External Justification Research Articles

Crossing the Rubicon: The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 as an Authoritarian Crucible

Abstract In the 1980s and 1990s, Conservative Governments contemplated but ultimately refused direct interventions in strikes in essential services as unenforceable and ineffective. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 crosses this Rubicon. It does so not by a participatory framework but by granting Ministers and employers virtually unrestrained powers to restrict (and effectively prohibit by neutralising the impact of) industrial action by imposing minimum service levels. This article offers a critical account of the Act based on three main claims. First, it argues that the Act is shaped by what is termed ‘coercive dual unilateralism’, an authoritarian crucible of three elements: (i) executive unilateralism, (ii) employer unilateralism and (iii) coercion (severe sanctions compounded by chilling legal uncertainty of ill-defined duties). Secondly, it challenges the Government’s claim of the Act’s compliance with ILO standards and Article 11 ECHR as a misconstruction. Thirdly, it finds that the Act satisfies all three authoritarian markers (stifling of dissent, direct state coercion, elevation of social order as an external justification for restrictions) identified in Bogg’s seminal account of the TUA 2016 as a shift away from neo-liberalism to authoritarianism. But it resists a ‘beyond neo-liberalism’ conclusion. Instead, it argues that the Act should be seen as the product of a ‘strong-weak' state (strong in power, weak in securing consent) that seeks to fortify neo-liberalism against a sharpened contestation reflected in the current strike wave.

A Typology of the Use of Intimate Partner Psychological Aggression in a Clinical Sample of Men

The development of profiles of individuals' use of intimate partner aggression based on similarities in traits allows for the customization of psychological treatment, which can increase successful therapeutic outcomes and enhance cost-effective practices. Among the existent typologies of partner aggression, none, to our knowledge, has focused on self-reported justification for the specific use of intimate partner psychological aggression (IPPA). Yet, IPPA functions within the context of their justifications. This study aimed to expand on the previously established typologies by proposing a new typology based on the justification for the use of IPPA. A sample of 456 men seeking therapeutic services for their couple’s relationship problems completed a series of questionnaires. A final five-profile solution was obtained using latent profile analyses (i.e., labeled low justification, internal justification, external justification, low malevolence, and high malevolence). The profiles were then compared on diverse IPPA-related variables, further differentiating each profile’s unique combination of characteristics. The profiles range from low to high IPPA severity and present unique patterns of justifications and relational and psychological functioning. A description of each profile and their implications is discussed in the study. Overall, the results emphasize the importance of evaluating justifications in addition to IPPA perpetration and conceptualizing psychological aggression within its context to offer more targeted therapeutic interventions.

A Typology of the Use of Intimate Partner Psychological Aggression in a Clinical Sample of Men

The development of profiles of individuals’ use of intimate partner aggression based on similarities in traits allows for the customization of psychological treatment, which can increase successful therapeutic outcomes and enhance cost-effective practices. Among the existent typologies of partner aggression, none, to our knowledge, has focused on self-reported justification for the specific use of intimate partner psychological aggression (IPPA). Yet, IPPA functions within the context of their justifications. This study aimed to expand on the previously established typologies by proposing a new typology based on the justification for the use of IPPA. A sample of 456 men seeking therapeutic services for their couple’s relationship problems completed a series of questionnaires. A final five-profile solution was obtained using latent profile analyses (i.e., labeled low justification, internal justification, external justification, low malevolence, and high malevolence). The profiles were then compared on diverse IPPA-related variables, further differentiating each profile’s unique combination of characteristics. The profiles range from low to high IPPA severity and present unique patterns of justifications and relational and psychological functioning. A description of each profile and their implications is discussed in the study. Overall, the results emphasize the importance of evaluating justifications in addition to IPPA perpetration and conceptualizing psychological aggression within its context to offer more targeted therapeutic interventions.

Круг, проверка и восприятие Бога

The paper offers a discussion on William P. Alston’s epistemology of religious experience. I start with a general assessment, then propose an explanation of Alston’s main argument for a solid epistemic status of the practice of mystical perception. The explanation shows that this argument depends on whether we have reasons not to consider the practice reliable. We can divide all reasons against the mystical perception into two types. The first type of reasons is associated with the requirement of external justification. Alston believes that this requirement is not dangerous, since both mystical and sensory perception are based on an epistemic circle. I propose a critique of the circulatory thesis about the reliability of sensory perception. The second type of justification concerns the requirement of the possibility of intersubjective tests and other features of sensory perception. Alston considers it unreasonable to apply the requirement to the mystical perception. I show that there are no sufficient reasons to agree with this claim. At the end of the paper the Russian translation of Alston’s book is evaluated.

