Commensurability

Bernard Williams influentially attacked ethical theory. This paper assesses arguments for the ‘anti-theory’ position in ethics, including mainly arguments put forward by Williams but also arguments put forward by others. The paper begins by discussing what is supposed to be theory in ethics, what ethical intuitions are taken to be by those involved in the theory versus anti-theory debate. Then the paper responds to all of the following objections to ethical theory. Ethical theory is mistaken to prize principles, mistaken to prize rationalism, and mistaken to presume or prize foundational unity. Ethical theory is mistaken to presume morality is deeply impartial, mistaken to presume to tell agents how to deliberate, mistaken to presume or prize ethical codifiability, mistaken to presume value commensurability, and mistaken to eliminate ethical dilemmas.

In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pleasures, and do all pains share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pains? (ii) The question of commensurability: Are all pleasures and pains rankable on a single, quantitative hedonic scale? I argue that our intuitions draw us in opposing directions: On the one hand, pleasures and pains seem unified and commensurable; on the other hand, they do not. I further argue that neither intuition can be abandoned, and examine three different paths to reconciliation. The first two are response theory and split experience theory. Both of these, I argue, are unsuccessful. A third path, however—which I label " dimensionalism " —succeeds. Dimensionalism is the theory that pleasure and pain have the ontological status as opposite sides of a hedonic dimension along which experiences vary. This view has earlier been suggested by C. D. Broad, Karl Duncker, Shelly Kagan, and John Searle, but it has not been worked out in detail. In this paper I work out the dimensionalist view in some detail, defend it, and explain how it solves the problem of the unity and commensurability of pleasures and pains.

A B S T R A C T Biodiversity offsets (BO) are increasingly promoted and adopted by governments and companies worldwide as a policy instrument to compensate for biodiversity losses from infrastructure development projects. BO are often classified as 'market-based instruments' both by proponents and critics, but this representation fails to capture the varieties of how BO policies actually operate. To provide a framing for understanding the empirical diversity of BO policy designs, we present an ideal-typical typology based on the institutions from which BO is organised: Public Agency, Mandatory Market and Voluntary Offset. With cross-case comparison and stakeholder mapping, we identified the institutional arrangements of six BO policies to analyse how the biodiversity losses and gains are decided. Based on these results, we examined how these six policies relate to the BO ideal types. Our results suggested that the government, contrary to received wisdom, plays a key role not just in enforcing mandatory policies but also in determining the supply and demand of biodiversity units, supervising the transaction or granting legitimacy to the compensation site. Mandatory BO policies can be anything from pure government regulations defining industry liabilities to liability-driven markets where choice sets for trading credits are constrained and biodiversity credit prices are negotiated under state supervision. It is important to distinguish between two processes in BO: the matching of biodiversity losses and gains (commensurability) and the trading of biodiversity credits (commodification). We conclude that the commensurability of natural capital is restricted in BO policies; biodiversity is always exchanged with biodiversity. However, different degrees of commodifi-cation are possible, depending on the policy design and role of price signals in trading credits. Like payments for ecosystem services, the price of a biodiversity credit is most commonly based on the cost of management measures rather than the 'value' of biodiversity; which corresponds to a low degree of commodification.

JOHN CORCORAN. 1980. A note concerning definitional equivalence, History and Philosophy of Logic 1: 231–34.  MR83j:01002. P R

This paper defines certain purely syntactic homogeneous relations between formal, uninterpreted theories based on different formal languages that are sublanguages of a more extensive language. The fact that a theory is uninterpreted does not prevent it from having interpretations nor does it preclude the theory from being presented as the set of true sentences of a given concrete interpretation.

The defined relations are called ‘interpretability’, ‘mutual interpretability’, and ‘definitional equivalence’.

Let T0s be the set of sentences true in the standard interpretation of the second-order language of arithmetic based on primitives ‘0’ and ‘s’, for the number zero and the one-place operation of successor. Thus the constant terms of T1 are the strings ‘0’, ‘s0’, ‘ss0’, etc. Under the standard interpretation the universe of discourse of T1 is the set of natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.

Let T0s^—note bold font—be the set of sentences true in the standard interpretation of the second-order language of two-character string theory based on primitives ‘0’, ‘s’, and ‘^’, for the zero numeral, the successor symbol, and the two-place operation of concatenation. Thus the constant terms of T0s^ are ‘0’, ‘s’, ‘(s^0)’, (0^ s)’ ‘(0^(s^0))’, etc. Under the standard interpretation the universe of discourse of T0s^ is the set of strings composed of the two characters ‘0’and ‘s’: the two strings of length one ‘0’, ‘s’, the four strings of length two ‘00’, ‘0s’, ‘s0’, ‘ss’, the eight strings of length three ‘000’, ‘00s’, ‘0s0’, ‘s00’ ‘0ss’, ‘s0s’, ‘ss0’, ‘sss’, the 16 strings of length 4, etc.

