bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fabula, between μῦθος and אגדה: concerning Christian exegesis during the Middle Ages
Authors: Dahan Gilbert
Published: May 2009

In providing a model of allegorical interpretation and in condemning the fabula on several occasions, St Paul laid the foundation for Christian exegesis. During the following generations Christian and Jewish exegesis went separate and mutually opposing ways, the former opting for allegorical exegesis, the latter for ‘mythic’ exegesis. However, it appears that any traditional confessional exegesis has need of these two elements — allegory and myth. Under diverse forms, myth reappears in western Christian thought, during the 12th and 13th centuries — first myths of pagan antiquity, then Jewish agadot. The constant occurrences of the expression Iudei fabulantur in 13th-century exegesis seem to respond to this need. By means of a brief linguistic analysis and an examination of commentaries on the pastoral epistles in which Paul condemns myth, this chapter attempts to lay the groundwork for a broader inquiry to ascertain the place of myth or of fabula in Christian exegesis.
The Neo‐Assyrian origins of the canon formula in Deuteronomy 13:1
Authors: Levinson Bernard M.
Published: May 2009

This chapter investigates the so-called ‘canon formula’ found in Deut 13:1. The prohibitions against disloyalty in Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (VTE § 10) have previously been recognized as an influence upon the Deuteronomic apostasy series (Deut 13:2-12). A similar origin for the canon formula of Deut 13:1 is proposed as part of the larger project of creative literary reworking. The implication of this model is that the canon formula, in form-critical terms, represents part of the adjuration to loyalty found in the literary model of the adê.
Traditum and traditio: the case of Deuteronomy 17: 14–20
Authors: Nicholson Ernest
Published: May 2009

This chapter examines Deuteronomy (17:14-20) and its role in shaping identity. It argues against those who would read this passage as an early Deuteronomic source, and demonstrates that these verses of Deuteronomy reflect later Deuteronomistic editorializing.
The Suffering Servant: from Isaiah to the Dead Sea Scrolls
Authors: Knohl Israel
Published: May 2009

The radical separation between the world of the living and the realm of the dead is not universal through the Hebrew Bible. The distinctions weaken in the later stages of biblical literature. There is a blurring of the realms in Isaiah 52-3, wherein the prophet describes the figure of the Suffering Servant. Far from being cut off from God after his death, the servant is divinely rewarded. Similarly, the book of Daniel forecasts a reward of eternal life for the righteous: ‘many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life’ (12:2); Daniel identifies these righteous ones with Isaiah's Suffering Servant and goes so far as to assign heavenly status to them. Finally, the Dead Sea Scrolls show a figure who identifies himself with the Suffering Servant and at the same time claims superiority over the angels. This chapter traces the development of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, Daniel, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and examines the figure's distinctive combination of suffering and divine exaltation.
The Work of the Chariot and the Work of Creation as mystical teachings in Philo of Alexandria
Authors: Liebes Yehuda
Published: May 2009

This chapter demonstrates that Philo of Alexandria considered the Work of the Chariot and the Work of Creation (i.e. Ezek 1 and 10, and Gen 1) to be domains of esoteric knowledge that must be concealed. This claim, if proven, has significance for two central areas of research in Jewish studies. First, in respect of research in Jewish mysticism, it is argued that the rabbinic statements concerning the esoteric nature of the Work of Creation and the Work of the Chariot rest upon an ancient tradition that preceded Philo of Alexandria. Second, this claim will help to substantiate research in which connections have been discovered between Philo, the most prominent representative of Hellenistic Judaism in Egypt, and rabbinic literature, and will even establish the teachings of Philo as continuous with Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah.
‘If the text had not been written, it could not be said’
Authors: Halbertal Moshe
Published: May 2009

This chapter explores the inner workings and implications of an unusual rabbinic locution. What at first appears like a simple hedge, when read more deeply, offers profound theological insights in which God is understood counter-intuitively as a slave, a wife, and a victim. While the chapter uncovers the yearning that Israel felt for God and the temple, it reveals the rich and complex emotions that link God to Israel.
On angels and biblical exegesis in thirteenth‐century Ashkenaz
Authors: Idel Moshe
Published: May 2009

This chapter continues the theme of esoteric interpretation, considering the Ashkenazic cultural context. The traditions of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, which often build upon the earlier rabbinic traditions of Heikhalot mysticism, emphasize such tools as the use of gematria and the invocation of angelic names, which sets them apart from contemporaneous kabbalistic and philosophical modes of exegesis. Through the delineation of the continuity of tradition from the ancient Near East to medieval German Jewry, the chapter echoes the broad time-span that unifies Fishbane's work on ancient myth and later mythmaking.
Finding the radiance in the text: a Habad hasidic interpretation of the Exodus
Authors: Loewenthal Naftali
Published: May 2009

