Justice Reasoning Research Articles

Pluralizing climate change adaptation: mapping discourses in Vietnam

ABSTRACT The experiences and perspectives of all those affected by climate change must inform adaptation for reasons of effectiveness, legitimacy, and justice. Recognizing how different stakeholders characterize vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation is a critical step towards more inclusive adaptation governance. To better capture this plurality, some argue for discursive approaches to adaptation research, yet there has been limited empirical work to identify adaptation discourses in climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South. This study explores the diversity of adaptation discourses in Vietnam, a country heavily affected by climate change. The analysis is based on interviews with stakeholders involved in adaptation including government officials, international organizations, civil society, and farmers. Discourses are differentiated according to three elements: their diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings. Using this analytical framework, six discourses of adaptation are identified: mobilize the money; order and control; coordinate and integrate; made in Vietnam; prioritize the people; and survive and thrive. Four key insights for adaptation research, policy and practice are discussed. This framework could be applied in any context to compare and analyze adaptation discourses and foster more inclusive and deliberative approaches to adaptation.

Retail Karma: How Our Shopping Sins Influence Evaluation of Service Failures

Abstract Consumers have an intuitive belief in “karma” which dictates that bad (good) actions lead to bad (good) outcomes. Consequently, consumers perceive a causal connection between their own wrongdoing toward a company and a subsequent service failure that they experience in their interactions with another company. Eight experiments employing different contexts consistently show that consumers who have previously wronged a company (compared to those in a control group) evaluate another unrelated company more positively in response to a service failure by this company. We argue that this more positive evaluation is due to the greater blame consumers assign to themselves as dictated by the “karmic beliefs” held by consumers whereby the subsequent poor service by a different firm is seen as a karmic payback for their own prior transgression. The proposed effect is mitigated when a person’s karmic belief is reduced. We also examine a number of alternative explanations (e.g., negative experiences, moral balancing, and immanent justice reasoning) and find that our observed effect is more consistent with a karma-based account.

Lying as a moral choice: an examination of moral reasons for lying in dementia relationships

A total of 60 young adults responded to vignettes presenting moral dilemmas experienced in caregiving interactions with a family member with dementia. Four types of reasons for deceiving (or not deceiving) a family member with dementia emerged: care reasons (improving the welfare of the person with dementia), justice reasons (universal principles), care-for-others reasons (protecting the welfare of others), and relationship reasons (maintaining the relationship). Care reasons and care-for-others reasons positively predicted moral decisions to lie, whereas justice reasons and relationship reasons negatively predicted these decisions. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the motives underlying deception in dementia relationships.

Efficiency or equality? The utilitarianism-egalitarianism trade-off determines carbon allocation preference.

International carbon allocation confronts the conflict between efficiency and equality. Previous research based on the intergroup bias perspective has attributed carbon allocation preference to the defence of ingroup interests (i.e., national interests) while overlooking the critical role of trade-offs between competing moral values. Integrating the contingency theory of justice and moral philosophical theories of utilitarianism and egalitarianism, we proposed that the moral-values trade-off between utilitarianism and egalitarianism determines carbon allocation preference through justice reasoning. Analysis of large-scale survey datasets (Study 1) revealed that aggregated national endorsement of utilitarianism over egalitarianism predicted greater efficiency preference in total and per capita carbon emission levels. Study 2 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating endorsement of utilitarianism versus egalitarianism boosted efficiency (vs. equality) preference in carbon allocation, and justice reasoning characterized by enhanced efficiency-focused justice and diminished equality-focused justice accounted for these effects. Using a 'manipulation-of-mediator' design, Study 3 further confirmed the causal link in the mediation model. By highlighting the significance of moral trade-offs in shaping carbon allocation preference, this research not only provides a novel moral perspective in understanding debates on international carbon allocation but also has important implications for fostering international carbon abatement cooperation.

