Normative Position Research Articles

Profiling, Neutrality, and Social Equality

ABSTRACT I argue that traditional views on which beliefs are subject only to purely epistemic assessment can reject demographic profiling, even when based on seemingly robust evidence. This is because the moral failures involved in demographic profiling can be located in the decision not to suspend judgment, rather than supposing that beliefs themselves are a locus of moral evaluation. A key moral reason to suspend judgment when faced with adverse demographic evidence is to promote social equality—this explains why positive profiling is dubious, along with more familiar cases of negative profiling, and why profiling is suspect even when no particular action is at stake. My suspension-based view, while compatible with revisionary normative positions, does not presuppose them. Philosophers of all stripes can reject demographic profiling both in thought and deed.

Normative positions towards COVID-19 contact-tracing apps: findings from a large-scale qualitative study in nine European countries

ABSTRACT Mobile applications for digital contact tracing have been developed and introduced around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposed as a tool to support ‘traditional’ forms of contact-tracing carried out to monitor contagion, these apps have triggered an intense debate with respect to their legal and ethical permissibility, social desirability and general feasibility. Based on a large-scale study including qualitative data from 349 interviews conducted in nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, German-speaking Switzerland, the United Kingdom), this paper shows that the binary framing often found in surveys and polls, which contrasts privacy concerns with the usefulness of these interventions for public health, does not capture the depth, breadth, and nuances of people’s positions towards COVID-19 contact-tracing apps. The paper provides a detailed account of how people arrive at certain normative positions by analysing the argumentative patterns, tropes and (moral) repertoires underpinning people’s perspectives on digital contact-tracing. Specifically, we identified a spectrum comprising five normative positions towards the use of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps: opposition, scepticism of feasibility, pondered deliberation, resignation, and support. We describe these stances and analyse the diversity of assumptions and values that underlie the normative orientations of our interviewees. We conclude by arguing that policy attempts to develop and implement these and other digital responses to the pandemic should move beyond the reiteration of binary framings, and instead cater to the variety of values, concerns and expectations that citizens voice in discussions about these types of public health interventions.

Russia and the diffusion of political norms: the perfect rival?

ABSTRACT Russian norm diffusion has been studied mainly as the mirror image of the EU’s, but deserves to be studied in its own right and complexity. Three core categories of political norms are explored: sovereign choice, regime and conservative ideas. It is argued that Russia does not promote a coherent political model, by lack of one, but rather diffuses a disparate set of conservative ideas and non-democratic practices. Russia’s normative positioning is equivocal. It champions established international norms like sovereignty, placing itself within the dominant normative community, but contesting the application by the West. When it comes to certain liberal political norms (often reduced to a strawman version), it questions their validity and rejects them, placing itself outside the dominant normative community, but claiming to defend “genuine” European values. This makes Russia an ambiguous norm contester, rather than the perfect normative rival of the EU. The complexity of its norm contestation follows from exogenous motives: it is predominantly an anti-hegemonic reaction against what it perceives as the Western imposition of norms, harming vital Russian interests.

Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants by Maurice E Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi. USA: Harper Business, 2020, 402 pp ($32.50 paperback). ISBN: 978-0-06-289283-6.

