Faustian Bargain Research Articles

Patron Privacy in the "2.0" Era

In today's information ecosystem, libraries are at a crossroads: several of the services traditionally provided within their walls are increasingly made available online, often by non- traditional sources, both commercial and amateur, thereby threatening the historical role of the library in collecting, filtering, and delivering information. For example, search engines provide easy access to millions of pages of information; online databases provide convenient gateways to news, images, videos, as well as scholarship; and large- scale book digitization projects appear poised to make roaming the stacks seem an antiquated notion. Further, the traditional authority and expertise enjoyed by librarians has been challenged by the emergence of automated information filtering and ranking systems, such as Google's algorithms and Amazon's recommendation system, as well as amateur, collaborative, and peer- produced knowledge projects, such as Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, and Delicious. Meanwhile, the professional, educational, and social spheres of our lives are increasingly intermingled through online social networking spaces such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, providing new interfaces for interacting with friends, collaborating with colleagues, and exchanging information. Libraries face a critical question in this new information environment: what roles might libraries play in providing access to information in today's digitally networked world?One strategy to address this has been to actively incorporate the increasingly interactive, collaborative, and user- centered features of the so- called Web world into traditional library services, thereby creating (Casey & Savastinuk, 2006; Courtney, 2007; Maness, 2006). Examples include providing patrons with the ability to evaluate and comment on particular items in a library's collection through discussion forums or comment threads; creating dynamic and personalized recommendation systems (other patrons who checked out this book also borrowed these items); using blogs, wikis, and related user- centered platforms to encourage communication and interaction among/between library staffand patrons; and interfacing various library collections and services with relevant 2.0 platforms, such as Delicious, GoodReads, and Facebook.Launching such Library 2.0 features, however, poses a unique dilemma in the realm of information ethics, particularly in relation to protecting patron privacy. Traditionally, the context of the library brings with it specific norms of information flow that protect patron privacy (American Library Association, 2012b; Foerstel, 1991; Gorman, 2000; Morgan, 2006). Library 2.0 threatens to disrupt these ethical norms, since the 2.0 world introduces competing norms that lean toward the open flow and sharing of personal information. Despite these concerns, many librarians recognize the need to pursue Library 2.0 initiatives as the best way to serve the changing needs of their patrons and to ensure the library's continued role in providing professionally guided access to knowledge. Longitudinal studies of library adoption of 2.0 technologies reveal a marked increase in the use of blogs, sharing plugins, and social media between 2008 and 2010 (Lietzau & Helgren, 2011; Lietzau, 2009). In this short amount of time, Library 2.0 has taken hold in hundreds of libraries, and the question before us is not whether libraries will move towards Library 2.0 services, but how they will do it, and, from an ethical perspective, whether they can maintain their professional norms and their long- standing concerns for patron privacy in the process.The late cultural critic Neil Postman (1990) warned:[A]nyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. …

New Orleans: A Disaster Waiting to Happen?

New Orleans: A Disaster Waiting to Happen?

Would they dope? Revisiting the Goldman dilemma

Background/aimDiscussions of doping often report Goldman's sensational results that half of the elite athletes asked would take a drug that guaranteed sporting success which would also result in their death...

Bank Capital and Financial Stability: An Economic Tradeoff or a Faustian Bargain?

Financial crises impose large and persistent social costs, making banking stability an important regulatory goal. This paper provides a review of the central issues related to the role bank capital plays in financial stability and the prudential regulation issues engendered by this centrality. I begin with a description of the views of three distinct groups on bank capital: bankers, regulators and academics. Because social efficiency and financial stability concerns may call for higher capital levels than those that are privately-optimal for banks, regulatory capital requirements become germane. But it is often argued that such requirements may themselves entail various bank-level and social costs. Recognition of these costs means that, while there is broad agreement that banking stability would be enhanced by higher capital levels in banking, there is substantial disagreement in the theoretical literature over whether capital requirements should be significantly higher. The issue thus needs empirical adjudication. The empirical evidence reveals that, in the cross-section of banks, higher capital ratios are associated with higher lending, higher liquidity creation, higher bank values, and higher probabilities of surviving crises. Moreover, increases in capital requirements are met with modest declines in bank lending. While the issues are complex and the evidence does not conclusively settle the issue, the overarching message from the research and recent experience is that higher leverage in banking leads to higher systemic risk and a higher probability of a large government-funded bailout that may cause government debt to spike up and trigger a sovereign debt crisis with devastating social costs. This means that an important goal of capital regulation reform, as well as tax policy, ought to be to increase capital levels in banking, thereby strengthening a form of “private deposit insurance.” The paper discusses the contemporary thinking on these issues, and concludes with an indication of the most compelling open research questions.