As said in this paper, the reference Corcoran et al.1974 implies that T0s is definitional equivalent to T0s^. This does not mean that numbers are definable in terms of character strings. This does not mean that the successor operation is numbers definable in terms of character strings and concatenation. A fortiori, definitional equivalence of two theories implies nothing as to whether the ontological status of objects used to interpret one is prior to or dependent on the whether the ontological status of objects used to interpret the other.

Admittedly, the terms ‘interpretability’, ‘mutual interpretability’, and ‘definitional equivalence’ may suggest otherwise to people who fail to notice that the three expressions refer to relations between uninterpreted theories. Perhaps, these and related issues concerning primitive concepts and primitive objects, as opposed to primitive symbols, can be discussed in the session.

The hermeneutic approach to natural language translation
concentrates on large scale notions such as text (Al-Shabab 2008
and Tymoczko 2007), a level which cannot tackle the basic
mechanics responsible for transporting meaning at the level of
concept, word or phrase. 'Incommensurability' between rival
theories has been suggested as responsible for untranslatability
due to variance of 'lexical structures' (Kuhn 1962 and
Feyerabend 1975).
This paper investigates the role of micro interpretation and
semantic primitives in executing semantic transportation, using
examples from translating the Quran into European languages
and English poetry into Arabic. The results show that
translational commensurability involves specific processes of
micro interpretation, in addition to general interpretation and
grammatical and stylistic formulation.
Key Words:
Interpretation , Semantic primitives, Translatability, Commensurability,
Semantic transportation

When one deliberates one has reasons both for and against doing something.  Could the reasons for OBJECTIVELY outweigh the reasons against, in the sense that someone who thought otherwise would simply be wrong?  (This is not the same question as that of whether any of the competing reasons could be objectively valid in itself.)  Three seemingly relevant kinds of ethical theory are examined: virtue ethics, utilitarianism and moral absolutism.  It is suggested that the proponents of these have all so far failed to show that they can give compelling objective reasons for acting on certain reasons rather than others.  We so far lack any conception of what sort of second-order considerations could adjudicate between competing reasons.  This is not so much an ‘error theory’ in J. L. Mackie’s sense as an admission of ignorance.

Page 1. Organising Knowledge in the Age of the Semantic Web: A Study of the Commensurability of Ontologies A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Liam Magee BA School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning College of Design and Social Context RMIT University April 2010 Page 2.

In an earlier paper, 'Peter Geach on nonsense, confusion and sin' 1 , I suggested that what one can say in explanation of one's own actions suffers from a severe limitation: one can shed little light on the question why one acted on one's reasons for an action rather than on one's reasons against that action. In this paper I want to explore this suggestion further. One of my tasks will be to distinguish my question from three standard philosophical questions that have tended to overshadow it: the question of freewill and determinism; that of the relation between fact and value; and that of the possibility of weakness of will. On these I shall, on the whole, maintain a studied agnosticism.

Systematic and widespread incommensurability of reasons has been claimed to give rise to an implausible picture of practical reasoning. In particular, it has been claimed that this incommensurability is not compatible with the central role we ascribe to enkratic reasoning - reasoning about what we have "most reason" to do, or ought to do "all things considered". Instead, defenders of incommensurability have emphasized the role of the agent's will in determining choice. However, this paper argues that rejecting or accepting a widespread and systematic incommensuability of reasons makes little difference to how we should conceive of practical reasoning. It argues that whether or not we accept a widespread and systematic incommensurability of reasons, we can and should give a central place to enkratic reasoning as well as the agent's will, in determining choice.

Colombia’s Santurbán páramo wetlands are vital water supply sources for highland communities’ livelihoods and downstream cities such as Bucaramanga. Nevertheless, they face strong degeneration because of large-scale mining extraction. Seeking to harmonize divergent interests between conservation policies, domestic water supply and mining–energy development, the national government laid out land use zones and delimited use of the Santurbán páramo since 2014. This article illustrates how hydroterritorial tensions between the mining company, the government and citizen mobilizations for water end up fencing in the collective assets of smallholder páramo residents. To understand this complex enclosure process, we show how foreign mining capital interests, urban citizens’ claims for water and
government ecological boundary-making paradoxically converge. Commensuration of water meanings and values, while bridging diverse worldviews, generates new enclosures of the commons. Engaging
with the conceptualization of hydrosocial territories’ and neoliberal reconfiguration politics, we contribute to debates on how modernist commensuration works to commodify water and territory, disqualifying peasants’ territorial self-governance. We conclude that Santurbán páramo residents’ hydroterritorial rights are subject to the interests of social forces competing for control over this páramo territory, whether to transfer rural water to cities or to establish large-scale mining.