This chapter describes how transcendently mystical readings can coincide with homiletical and halakhic exegesis in the context of late 18th-century Habad Hasidism. It argues that, for the hasidim, or at least for some of them, all roads lead to Jerusalem, that is, to a sense of contact or even union with the Divine, reaching beyond the finite definitions and limitations of the world. The meaning of the text joins with the radiance beyond the text.
History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America
Authors: Soffer Reba
Published: May 2009

This book provides a compelling explanation of the contents and substance of conservative ideas, their intentions and consequences, and the historical contexts that contributed to their formulation and dissemination among a variety of audiences. The book adds a novel, comparative dimension to the study of those ideas that informed conservatism by examining the subjects, motives, and personal and intellectual origins of historians who were also successful, polemical public intellectuals. Until at least the 1960s, in their search for a persuasive and wide appeal, conservatives depended upon history and historians to provide conservative concepts with authority and authenticity. Beginning in 1913 in Britain and 1940 in America, conservative historians participated actively and influentially in debates about the heart, soul, and, especially, the mind of conservatism. Four historians in Britain, F. J. C. Hearnshaw, Keith Feiling, Arthur Bryant, and Herbert Butterfield, and three in America, Daniel Boorstin, Peter Viereck, and Russell Kirk, developed conservative responses to unprecedented and threatening events domestically and internationally. They shared basic assumptions about human nature and society, but their subjects, interpretations, conclusions, and prescriptions were independent and idiosyncratic. Uniquely close to powerful political figures, each historian also spoke directly to a large public, who bought their books, read their contributions to newspapers and journals, listened to them on the radio, and watched them on television. Additionally, the book addresses the dominance of both conservatism and Conservatism in 20th‐century Britain and the delayed development in America, until the Reagan ascendancy, of both a Conservative party and popular conservatism.
Introduction
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

While British conservatism had a 200‐year‐old heritage, its American counterpart appeared in the 19th century largely as a response to the challenges of a post‐Second World War world. In both countries, conservatism was contested, evolving, and amorphous. The Introduction discusses how so intellectually elusive a phenomenon as 19th‐century conservative thought can be studied to reveal the contents and coherence of the concepts, their intentions and effects, their changes and continuities, and the historical conditions to which they belonged. Additionally, the Introduction examines the criteria for discovering the most representative and influential people who held and promoted conservative ideas.
Intellectual History, Political Thought, and Conservatism
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

This chapter explores the advantages of intellectual history in comparison with other approaches to political thought generally, and to British and American conservatism particularly, and it explains why, among all the conservatives writing during these inter‐war and post‐war decades, four British and four American historians have been chosen as central figures in the definition, representation, and propagation of conservative thought. These figures were selected because of their coherent and accessible statement of conservative ideas, and because of their demonstrable success in reaching audiences larger and more varied than the small groups accustomed to rehearsing conservative messages.
Conservatism as a Crusade: F. J. C. Hearnshaw
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

This chapter concentrates on the most introspective and innovative of the inter‐war conservative historians who taught and wrote history to demonstrate the superiority of conservatism to all other political creeds. Reaching large popular and educated audiences through ceaseless lecturing and publishing, Hearnshaw tried to persuade them that they had the most to lose from socialism, and its embodiment in the growing Labour Party, and the most to gain from a meritocratic and hierarchical order that maintained peace, security, success, and morality within every station of life. He believed that conservative principles were historically proven lessons necessary for private motivation, public policy, and a harmonious national life.
Arthur Bryant, Appeasement, and Anti‐Semitism
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

Bryant's attitudes towards fascism cannot be separated from the rapidly accelerating events that began around 1934; or from the conflicting and confusing perceptions of those events and their context to most British participants; or from the political and social circles in which Bryant lived, thought, and worked. His commitment to the avoidance of war was hardly unique but belonged rather to a common currency, whose credit was exhausted only when war began in late 1939. The relation between his deeply felt patriotism and his desire to avoid war with the Nazis was complicated by the ambivalent anti‐Semitism he shared with so many Conservatives.
Conservative Historians and Social Criticism in America, 1941 through the 1960s
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

This chapter compares and contrasts American and British post‐Second World War perceptions about nation, historiography, and the role of historians. In America, until the Reagan years, conservative political thought and practice was characterized by a specifically American mingling of conservative, liberal, and Progressive themes. From the 1940s through the early 1970s, one tradition, represented by Daniel Boorstin and Rowland Berthoff, celebrated American accomplishments within a uniquely American context. A second and more pugnacious tradition, represented by Peter Viereck and Russell Kirk, fought contentious battles with those forces in American history which they saw as deviations from their approved model of British and European conservative traditions, institutions, values, and culture.
The Americanization of the British Conservative Mind: Peter Viereck and Russell Kirk
Authors: Soffer Reba N.
Published: May 2009