New Mexico’s Faustian Bargain with Science: Balancing Pride, Greed and Fear

New Mexico’s Faustian Bargain with Science: Balancing Pride, Greed and Fear

The Mysterious Disappearance of Morgan Godwyn: Rethinking Press Censorship and the Debates over Slavery in the Early British Empire

In the spring of 1685, Morgan Godwyn, a minister who had served in Virginia and Barbados for more than 15 years, disappeared after publishing a book condemning the slave trade, and in 1687, he died. This paper is an attempt both to explain the mystery surrounding his death by providing a context for it, and to explore the limits of our vision as historians by examining how censorship worked in late seventeenth century England and its empire and how those very restraints limit what we can see and hear as historians. I will argue that Godwyn probably died for criticizing slavery in a world where the name of the King of England, James II, was synonymous with the slave trade. James II was personally responsible, as director of the Royal African Company which had a legal monopoly on the slave trade, for the importation of literally 100,000 souls (that we can count via the slave trade database) from Africa to the new world in the decade of the 1680s alone. That same King believed he was God’s anointed servant, responsible to no-one, ruling by divine right. Godwyn’s public condemnation of the slave trade (at Westminster Abbey, in London in 1685), a sermon he then had published-- essentially accused James II of making a Faustian bargain with the Devil. This paper is a meditation on how power shaped what could be published, rendering many people dumb or mute, at least to our ears, which are attuned to the published past, from whence we tell our histories. Consequently we have failed to see how extensively slavery was debated before 1775, partly because we have not been looking in the right places, but mostly because we have not been reading underneath and behind censorship's veil.

Moral equivalents of greed

The author considers James’ (1910) essay The Moral Equivalent of War and applies some of its ideas to another pressing problem of our times, which for short is called greed, but can be described more precisely as the working out of the possessive market society under the conditions of neoliberalism and great technological power. James considered that pacifists had the best arguments, but failed to persuade mainstream society. The same can be said today of the critics of neoliberalism. There is need for radical change away from an unjust and dysfunctional economic system, but mainstream society is unwilling to try new ideas. The present author adapts James’ idea and considers benign and malign forms of greed. What we all desire, more than huge monetary assets, is self-respect and social respect. There are already many rewards that are not primarily monetary. In a radically different culture, which rejected the principles of unlimited accumulation and almost unlimited convertibility, benign rewards would motivate constructive activity. The moral equivalents of greed briefly discussed here are—Honours and prizes for merit (administered justly); Celebrity (important in society); Luck (gambling, with certain constraints, could be benign); Power (rewarding in itself, so large monetary gain need not go with it); Services (people making important contributions to society could concentrate their commitment); Temporary custody of public treasures (a privilege prized by some). The essay ends by linking James’ idea, the Faustian bargain myth, and the necessity of hope.

Faustian bargains for minorities within group-based hierarchies

A dual-audience signaling problem framework provides a deeper understanding of the perpetuation of group-based inequality. We describe a model of underachievement among minority youth that posits a necessary trade-off between academic success and peer social support that creates a dilemma not typically encountered by nonminorities. Preliminary evidence consistent with the approach is discussed. Such strategic agent perspectives complement the psychological approach put forth by Dixon et al., but with minimal ancillary assumptions.

A Faustian Bargain: US Clients in the ‘New Europe’ and Regime Change Wars

This article investigates the performance of Poland and the Czech Republic in the US-led regime change wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article indicates a significant gap between the Czech and Polish discourses and practices related to the two countries' contributions. In the two crises, discourses revolved around the notion of universal values and support for legal and legitimate peace support operations mandated by the UN. But the practices did not match those discourses and were actually driven by the beliefs that form the Atlanticist ideology. The article analyses the successful internalization of US discourses and threat perception in Poland and the Czech Republic through the use of ‘cascade argumentation’. The practical results of this internalization are then examined.

