The general relevance of the impossibility teorem in smooth social choice

A complete classification theorem for voting processes on a smooth choice spaceW of dimensionw is presented. Any voting process is classified by two integersv ^* () andw(), in terms of the existence or otherwise of the optima set, IO(), and the cycle set IC().In dimension belowv ^* () the cycle set is always empty, and in dimension abovew() the optima set is nearly always empty while the cycle set is open dense and path con nected. In the latter case agenda manipulation results in any outcome.For admissible (compact, convex) choice spaces, the two sets are related by the general equilibrium result that IO() union IC() is non-empty. This in turn implies existence of optima in low dimensions. The equilibrium theorem is used to examine voting games with an infinite electorate, and the nature ofstructure induced equilibria, induced by jurisdictional restrictions.This material is based on work supported by a Nuffield Foundation grant.     

Political explanations for the difficulties in congressional budgeting

Why does the congressional budget process seem so flawed? The difficulties Congress has budgeting are a direct result of the nature of a representative democracy. The American public wants contradictory budgetary actions from its representatives in Congress. Congress is a responsive body on budgetary matters, as can be seen by the strong correlations between demographics and congressional budget votes. Being responsive, however, does not make it accountable. The problems Congress faces when budgeting are in part a result of the inconsistencies of what the public says it wants. Thus, unless the contradictory desires of the American public are modified, congressional budgeting is destined to be viewed as flawed and inadequate.     

The impossibility of the Paretian liberal and its relevance to welfare economics

The purpose of this study is to analyse the implications of Sen's impossibility result, the liberal paradox, for orthodox welfare economics. Because the rather special format of social choice theory makes it a little difficult to be sure of the relevance of this result, the whole dilemma is posed here in terms of a rather informal analysis of information al patterns.On the one hand, it is argued that the traditional approach to welfare economics, including both utilitarianism and Paretian ordinalism, contains severe informational constraints eliminating the use of all kinds of independent non-utility information in the social evaluation process. This property, called welfarism, is also present in the weak Pareto principle, which conflicts with even minimal requirements of personal liberty according to Sen's result.On the other hand, it is argued that there is in fact little to be resolved in this problem in spite of several attempts to circumvent the conflict. These studies are argued to be mainly ad hoc solutions to the formal problem and relevant only to the extent they indicate how severe restrictions are needed to avoid the paradox. The analogy with the prisoner's dilemma does not work either. Since liberal values are intrinsically non-welfaristic, the liberal paradox can be interpreted as only one, but a rather powerful, example of the informational deficiency of the orthodox approach.Finally, it is argued that the liberal paradox has striking implications for both the concept of preference and social optimum as well as empirical research on social welfare. This means that if the impossibility is to be taken seriously we need to revalue both the status of utility information and the role of the Pareto principle in social welfare analysis.The author is grateful to Professor Amartya Sen and Matti Tuomala for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Breaking the germline barrier in a moral vacuum

ABSTRACT

In November 2018 a Chinese scientist claimed to have used CRISPR/Cas 9 technology to genetically modify two human embryos that were then gestated in one adult woman through an IVF pregnancy and brought to term. The twin girls are allegedly the first babies born with their prenatal genomes edited. Using both English language and Chinese supporting documents, this paper discusses the background of this human experiment, the social context of Chinese science, and the alleged ethical transgressions of its principal scientist.     

Social protection in the Republic of Korea: Social insurance and moral hazard

Abstract As reported in numerous studies, the system of social protection in the Republic of Korea long remained underdeveloped because of the priority given instead to economic growth. The past few years have seen major changes, however. The government decided to apply the theory of “productive welfare”, thereby committing itself to introducing a system of universal statutory social insurance which is intended to set the seal on a new social compact and which may, ultimately, impact on the model of socioeconomic development itself. This article outlines the recent changes in insurance against sickness, unemployment and old age and goes on to describe the moral hazard facing the new system of social insurance and the need for a form of joint management in order to minimize this hazard.     

