bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Naturalism
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: December 2022

This chapter reconstructs where Mary Shepherd, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe, and Victoria Welby stood on naturalism versus anti-naturalism, a central fault-line in nineteenth-century British thought. The chapter shows that women contributed significantly to discussion of naturalism right across the nineteenth century. The chapter first argues that Shepherd’s analysis of causation in the 1820s was anti-naturalist, because for Shepherd we know the causal principle by reason and it grounds our experience of an intelligible world. Then the chapter looks at Martineau’s early philosophical position of the 1820s, which is classified as ‘moralist necessarianism’. The position contained an unstable mix of naturalist (empiricist, inductivist, and scientific) and anti-naturalist (religious and moralist) elements. Martineau resolved the tension in the 1850s by adopting a thoroughgoing form of naturalism, espousing materialism, hard determinism, and philosophical atheism. However, Cobbe argued in the 1850s that naturalism could not adequately account for moral requirements or causality in nature. In the 1880s and 1890s Welby continued the critique of naturalism by arguing that if we insist on sticking to observed facts then we cannot account for the broader background of meaning and significance that motivates scientific inquiry.
Philosophy of Mind
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: December 2022

This chapter examines the philosophies of mind of Ada Lovelace in the 1840s, Frances Power Cobbe in the 1860s–1870s, Constance Naden in the 1880s, and Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant in the late 1880s. Lovelace addressed the mind in connection with artificial intelligence and mesmerism, and she was torn between dualism and materialism. Cobbe put forward an account of unconscious thought, and on that basis she differentiated the conscious soul from the unconsciously thinking brain. She argued that the soul could survive the death of the brain and body. In contrast, Naden put forward a materialist account of the mind as part of her distinctive philosophical standpoint, hylo-idealism. In contrast again, the theosophists Blavatsky and Besant endorsed a form of panpsychism. They argued that there is an explanatory gap between objective brain processes and subjective experience, a gap that only theosophical panpsychism can bridge. The chapter looks at these positions in turn and explains how each arose out of limitations and tensions in the ones preceding it. The philosophy of mind of William Benjamin Carpenter is also introduced, because he provides a vital link between Lovelace’s interest in automatic thought and Cobbe’s conception of mental automatism.
The Meaning of Evolution
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: December 2022

This chapter looks at the opposed views of Julia Wedgwood, Frances Power Cobbe, and Arabella Buckley on the metaphysical, moral, and religious implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In the early 1860s Wedgwood argued that Darwin’s theory was compatible with Christian religion and morality. But after Darwin argued in The Descent of Man that all aspects of human beings, including our moral sentiments and judgements, are natural and evolved, Cobbe concluded that Darwinism fatally undermined religion and morality because it left no room for a transcendent moral law. Buckley counter-argued that Darwin’s position in Descent was still compatible with both religious belief and a pure morality of duty. For Wedgwood and Buckley, evolutionary theory cohered with religion and morality and so should be accepted, whereas for Cobbe it did not and so could be accepted only as an account of nature but not of ethics. This chapter locates these views within broader debates about evolutionary ethics and charts the later developments in Buckley’s and Wedgwood’s thinking on this issue.
Religion and Morality
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: December 2022

This chapter looks at the views of Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Vernon Lee, and Annie Besant on the relation between morality and religion, which was a pivotal issue for many nineteenth-century women philosophers. For Cobbe, morality necessarily depended on religion, and Christianity in particular. The other four women thought that Christianity had lost credibility and that morality must now be put on a new non-religious basis. They found this basis in various locations: the impartial ‘exterior point of view’, for Martineau in the 1850s; the expanded sympathies made possible by artistic literature, for Eliot from the 1850s onwards; an honest, responsible attitude towards the conditions of collective human life, for Lee in the 1880s; and empirical science, for the secularist Besant from 1874 to 1889. The chapter locates Martineau, Eliot, Lee, and Besant among the varieties of agnosticism, atheism, and secularism at the time, evaluates these women’s respective positions on religion and morality, and considers some problems as well as positive features of Cobbe’s theism.
Progress in History
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: December 2022