Sojusz artystyczno-cyrkowy w filmie "Tratwa Meduzy"

The film The Raft of the Medusa (1980, directed by Karpo Godina) attempts a recreation of a short part of the day in the life of avant-garde artists belonging to the “Zenit” group. The director aims to re-create the energy of artists‘ actions, and to analyse the reasons behind the movement‘s downfall. Central to the plot is the question of the possibility of revolutionary art in the remote, muddy plazas and roads of the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. His search for an answer to that question eventually turns into a stance in the fierce discussion on the independence of art and its right to interfere in politics, which raged in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia at the time of the movie‘s making. The figure of the athlete Alojz Žnidaršič is of particular importance to the message of the movie. As a symbolic type, he needs no external justification – his self-sustaining artistic act has a direct, if limited, impact on reality.

New Pythagoreanism, Complexity, Artificial Intelligence

Leibniz defined mathematics as the “science of possible worlds.” But what worlds were assumed as the possible ones by thinkers of different eras? It is this question that is considered in this article. According to Einstein, development of science requires “external justification” (observations and experiments that should be explained or predicted) and internal perfection (following the internal logic of this discipline). Mathematics has no “external justification” and experiment cannot refute mathematical theory. In this sense, mathematics is closer to creativity, to art than to natural science. Its connection with culture turns out to be more complex and mediated. To explain this connection, Daniel Bell, within the framework of his theory of social development, puts forward the “axial principle,” according to which the role of science is considered as the main characteristic of society. From this point of view, we single out traditional, industrial and post-industrial societies. Each of these phases has its own ideals, norms, and types of mathematical creativity. In traditional society, following the Pythagorean tradition, mathematics is focused on finding harmony in nature, on identifying unity on the basis of universal relationships determined by the numerical characteristics of the objects under study. As the industrial era approaches, the constructivist, or “project-based,” approach becomes increasingly important. And unity emerges at a higher “meta-level.” The forerunner of this direction is Descartes, who raised the question of finding a single, universal method for solving all mathematical problems. The work traces the change in the formulation of a number of “invariant,” “eternal” mathematical problems as well as the evolution of the concept of “complexity” in the historical retrospective. Close attention is paid to the post-industrial phase of civilizational development and to “computer mathematics,” which has become the basis for formation of virtual reality, which in many respects changes the very direction of progress. As a result of this, the “extraverted orientation” of humanity, the course toward new horizons was replaced by the “introvert” one, which prioritizes tasks associated with comfort, convenience, and consumption. The “change of milestones” that has taken place is traced in a comparison of “big projects” related to mathematics that were put forward in the 1960s, and those that are considered as priorities at present. In fact, we are faced with a “crisis of expectations.” We see a way out of this crisis in a revival of the “Pythagorean tradition,” at a new level. But if in a traditional society the goal of the development of mathematics in alliance with other sciences and arts was to reveal harmony in the natural world, then at the post-industrial phase, the priorities are different. They are associated with computer modeling, understanding, and identifying the foundations of harmony in the human world.

Algunos apuntes sobre desacuerdos teóricos interdisciplinarios entre el derecho y la economía

The starting point of this essay is the question “Under what conditions is the legal practitioner justified in ignoring the economic point of view?”. This question leads to an inquiry of the relation between the disagreements economists have with the law and theoretical disagreements. The essay makes two main claims. First, the disagreements economists have with the law can originate a particular kind of theoretical disagreement – an interdisciplinary theoretical disagreement. Interdisciplinary theoretical disagreements pre- suppose the solution of a translation problem from economics into law. The translation problem is solved when a proposition of economics becomes part of the external justification of a legal norm. It makes sense to use the expression «interdisciplinary translation» because meaning is moved from one practice to another. Second, the various positions with regard to the relation between law and morality are also a problem of interdisciplinary translation – this time from morality to law. In light of this insight, the essay concludes with the hope of more interest by philosophers of law and legal theorists for the relation between law and economics.