The new book by two prominent competition law thinkers Maurice E. Stucke (Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee) and Ariel Ezrachi (Professor of Law at the University of Oxford) 'Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants' (Harper Business, USA, 2020, pp. 402) has triggered a vivid discussion over the ever-fading question on the goals of competition law, economics and policy and – more broadly – on the very nature of the multifaceted phenomenon of competition. The previous blockbuster of the tandem 'Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy' (2016) has generated vocal and diverse feedback, and the authors continue their market success with publishing another thought-provoking piece. The book provokes not only thoughts. From its very title, subtitle, name of chapters, normative position, methodological argumentation and the choice of preprint reviewers, across the selection of case studies and to its very writing style, the book is designed to generate discussion. And for the right reasons. The times when competition policy was perceived as an axiomatic, mathematised, highly technical and pretty much non-controversial area of Law & Economics have gone. Over the last decade, competition has become a great theme again. Full of ideological appeals and statements, mindful of their political pedigree, competition law, economics and policy are transitioning from the mechanistic field of microeconomic modelling to the real world of geopolitical chessboards.A quick look at the composition of the book, makes clear the authors' intention to transpose their well-established and highly influential academic reasoning from the narrow world of competition theorists to the broader and more diverse audience. The key objective of the book in this respect is to convince such broader societal circles of the need to reform competition policy – or rather to revise our perception of the very essence and the very mission of economic competition as such. The book is in several senses iconoclastic. As skilful diagnosticians, the authors reveal weakness after weakness of the market-centred ethics. The main cures offered by the book – both in terms of the normative propositions as well as the politicised vocabulary and intentionally approachable argumentative apparatus – will be appealing to many. The authors aim to raise (or perhaps to refine) the ethical dimension in the otherwise morally neutral phenomenon of economic competition and its regulation, and this book's objective and mission are remarkable in themselves. It is hard to find a reasonable person disagreeing with the normative premises of the book. It is much easier to find one disagreeing with the enforceability of these intentions. In what follows I’ll try to articulate ten polemical points, written as a reflection on the book. Only a few of these points express disagreement. All are written with deep and sincere respect to both authors – the Masters of the discipline. We agree on most of the things, disagreeing rather on nuances. I believe though that some of those nuances are important.

A House Divided: Norm Fragmentation in the International Human Rights Regime

Abstract Although human rights are widely endorsed in the abstract, significant variation exists in the degree to which different states endorse different rights. To what extent is the international human rights community divided? This research note examines fragmentation in the international human rights regime using an inductive, data-driven approach. We trace states’ normative positions as they are expressed in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN mechanism where states “peer review” one another's human rights practices. We analyze over 56,000 recommendations from the first two cycles of the UPR using data collected from the non-profit organization UPR Info. Employing unsupervised scaling and clustering methods, we find four interstate clusters or factions emerging from this process: Civil Libertarians, Developmentalists, Institutionalists, and Egalitarians. Our results indicate that the international human rights regime reflects less a singular community than a set of communities, each constituted by a distinct configuration of normative positions. They also reveal new insights about specific norms: while women's rights and children's rights are broadly endorsed, norms related to sexuality and migration are more contentious and partisan. While our findings are descriptive, they lay the foundation for new causal questions of interest to scholars of human rights and international norms.

Sustainability Competence in Computer Science Education

Digitalisation creates opportunities and challenges, both socially and environmentally. Are computer science students interested in addressing these opportunities and challenges and is their education providing them the desired competencies? Theoretically, the paper focuses on the concept of competency and presents the eight sustainability competencies formulated in UNESCO’s Education for the Sustainable Development Goals. Two sets of data are analysed to address the research questions: data from a questionnaire focusing on their aspirations for future work and data from a deductive content analysis of the learning outcomes of six bachelor programmes in informatics. Sustainability-related factors scored important/very important in the aspirations for future work. The analysis of the learning outcomes indicates a very weak connection between learning goals and sustainability competencies. An integrative approach is proposed, which may contribute to the development of sustainability competencies that enable the students to take up normative and critical positions in digitalisation and sustainability discourses.

O lugar de Weber na sociologia da reprodução de Pierre Bourdieu e Jean-Claude Passeron

O estudo, de ordem bibliográfica, discute duas questões que se entrecruzam no decorrer do artigo: a primeira, analisamos em que medida a teoria da reprodução de Bourdieu/Passeron, no campo da sociologia da educação, é debitária da herança teórica weberiana; a segunda, partindo da anterior, pretendemos esclarecer os motivos que, em termos teóricos, levaram os autores franceses, de certo otimismo em suas primeiras pesquisas – a tese da pedagogia racional encontrado em Les héritiers: Les étudiants et la culture de 1964 – a uma visão completamente determinista quanto a possíveis mudanças socioculturais via sistema de ensino em La Reproduction. Éléments d’une théorie du système d’enseignement de 1970. Apontamos que na reelaboração dos elementos teóricos de Weber – pela função social do simbolismo de inspiração durkheimiana – houve um entendimento diferente sobre o papel do sistema de ensino na sociedade moderna. O que não abriria mais espaço para uma posição normativa como a que se pretendia anteriormente n’Os Herdeiros.