This chapter is on the accounts of progress in history developed by Harriet Martineau in the 1840s, Frances Power Cobbe in the 1860s, and Julia Wedgwood and Helena Blavatsky in the 1880s. Their accounts shared three key features: they believed in a world-historical progression culminating in modern Europe; they thought this progression had occurred through a sequence of stages of civilization tied to different world religions and belief systems; and broadly they held that the sequence had run from ancient East to modern West. However, they differed on whether the progression was culminating in secularism (Martineau), Christianity (Cobbe), the synthesis of secular science and Christianity (Wedgwood), or the recovery of ancient spiritual wisdom in theosophy (Blavatsky). They also included different world religions in different orders, and they differed on how far the historical movement was one of advancement. Blavatsky qualified this most heavily. These women’s historical narratives were entangled with questionable assumptions about Eurocentrism and colonialism. However, the chapter suggests that these narratives did not only rationalize European colonialism but also opened up possibilities for questioning it.
The Difference-View
Authors: Višak Tatjana
Published: December 2022

Chapter 2 discusses various authors who have defended the view that welfare subjects have different capacities for welfare, based on different cognitive or emotional capacities (DIF). Kagan defends DIF based on an objective list account of welfare. Singer’s defence of DIF was (formerly) based on whole-life preferentialism. Mill distinguished between higher and lower pleasures. McMahan introduces the notion of ‘fortune’. Wong distinguishes ‘experiential’ and ‘absolute’ welfare and defends differences in hedonic capacities. Budolfson and Spears relate welfare capacity to the number of brain neurons and thus cognitive capacity. I point out serious shortcomings of each of these defences of DIF.
Overview
Authors: Steytler Nico , Fombad Charles M
Published: December 2022

This book underlines a cardinal fact that there can be little prospect of entrenching a culture of constitutionalism and respect for the rule of law when millions of Africans lack the basic necessities of life. At the end of the 1980s, with the populace taking to the streets and without the backing of superpowers, one-party states reluctantly made way for multiparty democracy, an event which was also linked to the shift from command to market economies. This included protecting private property in bills of rights and attempting to reduce the state’s role in the economy. What has happened on this score in the past thirty years, and what does it betoken for the future? Answering this in turn raises questions about the nature of the economy and the state, the relationship between them, and the nature of the global economic order in which they operate. Given that constitutions are an element in this mix, how is the relationship between the state and economy structured or managed through a constitution? Put differently, to what extent, if at all, do constitutions influence the nature of economies? The volume contains a number of comparative chapters on the state control of non-renewable natural resources, land, and the WTO as well as case studies, including of South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, South Sudan, Mozambique, Namibia, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
Constitutional Law and the Economy
Authors: Ollick Stephan FH
Published: December 2022

Constitutions are political and economic documents. Although the economic order can in principle be shaped dynamically as a matter of policy, many modern legal orders elevate economic principles to constitutional rank. The resulting provisions come in a variety of guises, ranging from formal commitments and distinctly labelled systems to discreet presuppositions that motivate and protect desired forms of productive activity. The legal systems of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States each enshrine key tenets of economic liberalism in their fundamental laws by regulating levels of state intervention, preserving economic unity, balancing public and private ownership, and giving privileged protection to select individual and collective rights. Idiosyncrasies and differences in emphasis reflect the historical trajectories of the four orders. Among the European states, convergence has been perpetuated by the European Union’s involvement in economic and monetary policy. However, they differ in the limits they impose on later policy-making, thus increasing the political cost of changes in approach. While the constitutional enshrinement of economic tenets may attest to a firm belief in their validity and endurance, the questionable significance of this practice for economic growth must be weighed against the costs of potentially limiting the range of responses to new challenges in an ever-changing world.
Protecting the Land, Protecting the Resources
Authors: Hursh John
Published: December 2022

Few regions in Africa are as resource rich and as conflict prone as East Africa. Within this region, several states face alarming rates of corruption, as well as correspondingly low levels of transparency and checks on executive power. Historically, East African states have seen repressive governance, an over-concentration of executive authority, and the rampant misuse of natural resource wealth. This unfortunate combination has led to great personal enrichment for a few, but widespread poverty and a lack of economic opportunity for the majority living in these states. This chapter examines constitutional reform efforts to protect land and natural resources, particularly as these protections relate to economic development. It does so by offering a comparative assessment of how the constitutions of Kenya, Sudan, and South Sudan safeguard land and natural resources for the citizens of these states. These states allow for a useful comparison of three distinct legal traditions within an important region of Africa. Moreover, as each constitution emerged from violent armed conflict, analysing each contributes to the growing study of constitutional reform in post-conflict settings.
Custodial Resource Holding as an Expression of Constitutional and Economic Intent in Africa
Authors: Mostert Hanri
Published: December 2022