Justificatory explanations: a step beyond explainability in machine learning

Abstract AI systems may have many potential negative effects, so understanding how they generate results is important. AI explainability is a crucial but highly technical field that might be inaccessible to many experts in (public) health. We present a non-technical approach to the issue and is focused on the conceptual foundations for decisions made by developers and stakeholders during the system's lifecycle. To illustrate, imagine an app that tracks snoring to offer health recommendations. A classical explainability approach would be to evaluate the quality of the training dataset and the model itself. We argue that if we want to understand the system, we also need to look at the notion of “health” as it is its basic conceptual underpinning. We believe that these conceptual foundations as well as rich descriptions of goals and purposes that are pursued can be integrated into what we call ‘justificatory explanations'. These would illustrate how key concepts influence design and development decisions offering thus valuable insights into the workings and outcomes of the explained system. ‘Justificatory explanations’ are declarative statements written in plain language that provide a high-level account of the team's understanding of the relevant key concepts related to the project's main domain and how these understandings drive decision-making during the lifecycle stages. We propose that ‘justificatory explanations’ should be incorporated into the technical documentation that usually accompanies the release or deployment of a system. In short, ‘justificatory explanations’ complement other efforts around explainability by highlighting the reasons the person or persons designing, developing, selling and deploying the system consider to have plausible justificatory power for the decisions that were made during the project. This increased conceptual awareness may be beneficial to all, even to those without a background in mathematics, and data and computer science. Key messages • Explainability in AI should go beyond the data and the model to integrate design decisions. • Justificatory reasons about the system should be provided in plain language.

The Voting Rights of Senior Citizens: Should all Votes Count the Same?

AbstractIn 1970, Stewart advocated disenfranchising everyone reaching retirement age or age 70, whichever was earlier. The question of whether senior citizens should be disenfranchised has recently come to the fore due to votes on issues such as Brexit and climate change. Indeed, there is a growing literature which argues that we should increase the voting power of non-senior citizens relative to senior citizens, for reasons having to do with intergenerational justice. Thus, it seems that there are reasons of justice to disenfranchise senior citizens, or at least to grant them a lower voting weight than non-senior citizens. In this paper, we investigate whether there are democratic reasons to do so. To answer this question, we turn to the boundary problem in democratic theory, i.e., the question of who should be included in democratic decision-making. Two prominent solutions, and a more recent one, are particularly relevant: the all-affected principle, the all-subjected principle, and the relational egalitarian principle. When it comes to the all-affected principle and the all-subjected principle, we argue that there is reason to grant most senior citizens a lower voting weight than most non-senior citizens in most decisions. Whether that is the case on the relational egalitarian principle depends on how people relate to each other in society. Indeed, it is sometimes in accordance with the relational egalitarian view to grant senior citizens a greater voting weight than non-senior citizens.

‘If you wanna have an easy life in secure, you have to bite your tongue’: Children’s narratives of power, voice and resistance in the children & young people secure estate

Locking up and detaining children and young people is and should be a human rights issue per se (Aymer et al., 1991). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that ‘no child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully…the restriction of liberty shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time’ (United Nations General Assembly, 1989). It follows on to state that legal safeguards should be put in place to protect children’s human rights in settings where their rights and liberties are restricted. Despite this there is overwhelming evidence that in the Children and Young People Secure Estate (CYPSE) in the United Kingdom, children’s rights are inconsistently and excessively restricted, suggesting insufficient protection of their human rights (Goldson, 2006). Although the CYPSE is a highly restrictive setting in which children and young people are deprived of their rights and liberties for welfare or criminal justice reasons, there has been very little focus on power, voice, participation and human rights within these settings. In this article the authors outline the narratives of nine children and young people detained in the CYPSE through semi structured narrative interviews. Analysis of the interviews produced themes around experiences of powerlessness, control and restriction, voice & participation and resistance. This paper presents a detailed focus on the narratives around voice and resistance. The authors offer critical insights into how the lived experiences of children and young people in these settings strengthens the need for practice and policy to be informed by children’s rights, power and participation. Implications for how clinical psychology is enacted in these settings is also explored and interrogated, with a deconstruction of the role of a Clinical Psychologist.