“A Faustian bargain?” Public voices on forensic DNA technologies and the National DNA Database

This article draws on the idea of the “forensic imaginary” (Williams 2010) to explore UK public perspectives on the place, role and significance of forensic DNA technologies, both independent of and in relation to other genetic applications. Using correspondents’ replies to the Spring 2006 Mass Observation Directive “Genes, Genetics and Cloning,” the analysis focuses on continuities and tensions in their discursive repertoires. The argument examines (1) the ways in which knowledge is made sense of in these accounts; and (2) the discrepancy between an appreciation of the benefits of using DNA identification techniques in police work and a more critical attitude towards a wider national DNA database. The conclusion reflects on the need for a wider scope in research on public understandings of science, which looks beyond targeted consultations and specific publics, and provides more textured data to document collective views on the development and governance of forensic DNA technologies.

Faustian bargains? Restoration realities in the context of biodiversity offset policies

The science and practice of ecological restoration are increasingly being called upon to compensate for the loss of biodiversity values caused by development projects. Biodiversity offsetting—compensating for losses of biodiversity at an impact site by generating ecologically equivalent gains elsewhere—therefore places substantial faith in the ability of restoration to recover lost biodiversity. Furthermore, the increase in offset-led restoration multiplies the consequences of failure to restore, since the promise of effective restoration may increase the chance that damage to biodiversity is permitted. But what evidence exists that restoration science and practice can reliably, or even feasibly, achieve the goal of ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity, and under what circumstances are successes and failures more likely? Using recent reviews of the restoration ecology literature, we examine the effectiveness of restoration as an approach for offsetting biodiversity loss, and conclude that many of the expectations set by current offset policy for ecological restoration remain unsupported by evidence. We introduce a conceptual model that illustrates three factors that limit the technical success of offsets: time lags, uncertainty and measurability of the value being offset. These factors can be managed to some extent through sound offset policy design that incorporates active adaptive management, time discounting, explicit accounting for uncertainty, and biodiversity banking. Nevertheless, the domain within which restoration can deliver ‘no net loss’ offsets remains small. A narrowing of the gap between the expectations set by offset policies and the practice of offsetting is urgently required and we urge the development of stronger links between restoration ecologists and those who make policies that are reliant upon restoration science.

The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich (review)

Reviewed by: The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich Amy Carney The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich. By Sheila Faith Weiss. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Pp. 392. Cloth $45.00. ISBN 978-0226891767. For nearly three decades, historians of science and medicine, as well as of modern Germany, have examined science under National Socialism. One of the most prominent subjects has been biomedical science, particularly genetics and eugenics. With this work, Sheila Faith Weiss once again contributes to the field, this time by examining the “symbiotic” relationship between German scientists and the Nazi state, a relationship which she defines as a “Faustian bargain.” Weiss analyzes how and why this bargain came to be and explores its evolution during the Third Reich. To assess the relationship between science and politics, Weiss chooses four examples to demonstrate the circumstances under which such “bargains” were sealed. The first two cases examine alliances between the regime and two branches of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society: the Institute for Anthropology and the Institute for Psychiatry. These institutes were important centers for investigating human heredity, and Weiss demonstrates how the research carried out by many of their personnel provided scientific legitimacy for the regime’s racial policies. She additionally appraises the morally problematic research that each institute engaged in during World War II, specifically in connection with the euthanasia program as well as the experiments conducted in the extermination and concentration camps. While these two examples focus on the production of biomedical knowledge, the other two cases evaluate its dissemination. The third case explores how scientists legitimized racial science by holding public lectures and participating in national and international conferences. Conversely, whereas the first three cases highlight the contributions by academics, the final example looks at the ways in which secondary-school [End Page 430] biology teachers sought to educate their students about racial science. Although these teachers were not as prominent as the scientists, they were better able to disseminate the racial views promoted by the state and supported by the scientific elite because they routinely interacted with many students. By employing these specific cases to explain how racial science was legitimized and popularized, Weiss tries to achieve a number of objectives. One goal is to present contextualized history, which she achieves in two ways. The first is historical: for each case, she provides background information that enables the reader to understand the continuities in German science from the Weimar Republic through the Nazi period. She argues that the existence of a vibrant scientific community before 1933 was a necessary precursor to the later symbiosis. The second way is geographical: Weiss outlines the connections that existed between German scientists and their counterparts in other countries, especially the United States. All of this strongly suggests that German scientists were well-regarded professionals engaged in legitimate scientific activity—and were not, as is popularly assumed, mere quacks promoting pseudoscience. Weiss wants her study to be a resource for scholars, as well as for an interested lay audience. In her acknowledgements, she explains that her motivation to write the book was the absence of an accessible one on this topic for upper-level undergraduate courses. This well written study helps elucidate the relationship between science and politics in the Third Reich and has enough details to satisfy scholars. At the same time, it provides an insightful narrative that a lay audience will find accessible and that will serve as a useful learning aid for students. Amy Carney Penn State University–Erie Copyright © 2012 German Studies Association