Juridical Review Of Legal Protection For Domestic Workers (PRT)

The existence of domestic workers or better known as domestic helpers is no stranger to the lives of Indonesian people, both in cities and in villages.The formulation of the problem in this study is: What is the Legal Position of Domestic Workers (PRT) in the Work Law in Indonesia? How are cases of domestic workers (PRT) resolved? What is the need for special arrangements for domestic workers (PRT) in the law.The method used is a normative research method which is a scientific research procedure to find the truth based on legal scientific logic from the normative side Legal Position of Domestic Workers (Prt) in Indonesian Work Law. Domestic workers are definitively recognized for their legal position as workers as referred to in Law Number 13 of 2003 concerning Manpower. According to Article 86 paragraph 1 of Law Number 13 of 2003 concerning manpower, it is stated that: “Every worker/labor has the right to obtain protection for (a) occupational safety and health, (b) morals and decency; and (c) treatment in accordance with human dignity and religious values. The consensus deliberation process is carried out between domestic workers and their employers and/or domestic service providers as the simplest step to resolve disputes. Deliberations were taken for the first time without the involvement of local government officials. However, if necessary, local government officials can serve as witnesses in the deliberations. In making decisions through deliberation to reach consensus, time is limited so that it does not drag on and a sense of justice is fulfilled in an effort to provide legal certainty for the parties The need for special arrangements for home workersDomestic workers (PRT) are an important source of livelihood for women and men in Southeast Asia. Because the work is done within the household and is considered informal work, there are no regulations governing it, and as a result it often goes unnoticed. This is a category of work that is in dire need of legal and social protection, as its workers are vulnerable to harassment and exploitation during recruitment and placement, during work, and upon return to their place of origin. This paper summarizes the main problems faced by domestic workers, as well as the obstacles experienced in obtaining their rights.

No-Right and its Correlative

Abstract: This article aims to dispel the confusion over no-right by drawing attention to three straightforward points, and by examining a neglected source of complexity. The former embrace the practical significance of a no-right within Hohfeld’s scheme; the important difference between the practical significance of a normative position and the theoretical status of the concept representing it; and, the relationship between logical duals and contradictories when applied to normative positions. The complexity is associated with liberty as the correlative of no-right, and involves recognizing a connection with the operators of deontic logic. The conventional interdefinability of permission and obligation is challenged; “liberty” is regarded as an inadequate label for the normative position signifying the absence of duty, and, as a distinctive position, is not a true correlative of any other position. Implications are noted for the theoretical problem faced by deontic logic when confronting normative relations between individuals, and for the solution of practical problems within a (legal or moral) normative system.

“The working language is Norwegian. Not that this means anything, it seems”: when expectations meet the new multilingual reality

ABSTRACT Linguistic and cultural diversity in Northern Norwegian working life has increased dramatically in the twenty-first century. Based on a series of telephone interviews with company representatives, this article presents an overview of the new multilingual reality in many workplaces and analyzes how managers and administrators position their expectations and experiences of it. Participants’ responses suggest that many workplaces are linguistically segregated. Though most participants said their companies did not have explicit workplace language policies, they expressed clear perceptions of how things should be in their workplaces, and these were often in conflict with their descriptions of the status quo. We also show how multiple contextual conditions in and out of workplaces, both ideological and practical, informed participants’ accounts of multilingual practices in their workplaces. Static and normative ideological positions are challenged by employees’ language choices, practices, and developments on a societal level, particularly those of the labour market, which regulates companies’ access to workers. Our study reveals the need for applicable knowledge about multilingual practices and sociolinguistic relations in workplaces.

Responses of the EU and Member States to the Tunisian Revolution: Discourse vs Action

ABSTRACT Despite the normative positioning of individual EU member states´ domestic interests and the EU´s prioritizing of security and business interests over its values, there is sometimes an overlap making the EU´s relations with the southern neighbourhood complicated. Consequently, it is important to understand how EU leaders assess their interests and what they have done in Tunisia as well as taking note of consistent cooperation and conflict with member states. The aim is to see if the rhetoric is in conformity with the actions or if normative speeches are used for justifying interests. Findings based on interviews with experts as well as content analysis of official documents and media coverage show that there is no policy area where speeches are based on values while actions are based on interests. Secondly, it is confirmed that an increase in interest-based policies at the member state level is associated with a decrease in value-based policies at the EU level, especially in the area of migration.