This chapter scrutinizes how accountability for mineral resource exploitation is envisioned and managed in the constitutions of African countries. In resource-dependent states, economic policies and constitutional commitments to transformation and social justice combine to constitute a state’s resource-holding model. Expressed in its legal framework, a state’s resource-holding model will require particular types of governance responses to give effect to the ideologies underlying its economic choices. This chapter undertakes a broad survey of the language of resource sovereignty and resource governance, as expressed in the constitutions and legal frameworks of sub-Saharan African states. By enhancing observable trends with highlights of the political history of selected countries, the chapter reveals a tendency for post-independence states to career between market-economy and command-economy policies, to the detriment of states’ extractive sectors and the integrity of their resource sovereignty. Such policy careening corrupts and weakens resource sovereignty. The by-products of such systemic and ideological failures are poverty, inequality, underdevelopment, and lack of productivity. These are constraints on Africa’s future prosperity. Using experiences from inter alia South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia as examples, the chapter models a response that avoids the pitfalls of market-economy or command-economy-driven policies in the extractives sector. It shows that custodial resource holding may be a latecomer to the regulatory context, but that it has potential to restore resource sovereignty as an expression of the state’s interest in and responsibility to its people. This is demonstrated with reference to custodial resource holding in law reforms across Africa.
Constitutionalizing the Market Economy and the Quest for Constitutionalism
Authors: Steytler Nico
Published: December 2022

The contributions to this volume show that the return to multiparty democracy in the 1990s was accompanied by the explicit or implicit constitutionalization of a market economy, principally through the protection of property and the insistence on freedom of contract. Although land and other natural resources are crucial to the economy of many countries, the constitutionalization of the guardianship role which the state should have over such resources is uneven. Affording protection to a market economy did not mean that the state withdrew from the marketplace: the notion of the ‘developmental state’ has seen the state playing the role both of a dominant regulator of the economy and a full participant in it, this by way of state-owned enterprises. However, despite the state’s quest for control of the domestic market, its powers are curtailed through a globalization of the economy powered by the international trading system. Finally, while constitutionalism might be a necessary element for a growing economy, it is far from a sufficient condition for it. There is, nonetheless, a strong correlation between the absence of constitutionalism and negative economic growth.
Contemplation
Authors: Hare John E.
Published: December 2022

This chapter takes contemplation as a practice that can lead to unity with God. It starts with Aristotle, because the high theology of all three of the major Abrahamic faiths has tried to integrate his views with their sacred texts. It asks three questions: What place does Aristotle allow for desire in contemplation? Is it is we who contemplate or the divine which contemplates itself in us? How is contemplation integrated into the rest of life? Answers to these questions alter when the sacred texts are taken into account. In relation to the first question the chapter discusses Augustine, Bonaventure and Scotus. It endorses the tradition that emphasizes the centrality of the heart in contemplation. In relation to the second question it discusses Ibn Tufayl, Maimonides, and Meister Eckhart. It argues for a retention of the identity of the contemplator in the act of contemplation even when filled with the Spirit. In relation to the third question the chapter discusses Kierkegaard’s views of mysticism, and it distinguishes different ways in which contemplation, like prayer, can be integrated into the rest of life.
Introduction
Authors: Abrams Peter A.
Published: December 2022

Chapter 1 presents a brief history of mathematical theory in ecology dealing with interspecific competition. It argues that competition is a key process in the dynamics of all ecological systems. The chapter then presents the original 2-species model of competition developed independently by Lotka and Volterra. The lack of resources in this model is argued to be a major shortcoming. The definition of a single resource is treated briefly. The more recent history of competition theory is outlined, beginning with a brief discussion of Robert MacArthur’s consumer–resource model. Following a hiatus of research on competition in the last two decades of the twentieth century, theoretical work has increased. However, much of this work has focused on classifying mechanisms of coexistence, rather than developing models that could help predict or understand changes in abundances. While some recent authors have explored models with resources, many have continued to explore models in which competition is modelled as a direct effect. Those who have included resources have most often assumed linear relationships for all of the component functions, such as resource per capita growth rate and consumer functional response. The chapter discusses reasons for this very narrow range of models, and some of its adverse effects on our current understanding. The final section classifies the chapters, and discusses the mathematical background required to understand them.
Evolution and its ecological consequences
Authors: Abrams Peter A.
Published: December 2022

This chapter examines the effects of competition on the evolution of the competing species. Like most of the scientific work on this topic, it concentrates on systems having two competitors. The chapter begins by pointing out the focus of previous work on the evolution of traits affecting resource capture rates, which are not the only consumer characteristics that may evolve due to the addition of another consumer. Previous work has concentrated on divergence of traits, which is not the only outcome that competition may produce. The differences in predictions of models that include explicit representation of resources and those that do not are discussed. Convergence or parallel change are also expected to occur in response to the addition of a competing species, with these outcomes often associated with nutritional or other interactions between resources, and with interference components of competition in the consumers. Most previous work has ignored the role of resource evolution in response to the addition of a consumer; this can alter the direction of trait change in the consumer. Theory shows that evolutionary responses to competition should often reduce the population size of the evolving species, but this has yet to be studied in natural systems. Apparent competition is also expected to produce evolutionary responses, but it remains largely unstudied.
Overview
Authors: Abrams Peter A.
Published: December 2022