Very different in social background and in adherents, Viereck and Kirk were the most conspicuous and most public of the conservative historians and prominent conservative intellectuals, who each attracted a large popular audience and were required reading for a generation of undergraduates. Attacking selfish mercantile, financial, and business interests, they both revered a divinely sanctioned Christian order; found human nature unreliable; promoted a government of the best and brightest; reduced political problems to moral problems; trusted institutions, laws, and traditions to maintain a civil society; and saw conservatism as the necessary social and cultural bond that would guarantee individual security, social equity, and harmony.
Special Relativity
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter begins with a discussion of Newton's mechanics. It then covers Maxwell's equations, Minkowski spacetime, Poincaré group, Lorentz group, special relativity, Newtonian law, relativistic law, equivalence of mass and energy, and continuous matter.
Schwarzschild Spacetime and Black Holes
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter begins with a discussion of spherically symmetric spacetimes, the Schwarzschild metric, and other coordinates. It then covers Schwarzschild spacetime, the motion of the planets and perihelion precession, stability of circular orbits, deflection of light rays, red shift and time delay, spherically symmetric interior solutions, the Schwarzschild black hole, spherically symmetric gravitational collapse, the Reissner-Nordström solution, and Schwarzschild spacetime in dimension n + 1.
Local Cauchy Problem
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter begins with a discussion of moving frame formulae. It then covers n + 1 splitting adapted to space slices, constraints and evolution, Hamiltonian and symplectic formulation, Cauchy problem, wave gauges, local existence for the full Einstein equations, constraints in a wave gauge, and Einstein equations with field sources.
Relativistic Fluids
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter presents general properties of perfect fluids. When appropriate definitions are given, some of these properties generalize well-known properties of non-relativistic perfect fluids. However, the equivalence of mass and energy in Relativity introduces some fundamental differences. The limitation by the speed of light of the speed of any macroscopically transmitted signal also leads to new considerations. Topics covered include the case of dust, charged dust; perfect fluid, Euler equations; energy properties, particle number conservation, thermodynamics; wave fronts, propagation speeds, shocks; stationary motion, dynamic velocity for barotropic fluids, general perfect fluids, hyperbolic Leray system, first-order symmetric hyperbolic system, charged fluids, fluids with finite conductivity, magnetohydrodynamics, Yang-Mills fluids, and dissipative fluids.
Relativistic Kinetic Theory
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter presents the basic equations of the relativistic kinetic theory; it proves local existence theorems for Einstein equations coupled with kinetic matter. It then provides thermodynamic properties linked with the Boltzmann equation, proves the H-theorem, and indicates how perturbation around a Maxwell-Jütner equilibrium distribution gives possible equations for dissipative fluids. Finally, the chapter indicates how the theory of extended thermodynamics circumvents the difficulty of generalizing to Relativity the dissipative fluids equations.
Singularities
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: May 2009

This chapter presents a computable sufficient condition for the future causal completeness of a spacetime, and then a sufficient condition for its future or null incompleteness. It gives the fundamentals of the definitions pertinent to the study of incompleteness of spacetimes by the geometric methods introduced and developed by Penrose, Hawking, and their followers. It provides some elements of black hole theory and comments on Penrose's weak cosmic censorship conjecture, which says essentially that singularities developing from smooth initial data are hidden inside black holes. The conjecture is not easy to make mathematically precise without impoverishing its possible physical content. The chapter analyzes the study by Christodoulou of the singularities in spherically symmetric solutions of the Einstein-scalar equations. An up-to-date survey of results on the Belinskii, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz (BKL) conjecture is presented. Finally, how the Fuchs theorem permits the analysis of some types of initial (Big Bang) singularities occurring in solutions of the Einstein equations, called asymptotically velocity term dominated (AVTD) behavior, is discussed.
Global Justice and Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction
Authors: Brock Gillian
Published: May 2009

This chapter introduces the key themes of the book and also considers some issues basic to debates about which (if any) account of global justice we should endorse. These basic issues include explaining what cosmopolitanism is and some distinctions widely used in the literature, such as: moral versus institutional cosmopolitanism, weak versus strong cosmopolitanism, and extreme versus moderate cosmopolitanism. The chapter also presents an introduction to the field of global justice and concepts often associated with it, such as globalization. The chapter also indicates a general strategy about how to reconcile cosmopolitanism with other commitments and special attachments that fill ordinary human beings' lives with value and meaning (such as those that derive from their cultural, religious, ethnic or national identities).
The Debate about Rawls'sLaw of Peoples: Critics and Defences
Authors: Brock Gillian
Published: May 2009

