirit grant the gift of faith to some but not to others? Erasmus solved the dilemma by admitting minimal freedom to the human side, a wrong use of free choice is to be blamed. This is the way of maintaining credibility in the justice of God. Luther’s solution to the dilemma was a distinction between the concepts of “the revealed God,” Deus revelatus, and of “the hidden God,” Deus absconditus. On the notitia level, i.e. in regard to knowing who is elected, we are in total darkness; it is a secret of the hidden majesty. We are restricted to the usus level of election, i.e. to revelation which says that God wills everyone to be saved. God’s will does not follow any human logic of justice, God’s will itself is the norm for itself and cannot be subjected to any rule outside itself. Asking why God does what he does is a concern arising from religious pride; the sovereignty of the divine will utterly annihilates speculation about any grounds for bargaining with God. Luther follows the paradigm of “the theology of the cross”: Anyone who has become “desperate about him/herself” is, paradoxically, already in the state of grace. This paradox brings about certainty of salvation: God has taken the question of salvation completely “outside ourselves” into his hands, this results in peace in the scruples of salvation, the believer is liberated from “the pestilence of uncertainty.” Luther prefers the Biblical term “election” to the philosophical concept “predestination.”
The Uncomfortable Ordinary
Authors: Tanner Laura E.
Published: June 2021

Despite extensive dialogue among Robinson scholars about the role of the ordinary in her fiction, critical attention limits itself almost exclusively to the transformation of the everyday. This chapter focuses instead on the way that, for Robinson’s protagonists, loss settles uneasily into the everyday; the aesthetic defamiliarization of a taken-for-granted world often translates into the intimate experience of estrangement. The power of representation that critics associate with Robinson’s rendering of ordinary things emerges from an intensity of perception that marks her characters’ expulsion from the taken for granted. Scarred by grief, illness, aging, and trauma, Robinson’s characters inhabit a world of transcendent beauty suffused with the terrifying threat of loss. This chapter introduces the concept of the “uncomfortable ordinary” within the frameworks of everyday life theory, Robinson criticism, contemporary novel studies, and recent dialogues on the lyrical novel to argue for the complexity, relevance, and contemporaneity of Robinson’s fiction.
Housekeepingand the Phantom Ordinary
Authors: Tanner Laura E.
Published: June 2021

This chapter shifts focus away from the luminous images of Housekeeping to the lived experiences of traumatic grief those images often veil. The lyrical beauty of Housekeeping offers stylistic reinforcement of a first-person narrative that seeks consolation in immaterial forms. Critical focus on the transfigured ordinary and its aesthetic compensations tends to substantiate rather than interrogate the project of Ruth, focusing on the vibrancy and vitality of the images that she conjures rather than her terrifying expulsion from the everyday. Haunted by memories of maternal presence and incapable of resurrecting her mother, Robinson’s protagonist attempts to write herself out of the everyday world and into the spectral landscape in which her mother continues to exist; rendering her own embodied existence in ghostly terms, Ruth situates herself in a phantom ordinary. Housekeeping, I argue, subtly interrogates Ruth’s substitution of aesthetic images for ordinary presence in a way that anticipates the dramatic collapse of aesthetic consolation in Robinson’s later fiction.
The Case for Wellbeing as the Goal of Government and Constraints on Policy-making
Authors: Frijters Paul , Krekel Christian
Published: June 2021

The first chapter is targeted at readers who are interested in the general push to include subjective wellbeing in governments’ policy-making institutions. It discusses the origin of the idea that governments should care about wellbeing; how wellbeing is already incorporated in many policy evaluations and appraisals; how a wellbeing-oriented bureaucracy fits in with the democratic process; and how the realities of policy-making often limit the use of formal wellbeing analyses and give rise to the importance of general knowledge about wellbeing amongst all decision-makers. To begin with, the chapter gives a quick synopsis of the basic vision at the heart of this book: what ‘more wellbeing’ would mean for policy-making and what steps would need to be taken to realize it. It is this basic vision which will unfold in the different chapters that follow and which forms the book’s basic motivation. The chapter ends with a quick overview of the institutional trajectory yet to be undertaken to have wellbeing policy embedded in the government machinery.
The Limited Use View of the Duty to Save
Authors: Frowe Helen
Published: June 2021