Revising the Puzzle of Negligence: Transforming the Citizen towards Civic Maturity

Abstract Corrective justice theorists tell us that to resort to features or characteristics alien to the internal structure of corrective justice and the law of negligence undermines the intelligibility of the phenomena, i.e., the interaction between the plaintiff and the defendant. Like friendship or love which can only be understood by reasons of love or friendship itself, the doctrinal aspects of negligence law can only be correctly understood and become intelligible within the normativity, internal logic and reasons of corrective justice, i.e., equality between persons, autonomy. Furthermore, law and juridical thinking are a matter of rights and duties. By contrast, ethical deliberation and practical reason are a matter of virtuous action, values and what is good. The first underlying presupposition will be called the “internal logic” thesis. The latter will be called the “the separation of rights and values” thesis. I aim to debunk both theses and argue, first, that we need to grasp the values embedded in the law in our “doing” and in our engagement with the law. This does not mean that these values are external and therefore that we make the internal logic of negligence law unintelligible. I will show that from the forward-looking perspective of the citizen there is no stark separation of rights and values. When engaging in decisions judges attribute liability grounded on the plaintiff’s rights and defendant’s duties, they take the backward-looking standpoint. However, in negligence law, judges advance values that play the role of proleptic thoughts, i.e., descriptions and re-descriptions of values, in the practical reasoning of the citizens. We can understand both functions or roles because we can understand that there is no stark separation of rights/duties and values. Finally, the paper considers whether my position sheds light on the role of moral luck in negligence law.

Social justice reasoning when students learn about social issues using multiple texts

ABSTRACT In this paper, I apply the Multiple Documents Text-Based Relevance Assessment and Content Extraction (MD-TRACE) model, to describe the types of cognitive processes that students engage to critically reason about social issues, as they are portrayed through mass media. In addition to examining such processes, I further consider the extent to which these are reflective of social justice reasoning, or students’ critical reasoning about social issues in ways that recognize and analyze inequities in society. Three studies are introduced to provide empirical examples of how cognitive processes, identified in the MD-TRACE, may function within the context of students’ reasoning about mass media. The processes examined include selection (Study 1), processing (Study 2), and integration (Study 3). Study 1 examines the types of perspectives that students propose seeking out in association with various social issues and the extent to which these perspectives may belong to marginalized groups (i.e., selection). Study 2 examines students’ critical reasoning about or abilities to critique two deliberately constructed texts during processing. Study 3 investigates students’ specific abilities to identify and critique narrative frames, or common reporting tropes, introduced across texts (i.e., integration). Together, these three studies serve as exemplars of students’ engagement in reasoning about mass media and social justice reasoning. They suggest that social justice reasoning involves, in part, students’ engagement in perspective taking, their application of prior knowledge to contextualize information in texts, and their recognition of common narrative frames across texts and the values that these uphold. Additional social justice reasoning strategies are suggested and directions for future research proposed.

Developing Multispecies Education with Children and Animals

In order to be able to deal with the challenges of the Anthropocene, and for reasons of justice, humans have to learn to live differently with other animals. Multispecies education, in which animals of different species learn from and with one another, is an important part of this project. The voices of animals and children should be at the front of developing new practices and institutions, for epistemological and democratic reasons. This essay sketches how we can develop new practices of multispecies education, and reflects on the questions at stake with a group of children.

The importance of contingently public goods

The importance of contingently public goods

Leading with Local Knowledge: Climate Adaptation, Local Knowledge, and Participation in Austin, Texas’ Network of Plans and the Co-Designed Climate Navigators’ Tool and Process

Planning theory scholars and practitioners have identified the need to include residents most affected by climate change in the development of climate adaptation planning, for reasons of justice and effectiveness. This article investigates whether Austin, Texas’ network of plans includes participation by residents and incorporation of local knowledge into climate adaptation. This research finds that these plans contain limited material about participation, engagement, equity, and local knowledge. In response to this gap, the article presents a case study of the Dove Springs Climate Navigators, a residents-nongovernmental organization-municipal-university collaboration working to co-create an online portal, training system, and process to incorporate local knowledge into adaptation planning.