John Rawls' highly influential work, The Law of Peoples, dominates discussion of what our responsibilities are in the global domain. After a concise account of The Law of Peoples, this chapter discusses the debate between defenders and critics of John Rawls' approach. The critical responses covered include those offered by Thomas Pogge, Rainer Forst, Andrew Kuper, Amartya Sen, Darrel Moellendorf, and James Nickels. Defenses discussed include those of Samuel Freeman, Joseph Heath, Leif Wenar, David Reidy, and Rex Martin. Though proponents of Rawls' views can accommodate several lines of criticism, Rawls remains vulnerable on others, if he is aiming to present a vision of global justice that can lay claim to the title of “realistic utopia”.
Humanitarian Intervention
Authors: Brock Gillian
Published: May 2009

This chapter argues that military intervention to support the goals of global justice can be defensible in the extreme cases in which people's abilities to meet their most basic needs and protect their basic freedoms are not adequately attended to by the governments of those citizens. Reconceptualizing sovereignty as responsibility allows us to circumvent problems thought to attend such proposals, for instance, that intervention would interfere unjustly with the sovereignty of nations. Protections against abuse provide the assurances we need and constitute an important part of the justification for legitimate interventions. The findings of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty discussed in this chapter provide reason for optimism about future possibilities for acting decisively as humanitarian crises unfold, especially as the core idea of a responsibility to protect now enjoys widespread endorsement.
Immigration
Authors: Brock Gillian
Published: May 2009

Chapter 8 discusses whether easing restrictions on immigration would be helpful in advancing global justice. Some particular kinds of migration policies (such as, those that have strict term limits, or create net benefits for those in the home and host countries) might constitute progress. However we must also appreciate the significant drawbacks that also frequently accompany increased immigration (such as brain drain, worsening health, or negative economic consequences). The chapter considers such detrimental effects, and shows how we can mitigate some of these if migration is carefully managed. Examining and addressing root causes of why people want to emigrate is, all things considered, a better strategy. This chapter indicates what such a deeper analysis would yield. The chapter argues that increased immigration by itself, and in the absence of other measures, would not necessarily improve the prospects for global justice.
Japanese Law
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This text contains the latest edition of this book. It covers the basis of the Japanese legal system, the civil code, business related laws, and other laws including criminal law and procedure, and foreign relations law. Since the last edition, Japanese law has undergone major reform all of which is reflected in the new text. In particular, the new edition covers the new company law and the Financial Products Trading Law, both of which have been completely overhauled. After the ‘lost decade’ following the collapse of the ‘bubble economy’ in 1990, Japan has gone through a major reform — deregulation or ‘regulatory reform’. Accordingly, major changes took place in almost every area of law. There was a large-scale ‘Justice System Reform’ which encompassed various changes in the court system, the introduction of lay assessors in the criminal procedure, a new law school system, etc. Company law, which was embodied in the Commercial Code, was completely overhauled under a different concept and became a separate law — the Company Law of 2005. Securities and Exchange Law was replaced by the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law in 2006. Even the Civil Code, which had remained more or less unchanged (except for family and succession) since the late 19th century, has gone through significant changes. Certainly there are many positive results coming out of these reforms, but also there have been some doubtful changes. Thee outcome of the reforms of the past decade is yet to be assessed. These changes and their impact are covered in this book.
The Administration of Justice
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter focuses on the administration of justice in Japan. It begins with a discussion of the history of Japan's system of courts. It then discusses justice system reform, the court system, lay participation, speeding up of court proceedings, alternative dispute resolution, and international commercial arbitration.
General Rules and Institutions of Private Law
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter discusses Japanese private law. Topics covered include the Civil Code and Commercial Code, civil law rights and public welfare, the doctrine of good faith and fair dealing, abuse of rights, legal capacity, juristic acts, agency, and extinctive prescription and acquisitive prescription.
Law of Obligations and Contracts
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter discusses Japanese law of obligations and contracts. Topics covered include general rules of law and obligations, the law of contract, and the management of another person's unjust affairs and unjust enrichment.
Family Law and Inheritance
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter focuses on Japanese family law and inheritance. Family law is embodied in Book Four of the Civil Code. Together with Book Five which deals with inheritance, this part of the Code has undergone a total change in the course of the post-war reform. Historical background of family law, marriage and divorce, family and children, procedure for dispute settlement on family matters, and the law of inheritance are discussed.
Criminal Law and Procedure
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter discusses Japanese criminal law and procedure. Topics covered include the history of criminal law, basic rules of criminal law, special crimes in the Special Part of the Criminal Code and other laws, and criminal procedure.
International Relations
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: May 2009