This last chapter summarizes the criticisms of recent competition theory in the preceding chapters, and stresses the importance of resource-based models and increased attention to adaptive behavioural change in developing new models of interspecific competition. It includes a more speculative treatment of aspects of the scientific process leading to the continued use of models that treat competition as a purely direct interaction. The substantial body of work adopting the direct-interaction framework creates an ‘assumption drag’, permitting continued use of these early but often misleading simplifications. Lack of agreement on the definitions of interactions is another factor that favours continued use of direct-interaction models. Progress has been inhibited by oversimplifications in analysing models, such as equating coexistence with mutual invasibility, or assessing the stability of multi-species systems using isocline diagrams. The economics and sociology of scientific research act against the projects best able to inform future directions for theoretical ecology.
Excessiveness and Our Natural Development
Authors: Hursthouse Rosalind
Published: December 2022

The Stoic account of our soul as undividedly rational thinks of emotions as involving mistaken judgements about value, but famously has a problem as to how emotions become excessive and beyond rational control. Their account suggests a better explanation than they themselves provide: being carried away by anger and stubbornly refusing to listen to good reasons indicate a lapse into a childish, less rationally developed state. The Stoics’ own unrealistic view of childhood development stands in the way of their appreciating this. This account not only improves the Stoic position, but also suggests a promising line of thought about emotions independently of it.
Arational Actions
Authors: Hursthouse Rosalind
Published: December 2022

A familiar type of action should remind us of the implausibility of the philosophical demand that an intentional action must require that the agent do it for a reason or that the action is irrational. The article defends the existence of actions which are intentional, although the agent neither did the action for a reason nor would not have done it had she not been under the influence of an emotion. Although some of these arational actions could be evaluated negatively insofar as they are contrary to reason, not all actions prompted by emotion and without rational basis are bad—some in fact elicit fondness in us and reveal an important aspect of human agency that is not grounded in the value of reason.
The Grammar of Goodness in Foot’s Ethical Naturalism
Authors: Hursthouse Rosalind
Published: December 2022

This article tracks the development of Philippa Foot’s philosophy and how she came to the insights in Natural Goodness about the continuity of moral usages of ‘good’ with our evaluations of plants and animals. The article focuses on Foot’s understanding of ‘good’ as an attributive adjective, her work on life and function, and the relationship between the Aristotelian naturalism project and biological sciences. A key claim is that we should understand Foot’s naturalist project as part of a Wittgensteinian investigation into our use of language rather than as a relegation of ethics to the biological sciences. This culminated in a form of ethical naturalism importantly distinct from those that attempt to derive ethics from the conclusions of evolutionary science.
Schooling Successfully
Authors: Wallner Jennifer
Published: December 2022

Elementary and secondary education is one of the most significant areas of government-led activity in Canada. Activities in this area in fact predate Confederation itself, with roots tracing back to early legislation enacted by colonial governments of British North America. Managed and overseen almost exclusively by the provinces and territories without direct intervention from the federal government, there are instead 13 essentially independent systems operating in parallel without any hierarchically driven coordinative mechanisms. Despite their independence and autonomy, the 13 systems exhibit marked comparability, compatibility, and equity. A formidable, enduring yet evolving, consensus to fundamental paradigmatic and programmatic ideas about schooling forged early in Canada’s history combined with positive spillover effects from fiscal federalism have contributed to 13 successful systems of public elementary and secondary education. Elementary and secondary education in Canada thus constitutes a clear case of ‘positive deviance’ worthy of investigation.
The Federal Equalization Program as a Controversial and Contested Policy Success
Authors: Béland Daniel , Lecours André , Tombe Trevor
Published: December 2022

Created in 1957, the federal equalization program addresses the issue of horizontal fiscal imbalance and, more specifically, seeks to reduce interprovincial disparities in fiscal capacity. Although strongly criticized by non-recipient provinces such as Alberta, equalization has successfully mitigated the consequences of territorial disparities within the federation—allowing all regions to deliver public services of comparable quality—while preserving provincial autonomy. Having showed durability through flexibility and a capacity to adapt in time, the program enjoys robust protection against dismantlement through the enshrinement of its principles and of the federal government’s commitment to make equalization payments. Scholars interested in the relationship between public policy and constitutional law could benefit from examining equalization in Canada, a controversial yet successful policy.
Regulating Canada’s Banking System
Authors: Williams Russell Alan
Published: December 2022