A fundamental step in integrated environmental assessment (IEA) is the choice of an assessment framework. The usual attempt to develop integrated assessments of different options is to apply a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which is an important part of the IEA, but at the same time is one of its weakest points. One should note that this paper does not aim at presenting new advances on specific issues of CBA. The present paper has as a main objective to analyse the role of CBA in the IEA framework, in particular: (1) to make explicit the economical, philosophical and mathematical assumptions on which CBA is based; (2) to discuss the main characteristics and consequences of these assumptions; (3) to test the consistency and compatibility of such an axiomatic system. It is thought that this is useful above all for non-economists involved in IEA studies.

Word Count: 2850 words 2 PSYCHOLOGY AND CULTURE Psychology in modern times has been seen being integrated into more and more varying professions [in business, law, etc.]. Alone as a discipline however, has been around for some time, with evolving perspectives over time. Indigenous psychology [in formal study] a considerably younger discipline, has seen increasing successful applications in different fields. But why is it important to consider within the discipline of psychology? A simple analogy could provide an answer, as psychology alone without any other discipline would be like attempting to use a screwdriver to replace all the tools in the toolbox to fix your car, or shoving a triangle block in a circle block. Sometimes a preconceived idea isn't a multitool for every situation, and trying to fit something in that was never designed to is a futile effort.

The directed self-assembly of block copolymer (BCP) materials in topographically patterned substrates (i.e., graphoepitaxy) is a potential methodology for the continued scaling of nanoelectronic device technologies. In this Communication, an unusual feature size variation in BCP nanodomains under confinement with graphoepitaxially aligned cylinder-forming poly(styrene)-block-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) BCP is reported. Graphoepitaxy of PS-b-P4VP BCP line patterns (CII ) is accomplished via topo-graphy in hydrogen silsequioxane (HSQ) modified substrates and solvent vapor annealing (SVA). Interestingly, reduced domain sizes in features close to the HSQ guiding features are observed. The feature size reduction is evident after inclusion of alumina into the P4VP domains followed by pattern transfer to the silicon substrate. It is suggested that this nano-domain size perturbation is due to solvent swelling effects during SVA. It is proposed that using a commensurability value close...

Please forgive us for daring to suggest that a problem both fundamental and frequent in various fields of human endeavor not just linguistics is imagining that two things are different which are actually one and the same and that two very different things are one and the same.  In various works, we showed that at least two utterly different things called topic were being lumped together in linguistic typology or that the term phrase structure covered a multitude of sins etc etc.  In this paper and another one that followed we argued that the long-standing concern raised by Trubetzkoy and then Jakobson about a one-vowel reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European arose from a very similar confusion: quite simply when a language has x vowels (whatever plus i and u) two of which (i and u) are in complementary distribution with glides/semivowels (y and w), most such languages are analyzed as having phonemes written /i/ and /u/ which have both syllabic and nonsyllabic allophones, whereas for IE it has been tradiitonal to write these phonemes as semivowels/glides (/y/ and /w/ or some equivalent symbols) so that one ends with x-2 vowels SEEMINGLY.  So all one needs to find is a language with three vowel phonemes as usually described /a, i, u/ and redescribe these as /a, y, and w/ and PIE ceases to be the problem the Prince and Roman saw.  We further show that as so often (compare several of our sound laws for Armenian) there have been numerous prominent scholars who saw this long before we did, but for whatever reason (we suspect fear of ridicule) did not say it quite as simply and emphatically.  This of course means that the frantic search for one-vowel languages on the part of some IEnists and friends was wholly unnecessary, they are all around us.  Of course this has nothing to do with the question of what PIE phonology looked like.  Or maybe it does.  The desire to make PIE look like Kabardian obscured the fact that there is a viable alternative to the usual reconstruction that makes it look like Southern Paiute or Shoshoni instead (which is what we propose or rather would if anyone would let us finish without interrupting whenever we try to explain this, the vocalic theory, according to which the so-called h1, h2, and h3 were originally the vowels e, a, o, and only in some positions (in part depending on language) gave reflexes such as h, x, or ?.  Exactly like Southern Paiute and Shoshoni, the so-called Numic (literally Human) languages.  So we are simply proposing to make Indo-European a possible human language.