This chapter discusses Japanese law on international relations. Topics covered include the Nationality Law, the status of aliens, foreign exchange and foreign trade law, rules on the conflict of laws, marriage and divorce, and problems relating to transactional disputes.
Equity under the New Paradigm
Authors: Mooney Gavin
Published: May 2009

This chapter examines equity in different conceptual and policy settings, arguing for the abandonment of a universal construct of access, and a universal construct of equity more generally. The need for culturally particular constructs is emphasized and exemplified in the specific context of Aboriginal access to health care, where cultural barriers including institutional racism and lack of cultural security/safety are major impediments to access. Using the paradigm of Chapter 8, different constructs of equity are discussed. It looks at equity in the context of the culture of poverty and the culture of corruption. It then discusses possible way forward to pursuing equity when dealing with access as a cultural concept.
Chapter 2 The Sen System of Social Evaluation
Authors: Osmani S. R.
Published: May 2009

This chapter argues that Amartya Sen's writings in the diverse fields of development economics, social choice, and moral philosophy add up to an integrated and coherent system of social evaluation, and the chapter also provides a brief outline of that system. As an expositional device, the major elements of this system are best described by contrasting them with the three main components of utilitarianism — namely, consequentialism, welfarism, and sum-ranking. Consequentialism refers to a methodology of social evaluation in which the goodness or rightness of some action or rule is judged solely with reference to its consequences, without attaching any intrinsic value to the nature of the act, or the agent who acted, or the process through which the consequent state of affairs came about. While most critiques of utilitarianism reject consequentialism, Sen argues strongly in favour retaining the moral salience of consequences but in a manner that can also accord due weight to relevant non-consequence features and suggests ways in which this can be done. Welfarism judges the goodness of consequences solely in terms of the utilities enjoyed by individuals. Sen rejects welfarism and suggests replacing utility by the notion of freedom, i.e., the opportunity people have to live the kind of life they have reason to value. At the same time, he also rejects income or resources or anything else that has an instrumental role in achieving freedom as the basis of social evaluation. Sum-ranking employs a simple method of aggregation, for the purpose of social evaluation, that involves adding the well-being of all individuals. By contrast, Sen proposes a much more nuanced approach to aggregation that allows for the existence of multiple values — both across individuals and for the same individual — and sees possible incompleteness of social choice as a virtue rather than as a weakness of a system of social evaluation.
Chapter 3 The Good Life and the Good Economy
Authors: Phelps Edmund S.
Published: May 2009

The humanist thinkers from ancient Greece onward asked what sort of life gives the deepest satisfaction and arrived at arresting insights. Aristotle started it off with his thesis that the highest good is the pursuit of knowledge. Like conceptions can be seen in Cervantes, James, and Bergson. Another variant is represented by Voltaire, Dewey, and Sen. These humanist insights into the life that most people desire show how and why enterprising, innovative economies appeared once countries could afford it. The humanists' good life also takes us toward a justification for an economy of entrepreneur-based innovation. It wasn't just the falling way of restrictions and the establishment of property rights that sparked capitalism: it was a widespread desire for problem-solving and exploration. Some say capitalism is inherently unjust to workers in the bottom rungs. But capitalism has, over its history, widened economic inclusion by creating jobs and pulling up low-end pay far beyond what east European socialism and west European corporatism normally achieve.
Chapter 4 The Adaptation Problem, Evolution and Normative Economics
Authors: Qizilbash Mozaffar
Published: May 2009

Amartya Sen has advanced a number of distinct arguments against utilitarianism and ‘utility’-based views more generally. One of these invokes various ways in which underdogs can ‘adapt’ and learn to live with their situations. Sen's argument is related to discussion of ‘adaptive preferences’ but is distinct in part because Sen cites the need for underdogs to survive. When read in combination with his discussion of Darwinism, Sen's discussion of adaptation is relevant to recent work in normative economics which has been influenced by evolutionary biology. It poses a problem for Richard Layard's book on happiness, particularly its policy conclusions. It also poses a problem for Ken Binmore's account of justice because the empathetic preferences in terms of which interpersonal comparisons are made in Binmore's account are formed through social evolution.
Chapter 12 Rights, Individual Preferences and Collective Rationality
Authors: Pattanaik Prasanta K.
Published: May 2009