美国和新加坡两国学校德育环境建设及其启示

良好的学校德育环境的营建对提高学校德育的实效至关重要。美国和新加坡学校德育环境建设有共同的也有各自的特色 ,也是非常成功的。在学校教育的日益开放化、与社会联系越来越密切的现代 ,他们的很多经验对我国的学校德育有很大的参考价值的。     

On the structuralist constraints in social scientific theorizing

Several case studies and theoretical reports indicate that the structuralist concept of a constraint has a central role in the reconstruction of physical theories. It is surprising that there is only little theoretical discussion on the relevance of constraints for the reconstruction of social scientific theories in the literature. Almost all structuralist reconstructions of social theorizing are vacuously constrained. Consequently, constraints are methodologically irrelevant.In this paper I reconstruct three cases selected from social scientific theorizing. The first case is a generalization of Gross, Mason and McEachern's (1958) role expectation conflict theory, which is a qualitative theory. The second case is Cohen and Lee's (1975) quantitative theory of social conformity, which essentially utilizes the theor of Markov chains. The third case is the explanation schema of folk psychology which is one of the most important methodological frameworks in the social sciences.In all the three cases important constraints emerge. From an epistemological point of view it seems that the related constraints work as higher-order laws. In any case, purely conceptual arguments are insufficient to justify them.The three cases,mutatis mutandis, cover nearly all types of social scientific theorizing, so that in my view constraints play a crucial methodological role in the social sciences precisely as they have in the natural sciences.     

The role of the media in developing a shared moral understanding

Over the last few decades, research has shown that media outlets are good at telling people what to think about, fulfilling what researchers call the agenda-setting role of the media. To that end, media outlets from social media to newspapers can play a pivotal role in developing a shared moral understanding.     

东北边境军事要塞--日本侵略扩张的铁证

九一八事变后 ,日本帝国主义逐步把中国东北变成了扩大侵略战争的军事基地。出于侵略扩张的需要 ,从 193 4年至 1945年 ,日军先后三个时期在东北边境构筑了一系列军事要塞。这些要塞的构筑是日本帝国主义殖民扩张的直接产物 ,它不但见证了日本侵略中国的真实历史 ,也深刻揭露了日军的侵略行径     

Deception in psychology: moral costs and benefits of unsought self-knowledge

Is it ethically permissible to use deception in psychological experiments? We argue that, provided some requirements are satisfied, it is possible to use deceptive methods without producing significant harm to research participants and without any significant violation of their autonomy. We also argue that methodological deception is at least at the moment the only effective means by which one can acquire morally significant information about certain behavioral tendencies. Individuals in general, and research participants in particular, gain self-knowledge which can help them improve their autonomous decision-making. The community gains collective self-knowledge that, once shared, can play a role in shaping education, informing policies and in general creating a more efficient and just society.     

Data disclosure and data sharing in scientific research

Data sharing is examined for its bearing on (i) quality assurance and (ii) extensions of results in scientific research as well as (iii) part of a tradition of openness in science. It is suggested that sharing can be accomplished in a simple manner that is also sufficiently flexible to fit varying individual situations by asking authors of data dependent articles and grant proposals to footnote (a) whether they are willing to make their data available to others and, if so, (b) how the data may be accessed. Appendices report results from a survey of current policies and practices in professional societies and in Federal government fund granting agencies. Emphasis is on the social and management sciences.     

Euthanasia and persistent vegetative state individuals: the role and moral status of autonomy

This paper offers a philosophical consideration and evaluation of several different criteria of moral standing, and discusses their implications for persistent vegetative state (PVS) individuals who were once competent. It is argued that the only criterion PVS individuals meet is that of being human, which is not the best test of moral standing. Accordingly it is, in principle, morally acceptable to perform passive or active euthanasia on PVS individuals or to use their bodies for research or for organ harvest. Nevertheless, the autonomous choices made by the persons the PVS individuals used to be can still impose moral obligations. Indeed, it is argued that the capacity for autonomy is a particularly appealing criterion of moral standing, and that the implications of this standard for PVS individuals confirm that appeal.