Claims abound that GDP accounting ignores social and ecological problems and misrepresents social well-being. While GDP growth continues to be a policy priority in most countries, it is at best one objective among many in achieving humanity's ''ultimate purpose.'' Yet revisions to the income accounts and alternative well-being indicators are also problematic, since they reinforce the illusion that social and ecological impacts on well-being are objectively measurable. Future policy must not only be informed to a greater extent by qualitative and multi-dimensional assessments, but must recognize that any rank-ordering of society's ultimate ends cannot but be subjective.

Peer reviewers at many funding agencies and scientific journals are asked to score submissions both on individual criteria and overall. The overall scores should be some kind of aggregate of the criteria scores. Carole Lee identifies this as a potential locus for bias to enter the peer review process, which she calls commensuration bias. Here I view the aggregation of scores through the lens of social choice theory. I argue that in many situations, especially when reviewing grant proposals, it is impossible to avoid commensuration bias.

Are legal traditions incommensurable? Professor H. Patrick Glenn argued that the idea that legal traditions were not suitable for comparison was a result of the reification of cultures. This chapter discusses Glenn’s insights of tradition and commensurability by examining the variants of the concepts and practices of lineage property in historical Confucianism. In the Confucian sphere of influence, marked by the shared precept of ancestral worship and primacy of ritual obligation, legal developments concerning lineage organization and property converged and diverged, revealing the complexity in humanity’s efforts to respond to the various challenges it faced. This examination illustrates Glenn’s central idea that legal traditions of the world are not only comparable and translatable but also transplantable. Transformation and transmission of law in East Asia underscore the need to compare legal traditions, both within and without in all its independence and interdependence, and further to understand the past in its own terms in all the interconnectedness of autonomous dimensions of life at a given time.

The Semantic Web proposes a framework for establishing a 'web of data,' analogous to the 'web of documents' of the World Wide Web. It envisions a series of interconnected ontologies, underwritten by formal languages such as OWL and RDF. The problem of co-ordinating disparate ontologies has led to the development of various ontology matching approaches. However, as these approaches are algorithmic they cannot make use of background or tacit information about the ontologies they examine - information only available in the broader social context in which ontologies are created and used. In many practical knowledge management scenarios, such information is vital in understanding the costs, feasibility and scope of ontology alignment projects. Prior to undertaking the detailed task of concept-to-concept mapping between two ontologies, it is therefore useful to ask: are these ontologies broadly commensurable? This paper presents a framework for describing and comparing cul...

espanolEl fomento de los biocarburantes ha constituido en los ultimos anos un tema de gran controversia y polemica a nivel academico, politico y social, debido a las repercusiones ambientales, economicas y sociales que el uso y la produccion de los mismos pueden desencadenar. Mientras la mayoria de los gobiernos estan apostando por el fomento de los biocarburantes, principalmente para reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y mejorar la seguridad en el abastecimiento de combustibles, numerosas voces estan surgiendo en contra de los mismos, haciendoles responsables de problemas tales como el aumento del precio de los alimentos. En la UE, la propuesta de Directiva relativa al fomento del uso de energia procedente de fuentes renovables, ha condicionado el fomento de los biocarburantes a la sostenibilidad de los mismos, con el objetivo de evitar graves repercusiones negativas. De esta forma los Estados miembros han de disenar un sistema de apoyo para fomentar el uso de bioc...

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how environmental conservation and ecotourism are contexts for how people sort out what is at stake in living among the Raja Ampat islands of Indonesia’s West Papua Province. Through examining ways that people seek to protect areas and things inhabiting the surrounding land and seascape, I evaluate situations where people identify what is valuable to them, how those values influence ethical actions, as well as consequences of acting unethically toward the environment or other people. The study highlights efforts of Beteo and Ma’ya people to figure out how to balance the protection of coral reefs and forest zones while also seeking improved livelihoods. It presents accounts of environmental conservation practices and ecotourism around Waigeo Island – the largest and northernmost island of the Raja Ampat area – because it is the center of tourism activity and migration of Indonesians to the region. Waigeo has also become a zone of conflicts between locals and outsiders over access to and control of natural resources in coastal West Papua. Conservation and tourism have become a context for how Beteo and Ma’ya residents have identified options, developed strategies and negotiated conflicts within and across boundaries of social difference as they seek to chart a better life.The study focuses on instances where environmental values overlap and diverge to probe the possibility that different forms of care may be analogous, congruent, or at least recognizable by people with different reasons for protecting nature. I document situations when people were forced to reconcile apparently incommensurable practices. I evaluate to what extent marine protected areas are symmetrical with ritual harvest prohibitions known as sasi. I assess to what extent closed fishing grounds reflect Indonesian Evangelical Protestant Church ideals of a moral community, or whether they can be considered alongside non-Christian understanding of forest spirit realms where one is at risk of being eaten by witches or destroyed by amoral nature entities. By focusing on marine conservation and tourism interactions in coastal West Papua, I document the capacity of people to adapt, transpose or otherwise incorporate different environmental norms into their lives.