In the context of Amartya Sen's well-known result on the impossibility of a Paretian liberal, this chapter studies two distinct issues, namely, the role of individual preferences over social states in our conception of individual rights to liberty in private affairs, and the implications of individual rights for collective rationality. In the process, several alternative interpretations of Sen's theorem are discussed. It is argued that though some of these interpretations, which have been often adopted in the literature, involve intuitive problems, there more satisfactory interpretations of Sen's theorem, which are free from such problems.
Chapter 15 Dominance Criteria for Critical‐Level Generalized Utilitarianism
Authors: Trannoy Alain , Weymark John A.
Published: May 2009

Social welfare dominance criteria based on critical-level generalized utilitarian social welfare functions are investigated in this chapter. An analogue of a generalized Lorenz curve called a generalized concentration curve is introduced. For a fixed critical utility level c, a quasiordering of utility distributions based on these curves is defined and shown to coincide with the quasiordering obtained by declaring one utility distribution to be weakly preferred to a second if and only if the former is weakly preferred to the latter for all inequality averse critical-level c generalized utilitarian social welfare functions. An extension of this result that allows for a range of critical levels is also established.
Chapter 16 The Measurement of Capabilities
Authors: Anand Paul , Santos Cristina , Smith Ron
Published: May 2009

It has often been claimed that it is impossible to measure human capabilities but within the methodological conventions of household survey design, this chapter shows that some non-financial capability indicators do already exist and this chapter demonstrates how similar indicators, covering a wide range of life domains, can be constructed. This chapter draws on a continuing research project which contributes to the operationalization of the capabilities approach by devising over sixty capability indicators which can be used to extend coverage of indices such as HDI, illustrating different ways in which such indicators may be analysed, and discussing some of the associated methodological issues that have emerged in the process. Based on usable observations from a national UK sample of 1,000 adults, this chapter uses latent class analysis to identify an impoverished group of respondents with low capabilities across the board, builds models of experienced violence and subjective wellbeing as a function of experienced and anticipated violence, and explores the relationship between capability indicators and subjective wellbeing. Substantive findings include: the identification of a group with low all round capabilities associated with low health and low income; evidence that fear of future violence can be a more significant determinant of subjective wellbeing than past experience of violence; and evidence which supports the view that a large diverse set of non-financial dimensions of capability have a detectable impact on subjective wellbeing. The chapter concludes by discussing some of the econometric issues that have emerged in the course of this work.
Chapter 17 On Ultrapoverty
Authors: Anand Sudhir , Harris Christopher , Linton Oliver
Published: May 2009

Lipton (1983) defined an individual to be ‘ultrapoor’ if and only if: (i) his calorie intake falls below 0.8 of the intake appropriate for his age, sex, and activity group; and (ii) his foodshare exceeds 0.8. of the appropriate foodshare. This chapter evaluates Lipton's concept of ultrapoverty. This is done by relating it to the well-established welfare indicator ‘total expenditure’, on the one hand, and to a wide range of housing and other non-monetary indicators on the other. The chapter agues that: (i) while calorie intake does contain important poverty information, it contains less poverty information than total expenditure; and (ii) foodshare contains very little poverty information. Hence, neither of the components of Lipton's double criterion is, on its own, a good criterion for poverty. It further argues that while the double 0.8 (or ‘double-eighty’) criterion may have some merits over each of its components, it is nonetheless inferior to a poverty criterion based simply on total expenditure. A particular feature of the analysis is the chapter's use of non-parametric methods to assess the local strength of the association between calorie intake and foodshare, respectively, against total expenditure.
Chapter 18 Multidimensional Poverty Orderings
Authors: Bourguignon François , Chakravarty Satya R.
Published: May 2009

This chapter generalizes the poverty ordering criteria available for single dimensional income poverty to the case of multidimensional welfare attributes. It discusses a set of properties to be satisfied by multidimensional poverty measures. It then defines general classes of poverty measures based on these properties. Finally, dominance criteria are derived such that a distribution of multidimensional attributes exhibits less poverty than another for all multidimensional poverty indices belonging to a given class. These criteria may be seen as a generalization of the single dimensional poverty-line criterion. However, it turns out that the way this generalization is made depends on whether attributes are complements or substitutes.
Chapter 19 External Capabilities
Authors: Foster James E. , Handy Christopher
Published: May 2009

The capability approach of Amartya Sen evaluates well-being in terms of an individual's achievements and abilities to function. The traditional view of capabilities is that they are discernable as part of an individual's own set of characteristics, or as part of a package of socially provided services. This chapter argues that individuals also have access to a broad array of capabilities through their family, friends, and other persons with whom they have relationships. It introduces the concept of ‘external capabilities’, which are defined as those abilities to function that are conferred by direct connection or relationship with another person. Several examples are provided, and the chapter distinguishes between this new concept presented here and other existing notions of capabilities originating in groups. The perspective of external capabilities can be especially valuable in formulating development policies or understanding how existing policies work. As an illustration of this, the chapter shows how information and communications technologies (ICT) can enhance development by augmenting external capabilities.
Chapter 20 On the Welfarist Rationale for Relative Poverty Lines
Authors: Ravallion Martin
Published: May 2009

