The spelling conventions for dental fricatives in Anglic languages (Scots and English) have a rich and complex history. However, the various – often competing – graphemic representations (<þ>, <ð>, <y> and <th>, among others) eventually settled on one digraph, <th>, for all contemporary varieties, irrespective of the phonemic distinction between /ð/ and /θ/. This single representation is odd among the languages’ fricatives, which tend to use contrasting graphemes (cf. <f> vs <v> and <s> vs <z>) to represent contrastive voicing, a sound pattern that emerged nearly a millennium ago. Close examinations of the scribal practices for English in the late medieval period, however, have shown that northern texts had begun to develop precisely this type of distinction for dental fricatives as well. Here /ð/ was predominantly represented by <y> and /θ/ by <th> (Jordan 1925; Benskin 1982). In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this ‘Northern System’ collapsed, due to the northward spread of a London-based convention using exclusively <th> (Stenroos 2004). This article uses a rich body of corpus evidence for fifteenth-century Scots to show that, north of the North, the phonemic distinction was more clearly mirrored by spelling conventions than in any contemporary variety of English. Indeed, our data for Older Scots local documents (1375–1500) show a pattern where <y> progressively spreads into voiced contexts, while <th> recedes into voiceless ones. This system is traced back to the Old English positional preferences for <þ> and <ð> via subsequent changes in phonology, graphemic repertoire and letter shapes. An independent medieval Scots spelling norm is seen to emerge as part of a developing, proto-standard orthographic system, only to be cut short in the sixteenth century by top-down anglicisation processes.

This paper argues that under conditions of uncertainty, there is frequently a positive option value to staying alive when compared to the alternative of dying right away. This value can make it prudentially rational for you to stay alive even if it appears highly unlikely that you have a bright future ahead of you. Drawing on the real options approach to investment analysis, the paper explores the conditions under which there is a positive option value to staying alive, and it draws out important implications for the problems of suicide and euthanasia.

This paper addresses how to think about the permissibility of introducing deadweight costs (so-called ‘ordeals’) on candidate recipients of goods in order to attain better outcomes. The paper introduces some distinctions between different kinds of value dimensions that should be taken into account when such judgements are made and draws from the literature on comparisons across different value dimensions in order to canvas what sort of situations one might arguably face when evaluating ordeals. In light of the distinctions drawn and the possibilities canvassed, the paper proceeds to outline what circumstances indicate which of the possible situations one is in.

This essay begins by summarizing the reasons why unregulated health-care markets are inefficient. The inefficiencies stem from the asymmetries of information among providers, patients and payers, which give rise to moral hazard and adverse selection. Attempts to ameliorate these inefficiencies by means of risk-adjusted insurance and monetary incentives such as co-pays and deductibles lessen the inefficiencies at the cost of increasing inequalities. Another possibility is to rely on non-monetary incentives, including ordeals. While not a magic bullet, these are feasible methods for addressing the inadequacies of market provision of health care, such as moral hazard.

This paper defends revealed preference theory against a pervasive line of criticism, according to which revealed preference methodology relies on appealing to some mental states, in particular an agent’s beliefs, rendering the project incoherent or unmotivated. I argue that all that is established by these arguments is that revealed preference theorists must accept a limited mentalism in their account of the options an agent should be modelled as choosing between. This is consistent both with an essentially behavioural interpretation of preference and with standard revealed preference methodology. And it does not undermine the core motivations of revealed preference theory.

This article proposes an analytical framework to address why implemented autonomy outcomes may differ across ethnic republics in the Russian Federation. Composed of a long-range factor, inter-ethnic boundary making, and a short-term factor, titular elites’ representation in the ethno-regional state, the framework is applied to a synchronic comparison of three republics of Russia with differing autonomy outcomes for the 2010s, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Yakutia, reliant upon state-generated data and fieldwork. Titular elites’ representation in the ethnoregional state is used as a proxy for titular elites’ bargaining capacity with the central state. It is argued that an “integration–distinction balance,” or rather, higher inter-ethnic integration combined with robust consciousness of inter-ethnic distinction, can contribute to titular elites’ bargaining capacity with the center, which can lead to greater autonomy outcome for the ethnic republic.