Legal Education & Practice – The Faustian bargain and the devil you know

Nick Johnson of the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice gives an overview of developments in legal education in the UK and assesses the role of the Law Society of England and Wales in supporting an increase in what he sees as an important “cross-pollination” of academic and vocational education. Note published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

Doctor Faustus in the twenty-first century

In the medieval legend, Doctor Faustus strikes a dark deal with the devil; he obtains vast powers for a limited time in exchange for a priceless possession, his eternal soul. The cautionary tale, perhaps more than ever, provides a provocative lens for examining humankind’s condition, notably its indefatigable faith in knowledge and technology and its predilection toward misusing both. A variety of important questions are raised in this meditation including What is the nature of knowledge today and how does it differ from knowledge in prior times? What is its relation to technology and power?What paths are we heading along and which alternative ones are being avoided? Not insignificantly, we also raise the issue of civic ignorance, including that which is intentionally cultivated and that which is simply a lack of knowledge. We also consider the identity of Doctor Faustus in the twenty-first century and in a more material world like ours, what is the soul that he would lose in the bargain, and what damage might be done to Faustus and to innocent bystanders. Finally since people don’t always live up to the terms of agreements they make, what, if anything, could Faustus do to wriggle out of the bargain, to avoid the loss of his all-important soul. Our response is not to disavow knowledge (as the implicit “lesson” of the original myth might suggest) but to shift to another approach to knowledge that is more collective and more responsive to actual needs of our era. This approach which we call civic intelligence is considered as a way to avoid the possible catastrophes that the Faustian bargain we’ve seemingly struck is likely to bring.

Maternal HBsAg status and infant size – a Faustian bargain?

Information on the impact of maternal hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection on pregnancy outcome is conflicting. Some studies reported an association with increased infant birthweight, which could be interpreted as advantageous to pregnancy. A retrospective study was performed to compare birthweight outcome between 6261 and 55,817 singleton pregnancies in mothers screened positive and negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), respectively. The HBsAg positive women were younger, had higher body mass index (BMI) and incidence of overweight, but less gestational weight gain, and were associated with increased macrosomia (birthweight ≥4000 g) in mothers <35 years (odds ratio, OR, 1.28), BMI ≥25 kg/m(2) (OR 1.24), without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM, OR 1.19), and in male infants (OR 1.18). It was also associated with increased large-for-gestational age (LGA, birthweight >90th percentile) infants in nulliparas (OR 1.13), age <35 years (OR 1.12), BMI ≥25 kg/m(2) (OR 1.19), with (OR 1.36) and without (OR 1.09) GDM, and in male infants (OR 1.13). When the effects of high BMI, advanced age, GDM, and male infants were controlled for, positive HBsAg was significantly associated with macrosomic (adjusted odds ratio, aOR, 1.15) and LGA (aOR 1.11) infants. In view of the latest findings on the association between high infant birthweight with increased risk of obesity, diabetes mellitus, and various forms of malignancies from childhood to adulthood, further studies are warranted to determine if maternal hepatitis B infection would impact adversely on the long-term health of the offspring through its effect on increasing birthweight.

Cities, Redistribution, and Authoritarian Regime Survival

How does redistributive policy affect the survival of authoritarian regimes? I argue that redistributive policy in favor of cities, while temporarily reducing urban grievances, in the long-run undermines regime survival by inducing urban concentration. I test the argument using cross-national city population, urban bias, and nondemocratic regime survival data in the post-WWII period. The results show that urban concentration is dangerous for dictators principally by promoting collective action, that urban bias induces urban concentration, and that urban bias represents a Faustian bargain with short-term benefits overwhelmed by long-term costs.

Technological remembering/forgetting: A Faustian bargain?