Heterogeneous Nonuse Values for Arches and Zion National Parks

Executive Summary This paper identifies several kinds of heterogeneity in nonuse values using a contingent choice experiment about two national parks in Utah. Such heterogeneity has potentially important implications for national park management. When management resources are scarce, it matters that nonuse values differ across park resources or attributes. Resources that generate more nonuse values deserve more protection, including the impacts of visitor activities. Heterogeneity by location implies that management decisions appropriate for one park can’t be adopted in other parks without careful consideration. Heterogeneity of nonuse values matters for management if there are political, equity, or justice reasons to pay more attention to particular groups in society. Heterogeneity by type of nonuse value matters for management, too: existence values have different implications than bequest values since the latter still are generated by (future) visitation. The contingent choice experiment used in this paper asks respondents to compare different potential future scenarios for management of either Zion or Arches National Park. Each scenario is made up of potential changes to seven attributes: wilderness protection, educational outreach, animal conservation, plant conservation, visitation levels, cultural/historical protection, and an annual tax payment. Respondents’ rankings are used to estimate a variety of mixed logit models. In addition, respondents are asked to report what percentage of the total value they receive from each attribute is due to use values, option values, bequest values, and existence values. While some previous researchers used similar questions to decompose nonuse values, this paper uses the decomposition questions differently. First, they are asked separately about each attribute in the experimental design of a contingent choice survey, as opposed to being asked once about total value or total nonuse value. Second, they are used as part of a mixed logit estimation of the relative part-worths of each attribute, rather than being used to decompose the final valuation estimates. Results indicate substantial heterogeneity by park attribute, location, individual, and type of nonuse value. These differences across attributes are largely independent of demographic and socioeconomic variables, though. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the empirical findings for park management.

Are we justified attributing a mistake in diagnosis to an AI diagnostic system?

Responsible professional use of AI implies the readiness to respond to and address—in ethically appropriate manner—harm that may be associated with such use. This presupposes the ownership of mistakes. In this paper, I ask if a mistake in AI-enhanced decision making—such as AI-aided medical diagnosis—can be attributed to the AI system itself, and answer this question negatively. I will explore two options. If AI systems are merely tools, then we are never justified to attribute mistakes to them, because their failing does not meet rational constraints on being mistaken. If, for the sake of the argument, we assume that AI systems are not (mere) tools, then we are faced with certain challenges. The first is the burden to explain what this more-than-a-tool role of an AI system is, and to establish justificatory reasons for the AI system to be considered as such. The second is to prove that medical diagnosis can be reduced to the calculations by AI system without any significant loss to the purpose and quality of the diagnosis as a procedure. I will conclude that the problem of the ownership of mistakes in hybrid decision making necessitates new forms of epistemic responsibilities.

The rise of reparative citizenship

ABSTRACT Over the past twenty-five years, a growing number of European countries have enacted laws granting citizenship to individuals and their descendants unjustly excluded in the past. These ‘reparative citizenship’ initiatives employ citizenship as a remedy and apology for historical exclusion. This essay argues that such initiatives have the potential to shift conceptions of citizenship. Instead of a privilege to be conferred at the sole discretion of the sovereign state, citizenship may become a status owed for reasons of corrective and distributive justice. Yet it is telling that reparative citizenship has thus far been granted sparingly, acknowledging the wrongful exclusions only of some groups and not others. Also significant is the near total absence of reparative citizenship initiatives in the United States. These limits suggest that despite its transformative potential, thus far reparative citizenship remains the exception that proves the rule.

A More Liberal Public Reason Liberalism

Abstract In recent years, leading public reason liberals have argued that publicly justifying coercive laws and policies requires that citizens offer both adequate secular justificatory reasons and adequate secular motivating reasons for these laws and policies. In this paper, I provide a critical assessment of these two requirements and argue for two main claims concerning such requirements. First, only some qualified versions of the requirement that citizens offer adequate secular justificatory reasons for coercive laws and policies may be justifiably regarded as plausible liberal principles of public justification. And second, the requirement that citizens offer adequate secular motivating reasons for coercive laws and policies is untenable on multiple grounds. Public reason liberals should focus on assessing the justificatory reasons offered for and against coercive laws and policies rather than requiring citizens to offer adequate secular motivating reasons for such laws and policies.