This chapter defends the Limited Use View of our duties to save. The Limited Use View holds that the duty to save is a duty to treat oneself, and perhaps one’s resources, as a means for preventing harm to others. But the duty to treat oneself as a means for the sake of others is limited. One need not treat oneself as a means when doing so is either very costly or conflicts with one’s more stringent duties to others. This provides an agent-neutral account of the duty to save. When the cost of saving passes a certain threshold, one is permitted to fail to save, and it is impermissible for others to force one to save, if doing so will force one to incur an equal or greater cost. The chapter argues that the Limited Use View is to be preferred to agent-relative accounts of the duty to save, which hold that the limit on our duty to save is grounded in an agent-relative prerogative to weight our own interests (and those of special others) more heavily than other people’s interests.
When Public Reason Falls Silent
Authors: Kogelmann Brian , Stich Stephen G. W.
Published: June 2021

Public reason theorists argue that coercive state action must be justified to those subject to such action. Doing so requires citizens to give only those reasons that all can accept. These reasons, the chapter argues, include scientific and social scientific considerations. One ineliminable and arguably salutary property of the modern administrative state is that the coercive policies it produces can be justified only on the basis of extremely complex scientific and social scientific considerations. Many of these considerations are neither understood by most ordinary citizens nor agreed upon by experts. This means that the overwhelming majority of citizens do not accept the reasons justifying coercive administrative policies. As a result, public reason is inconsistent with the administrative state. There are deep implications to this result: if public reason is inconsistent with the administrative state, then it is also inconsistent with forms of social organization that presuppose it. This, the chapter argues, includes egalitarianism, which many proponents of public reason also endorse. Public reason theorists thus must choose: justification through public reason, or distributive equality?
Why Strict Compliance?
Authors: May Simon Căbulea
Published: June 2021

John Rawls defines ideal theory in terms of a strict compliance assumption. The standard interpretation of ideal theory is telic: the function of the strict compliance assumption is to help specify a realistic utopia as a telos for political decision making. The chapter defends an alternative, deontic interpretation of ideal theory, one based on the fundamental Rawlsian idea of society as a fair scheme of cooperation. It claims that the participants of a genuinely cooperative scheme are mutually accountable in that they have the standing to make demands of one another. It argues that the logic of these moral demands implies that the rules of any cooperative scheme must be justified on the basis of a strict compliance assumption. Since society as a whole constitutes a cooperative scheme in justice as fairness, the same conclusion holds of its principles of justice. The chapter also defends the possibility of a non-utopian ideal theory.
Legality in EU Common Foreign and Security Policy
Authors: Wessel Ramses A.
Published: June 2021

The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the EU finds itself between exceptionalism and normalization. Because of its special position and because the legislative procedure is not applicable to this policy area, questions of legality are not usually raised in the context of CFSP. At the same time, CFSP has become a policy area to which most EU rules and principles simply apply. This chapter assesses questions of (the review of) legality in the context of CFSP. As questions of legality make sense only in the context of legal acts, this chapter will first revisit the nature of CFSP acts as well as their consequences in the light of the ‘normalization’ of CFSP. Second, questions of legality will be assessed in relation to the legal basis of CFSP acts, and in particular, the choice of legal basis and the possibility of combining CFSP and other legal bases to enhance options for legality review.
The Enlightenment’s Paradigm Shift and the Three Impostors
Authors: Stroumsa Guy G.
Published: June 2021

The preceding chapter dealt with the legend of the three rings, which highlighted the close family relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This relationship, which had been an obvious one up through the Middle Ages, began to be seen as less evident in the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment (or perhaps, rather, the Enlightenments) took many different shapes across Europe. The present chapter is devoted to a paradigm shift, one which reflects a new historicization of European cultural life, at least in the approach to religious phenomena. In France, on which this chapter focuses, the historical transformation started earlier than elsewhere, at the very beginning of the eighteenth century.
Aryans, Semites, and Jewish Scholars
Authors: Stroumsa Guy G.
Published: June 2021