Ever since computers have been developed, people have dreamt of technological memories. Human memory exhibits crucial limitations with respect to storage capacity, retrievability and transferability - limits that should be overcome by technology. Yet today we are starting to experience the limitations of overcoming these limitations. Pleas are now made to build a certain mode of forgetting into our technologies. As it stands, we are struggling with the tension between technological remembering and forgetting. This article makes an attempt at a deeper philosophical reflection on this tension. First, we sketch a few ideals of technological memory, that have been proposed throughout the last century. Yet lately, different voices have arisen, that point out the dangers and disadvantages of perfect technological remembering. Second, we discuss one of these perspectives and contrast it with the positions in favour of remembering. But this leads us, thirdly, into a discussion on the distinction between technological memory and 'human' memory: these two appear not so easily delineated. How to make sense of, at the same time, the resemblances and the differences between the two? In the ending section, fourthly, we attempt to do so, by way of Marshall McLuhan's theory of technologies as extensions, and Neil Postman's related idea of technology as a 'Faustian bargain'. Technological memory cannot simply imitate human memory, for every technology causes effects we cannot control. But if the 'extending of remembering' makes us eventually regret our greater capabilities and revert to technological forgetting, this 'extending of forgetting' will have its unforeseen consequences as well. In this doubled Faustian bargain, we must ask ourselves towards which of the two sides we have been biased, and how we can reach a balance that combines enforcement with - consciously sought-after - limitations.

Forgotten Partnership at 20-Something

Just days after the terrorist attacks of n September 2001, President George W. Bush gave one of the most important speeches of his presidency before a joint session of congress, reshaping the trajectory of American foreign policy. Seated in the upper deck of the house of representatives was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had flown across the Atlantic just to attend. Bush declared, no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause.Cue the hand-wringing in Canada. Suddenly, the decades of shared history that spawned the amorous cliches of thousands of speeches had been turned on their head. What had become of Canada's with America? Canadians, after aU, had taken in thousands of passengers stranded when American airspace was closed on 9/11. What happened to being each other's best customer? What about aU those trucks that cross the Ambassador Bridge? Don't we share the world's longest undefended border? What about the peaceful coexistence between elephants and mice?Doubts about the strength of the ties that bind Canada and the United States together have multiplied in recent years. Former US Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci's infamous quip that trumps or the cancellation of official visits to Ottawa by Bush in 2003 and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in 2005, reportedly over Canada's decision to stay out of Iraq and ballistic missile defence, respectively, left a chill on bilateral relations.North America, and Canada-US relations more narrowly, have not suffered from inattention in the last decade. However, the policy focus has been heavily dominated by a Faustian bargain between security and economics that has become more entrenched since President Barack Obama assumed office in 2009. Coupled with recent efforts by Obama and Britain's David Cameron to redefine the US-UK relationship as an essential one, many are left wondering whether there was ever anything special about CanadaUS relations. American officials openly praise the contribution and sacrificed being made by Canadians in Afghanistan, one could be forgiven for suspecting that the US talking points might actually read insert NATO ally here.In 1984, Charles Doran argued that Canada-U S relations were at a similar set of crossroads. Structural asymmetries, divergent interests, and both strategic and tactical missteps by Ottawa and Washington risked undermining the postwar comity and cooperation between the two countries. Through the 1970s, Canada and the United States had moved along divergent paths, abandoning many elements of cooperation, institution-building, deference, exceptionalism, and exemptionalism that had until then characterized Canada- U S relations. Such was the uncertain state of bilateral relations in the period that Ronald Reagan's ambitious call for a accord in 1979 seemed wildly out of step. Reagan's ascendancy to the White House dramatically reasserted America's role as leader and underwriter of a liberal global economic system. At the same time, Canada struggled to find its place in the world, trapped between the economic nationalism of initiatives like the national energy program and its dependence on an open global economy for its economic survival. It was a crossroads for the relationship, indeed.Yet only a year after publication of Forgotten Partnership: CanadaUS Relations Today, as Reagan and Prime Minister Mulroney sang When Irish eyes are smiling together in Quebec City, one might have concluded that Doran's assessment of the state of Canada-US relations was overly pessimistic.1 The two leaders had just committed to negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement, two thirds of the continental accord, which seemingly heralded the renewal of partnership. The dramatic reversal of Canada's economic posture in response to Reagan's chaUenge had set the two countries on a course for a dramatic deepening of the relationship through economic ties. …

Urban Concentration, Redistribution, and Authoritarian Resilience

How does redistributive policy affect the survival of authoritarian regimes? I argue that redistributive policy in favor of cities, while a temporary measure reducing urban grievances, in the long-run undermines regime survival by inducing urban concentration. I test the argument using cross-national city population, urban bias, and non-democratic regime survival data in the post-WWII period. The results show that urban concentration is dangerous for dictators principally by promoting collective action, that urban bias induces urban concentration, and that urban bias represents a Faustian bargain with short-term benefits overwhelmed by long-term costs.

A Faustian bargain?

The military has shown a keen interest in neuroscience and its application for warfare. Neuroscientists who accept military funding should be aware of their agenda.