Robert P. George and Christopher Wolfe (eds), Natural Law and Public Reason

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Christoph Durt,Thomas Fuchs,and Christian Tewes (eds): Embodiment,enaction and culture: investigating the constitution of the shared world

Continental Philosophy Review - The following is a review of Embodiment, Enaction and Culture. Investigating the Constitution of the Shared World. Edited by Christoph Durt, Thomas Fuchs, and...     

Images and Policy Preferences

This article reports the results of an experiment that tests the independent and interactive effects of two dimensions of international images: perceived historial relationship and cultural differences. Priming techniques are used to manipulate images in subjects who are involved in a simulated international conflict. Dependent variables include attitudes and behaviors, the latter in the form of policy preferences arranged on a cooperative-conflictual continuum. The results indicate that images do matter. When the perceived relationship is hostile, subjects develop more negative attitudes toward their opponents and choose more conflictual policies. Cultural differences produce more negative attitudes in all conditions but result in more negative policy selections only when the perceived relationship is hostile. In other words, in considering policy moves, cultural differences exacerbate conflict between enemies, but make no difference between friends, in spite of the negative outgroup attitudes they elicit.     

Intransitivity and Vague Preferences

This paper is concerned with intransitivity in normative rational choice. It focuses on a class of intransitivities which have received little attention, those involving vague preferences. “Vague preferences” are defined in terms of vague predicates such as “red” or “bald.” Such preferences appear common, and intransitive indifference is argued to be an unavoidable feature of them. Such preferences are argued to undermine intransitive strict preference also. Various formal theories of vagueness are applied to an example of vague preferences, but none of them provide a justification for the transitivity axiom. For helpful comments on earlier drafts and discussions of this material, I am very grateful to John Broome, Rosanna Keefe, Matthew Kramer, Stuart Rachels, Jochen Runde and Adrian Walsh. I owe a large debt to John O’Neill, who suggested an earlier version of the “Tragedy of the Disappearing Commons” example.