Rethinking Emancipation in a Critical IR: Normativity, Cosmology, and Pluriversal Dialogue

This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relations (IR) by developing ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ versions of normativity and applying them as conditions for a pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. We start with the premise that ‘critical IR’ is both Eurocentric and a-normative, and argue that a normative engagement with critical discourses both inside and outside the West is necessary to recapture its emancipatory promise. Drawing on the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Derrida, we develop ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ versions of normativity. The former, we argue, operates as a critical corrective of thick normative positions, reclaiming their openness to difference, while not making substantive moral or political claims itself. We then apply these version of normativity to examine the possibility of a global pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. Cosmologies, we argue, refer to sets of ontological and epistemological claims about the human condition that are inherently normative. ‘Thin’ normativity applied to the ‘thick’ claims of cosmologies prevents the essentialisation and hierarchisation of cosmological difference(s) by revealing and de-constructing the latter’s potentially discriminatory, exclusionary, and violent tendencies. In so doing, it facilitates a global inter-cosmological dialogue which we regard as the objective of a post-western, critical IR.

Co-production of knowledge in transdisciplinary communities of practice: Experiences from food governance in South Africa

Abstract Communities of Practice are sites of social learning for the co-production of knowledge. Building on recent literature on Transdisciplinary Communities of Practice, this article reflects on the experiences of an emergent ‘Food Governance Community of Practice’ in South Africa that brings together multiple stakeholders to co-produce knowledge to inform local food policy and governance. Our results show the following lessons for managers and participants engaged in establishing similar ‘third spaces’ for knowledge co-production: 1) make inevitable power asymmetries explicit; 2) the identity of the group should not be built on a particular normative position but emerge from discursive processes and 3) create a balance between supporting peripheral learning and maintaining the specialist cutting edge discussions needed for co-production. Furthermore, the most beneficial legacy of a Community of Practice may not be the outputs in terms of the co-produced knowledge but the development of a cohesive group of stakeholders with a new shared way of knowing.

On the Legitimacy of Cross-Border Pharmacy

Cross-border pharmacy sales of prescription drugs to U.S. patients by Canadian Internet pharmacies have generated significant controversy in the U.S. and Canada. Violative of U.S. legislation and Canadian professional codes of conduct, cross-border pharmacy has nonetheless flourished in response to strong demand and incomplete enforcement. Proponents laud the greater affordability of needed drugs provided by cross-border pharmacy; opponents decry the practice as unsafe, economically ill-advised and harmful to Canadian interests in the long term. This article evaluates the safety arguments that have been put forward by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and others and concludes that they do not justify a prohibition on prescription drug imports from Canada. Similarly. Canadian professional regulatory bodies' objections to the participation of Canadian pharmacists and physicians in cross-border dispensing are a misapplication of conduct rules developed in another context. Objections to cross-border drug sates based on an economic analysis assume normative positions that should be explicitly identified and socially determined. On the other hand, if patient safety, professional responsibility and economic arguments fail to provide adequate support for a policy of prohibition, then self-interest in protecting domestic drug supplies and prices may support, at least from a Canadian perspective, some constraints on cross-border pharmacy.

The Logic of Sentiment: Stowe, Hawthorne, and Melville

The Logic of Sentiment: Stowe, Hawthorne, and Melville

Crafting a Heteronormative Haven: Representations of Sexuality on the Canadian Margin

There is a shortage of scholarship that addresses how sexuality functions in representations of Atlantic Canada. Using contemporary literary, historical, and cultural scholarship alongside theories of metronormativity and rural space, this article offers an exploration of the intertwined histories of heterosexuality and commodified Atlantic Canadian identity. Examining the development of the tourist industry in the region, alongside the growing popularity of cultural products that uphold narratives of regional simplicity, this article thinks through how this homogenized narrative negates the reality of queer and non-conforming desire, experiences, and activism throughout the region’s history and present. Reference to Ashley MacIsaac and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Anne with an E are used to make this point. Through a focus on the “myths of Maritimeness” at work in a cultural infrastructure that positions Atlantic Canada as a space of rural simplicity, questions are raised not only about how a normative positioning of the margin impacts conceptualizations of life within the region but also about how this representation upholds a particular understanding of life in the Canadian centre.