On Love, Dying Alone, and Community

This paper examines the problem of dying alone in the context of no-visitors hospital policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. It critically analyses a rights-based solution, offering a democratized visitors policy alternative, premised on the value of legal justice. While an inclusive, participatory, and thoroughly justified visitors' policy, which takes into account the good of all stakeholders in the process, is indeed the right alternative to the paternalistic, top-down no-visitors policy, I argue that the democratized visitors' policy alternative ought to be grounded on reasons of both justice and love. Legal justice and claimable individual rights, though important, are limited and cannot fully capture the vicissitudes of mutual vulnerabilities and the moral stringency of duties of mutual care. In the context of suffering and death, instances of extreme vulnerability and interdependence, individual rights of autonomy and self-determination prove insufficient to meet our most basic needs for love, human presence, and accompaniment.

The role of karmic beliefs in immanent justice reasoning.

The role of karmic beliefs in immanent justice reasoning.

Losing the lottery of life: Examining intuitions of desert toward the socially and genetically "unlucky" in criminal punishment contexts.

This research presents three experiments that examine how natural "luck" (social and genetic luck) may affect lay intuitions toward desert-based criminal punishment. Study 1 examined if intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards in relation to good qualities/advantages ascribed to natural luck would extend to desert-based punishments in relation to bad qualities/disadvantages ascribed to natural luck. Study 2 examined how both social and genetic luck affect support for desert-based punishment across different criminal offenses and tests the relevance of immanent justice reasoning to such support. Study 3 examined whether findings in the prior studies are specific to desert-based punishment and immanent justice reasoning, or if natural luck elicits broader punishment judgments and types of justice reasoning. Results showed that known intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards do extend to desert-based punishments in instances of natural luck. Immanent justice reasoning was strongly associated with support for desert-based punishment in instances of both social and genetic luck. However, genetic luck, as compared to social luck, significantly increased support for desert-based punishment, with imminent justice reasoning mediating this increased support. Implications are discussed in relation to capital sentencing and better understanding lay intuitions toward the punishment of criminal offenders who may have qualities ascribed to the "natural lottery."

Reduction in incidents during COVID-19 in a Secure Children’s Home: an opportunity for learning

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented for young people within the UK. The pandemic has presented particular challenges for vulnerable children and young people. For example, a recent study in the UK indicated that 83% of young people with existing mental health conditions said the pandemic had made their condition worse (Young Minds, 2020). To date, the impact upon populations such as young people in Secure Children’s Homes (SCHs) is unknown. This study aims to elucidate this area.Design/methodology/approachSCHs provide a safe, supportive environment for vulnerable young people who frequently present with multiple and complex needs. Young people residing within a SCH may be residing at the setting because of a Secure Accommodation Order under a Section 25 Order of the Children’s Act (1989) or for criminal justice reasons, i.e. serving a Remand period or custodial sentence. Preliminary research compared a baseline period to a follow-up period after the commencement of COVID-19 national lockdown measures within a SCH in the North of England to develop understanding of the impact for young people.FindingsA significant decrease in overall incidents (t (5) = −6.88, p < 0.001), restraints (t (5) = −9.07, p < 0.001) and other incidents including assaults occurred during follow-up. The SECURE STAIRS framework supports trauma-informed care and enhances support within the setting. Consistent with the framework, provision of formulation meetings was significantly increased within the follow-up period (Welsh’s t (74) = −2.74, p < 0.001). Reflections and future recommendations are outlined.Originality/valueThe unanticipated results highlight the value of examining incident data within secure environments and could lead to effective practice changes for practitioners working within this domain. This research also demonstrates how frameworks such as SECURE STAIRS can be beneficial for vulnerable young people during periods of change and stress in mitigating some of the potential negative effects. The implementation of such frameworks within SCHs is still novel and thus evaluative research is valuable.