Redefining education and politics: On the paradoxical relation between two separate spheres

In this contribution to the Special Issue on the instrumentalisation of education, we focus on the relation between politics and education, as today there is a dominant discourse on rendering education subservient to the realisation of political aims. Rather than analysing the many ways in which such instrumentalisation takes place, we propose to develop an ontological account that articulates the basic attitude that a political and an educational engagement respectively demand. Our main source of inspiration was Arendt’s claim that education should be conceived of as an autonomous and separate sphere, that is, as being meaningful in and of itself, and without any need for an external justification (e.g. in political terms). Taking this standpoint further we will argue that the unique logic of education can be conceived of in terms of unconditional love for the present world. This affirmative attitude is precisely what makes education educational. Conversely, this calls for a redefinition of the logic that -- following Schmitt -- characterises the political, which we will show to be predicated upon a dialectical relation with the world that consists of an attitude of hate towards the present, in view of an ever deferred hoped-for ideal future. This leads us to reconsider the relation that education as an autonomous sphere of human life enters with politics. In order to theorise this kind relation we refer to the idea of pure means, introduced by Agamben .

Can Constitutional Rights Be Weighed?

Balancing is one of the main issues in current debates on legal argumentation and constitutional review. The discussion has polarized into two competing theses. On the one view, balancing is both irrational and subjective. When courts “weigh” conflicting constitutional rights, they actually make a preferential choice that cannot be rationally justified. On a different view, balancing is a rational form of argumentation grounded in the very structure of constitutional rights and principles. In this paper we argue that none of these theses is true. By analyzing the inferential structure of balancing we show that it is composed by multiple inferential steps. One must consider what inferential commitments are undertaken in the balancing process, and under what conditions these commitments can be discursively satisfied in a given constitutional system. In particular, we address the problem of the external justification of balancing, namely the justification of its premises.

Implementation of a Patient Reported Experience Measure in a Dutch disability care organisation: a qualitative study

BackgroundPatient Reported Experience Measures are promoted to be used as an integrated measurement approach in which outcomes are used to improve individual care (micro level), organisational quality (meso level) and external justification (macro level). However, a deeper understanding of implementation issues of these measures is necessary. The narrative Patient Reported Experience Measure “Dit vind ik ervan!” (English “How I feel about it!”) is used in the Dutch disability care sector, but insight into its’ current use is lacking. We aimed to provide insight into experiences with the implementation and current ways of working with “Dit vind ik ervan!” as an integrated measurement strategy.A descriptive qualitative study was done at a disability care organisation. Data were collected by nine documentations, seven observations, 11 interviews and three focus groups. We applied deductive content analysis using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research as a framework.ResultsOur analysis revealed facilitators and barriers for the implementation of “Dit vind ik ervan!”. We found most barriers at the micro level. Professionals and clients appreciated the measure’s narrative approach, but struggled to perform it with communication vulnerable clients. Some clients, professionals and team leaders were unfamiliar with the measure’s aim and benefit. On the meso level, implementation was done top-down, and the management’s vision using the measure as an integrated measurement approach was insufficiently shared throughout the organisation.ConclusionsOur study shows that Patient Reported Experience Measures have the potential to be used as an integrated measurement strategy. Yet, we found barriers at the micro level, which might have influenced using the measurement outcomes at the meso and macro level. Tailored implementation strategies, mostly focusing on designing and preparing the implementation on the micro level, need to be developed in co-creation with all stakeholders.

Introducción a las categorías conceptuales del bioderecho en la discrecionalidad jurídica

La identificación de la denominada dispersión epistemológica en las decisiones en bioderecho se evidencia en la incorporación crítica al materialismo, en particular, y a las nuevas formas de fisicalismo, ya que su base epistemológica se encuentra en un contexto mucho más amplio que la explicación unificadora de la relación mente-cerebro. De ahí que teorías de la argumentación adoptadas por autores como Wroblesky, Aarnio y Alexy identifican una doble exigencia en la justificación: por un lado, la llamada justificación interna, regulada por la lógica a la hora de conectar las premisas o conectar los enunciados que forman parte del razonamiento judicial y, por el otro, la justificación externa, focalizada en los argumentos o razones utilizadas para justificar aquellas premisas o enunciados. El bioderecho implica reconocer que se plantea una crítica al materialismo y al fisicalismo, camino que ya la psicopatología recorrió para entender fenómenos como la intencionalidad, la interpretación de conductas humanas y los supuestos interpretativos de la arquitectura de la decisión jurídica.El estudioso del bioderecho debe identificar esos supuestos, muchas veces irreflexivos; ello implica dar razones acerca de la relación mente-cuerpo subyacente; de los elementos que componen la acción humana jurídicamente relevante; la configuración de los bienes humanos básicos involucrados en la litis en el bioderecho; elementos todos estos que hacen necesario repensar el estatuto cognoscitivo del derecho, en general, y del bioderecho, en particular.