In preparing the Canadian financial services industry for globalization, the Canadian government chose to combine industry deregulation with ongoing political and parliamentary oversight of subsequent policy choices, strengthening federal authority over the industry. Participants in financial services policy-making have come to accept a high level of parliamentary involvement in making key decisions about the sector. By collapsing the banking, insurance, and securities policy subsystems into a single national financial services policy sector, and by expanding the responsibility of Parliament, the government ensured that future regulatory decisions—like the potential abandonment of the ‘big shall not buy big’ rule against bank mergers—would be subject to wide political scrutiny. This illustrates what McConnell (2010) characterizes a policy success, a policy that has generated considerably legitimacy for federal government goals in the sector and arguably helped Canada avoid some of the worst consequences of deregulated global finance encountered in other states.
Supply Management in Canada’s Dairy and Poultry Sectors
Authors: Skogstad Grace
Published: December 2022

Supply management in Canada’s dairy and poultry sectors has been resilient. Its policy instruments of domestic production controls and administered pricing have endured, even while its third policy instrument, import controls, has weakened. Supply management is a political success, supported by federal and provincial governments, Canada’s major political parties, and the Canadian public. Judgements of its programmatic success differ according to the weight placed on its different objectives. Supply management has achieved the foremost goal of its founders: stabilizing domestic production and increasing producers’ bargaining power. Yet it is credited with higher consumer costs for Canadian consumers, high entry costs for future farmers, and impeding needed policy change. On process success criteria, the conflicted and even precarious success that jeopardized supply management in its early days has largely, but not entirely, given way to resilient success.
Developing the Canadian Wine Industry
Authors: Migone Andrea Riccardo
Published: December 2022

The Canadian wine industry has a relatively short, yet successful, history. Beginning in the 1970s, two parallel policy tracks emerged: the first is a sector development one, and the second a retail and trade one. Together they fostered the development of the industry, especially at the domestic level, by modernizing the cultivation and wine-making processes and by supporting the increased demand for Canadian products both domestically and internationally. The sector, marked by a complex set of actors that are often in only partial policy alignment and have diverse goals, has developed through three temporal stages: Emergence (1970s–1995), Expansion (1996–2005), and Maturity (2006 onward) and, in the latter, the booming domestic wine consumption has drawn attention to a policy regime that—largely in the hands of provincial authorities—has been criticized for creating a series of impediments to trade and fair access to the provincial market. Policy shifts are being imposed by Canada’s international trade commitments and by the evolution of the industry itself—this will have important effects on the policy latitude of the actors and likely will rewrite some of the approaches that the provincial governments have been relying on for the past decades.
Canada’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis
Authors: Lindquist Evert A.
Published: December 2022

Canada was a top-performing jurisdiction in response to the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis for three reasons: it had a relatively prudently regulated banking and financial sector, a relatively strong balance sheet and well-managed budget process, and the government’s policy response and focus of this chapter—the Economic Action Plan (EAP)—quickly provided significant infrastructure funding to all levels of government The EAP was designed and announced in early 2009 by a new Conservative minority government led by Prime Minister Harper, which was later rewarded with a majority government in the May 2011 federal election. However, this retrospective success masks considerable controversy and a near-death experience early on for that newly elected government: after introducing its Economic Statement in November 2018, the government almost fell as three opposition parties joined forces for an imminent vote of non-confidence, leading to a controversial but shrewd request to prorogue Parliament and introduce a new budget in six weeks. This chapter describes how government regained its bearings, pivoted, and quickly developed a new strategy: it introduced a radically different budget and mobilized ministers and the public service to implement a national infrastructure program with a variety of partners, and launched a bold branding and advertising strategy, along with a reporting system. Relying on the ‘policy success’ literature (McConnell, 2010), this chapter argues that, despite pushing the boundaries of public advertising, the EAP as a time-limited intervention can be viewed as a process, programmatic, and political success.
Conclusion
Authors: Skogstad Grace , Tellier Geneviève , ‘t Hart Paul , Howlett Michael , Lindquist Evert A.
Published: December 2022