Catholic Social Thought And New Institutional Economics: A Preliminary Assessment of Their Affinities and Areas of Potential Convergence

The paper explores the potential link between Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and the theoretical developments associated with New Institutional Economics (NIE). The emphasis is put in particular on the contributions of two Nobel Prize winners in economics, Douglass C. North and Elinor Ostrom, and on the work of political scientist Vincent Ostrom. By adjusting the neoclassical presumptions dominating modern economic theory to include culture, ideas, and religious beliefs in the analysis of economic behavior, the economic and social theorizing developed by these scholars advances a framework that has significant affinities with CST’s foundational critique of economic concepts and theories and with its normative position regarding the nature and functioning of social and economic systems.

Reviewing Directors’ Business Judgements: Views from the Field

AbstractDirectors take decisions that can have significant impacts on others, as illustrated by the global financial crisis and the collapse of Thomas Cook Group plc. Yet many academics argue that courts should not review or impose liability on directors for poor business judgements. These arguments often rely on untested empirical assumptions about directors’ behaviour and attitudes. Through semi‐structured interviews and focus groups, we explored the responses of directors, legal practitioners, company secretaries, and board headhunters to the prospect of judicial review of directors’ business judgements. Our findings challenge orthodox thinking: many directors supported some form of review and the impact of review may not be as great as the literature predicts, nor necessarily detrimental. The debate about whether courts should review directors’ business judgements should therefore move away from reliance on negative empirical assumptions about the impact of review, to clearly articulating, and engaging with, normative positions that underpin opposition to, and support for, review.

Rethinking 'need' for clinical support in transgender and gender non-conforming children without clinical classification: Learning from 'the paper I almost wrote'.

There have been ongoing debates as to how, or even whether, we should clinically classify gender diversity in children through clinical classification manuals. So-called 'depathologizing' is argued as being vital to address the stigma that these children are somehow disordered or sick. Yet one argument in favour of continued clinical classification for transgender and gender non-conforming children is that it better facilitates access to specialist psychological support. I argue that whilst continued clinical classification offers a seemingly pragmatic solution to ensuring access, it does in fact obscure our understanding of the individual needs of these children. In this paper I address fundamental issues that aim to better our understanding of need and thus why a child may benefit from specialist support. I do so by critiquing a paper I nearly wrote, which argued for the ongoing continued classification of gender incongruence in children. Ultimately, I argue that specialist psychological support and care should be driven by the needs of the individual child, as determined by the child and those involved with their care. By bettering our understanding as to why specialist psychological support may be beneficial for some, we move past the focus of such specialist support being provided because of the child's gender diversity. Methodologically the paper may be unusual, in comparison to traditional normative counter-argumentative bioethical position papers, but by presenting an argument for depathologization of gender diversity of children in this way there is also an alternative insight into the methods of bioethics.

A review of the World Health Organization’s discourses of equity

Abstract Given the heightened rhetorical prominence the World Health Organization has afforded to equity in the past half-century, it is important to better understand how equity has been referred to and its conceptual underpinning, which may have broader global implications. Therefore, this study conducted a scoping review and focused on peer-reviewed literature by scanning Ovid MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases, and supplementing by hand-search. Articles were included if they met inclusion criteria - chiefly the explicit discussion of the WHO's concept of health equity, for example in terms of conceptualization and/or definitions. Articles which mentioned health equity in the context of WHO's programs, policies, and so on, but did not discuss its conceptualization or definition were excluded. Results demonstrate the WHO has held - and continues to hold - ambiguous, inadequate, and contradictory views of equity that are rooted in different theories of social justice. Moving forward, the WHO should revaluate its conceptualization of equity and normative position, and align its work with Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach, as it best encapsulates the broader views of the organization. Further empirical research is needed to assess the WHO interpretations and approaches to equity. Key messages The WHO has held — and continues to hold — ambiguous, inadequate, and contradictory views of equity that are rooted in different theories of social justice. The WHO should revaluate its conceptualization of equity and normative position, and align its work with Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach.