Substantive Questions Research Articles

International Law and Global Justice: On Recent Inquiries into the Dark Side of Economic Globalization

Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet. What is a Fair International Society? Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2013. Pp. 252. £30.00. ISBN: 9781849464307 Chios Carmody, Frank J. Garcia and John Linarelli (eds). Global Justice and International Economic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 320. $35.99. ISBN: 9781107438514 Iris Marion Young. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 224. $36.95. ISBN: 9780195392388 Thomas Pogge. Politics as Usual. What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric. Polity Press, 2010. Pp. 224. �22.80. ISBN: 9780745638935 Global economic justice as a topic of moral philosophy and international law is back on the intellectual agenda and figures prominently in feuilletons, blogs and academic publications. A wave of recent studies by both international lawyers and moral philosophers on the dark side of economic globalization and the role of international law in this context is as such a remarkable phenomenon. The essay engages with diverging scholarly perspectives on global justice and international law as represented in the four volumes under review. Three substantive questions structure the non-comprehensive sketch of the global justice debate: (i) Is the current international economic order unjust? (ii) Can existing international legal rules and institutions be transformed or developed into a more just economic order? (iii) What is the potential role of international lawyers in this context?

Partnership formation and dissolution over the life course: applying sequence analysis and event history analysis in the study of recurrent events

We present two types of approach to the analysis of recurrent events for discretely measured data, and show how these methods can complement each other when analysing co-residential partnership histories. Sequence analysis is a descriptive tool that gives an overall picture of the data and helps to find typical and atypical patterns in histories. Event history analysis is used to make conclusions about the effects of covariates on the timing and duration of the partnerships. As a substantive question, we studied how family background and childhood socio-emotional characteristics were related to later partnership formation and stability in a Finnish cohort born in 1959. We found that high self-control of emotions at age 8 was related to a lower risk of partnership dissolution and for women a lower probability of repartnering. Child-centred parenting practices during childhood were related to a lower risk of dissolution for women. Socially active boys were faster at forming partnerships as men.

Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North by Kristján Ahronson (review)

Reviewed by: Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North by Kristján Ahronson Jonathan Wooding Ahronson, Kristján, Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North (Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series), Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015; cloth; pp. xvi, 245; 79 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$80.00; ISBN 9781442646179. This is an extremely impressive monograph, which deals with a number of methodological and substantive questions. At its core is the diachronic problem of the settlement of the Atlantic islands in the first millennium ce; in particular, the problem of determining the extent of Irish contact with Iceland prior to the Norse settlement (landnám) in around 870 ce. This problem is approached by way of Kristján Ahronson’s own field studies of cave-sites and stone sculpture, which have turned up new data of the first importance. At all points, however, the attempt is made to reflect upon both the wider environmental context – an approach which Ahronson shares with much recent work on medieval settlement in the North Atlantic – and the wider intellectual framework in which these data are received. This latter critique, which Ahronson develops in an original way, ranges between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, reflecting on the development of the modern disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, and history out of premodern antiquarian thought. This may seem a rather eclectic admixture, but it is generally successful in creating the space for a critical reflection on data, sourced from a number of disciplines, which have often been subject to fairly narrow interpretation. Chapter 1 uses the early work of Sir Daniel Wilson and Eugène Beauvois as starting points for reflection upon the intellectual roots of investigation of early settlement in North America and the North Atlantic. Two chapters (Chapters 2 and 6) reflect on epistemologies of interdisciplinary researches and environmental studies respectively. Other chapters develop Ahronson’s previous studies of place-names with the Old Norse pap- element (Chapter 3) and cross-forms common to the Hebrides and Iceland (Chapter 7). The most important and original content in this volume is contained in Chapters 4 and 5. Here, Ahronson sets out in detail his strategy and results from a campaign at Kverkarhellir and Seljalandshellir, two man-made caves near the very southern tip of Iceland, which overlook the suggestively named Vestmanneyjar (‘islands of the Irishmen’). The work at Kverkarhellir develops earlier approaches of Holt and Gudmundsson to the cave-site Kolholtshellir, where they attempted to relate [End Page 251] spoil from the construction of the cave to the widespread volcanic ash (tephra) deposit of 871 ce. This tephra horizon, made up of ash from the eruption of Vatnaöldur, is generally known, on account of its coincidence with the first Norse settlement, as the ‘landnám tephra’. At Kverkarhellir, Ahronson is successful in setting out a relative chronology of spoil and tephra-layering that indicates the cave was constructed prior to the Norse landnám. The implications of this are considerable. The evidence from contemporary literary sources does no more than suggest that the Irish visited Iceland in the late 700s. Icelandic sources, dating from the mid-1100s, suggest actual Irish settlement prior to the Norse landnám, but the evidence is at a long remove from events, and the Irish in these sources play a role that suggests a limited memory of events has been imposed upon by a later Christian historiography. Ahronson’s work offers the potential to expand upon these literary data using an environmental narrative. His work at Kverkarhellir – potentially a ‘smoking gun’ in establishing a pre-Norse chronology – is placed in the context of the wider investigations of the environmental history of the Eyjafjallahreppur landscape by Andrew Dugmore and others. There is more to do here – we cannot, for example, assume that a pre-Norse presence necessarily means ‘Irish’ – but the research potential is well mapped out by Ahronson. The explicit focus on using the data from Scotland to add value to the evidence from Iceland leaves the Faroe Islands with rather less attention than they might warrant. Here, recent studies by Fisher and Scott (sculpture) as...

Work, family and public policy changes in latin america: equity, maternalism and co-responsibility

Taking account of the substantial increase in female labour market participation that has occurred throughout the Latin American region, this article describes policies adopted with the aim of reconciling work and family responsibilities between 2003 and 2013, and the implications of their design for socioeconomic and gender equity. We look at the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, five countries which, on the basis of their track records, are the best placed to implement policies to reorganize time, income and services. The empirical analysis indicates, first, that these changes have contributed to socioeconomic equity more consistently than to gender equity. Second, the scale and type of change was found to vary significantly from one country to another. The article concludes by raising a number of substantive questions about the measures, their implementation and effectiveness, and the variations between countries.

The Ecuadorian Resource Dilemma: Sumak Kawsay or Development?

This article examines the tensions between constitutional rights, welfare politics and extractivism in Ecuador. In practice, the rights of nature risk being subordinated to other human values amidst strategic State interests in economic development and social programs, due to the government’s pragmatic approach toward environmental rights. The Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 has been celebrated for being the most radical in the world regarding the specific rights of nature and the indigenous peoples. The central framing of the Constitution is the indigenous concept of Sumak Kawsay regarding humans being in harmony with nature. The Rafael Correa government launched a groundbreaking initiative to protect biodiversity and indigenous peoples in the oil rich national park of Yasuní, adding to the image of Ecuador as an ecological alternative to follow and a challenge to global capitalism. Far-reaching welfare programs have been implemented during the Correa administration, but resource extraction has increased. In light of the Ecuadoran experience, substantial questions remain as to whether Sumak Kawsay can be a path for socialist transformation and ecologically solvent development.

Disruptions, decisions, and destinations: Enter the age of 3-D printing and additive manufacturing

Until recently, most manufacturing processes have been ‘subtractive’ in that matter is removed (e.g., scraped, dissolved, turned, machined) from a substance in order to produce the desired product. 3-D printing turns traditional manufacturing on its head in that it uses an ‘additive’ process. Similar to laser and inkjet printers, 3-D (three-dimensional) printers produce pieces by depositing, or adding, layers of material—plastic, polymer filaments, metals, and even foodstuffs—until the desired product is realized. This means that the creation and production of ‘one-offs’ is not only easy, it is also economically viable. 3-D printers are becoming ever more affordable, and it is not hard to envision them being as common in most homes in the near future as their two-dimensional counterparts are today. This article presents a 3-D printing primer for non-technical managers. It then considers the profound impact that 3-D printing will have on firms of all kinds as well as on individual consumers. In addition, it raises the substantial questions that 3-D printing will pose to policy makers from both intellectual property and ethical standpoints.

Nurturing Faith for Action: Theological Education and Global Responsibility

AbstractGhana hopes to parlay the financial promises of oil recovery into a better life for its people. If Ghana succeeds, it would be a model for the developing world. But Ghana's capacity to overcome poverty and support human dignity will be stronger if the rest of us who also hold that value commit more truly to it. As people of faith, as leaders of institutions, as educators, we face substantive questions about how our own actions, business decisions, and consumptive practices contribute to the larger issues of oil, consumerism, and planetary health. A course that asks not just Christian scholars and clergy, but leaders of theological institutions, church bodies, businesses, and others, to consider an ethical, paradigmatic shift toward a whole‐world ethic of well‐being is in order.

Open scholarship and research management

Open scholarship is one of the most profound influences on the research landscape. It is shaping institutional policy and strategy, changing scholarly behaviour, and raising substantial questions about infrastructure and investment. Whilst undoubtedly challenging, adapting to an open scholarship environment presents enormous opportunities for research organizations and the research management and knowledge and communications professions. This article sets out some of these issues from the perspective of a university research manager.

The Governance of Foreign Investment at a Crossroad: Is an Overlapping Consensus the Way Forward?

AbstractThis article makes the claim that the present efforts to reform the international investment regime (IIR) will not save this field from the existing criticisms. Given the plural values at issue, it is unlikely that states – let alone local populations – will ever reach a consensus on the substantive questions surrounding foreign investment. Historically, the main characteristic of foreign investment governance has been the lack of multilateral consensus. This field remained dominated by diplomacy and customary international law until bilateral treaties and investment arbitration became the leading mechanism to resolve investment disputes in the 1990s. This highly legalized regime, however, has been subject to criticisms from developing and increasingly from developed countries. Most reform proposals fail to go beyond alternatives that have been unsuccessful in the past, such as a multilateral investment agreement (MIA) or state-to-state arbitration. This article takes a different approach to foreign investment governance, starting from its political economy. It claims that the IIR does not depoliticize foreign investment relations but rather promotes the politics of foreign investors’ property rights protection. Relying on property theory and pluralism as heuristic tools, this article analyses the resistance to investment arbitration, the obstacles to multilateral cooperation, and the possibility of an overlapping consensus on the institutions for foreign investment governance.

Comment on “The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Different-Sex Marriage: Evidence From the Netherlands”

In the recent Demography article titled "The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Different-Sex Marriage: Evidence From the Netherlands," Trandafir attempted to answer the question, Are rates of opposite sex marriage affected by legal recognition of same-sex marriages? The results of his approach to statistical inference-looking for evidence of a difference in rates of opposite-sex marriage-provide an absence of evidence of such effects. However, the validity of his conclusion of no causal relationship between same-sex marriage laws and rates of opposite-sex marriage is threatened by the fact that Trandafir did not also look for equivalence in rates of opposite-sex marriage in order to provide evidence of an absence of such an effect. Equivalence tests in combination with difference tests are introduced and presented in this article as a more valid inferential approach to the substantive question Trandafir attempted to answer.

Teaching Children to Think for Themselves: From Questioning to Dialogue

The methods of teaching critical thinking currently favoured are critical analysis and metacognition. The former denies the place of interactive contextual judgment in reasoning, the latter devalues human purposes and quality. A metacognitive lesson on classification is shown to be too didactic to allow children to think in any but a passive sense. Splitter’s categorization of questions shows how moving away from closed substantive questions to open ones through dialogue can encourage children to think for themselves. Some consequences for pedagogy and evaluating children’s thinking are briefly examined.

Gene-environment interaction research in psychiatric epidemiology: a framework and implications for study design.

The genetic epidemiology of psychiatric disorders is undergoing a sea change. The flood of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) enabled by the advent of low-cost, high throughput genotyping and the emergence of global consortia to harness the combined power of genome wide data on tens of thousands of individuals is now producing a large volume of discoveries. With these discoveries, hypothesis-free methods of uncovering the genetic roots of psychiatric disorder are overtaking traditional hypothesis-driven approaches. What this transition means for research on gene-environment interactions (GxE) is hotly debated.1–5 Uher’s review addresses some of the contours of this debate. Here we seek to contextualize and expand on his points. Our goal is to make some sense of the ongoing conflict in psychiatric genetics between hypothesis-driven genetic research focused on candidate systems and hypothesis-free genetic research focused on data mining of the genome. We think part of the reason that arguments over how to conduct GxE research have grown so acrimonious is a lack of clarity over how genetic measurements are being used in GxE studies. In the paragraphs that follow, we frame the debate over how to conduct GxE research in terms of the substantive questions being asked and discuss implications of this framing for the conduct of GxE research within psychiatric epidemiology.

Unfree Labour under Capitalism: A Contradiction in (Useful) Terms

Is free labour under capitalism a contradiction in terms? Two aspects of this long-debated question are considered. One is the divide between the libertarian insistence on individual freedom and the socialist contention of proletarian class unfreedom. Is there a viewpoint free of judgments or valuations as to what is or is not interesting or valuable about any given view of freedom? We argue that the Rawlsian original position defines a value-free benchmark of maximal freedom from which the degree of unfreedom under any set of social rules can be assessed. While negative individual freedom and class unfreedom are not incompatible, ‘free labour under capitalism’ has got to be a contradiction in terms. But capitalism classically defined is production by doubly ‘free’ labour which sharply distinguishes it from forms of ‘unfree’ labour that constitute its pre-history. This raises both conceptual and substantive empirical questions defining the second divide we consider, between Marx’s view linking capitalism and free labour and its detractors. Our contention is that keeping capitalism and unfree labour properly apart is a practical imperative of the continued use of these historically fruitful categories even if, as a corollary, ‘unfree labour under capitalism’ must seem a contradiction in terms.

Can visual cognitive neuroscience learn anything from the philosophy of language? Ambiguity and the topology of neural network models of multistable perception

The Necker cube and the productive class of related stimuli involving multiple depth interpretations driven by corner-like line junctions are often taken to be ambiguous. This idea is normally taken to be as little in need of defense as the claim that the Necker cube gives rise to multiple distinct percepts. In the philosophy of language, it is taken to be a substantive question whether a stimulus that affords multiple interpretations is a case of ambiguity. If we take into account what have been identified as hallmark features of ambiguity and look at the empirical record, it appears that the Necker cube and related stimuli are not ambiguous. I argue that this raises problems for extant models of multistable perception in cognitive neuroscience insofar as they are purported to apply to these stimuli. Helpfully, similar considerations also yield reasons to suggest that the relevant models are well motivated for other instances of multistable perception. However, a different breed of model seems to be required for the Necker cube and related stimuli. I end with a sketch how one may go about designing such a model relying on oscillatory patters in neural firing. I suggest that distinctions normally confined to the philosophy of language are important for the study of perception, a perspective with a growing number of adherents.

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath's Foundations of economic evolution: a treatise on the natural philosophy of economics. Edward Elgar, 2013, 704 pp.

Review of Carsten Herrmann-Pillath's Foundations of economic evolution: a treatise on the natural philosophy of economics. Edward Elgar, 2013, 704 pp.There is no settled view among economists about the place of their discipline in the general architecture of the sciences, but in their methodological remarks one finds two common ways of side-stepping the issue. Some, for example Edward Leamer (2012), maintain that economics is not a science, but is rather a craft aimed at policy engineering. Leamer directs his criticisms against a more traditional alternative, which defends the scientific credentials of economics, and at the same time distinguishes economics from other sciences, by reference to applications and extensions1 of a set of axioms descended from Paul Samuelson (1947). The discipline's most influential textbooks (such as Mas-Colell, et al. 1995), present economics according to the latter approach, which finds its logical apotheosis in the work of Bernt Stigum (1990). In this context it is straightforward to identify relationships between economics and similarly axiomatized domains of inquiry, such as the psychology of decision making, by comparing axiom sets. I refer to this philosophy as a way of avoiding substantive questions about interdisciplinary relationships because it displaces them by purely technical ones and, more importantly, because it renders by fiat all questions about the place of economics among those sciences that are not axiomatically structured implicitly ill-formed and therefore unanswerable. This point applies to the majority of behavioral and social sciences.Since the demise of logical empiricism, few philosophers of science have supported the idea that the boundaries of empirical sciences can be literally identified with formal structures. This does not force us over to Leamer's view, because the dichotomy he assumes is too restrictive. It is possible to agree with him that economists are and should be practical in their focus and opportunistic in their use of sources of evidence, while nevertheless believing that economists have managed to collectively discover some theoretical generalizations about the structure of the social world. That is enough to motivate interest in how these generalizations can be true of the same world as claims in apparent tension with them that emerge from related disciplines such as sociology (Coleman 1990), demography (Clark 2009), cognitive science (Simon 1957; Clark 1997; Ross 2005; Kahneman 2011), neuroscience (Glimcher 2012), evolutionary psychology (Ofek 2001), the psychology of motivation and personality development (Schelling 1978, 1980; Ainslie 1992, 2001), ethology (Noe, et al. 2001), and the histories of technology (Ziman 2000; Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2012), business (Schumpeter [1911] 1982; Porter 1980, 1985; Ghemawat 1998) and political institutions (North 1990, 2005; Bates 2001; Grief 2006; Aligica and Boettke 2009). As noted, the formalist approach does not allow one to even begin to get purchase on most questions of this kind, though sometimes-as in Coleman (1990) and Glimcher (2012)-explicit implications for formal relationships are drawn from informal inductive reflection.Once we get as far as asking whether it is worthwhile to explore pairwise relationships between economics and specific other disciplines, we can generalize this style of questioning to ask what, if anything, might be said about the place of economics in the overall architecture of systematic inquiry. There have been very few sustained investigations of this type. The investment required is considerable, as it demands broad and synaptic mastery of the history and philosophy of multiple fields of study; and the expected return is relatively meager, as even the minority of economists who find value in cross-disciplinary comparisons are often skeptical about the practical point of studies that necessarily cast their focus far from the empirical ground. Yet, for all that, the general question once raised is irresistible, even if only for late-night reflections with a glass of wine, to any economist who is self-conscious about her discipline's roots, limits, and future. …