This chapter reviews the volume’s 22 case studies of successful policies across Canada, which tracked policy histories and assessed policy outcomes over time. It seeks to generate broader lessons and themes for conceptualizing and explaining policy success. It begins by providing a summary of the success ratings arising from the case studies and considers the usefulness of the multidimensional PPPE (programmatic, process, political, endurance) framework for developing and analysing such case studies. Second, it draws on the cases to identify factors across policy domains—some common, some particular, some contingent—which contribute to the different dimensions of policy success. Third, we step back from the case studies to consider the complex influence of macro-institutions in Canada (e.g. federalism, executive-dominated parliamentary government, and the judiciary) in influencing policy success. Finally, based on lessons from the Canadian cases, future lines of research to strengthen our understanding of policy success are suggested.
Introduction
Authors: Willer-Gold Jana
Published: December 2022

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of long-standing questions on objects and their agreement in order to set the scene for their new intersecting angles. In the first part, the topics selected for concise presentation highlight recurring themes in the work on object agreement, in general, and this volume, in particular—status of object markers, DOM and PCC, object agreement across modalities, and Agree with object(s). The second part introduces the grounding for arranging the contributions into four major topics: mechanics of object agreement, constraints on symmetry, features of object agreement, and role of the left periphery, with a short presentation of each chapter. To demonstrate the advanced nature of research into newly depicted angles of object agreement, we argue that the value brought by new data sets and languages to the ever-expanding topic of object agreement is the fundamental vantage point of this book.
Living Accountably
Authors: Evans C. Stephen
Published: December 2022

This book shows that accountability can be understood as a significant, forward-looking virtue, an excellence possessed by those who embrace being accountable to those who have proper standing, when that standing is being exercised appropriately. Today accountability is usually understood in terms of holding someone accountable for bad actions, but we should also look at people who welcome being accountable to others and carry out the role in an excellent manner. The book gives a fine-grained description of the virtue and how it is exercised, including an account of the motivational profile of those with the virtue. It examines the relation of accountability to other virtues, such as honesty and humility, as well as opposing vices, such as self-deception, arrogance, and servility. Though the virtue of accountability is compatible with autonomy, recognizing the importance of the virtue does justice to the social character of humans. The book explores the history of this virtue in other cultures and historical eras, showing that the virtue is widely recognized, even if it is somewhat eclipsed in modern western societies. Many people believe they are globally accountable, accountable for how they live their lives as a whole. This means that the virtue is not only central to ethics, but connects the ethical life to religious concerns, since global accountability points humans towards a transcendent ground of their accountability. The book discusses empirical evidence for the virtue and its significance, and concludes by looking at the implications of accountability for the transformation of the criminal justice system as an example of how a renewed emphasis on this virtue could enhance society.
Accountability and Moral Philosophy
Authors: Evans C. Stephen
Published: December 2022

This chapter first looks at the relation between accountability, understood as a relation, and moral obligations. Philosopher Stephen Darwall has argued that all moral obligations are linked to accountability, but even if this view is too strong, it seems correct that many obligations have this character, and this provides a reason for thinking that the virtue of accountability has great importance for the moral life as a whole. The chapter then provides a deeper description of accountability as a virtue by describing its central features and the motivational profile of one who has the virtue. The motivation is pluralistic, but the person who welcomes being accountable is not primarily motivated by fear of punishment. Finally, it looks at some objections to believing that accountability is a virtue, particularly the claim that it is simply a new name for another virtue. Accountability is not identical to conscientiousness or agreeableness or their conjunction. Accountability is best understood as a sub-virtue of justice, understood as a personal virtue.
Accountability’s Relation to Other Virtues and Vices
Authors: Evans C. Stephen
Published: December 2022

This chapter suggests that accountability is part of a cluster of virtues that support each other, such that someone lacking one of these virtues completely would find it very difficult to have the other virtues in the cluster. The vices that are contrary to these supporting virtues would thus also be characteristics that block or impede the virtue of accountability. The main supporting virtues that are analyzed are humility, honesty, and practical wisdom. Humility, following the work of Robert Roberts, is seen as a lack or low degree of the desire for self-importance, the quality of a person who gets a false sense of worth by comparison with others. Self-importance is connected to such “vices of pride” as arrogance, domination, and snobbery. Honesty is understood, following Christian Miller’s work, as the quality of someone who does not distort reality (or “the facts”) as that person sees reality. Honesty, both to oneself and towards those to whom one is accountable, is essential to excellence as an accountable person. Finally, practical wisdom, again following Christian Miller, is seen as an indispensable help to exercising accountability, enabling a person to understand standing and its limits, and recognize when expectations are reasonable and what ways of fulfilling them are reasonable.
Transcendent Views of Global Accountability
Authors: Evans C. Stephen
Published: December 2022

This chapter explores various forms of transcendent accountability, which see global accountability as requiring some higher, transcendent ground. Since some might see transcendence as a high cost, the chapter first argues that giving up global accountability also would come at a high cost, as can be seen by a brief look at popular culture and some exploration of human psychological tendencies. Transcendent accountability comes in three forms: theistic accountability sees it as accountability to a personal God. Metaphysical accountability rejects a personal God and thus rejects literal accountability, but claims that there is a metaphysical order or structure, which is often called karma, that provides an existential equivalent. Ideal accountability believes we are accountable for living in accord with transcendent principles, but denies we are accountable to a person. This chapter argues that all three forms of accountability have insights and strong points, but that theistic accountability can incorporate the strengths of the other two views. However, the other views, without a personal God, cannot account for the possibility of grace and mercy, which accountable humans certainly need. It also argues, contrary to some popular understandings of God, that accountability to God is not grounded in divine punishment. A loving God would not punish for retributive reasons but would only correct and discipline humans for their ultimate good.
Empirical Issues
Authors: Evans C. Stephen
Published: December 2022

This chapter looks at the empirical evidence for the reality and importance of accountability as a virtue. A virtue should manifest itself in the way its possessors act and think. The chapter begins by describing the work of an interdisciplinary team of scholars who developed two psychometric survey instruments to measure the virtue of accountability: the interpersonal accountability scale and the transcendent accountability scale. Statistical analysis of research done with the scales shows that there is good evidence for their reliability as picking out a genuine trait. Preliminary research also suggests that the trait is linked to important measures of human well-being. The chapter then looks at empirical evidence from the team’s new work as well as existing surveys that use items that plausibly measure accountability, and shows there is already considerable evidence that accountability, like other virtues, is connected to human flourishing in a number of ways. These include a sense of meaning, political and social engagement, as well as fostering relational repair after harm has been done to a relationship. The chapter then looks at the role accountability plays in current thinking in the business world, where it is increasingly recognized that the task of the leader is to cultivate a “culture of accountability.” Accountability also plays a vital and pervasive role in “12-step” organizations that seek to help people overcome addictions and achieve other important goals. Finally, many people are seeking “accountability partners” for various ends, sometimes even over the internet.
Failing to Tame Too-Big-To-Fail Banks
Authors: Howarth David , James Scott
Published: December 2022

Chapter 3 places bank structural reform into the wider context of bank regulatory reform since the crisis. We analyse how a range of regulatory responses have or might have impacted on too-big-to-fail banks principally by reducing their size and higher-risk activities. We group these responses into five categories: 1) conditions attached to government financial support, notably related to deleveraging; 2) revenue-raising regulation and fiscal policy, including bank levies, transactions taxes, and resolution funds; 3) the reinforcement of bank regulations concerning credit rating agencies, remuneration practices, capital and liquidity requirements, and bank resolution; 4) bank governance and transparency, including internal risk management, stress testing, and reporting requirements; and 5) strengthened bank supervision through new macroprudential policy instruments. Our main argument is that the large majority of these measures had only a limited effect in addressing the too-big-to-fail problem. We therefore devote the rest of the book to analysing the one set of measures designed explicitly to address the issue: bank structural reform.
The Importance of Being Vickers
Authors: Howarth David , James Scott
Published: December 2022

Chapter 5 explains the UK’s decision to introduce a mandatory ringfence for retail bank activities. Despite hosting one of the largest global financial centres and a number of the largest banks in the world, the so-called ‘Vickers’ reforms introduced some of the toughest rules regarding structural separation and capital requirements in the world. The durable nature of UK banking reform is all the more puzzling given that neither of the two main political parties expressed much enthusiasm for ringfencing at the height of the crisis. We explain this as the outcome of institutional venue shifting—to the Independent Commission on Banking in 2010, and to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards in 2012—which was critical in depoliticizing the issue, and curtailing the influence of bank lobbyists, by expanding engagement with a range of societal stakeholders. The collective influence of the sizeable UK financial industry was also weakened by the competitive nature of financial power: internal divisions between the largest banks limited lobbying coordination, and they faced significant opposition from countervailing groups—notably prominent ministers, parliamentarians, and senior regulators. The result was that ringfencing came to enjoy strong cross-party support that served to ‘lock in’ the reforms over time.
Transcriptomic insights into Odonata ecology and evolution
Authors: Bybee Seth M. , Futahashi Ryo , Renoult Julien P. , Sharkey Camilla , Simon Sabrina , Suvorov Anton , Wellenreuther Maren
Published: December 2022

Chapter 3 attempts to define transcriptomics, a powerful tool for scientific research that has advanced our knowledge of Odonata evolution in many meaningful ways. It then goes on to outline its strengths and weakness for ecological and evolutionary research. The chapter frames the current state of transcriptomics research in Odonata. It focuses specifically on color, color vision, embryogenesis, and phylo-transcriptomics, as these are currently the deepest areas for transcriptomics among Odonata to date. The chapter also describes the authors’ advocacy for future research using transcriptomics and it presents clearly and concisely their arguments to convince the reader that there are exceptional opportunities among Odonata. This is particularly so when transcriptomics is combined with genomics.
The biomechanics of Odonate flight
Authors: Bomphrey Richard J. , Walker Simon M.
Published: December 2022

Dragonflies and damselflies are renowned for their extraordinary capabilities of flight. As adults, they are captivating and conspicuous as they engage in tasks such as hunting, defending territories, courtship, reproduction, and—in many species—migration. Despite the adult phase accounting for a shorter period than their aquatic juvenile stage, life in the air represents a relatively brief but vital time, where the stakes are high and aerobatic prowess is a prerequisite. For aerial success, dragonflies and damselflies must be equipped with suitable anatomy and physiology to move, to perceive their environment, and to monitor their own behavior within it. This chapter frames these concepts in the form of an engineer’s control loop. It illustrates the framework with key research into each element, from structural responses and aerodynamics to physiology and neuroscience.
Odonata immunity, pathogens, and parasites
Authors: Hasik Adam Z. , Ilvonen Jaakko J. , Siepielski Adam M. , Murray Rosalind L.
Published: December 2022

Parasites and pathogens are a ubiquitous threat facing organisms within every ecological network. To protect themselves from parasites, organisms have evolved immune defenses. Insect immunity has received a great deal of attention, with numerous studies investigating the intersection of parasite pressure, immune function, and ecology. This chapter highlights how the investigation of odonate immunity has provided insight into how insect immunity operates within the ecological theatre under the threat of parasites. It first explains why odonates are an excellent model system for studies of immunity and parasites. It then reviews what is known of the parasites odonates harbor. Then, it covers the myriad mechanisms employed by odonates to defend themselves from their parasitic enemies. It also discusses key ecological and evolutionary studies that fall at the intersection of immunity and parasites.
Fox Spirits in Villages
Authors: Kim H. Yumi
Published: December 2022

In the 1880s, the first Japanese psychiatrists challenged long-standing family-based structures and cultures of religious and spiritual care for those considered mad. They focused on redefining “fox attachment” (kitsune tsuki), or the overtaking of human minds and bodies by fox spirits, as a type of mental illness. Yet their efforts had limited effects, since fox attachment continued to wield power as a language and mode of filiation in the contexts of family and village life. Cases of fox attachment showed how filiation, or the ways in which one living being was put in relation to another, could occur along supernatural lines, rather than be determined exclusively by blood, biology, or law. Families and communities also invoked the language of “attachment” to interpret some of the most tumultuous global and local phenomena of Meiji Japan, from conscription and cholera to treaty-port imperialism.
Periodic Crimes in the Courtroom
Authors: Kim H. Yumi
Published: December 2022

Family-based care had its limits. New criminal laws of the early twentieth century held individuals—and not families, as had been the case in the preceding Edo period—responsible for their transgressions. Crime committed by those considered mentally unstable thus compelled families to relinquish responsibility, shifting the management of madness from the space of the home to that of the courtroom. Cases of menstruation-induced mental instability show how such individuation was a gendered process. In the context of a judicial process that aimed to individuate a female defendant’s body as much as possible, the women themselves simultaneously subscribed to and countered notions of individual autonomy. The women often offered understandings of their allegedly mad criminal acts as having emanated from embodied experiences among kin. The courtroom, like the medical marketplace, contained instances of women using the family vernacular to make sense of the workings of their minds and bodies.
Epilogue: Postwar Cultures of Gendered Care and Kinship
Authors: Kim H. Yumi
Published: December 2022

Gendered understandings of madness and family-based care continued into the post-World War II period. In the early 1950s, a series of laws and financial incentives dramatically shifted structures of care from the home to hospitals. Still, families retained much of their primacy in the management of care. Indeed, the burden of domestic responsibility for the mentally ill fell even more intensely on the shoulders of women than ever before, as the home was renewed as the most socially legitimate space of rest. Gendered notions of madness persisted, too, as did women’s reliance on the language of kinship and domesticity to make sense of various forms of mental distress, many of which came in the guise of updated diagnostic categories such as “nonspecific complaints.”