The awareness of the proximity of Judaism and Islam to Christianity was nearly lost in the secularization process. Christian affinities with Judaism and Islam ceased to be a matter of evidence, immediately recognizable. More and more, literati started perceiving Christianity as a (or rather the) European religion, while its Near Eastern roots were trimmed far back, or even, in some cases, pulled up entirely. In German-speaking lands, in particular, the Romantic movement and the “discovery” of Sanskrit brought to the perception of “Indo-Europeans,” or Aryans and Semite peoples, throughout history, in contradistinction and opposition to one another. Within a climate of growing racist anti-Semitism, Jewish scholars started to develop modern scholarship on Judaism.
Constitutionalism and the Paradox of Principles and Rules
Authors: Neves Marcelo
Published: June 2021

The present book offers a critical counterpoint to Ronald Dworkin’s principle-based theory, and in particular to Robert Alexy’s idea of optimizing balancing. Instead of ceding to the compulsion of an optimizing balancing, it suggests the possibility of a comparative or at least ‘satisficing’ balancing, considering the precariousness of legal rationality. The book also reverses Dworkin’s metaphor, associating rules with Hercules and principles with the Hydra. It takes constitutional principles seriously, criticizing the abuse of principles by the legal and constitutional doctrine and practice, but pointing out their relationship of complementarity and tension with rules. Finally, the author offers an alternative model to the recent legal and constitutional theory on the basis of certain assumptions of the systems theory. It deals especially with the paradox of the circular and reflexive relationship between constitutional principles and rules: the former are referred primarily to the openness and adequacy of legal system to society and thus to substantive argumentation; the second are referred primarily to the closure and consistency of legal system and thus to formal argumentation.
Introduction
Authors: Neves Marcelo
Published: June 2021

This Introduction deals foremost with the inversion of Ronald Dworkin’s metaphor of the ‘Judge Hercules’. According to him, this ideal judge is related primarily to principles and has the main task of closing the legal reasoning in the ‘hard cases’. In my view principles are primarily associated with the Judge Hydra, who has the key function of opening the argumentation chain to the overcomplex societal environment of law. In turn, the Judge Hercules is linked mainly to rules and has the mission of closing the legal reasoning with a ruling of the case. My assumption is that the paradox of modern constitutional law lies in the relation of tension and complementarity between Herculean rules and Hydra-like principles. In this Introduction, I also point out the ambiguity and vagueness of the word ‘principle’ in the different social and cultural fields as well as within the legal and constitutional realm. Then, I depart in advance from different uses of this word, clarifying that the focus of my book is the relation between constitutional principles and rules in the legal and constitutional theory of the turn from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century. Finally, I present briefly the book chapters.
Through the Still Dominant Models of Division Between Constitutional Principles and Rules
Authors: Neves Marcelo
Published: June 2021

This chapter initially examines the philosophical background of the dominant model for understanding constitutional principles and rules. Thereafter, it analyses this model, paying special attention to two of its trends that build on the works of Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy. Dworkin’s idea of ‘a single right answer’ for legal or constitutional questions and the Alexy’s conception of optimizing balancing are questioned. The connection between principles and the ideal judge Hercules proposed by Dworkin is objected to, and the idea that principles are related to the Hydra and the rules to Hercules is outlined. The model of proportionality developed by Alexy is also questioned. This chapter is divided into three sections: moral-philosophical background of the turn in the theory of legal principles; all-or-nothing versus dimension of weight (Ronald Dworkin); and definitive reasons versus optimization requirements (Robert Alexy).
Introduction
Authors: Young Phoebe S.K.
Published: June 2021