La subsunción de Alexy y la pregunta por la racionalidad de la ponderación

Este trabajo analiza al detalle la argumentación de Robert Alexy en virtud de la cual la subsunción resulta poco racional, por cuanto existe un método que lo es más, como es la ponderación. La hipótesis de trabajo es que una descripción imprecisa de la subsunción permite ambientar el debate sobre la racionalidad de la ponderación y, a la postre, declarar resuelto a su favor dicho debate. Esta descripción incorrecta, más el entendimiento erróneo de las nociones de justificación interna y justificación externa de Jerzy Wróblewski y poner desatinadamente a Jürgen Habermas como “crítico de la fórmula de la ponderación”, permitirá generar la impresión de la resolución del problema de la racionalidad de este método de aplicación de principios.

Call of Duty at the Frontier of Research: Normative Epistemology for High-Risk/High-Gain Studies of Deep Brain Stimulation.

Research participants are entitled to many rights that may easily come into conflict. The most important ones are that researchers respect their autonomy as persons and act on the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Since 2014, research subjects from numerous states in the United States of America also have a legal "right to try" that allows them, under certain circumstances, to receive experimental (i.e., preliminarily tested) interventions, including medical devices, before official approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration. In the context of experimental interventions, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Alzheimer's disease, this article argues that research participants ought never to have a legal "right to try" without a corresponding "right to be sure." The latter refers to external epistemic justification construed in terms of reliance on reliable evidence. This article demonstrates that the mere complexity of intervention ensembles, as in the case of DBS for Alzheimer's disease which serves as a paradigm example, illustrate how unanswered and/or unasked open questions give rise to a "combinatorial explosion" of uncertainties that require epistemic responses that no single research team alone is likely able to provide. From this assessment, several epistemic asymmetrical relations between researchers and participants are developed. By elucidating these epistemic asymmetries, this article unravels the reasons why open science, transparent exhaustive data reporting, preregistration, and continued constant critical appraisal via pre- and postpublication peer review are not scientific virtues of moral excellence but rather ordinary obligations of the scientific work routine required to increase reliability and strength of evidence.

Gruziński epizod w polskiej polityce zagranicznej w okresie prezydentury Lecha Kaczyńskiego (2005-2010)

<p>W tekście dokonano analizy efektywności działań podejmowanych przez Prezydenta RP Lecha Kaczyńskiego w kontekście jego zaangażowania w konflikt rosyjsko-gruziński z 2008 roku. Uwzględniono sytuację geopolityczną Polski, prerogatywy Prezydenta RP w dziedzinie stosunków zewnętrznych, koncepcję i uzasadnienie polityki wschodniej oraz ocenę interwencji dyplomatycznej w Gruzji. W konkluzji stwierdzono zasadność strategicznego partnerstwa polskogruzińskiego, przy jednoczesnym występowaniu determinant uniemożliwiających jego realizację.</p><p> </p>

Artificial Neural Network as a Classifier for the Identification of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Through Prognosticgene Signatures.

Background: Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can be used to classify tumor of Hepatocellular carcinoma based on their gene expression signatures. The neural network is trained with gene expression profiles of genes that were predictive of recurrence in liver cancer, the ANNs became capable of correctly classifying all samples and distinguishing the genes most suitable for the organization. The ability of the trained ANN models in recognizing the Cancer Genes was tested as we analyzed additional samples that were not used beforehand for the training procedure, and got the correctly classified result in the validation set. Bootstrapping of training and analysis of dataset was made as external justification for more substantial result.Result: The best result achieved when the number of hidden layers was 10. The R2 value with training is 0.99136, R2 value obtained with testing is 0.80515, R2 value obtained after validation is 0.76678 and finally, with the total number of sets the R2 value is 0.93417. Performance was reported on the basis of graph plotted between Mean Squared Error (MSE) and 23 epoch. The value of gradient of the curve was 152 after 6 validation checks and 23 iterations.Conclusion: A successful attempt at developing a method for diagnostic classification of tumors from their gene-expression autographs that efficiently classify tumors and helps in decision making for providing appropriate treatment to the patients suffering from Hepatocellular carcinoma has been carried out.

Summaries

Marijn Meijers Justifying eco-unfriendly behaviors. Implications for communication practice This article describes how people may justify their eco-unfriendly behaviors. It is described how people may use their own previous moral and environmentally friendly behaviors as a justification for environmentally unfriendly behaviors (part I: internal justification) and how people may use the behaviors of others and institutions (i.e., science) as a justification for environmentally unfriendly behaviors (part II: external justification). The article shows boundary conditions for justification effects and describes the implications that these effects have for communication practice. Keywords: licensing, justification, environmentally friendly, moral, sequential decision making

The resentful and the indignant

In “Freedom and Resentment” P.F. Strawson distinguishes between the participant reactive attitudes like resentment and the moral reactive attitudes like indignation described by Strawson as their “vicarious analogues,” where we are not the injured party and it is not our own personal relationships at stake. Through naturalistic description of the participant reactive attitudes a set of conditions for moral responsibility can be discovered that, moreover, are held to be immune to any external review or to require external justification. Except for pathological cases Strawson deems to amount to solipsism, these participant attitudes and their vicarious analogues are deemed to go together and the same arguments to apply equally to each: resentment and indignation are supposed to have the same conditions for being appropriately held or withheld. I find it to be not obvious that these conditions must be the same, but even if they are, the case for immunity that Strawson presents initially for the participant reactive attitudes does not transfer as unproblematically as he seems to assume to the moral reactive attitudes. The aim of this paper is not to analyse Strawson’s arguments, but more simply to identify a number of ways in which we may be resentful without being (or being prone to be in the relevantly similar circumstance) indignant, and indignant without being resentful.

Student Perceptions of Justification in Two Disparate Domains: Education and Biology

This study investigated the perceptions of epistemic justification of student in two disparate domains of study to determine if any similarities and differences in their methods of justification exist. Two samples of students, or a total of 513 undergraduates from educational psychology (n=193) and biology (n=320) courses, completed a domain-general instrument that measured student views of pedagogical practices designed to enhance epistemic justification. A 3-factor solution best fit the data for both samples, but there were similarities and differences in the factors identified for the two samples. Students in both samples conceptualized the importance of collecting data or observable evidence to aid in making links between concepts as well as recognized the importance of both internal and external justification practices. One important distinction between the two samples is that those in the education sample distinguished between verifying core concepts and verifying connections using observable evidence, but the biology sample did not. Results suggest there are differences between the methods of justification conceptualized by students from the two different domains. Suggestions for future research are forwarded.

A qualitative study of the relationship between the Scottish Medicines Consortium and their clinical experts.

Internationally, health technology assessments (HTAs) are ubiquitous drivers to health policy. Within Scotland, the Scottish Medicines Consortium undertakes the medicine review process. Input from clinical experts, involved in frontline care, is an integral component of the assessment process. This paper explores the relationship between the clinical experts and the HTA agency within Scotland to better understand what motivates expert clinicians to devote their time to the medicine review process with no remuneration. Twenty-seven clinical experts from 16 different clinical specialties took part in one-to-one interviews at their place of work between October 2011 and March 2012. Data analysis was inductive and comprised the organization of data into a framework and a subsequent thematic analysis. Three distinct themes were identified: (1) recruitment, which identified two types of explanations for the experts' appointment: external justification (nominated by another) and internal justification (being recognized as an expert); (2) flexibility of the procedures, with experts able to determine their own response style and negotiate timelines; (3) health care systems, demonstrating that their affiliation to the health system underpinned the relationship and their motivation to be clinical experts. The findings of this study provide insight into the elements important to clinicians who voluntarily contribute to HTA processes. Examination of these elements in the context of the organizational citizenship behavior literature provides a foundation on which to improve understanding of this relationship and sustain and improve clinical expert participation in an increasingly intensified clinical environment and within cash-limited HTA systems.

Fish on Academic Freedom: A Merited Assault on Nonsense, But Perhaps a Bridge Too Far

In Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution, Stanley Fish turns his prodigious intellectual and rhetorical skills to debunking various inflated views of academic freedom and defending a narrow, professional account of it. Academic freedom is freedom possessed by the members of university and college departments that is not granted to those outside the ivory towers. For Fish, that freedom should rightly only extend to academics in the course of teaching, researching, and publishing in accordance with the standards of their academic disciplines. Beyond that, academics are merely employees and citizens, with no privileges other than those possessed by other employees and citizens.Given Fish’s thesis, my job as commentator is a difficult one. A commentator is supposed to poke holes in the arguments of his target. He is supposed to criticize, not laud. I, however, agree with Fish, not only with his basic thesis, but also with his supporting arguments. In short, I’m stuck with “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”Nevertheless, there are perhaps a few jots and tittles in Fish’s arguments that I can object to or at least query. I think Fish at times forgets how completely inert the postmodern critique is, a point he otherwise recognizes. And I think Fish, in attempting to hermetically seal off the academy from external justification, has taken his argument farther than it needs to be taken to secure his account of the academy and its freedom. (That’s the “bridge too far” of my title.)