El fomento de los biocarburantes ha constituido en los últimos años un tema de gran controversia y polémica a nivel académico, político y social, debido a las repercusiones ambientales, económicas y sociales que el uso y la producción de los mismos pueden desencadenar. Mientras la mayoría de los gobiernos están apostando por el fomento de los biocarburantes, principalmente para reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y mejorar la seguridad en el abastecimiento de combustibles, numerosas voces están ...

Une microhistoire connectée de la diplomatie :
les ambassades ottomanes à Vienne au dix-huitième siècle

La microhistoire constitue un angle original de l’histoire diplomatique dans la mesure où elle permet de saisir les connexions établies entre des acteurs aux horizons distincts mais implantés dans une même société urbaine. L’étude de la diplomatie ottomane à Vienne au dix-huitième siècle sort donc du cadre d’une histoire des puissances et des aires culturelles pour mettre en lumière les intérêts particuliers et communs d’agents de langue, de religion et d’appartenance diverses et parfois multiples. La mobilisation conjointe des ressources de la métropole impériale par les diplomates autrichiens et ottomans connecte entre elles la ville et de la cour, mais aussi des places diplomatiques européennes et méditerranéennes, ainsi que des clientèles aristocratiques et marchandes profondément trans-impériales au sein desquelles Vienne n’est qu’un rhizome et parmi lesquelles les diplomates évoluent. L’histoire de la diplomatie ottomane à Vienne se fait donc également depuis Pera, Venise ou Londres, et Gorizia, Bucarest ou Santorin.

This paper explores two aspects of expatriate money practices with Russian rubles, focusing on everyday shopping: conversion rules of thumb and denominations. The Russian ruble is a currency whose base denomination is one hundred (100) rather than one (1). Many expatriates living in Moscow are accustomed to currencies like the United States dollar, the Euro or British pounds sterling, whose base denominations are one not one hundred. Conversion becomes a way of managing 'sticker shock', a means of making sense of how a can of coffee can cost 800 currency units (rubles in this case), and coming to understand new regimes of value and price for everyday goods. Yet even expatriates from countries with a currency whose base unit is 100 – Japanese yen, South Korean won, Swedish krona – talk of curious conversions that shift, so that a rule of thumb that 150 of one unit equals 100 of another eventually becomes a 1:1 ratio. Learning to use rubles, especially in buying daily necessities, means not only developing a handy conversion to assess prices, but also adjusting to new arithmetic based on different monetary denominations, even when the base unit may be the same. I will argue that conversions are slowly adjusted to better match not official rates of currency conversion, but notions of worth and value that are linked to available denominations of money at 'home' and abroad.

The Semantic Web proposes a framework for establishing a "web of data", analogous to the "web of documents" of the World Wide Web. It envisions a series of interconnected ontologies, underwritten by formal languages such as OWL and RDF. The problem of co-ordinating disparate ontologies has led to the development of various ontology matching approaches. However, as these approaches are algorithmic they cannot make use of background or tacit information about the ontologies they examine -information only available in the broader social context in which ontologies are created and used. In many practical knowledge management scenarios, such information is vital in understanding the costs, feasibility and scope of ontology alignment projects. Prior to undertaking the detailed task of concept-to-concept mapping between two ontologies, it is therefore useful to ask: are these ontologies broadly commensurable? This paper presents a framework for describing and comparing cultural information about ontologies, developed as part of a joint project conducted by RMIT University and FujiXerox Australia, "Towards the 'Semantic Web': Standards and Interoperability across Document Management and Publishing Supply Chains". The framework is intended for practitioners to use as a tool to arrive at better estimates and assessments of the scope of work required to develop an adequate translation between two or more ontologies. The framework has been piloted as an online software toolkit, which is presented to a small group of participants. After using the software, participants complete an evaluation, which elicits quantitative and qualitative feedback on both the framework and the software. The paper presents the results of the pilot testing process, along with some considerations of how the framework might be further improved.