This chapter reviews the theory and evidence supporting a relativist approach to poverty measurement. It identifies various sources of welfare interdependence, including the idea of ‘relative deprivation’ as well as other (positive and negative) welfare effects for poor people of belonging to a better-off group. An economic model combines informal risk-sharing with the idea of a ‘positional good’, and conditions are derived in which the relative deprivation effect dominates, implying a relative poverty measure. The chapter then reviews the problems encountered in testing for relative deprivation effects and presents some micro evidence from Malawi. While the results are consistent with the emphasis given to absolute level of living in development policy discussions, relative deprivation is evident in this poor but unequal country, and it is likely to become more important as the country develops.
Chapter 21 Justice as Fairness and the Capability Approach
Authors: Robeyns Ingrid
Published: May 2009

This chapter reconsiders the differences between Amartya Sen's capability approach and John Rawls's justice as fairness approach. Sen's most important critique on Rawlsian justice concerns the inflexibility of social primary goods as the metric of justice. Rawls has argued that this critique implies that the capability approach endorses a comprehensive moral doctrine. In addition, Rawls has criticized the capability approach for failing to provide a workable and public conception of political justice. It is argued that the different kinds of theory that Rawls and Sen are pursuing explain much of their disagreement. Moreover, for a full comparison each theory needs to be further developed: the capability approach requires further theoretical elaboration as a theory of justice, while justice as fairness has to be developed for non-ideal circumstances. This reinterpretation of the Rawls–Sen debate allows for an understanding of the capability approach and justice as fairness as complementary and potentially converging theories.
Chapter 24 Concepts and Measures of Agency
Authors: Alkire Sabina
Published: May 2009

Agency is inescapably plural in both concept and measurement. In Sen's account of agency, (i) agency is exercised with respect to goals the person values; (ii) agency includes effective power as well as direct control; (iii) agency may advance wellbeing or may address other-regarding goals; (iv) to identify agency also entails an assessment of the value of the agent's goals; and (v) the agent's responsibility for a state of affairs should be incorporated into his or her evaluation of it. This chapter refracts the literature on agency measurement through the first four of these characteristics, showing how particular survey-based measures of individual agency elucidate or obscure each distinction. It also observes that existing measures used in development tend to focus on control but not effective freedom, on goals the agent has reason to value rather than goals she values, and on own rather than other-regarding agency. The literature on measurement also raises a number of very relevant issues for the conceptual approach.
The Empire of the Air
Authors: Deer Patrick
Published: May 2009

Chapter 2 traces the literary response to the seductive futurist appeal and colonialist genealogy of air power in two World Wars. After the Great War, the “empire of the air” was celebrated as a last resort of martial heroism and the colonies provided laboratories for experiment. The interwar period saw the consolidating imperial gaze of air power and mechanized war turned on the civilian home front as both apocalyptic nightmare and escapist fantasy. This chapter explores T.E. Lawrence's haunting fantasies of air power as he dedicated mind and body to the RAF's role in policing the empire in the 1920s and 30s. It argues that for those who waged the war of space and movement, the mythology of armored masculinity and panoramic vision all too often resulted in blackout and bodily disintegration. It explores these conflicts of “airmindedness” in the work of Virginia Woolf, Rex Warner, George Orwell, Richard Hillary, and Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris.
‘Simplify Me When I'm Dead’
Authors: Deer Patrick
Published: May 2009

Chapter 5 explores the struggle for modern memory in Second World War writing and reconstructs wartime debates about national identity, social reconstruction, decolonization, and popular culture. The wartime culture boom, it contends, produced a cosmopolitan, hybrid aesthetic that challenged conventional constructions of gender and Englishness. The example of the Great War promised major literary creation after a period of delayed recollection, yet as World War Two writers suggested, total warfare threatened both memory and the survival of a common culture. The chapter explores debates about propaganda, pacifism, and the autonomy of high culture in the work of Keith Douglas, Virginia Woolf, Cyril Connolly, Alex Comfort, George Orwell, or Evelyn Waugh. In Alexander Baron's postwar novel, From the City, From the Plough (1949), it traces how the mythic solidarities of the People's War are confront the violence of mechanized warfare, colonialism, and the relentless abstraction of the strategists' view of battle.
The Embedding of Causation in Legal Liability Doctrines
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter examines the actus reus requirements in tort and criminal law. The essential thesis of the chapter is that our liability scheme in both areas of law is causation-drenched, and that this is so irrespective of whether those liability doctrines use the word ‘cause’ explicitly or whether those doctrines use causative verbs of action like ‘hit’, ‘kill’, and ‘disfigure’. The chapter also argues that there are no so called ‘conduct-crimes’, crimes whose actus reus lack a causal element.
Causation and Moral Blameworthiness
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter leaves the law for the morality underlying it. The question is whether tort and criminal law should be as focused on causation as they are. This issue is usually framed as being an issue of ‘moral luck’, or more specifically, ‘result luck’. The common argument is that one has no control over the results of one's conduct, unlike the control one has over one's choices, so that if responsibility is assigned for the results of one's conduct, then there must be a kind of moral luck involved in determining the degree of our blameworthiness. Nonetheless, the thesis of the chapter is that there is such moral luck, that moral blame does depend on whether one caused the harm one intended, foresaw, or risked, and that therefore legal doctrines depending on such degrees of moral blameworthiness rightly take causation into account in framing their liability rules.
Causation and the Permissibility of Consequentialist Justification within Agent-Relative Morality and the Law
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter combines a legal with a moral thesis. Morality is inseparable from law here because the open-ended legal provisions on necessity and balance of evils simply reference whatever morality holds to be the correct balance. The issue is when good consequences can (legally and morally) justify the violation of seemingly categorical norms, such as those norms prohibiting killing and torture. The thesis of the chapter is that causation plays a large role in drawing the line of permissible consequentialist justifications in morality and thus, in law. Causation plays this role largely through various iterations of the doctrine of doing and allowing, although intention also plays such a role via the doctrine of double effect.
The Law's Own Characterizations of its Causal Requirements
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter begins with an examination of the law's own explicit theory about the presuppositions about the nature of causation made by legal doctrines and moral norms. The aim of the chapter is largely taxonomical, aiming to arrive at a workable taxonomy of legal tests of causation. That taxonomy is built on the distinction between ‘cause-in-fact’ and ‘proximate’ or ‘legal’ causation. The dominant test of cause in fact is the but-for test, also known as the sine qua non test, whereas the dominant proximate cause tests are the foreseeability, harm-within-the-risk, and direct cause tests. By charting the heavy qualifications, the law itself adds to these dominant legal tests about causation. The chapter also intends to cast doubt on whether the law is committed to the concept of causation these tests say it is committed to.
‘Negligence in the Air Will not Do’
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter lays out the history and essential tenets of the risk theory. This is done in some detail because the theory has been the standard educated view on proximate causation within the American legal academy for most of the last one hundred years. The chapter is largely an historical introduction, tracing the test from its origin with ‘the best and the brightest’ of tort theory in America in the 1920s, through its use by the leading criminal law theorists of the 1950s, and to its return as the dominant approach of those tort theorists in America responsible for the third iteration of the Restatement of Torts.
Normative Problems in Applying the Harm-within-the-Risk Test to Crimes/Torts of Negligence
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter argues that as applied to crimes and torts of negligence, the harm within the risk test is morally undesirable. This is because negligence is the least culpable mental state on which tort or criminal liability is predicated, and because negligent wrongdoers who cause harms ‘outside the risk’ deserve punishment (and deserve to pay compensation) in line with the harms they caused, not the harms they risked.
The Descriptive Inaccuracy of the Harm-within-the-Risk Analysis as Measuring Proximate Causation
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter argues that as applied to any crimes or torts, not just those of negligence, the harm within the risk test does not address the issues that tests of proximate causation do and should address. These issues are three in number: first, issues of remoteness; second, issues of intervening causation; and third, issues of pre-existing abnormalities.
The Legal Doctrines of Intervening Causation
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter lays out the doctrinal intricacies of the test. These mostly concern the crucial idea of an intervening cause. An intervening cause is described as any event (and not a state or an omission) that is causally significant in the production of some harm, that temporally intervenes between defendant's act and that harm, that is causally independent of the defendant's act, and that is either a free, informed, deliberate human action or that abnormal conjunction of natural events we call a coincidence.
The Superfluity of Accomplice Liability
Authors: Moore Michael S.
Published: May 2009

This chapter raises the question of what should become of the criminal law doctrines of accomplice liability once the supposition on which those doctrines are based — that of intervening causation — is discarded. The answer, unsurprisingly, is that the various doctrines of accomplice liability also should go, which is the bottom line conclusion of the chapter. These doctrines, as they presently exist, base accomplice liability variously on: causation of harm, failure to prevent or allowing of such harm, risking such harm (an inchoate basis), or intending and attempting to bring about such harm (another inchoate basis). So called accomplice liability is thus a confused mish-mash of four more basic desert bases.