Comments on the European Commissionns Approach to Investor-State Arbitration in TTIP and CETA

The paper provides a detailed response to the European Commission's proposed approach to investor-state arbitration in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It offers a general response followed by detailed replies to substantive and procedural questions posed by the Commission. Overall, it characterizes the Commission's proposed approach in the TTIP and in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) as having taken positive steps to address the lack of openness in investor-state arbitration but as having failed to address the lack of judicial independence, lack of procedural fairness, and lack of balance in the allocation of rights and responsibilities in investor-state arbitration.

Method and Substance in Marmor's Philosophy of Law

This comment problematizes the strategy of argument of Marmor’s book Philosophy of Law.1 The book asks two main kinds of questions, which it dubs “substantive” and “methodological.” Substantive questions enquire about the nature of law. Methodological questions enquire about how to go about answering substantive questions. The two substantive questions addressed in the book concern legal validity and legal obligation. Marmor asks about the conditions of legal validity (3–4), and argues, broadly echoing Hart, that they can be reduced to social facts.2 He further asks about the nature of a legal obligation (6), and argues, broadly echoing Raz, that it is a purported exercise of legitimate practical authority.3 Those two substantive questions and Marmor’s answers to them strike me as sound, with some qualifications I cannot elaborate here.4 The book’s primary methodological question is whether it is possible to explain the nature of law (and hence also to answer the two substantive questions) without making moral judgments—that is, in a “morally neutral” way. Chapter 5 argues that it is possible.5 Indeed, Marmor suggests (115), albeit does not show, that the book’s substantive conclusions can be arrived at in following a “morally neutral” methodology. In the first section of this comment I will question whether this is really so.

The Logic and Implications of School-based Teacher Formation

ABSTRACTThis paper uses Bernsteinian concepts to identify how forms of power and control within teacher professional formation are exercised. Drawing on previous comparative work into collaborative models of teacher education and contemporary examples from school-based programmes, it is argued that current developments in England raise substantive questions for teachers’ knowledge, learning and professional commitment.

It’s the Knobe Effect, Stupid!

People asymmetrically attribute various agential features such as intentionality, knowledge, or causal impact to other agents when something of normative significance is at stake. I will argue that three questions are of primary interest in the debate about this effect. A methodological question about how to explain it at all; a substantive question about how to explain it correctly: and a normative question about whether to explain it in terms of an error or a legitimate judgmental pattern. The problem, I argue, is that these three questions are difficult to disentangle. I propose a solution to this problem, and show how it accounts for the most recent data regarding the effect.

Assessing the validity of single-item life satisfaction measures: results from three large samples.

The present paper assessed the validity of single-item life satisfaction measures by comparing single-item measures to the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)-a more psychometrically established measure. Two large samples from Washington (N = 13,064) and Oregon (N = 2,277) recruited by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and a representative German sample (N = 1,312) recruited by the Germany Socio-Economic Panel were included in the present analyses. Single-item life satisfaction measures and the SWLS were correlated with theoretically relevant variables, such as demographics, subjective health, domain satisfaction, and affect. The correlations between the two life satisfaction measures and these variables were examined to assess the construct validity of single-item life satisfaction measures. Consistent across three samples, single-item life satisfaction measures demonstrated substantial degree of criterion validity with the SWLS (zero-order r = 0.62-0.64; disattenuated r = 0.78-0.80). Patterns of statistical significance for correlations with theoretically relevant variables were the same across single-item measures and the SWLS. Single-item measures did not produce systematically different correlations compared to the SWLS (average difference = 0.001-0.005). The average absolute difference in the magnitudes of the correlations produced by single-item measures and the SWLS was very small (average absolute difference = 0.015-0.042). Single-item life satisfaction measures performed very similarly compared to the multiple-item SWLS. Social scientists would get virtually identical answer to substantive questions regardless of which measure they use.