The introduction explains the complexities involved in the definition and history of camping, and the ways its recreational, political, and functional versions have intertwined and coevolved. It relates camping to the concept of the social contract that anchored the founding era of the United States, particularly as an agrarian ideal promoted by Thomas Jefferson. Moreover, it introduces the term “public nature”—both outdoor spaces and ideas about those spaces as settings where people work out relationships to nature, nation, and each other—as a useful way to approach the key questions of the book: What does it mean to camp, and why does it matter? The introduction offers a brief overview of the social contract and its relationship to public nature through the early twentieth centuries, touching on John Locke’s philosophy, back-to-the-land movements, the growth of urban industrial systems, consumer culture, and preservation movements.
Occupying Public Ground
Authors: Young Phoebe S.K.
Published: June 2021

Chapter 6 uses Occupy Wall Street as a window to examine episodes of politically inflected camping, particularly a series of encampments in the nation’s capital since the late 1960s. While for many Occupy seemed unprecedented, earlier protests that used camping to protest poverty, the Vietnam War, and homelessness reveal new perspectives on public nature. Many of them wound through the courts, culminating in a Supreme Court case from 1984 that examined whether the Constitution protected camping and sleeping outside as a First Amendment expression. The rise of the homeless crisis in the 1980s, which this last case concerned, was a significant development. Camping as function of poverty or as a platform for politics remained available as means of last resort—to find shelter or assert voice. Occupy, and protests that preceded it, attempted to use camping to reinvigorate political participation, to reestablish community and connection, and to renew the social contract.
Epilogue
Authors: Young Phoebe S.K.
Published: June 2021

The epilogue briefly surveys the twenty-first-century landscape of camping—a dizzying continuum from glamping and adventure styles to new streams of mobile laborers, from campground hosts to Amazon’s Camperforce. Meanwhile, advocates of recreational camping—and the outdoor recreational industry—have begun to trade in narratives of biological need and social prescription, of a nature-deficit disorder and a nature cure. Time spent recreating in nature is now promoted as a universal human need, to keep our bodies and minds in balance. Recreational camping came to promise, in the neoliberal framing, a good return on private investment in terms of family health and personal well-being, more so than democratic access to public nature. The parallel rise of this justification for leisure camping and the intensifying homeless crisis—both thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic—strongly suggests that the social contract may again be in transition.
Running at Dusk
Authors: Balberg Mira , Weiss Haim
Published: June 2021

Chapter 5 discusses a recurrent literary pattern in rabbinic narratives, namely, the sudden appearance of an unnamed old man as an embodiment of collective memory or knowledge. It argues that such anonymous elders present an idealized vision of the social role of elders in rabbinic culture. The chapter then analyzes two narratives that build on this literary pattern only to dismantle the cultural expectations that underlie it: the story of R. Shimon b. Yohai’s exit from the cave (BT Shabbat 33b–34a), and the story of Honi’s seventy-year-long sleep (BT Ta‘anit 23a). These stories cast doubts on the very norms that stand at their core, bringing to the fore the reluctance of old persons to conform to their designated social role and to disappear quietly into oblivion.
An Evangelical Theology of Hospitality
Authors: Stockhausen Ulrike Elisabeth
Published: June 2021

This chapter analyzes the theological arguments put forward by evangelical refugee and immigration activists, which is subsumed under the term “evangelical theology of hospitality.” Evangelical leaders drew on a myriad of commands, parables, narratives, and verses from both the Old and the New Testaments to argue that, as Christians, they were called to welcome all immigrants and refugees with open arms. This chapter makes the case that evangelicals—mainstream and progressives alike—made no distinction between refugees and legal immigrants on the one hand and undocumented immigrants on the other in their theology of hospitality, which they fleshed out during the Southeast Asian refugee crisis in the 1970s and applied to refugees and undocumented immigrants alike in the 1980s. All were viewed as the modern-day equivalent of the biblical “sojourners” or “strangers” whom they were called to love, provide for, and protect.
The Political Economy of Automotive Industrialization in East Asia
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Noble Gregory W. , Ravenhill John
Published: June 2021

This book offers a political economy explanation for the striking cross-national differences in strategies and performance among East Asia’s automotive industries. Some countries—China, South Korea, and Taiwan—have successfully pursued “intensive” growth strategies by increasing local value added based on domestic inputs and technological competencies. Malaysia has attempted but failed to pursue this path. In contrast, Thailand has become a champion of “extensive” growth, relying on foreign assemblers and their suppliers to achieve an impressive expansion of production, assembly, and exports. Latecomer Indonesia has followed Thailand with some success, whereas the Philippines has remained an automotive backwater. Through cross-case and within-case analyses of the seven countries, the book argues that variation is a function of the institutional and political contexts in which firms operate. Different strategies require different institutions and institutional capacities. Intensive development is especially institutionally demanding. Effective institutions emerge when political leaders face severe claims on resources (security threats and domestic pressures for welfare improvement) in the absence of easily accessible revenues to satisfy such needs. Brief comparisons with Brazil, Mexico, and other developing countries confirm the utility of the analytic framework. This explanation is superior to neoclassical accounts. It is consistent with but provides more insight than other prominent approaches to development: national innovation systems, global value chains, and developmental states. New challenges facing auto assemblers and suppliers, such as the transition to electric and autonomous vehicles, will call heavily upon the institutional capacities highlighted in this book.
Introduction
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Noble Gregory W , Ravenhill John
Published: June 2021

Automotive industrialization in East Asia exhibits striking cross-national variation in both strategy and performance. China, Korea, and Taiwan have pursued “intensive” growth strategies, increasing local value added based on domestic inputs and capabilities. Malaysia has attempted to follow this strategy, but without success. In contrast, Thailand has relied on foreign assemblers and their principal suppliers to become a champion of “extensive” growth, resulting in an impressive expansion of production, assembly, and exports. Latecomer Indonesia has followed Thailand with some success, whereas the Philippines has remained an automotive backwater. This variation reflects the broader environment shaping the firm capacities of firms: (1) intensive growth poses particularly difficult policy challenges; (2) more difficult policy challenges require stronger institutions; and (3) institutions that promote upgrading emerge to the degree that political pressures compel national regimes to address external threats and domestic unrest absent easy access to resources necessary to do so.
The Lure and Challenges of the Automobile Industry
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Noble Gregory W , Ravenhill John
Published: June 2021

The automobile industry simultaneously entices and challenges developing countries. It is a leading employer, a major trader, and a crucial integrator of manufacturing technologies. Would-be entrants into the industry face formidable challenges, however: high entry barriers, demanding quality requirements, and (for components producers) assemblers’ expectations that component producers will be able to co-locate with their plants. Only 15 of the world’s largest auto components manufacturers come from outside Europe, Japan, or North America. Changes in technology and regional and global trade regimes have consolidated the industry and reduced the availability of policy instruments. Nonetheless, opportunities exist for developing economies, not least because of the potential for integration into regional and global supply chains. Most of the growth in demand for autos is concentrated in the developing world. Less developed countries on the periphery of major markets have substantially increased their share of global output over the last two decades.
Institutions, Politics, and Developmental Divergence
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Noble Gregory W , Ravenhill John
Published: June 2021

Variation in automotive industrial performance across seven East Asian countries reflects differences in firm competencies, but those differences are largely cross-national: common national environments are central influences on firms’ incentives to develop competencies. Factors emphasized in neoclassical accounts, such as market size, macroeconomic policy, and openness to foreign investment, are weak predictors of cross-national variation. Extensive development requires measures that facilitate capital mobilization and allocation, such as sector-specific FDI incentives and specialized infrastructure. Successful intensive growth cases are distinguished by effective sectoral institutes for collective training, testing, and research. Three sets of pressures push political leaders to pursue the long-term development of institutions: claims on resources (security threats and domestic pressures for welfare improvement) in the absence of easily accessible resources to satisfy such needs. These arguments are consistent with but go well beyond other prominent approaches to development: national innovation systems, global value chains, and developmental states.
The Philippines and Indonesia
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Noble Gregory W , Ravenhill John
Published: June 2021

Where Thailand succeeded at extensive development, the Philippines and Indonesia long floundered. Both countries initiated systematic automotive industrialization efforts in the early 1970s. The Philippines developed a detailed program to combine local supplier upgrading with MNC (multinational corporation)-linked exports, whereas Indonesia pursued a more straightforward intensive development strategy aimed at a complete value chain based on local assemblers and suppliers. Neither succeeded. Permissive conditions—weak external threats, limited popular pressure, and relatively easy access to foreign exchange—undermined policy stability and hindered both countries’ efforts at developing institutions capable of strengthening local firms and linkages. Occasional moves toward more extensive development occurred in response to the sporadic tightening of economic pressures. These nevertheless resulted in distinctly different levels of progress: Indonesia has gradually begun to rival Thailand as an MNC assembly base, whereas despite the Philippines’ early status as an automotive pioneer, its auto industry has remained a case of “arrested development.”
Personalizing Rules by Age
Authors: Ben-Shahar Omri , Porat Ariel
Published: June 2021

To complete the demonstration of personalized law in action, this chapter focuses on the inputs used to tailor the individualized commands. One input that is likely to feature in the personalization of many rules is age. Age is informative because it is often correlated with personal attributes that matter to achieving the goals of a law. Preferences, cognition, judgment, experience, and physical ability—all vary with age. Young age is a factor in the denial of legal capacity and in the conferral of various paternalistic protections, whereas old age represents changing needs, capacities, and entitlements. Under personalized law, age would be an input affecting legal commands that are currently age-invariant, such as the intestate succession default rule or speed limit laws. In addition, age of capacity laws, which are currently used to regulate entry into various activities, would use different age cutoffs for different people.
Building a High-Value Health System
Authors: Atun Rifat , Moore Gordon
Published: June 2021

Building a High-Value Health System presents a practical, general approach to designing a health system that provides comprehensive, effective, and affordable healthcare for nations across the globe. This book systematically leads readers through the steps of designing a system around a developed country’s needs by describing what a health systems is, how to analyze a country’s health system performance, how to evaluate the needs of a population, how to assess the key capacities available, and how to develop and implement health system improvements tailored to a constituent population. A textually rich workbook drawing on case examples from across the globe, Building a High-Value Health System will provide readers with a deeper understanding of their own health system and provide the framework for the necessary actions toward building a better one.
How Did We Get Here?
Authors: Atun Rifat
Published: June 2021

Chapter 3 traces the development of health systems in middle- and high-income countries since the Second World War and notes the trends that have led to the development of contemporary health systems. The authors summarize the major trends in healthcare—the benefits, costs, public attitudes and beliefs, and consumer responses to medical care. Health has improved, more citizens are able to access healthcare, standards of care have risen, and the advance of scientific medicine is stunning. The authors reflect on the forces that have led to the current successes and raise upcoming challenges in improving health and healthcare. Foremost among these are concerns about rising costs and value-for-money of health systems, which pose sustainability challenges to health systems in all countries.
Developing a Vision and Goals
Authors: Atun Rifat
Published: June 2021

Chapter 4 presents methods to examine the performance of a health system and to assess, define, and choose the vision, specific goals, and objectives for a health system. The authors discuss approaches to understand the performance of a country’s health system and present indicators that could be used to assess the performance of health systems. They present methodology to examine the opportunities and threats faced by a country health system and the strengths and weaknesses of the health system based on the performance achieved. They show how the results of this examination are used for a strengths and weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. They discuss how the SWOT analysis can be used to identify gaps in system performance and consider those that need addressing. The SWOT analysis informs the beginning of the goal-setting process and the development of an improvement plan to redesign the health system to achieve set goals.
Developing Plans for Change
Authors: Atun Rifat
Published: June 2021

Chapter 5 presents a semi-structured plan for each work group to produce one system intervention plan (SIP) for their country. Taking the components of their health system, its underlying system problems, and their formulation of its vision and goals, the students individually and then in their small group take a stab at identifying gaps and constructing a system improvement plan. This chapter will present various techniques and exercises to help students come up with interventions that work. The process of idea-generating is designed to generate a solution to fix one or more of their chosen system performance gaps. The students’ work product is to agree on and propose one intervention to achieve the goals, objectives, and targets they have selected for their chosen country in Chapter 4.
Implementing a Change—Adoption and Diffusion
Authors: Atun Rifat
Published: June 2021

In Chapter 8, the authors discuss in detail factors that might influence the introduction and scale-up of the system improvement plan (SIP). Successfully maneuvering an SIP in a complicated health system is a challenge. It requires considering the multiple interlinked factors that individually and collectively influence the adoption and diffusion process. They discuss the potential enablers and barriers that may facilitate or hinder the adoption and diffusion of the SIP and the change it is designed to produce. They introduce a proprietary framework, the 7Cs model, to group these factors into categories. This framework is designed to enable students to clarify the many interconnected elements that will influence the implementation of their SIP and organize the interventions that are needed to effectively manage these factors. The 7Cs model encompasses seven factors that need to be considered in relation to the implementation strategic change and of the SIP: (i) challenge, (ii) content, (iii) context, (iv) coalitions, (v) communication, (vi) capacity, and (vii) cohesiveness.
Practicing Atheism
Authors: Scheidt Hannah K.
Published: June 2021

Practicing Atheism is a cultural study of contemporary atheism, focusing on how atheists negotiate meanings and values through media. This book examines a variety of cultural products, both corporate driven and grassroots, that circulate messages about what atheism means—what ideas, values, affinities, and attitudes the term denotes. Through the creation, consumption, and exchange of this media, atheism gains positive content, the term signaling much more than lack of belief in god(s) for those who identify with the emergent culture. Primary source materials for this book include grassroots Internet communities, popular television programming, organized atheist events, and material culture representations of the movement, such as those found in atheist fan art. Practicing Atheism argues that atheist culture emerges from a unique tension with religion—a category atheists critique and resist but also, at times, imitate and approximate. Using a framework based on ritual studies, this book theorizes ambivalence, ambiguity, and “in-betweenness” as the essential condition of contemporary atheist culture.
Legitimating a Topic as Old as Esther
Authors: Jackson Timothy P.
Published: June 2021

Here I rebut three fundamental challenges to the idea that Jewish moral monotheism was a primary cause of German anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. The first challenge is the claim that the National Socialist persecution of the Jews was based solely on race, and not on religion. The second challenge is the more sweeping claim that there was nothing objective about the Jews or Judaism—neither race nor religion—that motivated Nazi oppression and murder; these were simply irrational. The third challenge is what I call, echoing Hannah Arendt, “the banality of evil” claim. According to this perspective, most Nazis, including many who were very highly placed (e.g., Eichmann), were without evil intention or malice of forethought toward the Jews and were motivated primarily by mundane concerns, such as power or promotion or simple prudence. I take all three of these positions to underestimate human malice and, by implication, human (and divine) benevolence.
The Biomass Reallocation Program
Authors: Rowlands Mark
Published: June 2021

Underlying human-caused extinctions, past and present, is a vast biomass reallocation program. Before our Neolithic forebears began changing the world, biomass was distributed quite evenly among species of animals and plants. The tenure of humans has seen a marked change in this, as biomass became progressively concentrated into a small number of species—us and animals we eat. Today, 96% of all mammalian biomass consists in humans and the mammals that humans farm. An additional 70% of all avian biomass consists in domestic fowl. This biomass reallocation is the most significant driver of species extinction. The number-one driver of species extinction today is change in land use. The most significant driver of change in land use is agricultural expansion. By far the most prominent form of agricultural expansion is pastoral farming and the growing of animal feed crops. Eating animals is, therefore, the most important driver of species extinction.
The Wildwood
Authors: Rowlands Mark
Published: June 2021

The three grave environmental threats that we face today are those of climate change, mass extinction, and pestilence. To mitigate these threats, the most important things we can do are (1) stop eating animals and their products and (2) afforest wherever and whenever we can. The first course of action makes possible the second. By no longer eating animals, we make available large areas of land suitable for afforestation. These twin policies will go a long way toward solving our three environmental threats. Afforested land will sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide, arrest the changes in land use that are the most important cause of extinction, and provide a suitably undisturbed home for animal reservoirs of disease. In afforesting the land, we must let the past be our guide: restore the land to what it was before humans arrived and ruined the neighborhood.