This paper aims at providing an account of the Islamic conception of Gharar in contrast to the current Western conceptualisation of risk, using the respective financial legal frameworks of both as the criterion. One of the more decisive stakes of the difference in approach between the Islamic and contemporary Western legal orders today concern the regulation of financial markets; specifically, the definitions of risk and uncertainty – crucial characteristics of modern economies – can be understood as preferentially related to specific features of Islamic law. In the end, according to Knight, money-creation processes are centred on uncertainty. Without uncertainty, there is no profit. This is why, although different at first sight, Islamic finance with its understanding of permissible Gharar and Western finance with its uncertainty-aversion trend have become more resilient, especially since the financial crisis (2007–2010).

In 2009, the Act on Greenland Self-Government was adopted. It recognises that “the people of Greenland is a people pursuant to international law with the right of self-determination”. Within this framework, the people of Greenland have gained significant control over their own affairs and the right to access to independence. Yet, the extent to which this framework ensures the right of self-determination in accordance with fundamental human rights can still be questioned. From a human rights perspective, the right of self-determination is not a one-time right. It is fundamental human right that applies in different contexts beyond decolonisation and which has implications not only for colonial countries and peoples but also for the population of all territories, including indigenous and minority groups. From this perspective, this contribution seeks to disentangle and analyse the different facets of self-determination in Greenland while considering the implications of the right based on the multifarious identity of the peoples living in the country as colonial people, citizens, indigenous and minority groups, including their claim to control mining resources.

According to luck egalitarianism, it is unjust if some are worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. The most common criticism of luck egalitarianism is the ‘harshness objection’, which states that luck egalitarianism allows for too harsh consequences, as it fails to provide justification for why those responsible for their bad fate can be entitled to society's assistance. It has largely gone unnoticed that the harshness objection is open to a number of very different interpretations. We present four different interpretations of the harshness objection in which the problem pertains to counterintuitive implications, badness of outcome, disproportionality, or inconsistency, respectively. We analyse and discuss appropriate luck egalitarian replies. Disentangling these different versions clarifies what is at the heart of this dispute and reveals the point of the harshness objection. We conclude that only the inconsistency version involves a durable problem for luck egalitarianism.

Whether companies and shareholders should be held liable for land contamination that occurred prior to the passage of the law imposing liability for such contamination is a complex issue. After a theoretical analysis of the legitimacy of retroactivity in land contamination law, our comparative study shows that most countries have adopted, or tacitly approve of, retroactive liability for land contamination. However, the liability schemes implemented in the countries investigated vary as to the types of obligation, the timing of conduct for which liability is imposed, and the standard of liability, among other factors. The retroactive imposition of liability in China's recently enacted Law on the Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution is examined, as well as the roadblocks that still remain, and further improvement based on the theoretical and comparative analysis are considered.

Governmental reactions to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as ethics communication. Governments can contain the disease and thereby mitigate the detrimental public health impact; allow the virus to spread to reach herd immunity; test, track, isolate, and treat; and suppress the disease regionally. An observation of Sweden and Finland showed a difference in feasible ways to communicate the chosen policy to the citizenry. Sweden assumed the herd immunity strategy and backed it up with health utilitarian arguments. This was easy to communicate to the Swedish people, who appreciated the voluntary restrictions approach and trusted their decision makers. Finland chose the contain and mitigate strategy and was towards the end of the observation period apparently hesitating between suppression and the test, track, isolate, and treat approach. Both are difficult to communicate to the general public accurately, truthfully, and acceptably. Apart from health utilitarian argumentation, something like the republican political philosophy or selective truth telling are needed. The application of republicanism to the issue, however, is problematic, and hiding the truth seems to go against the basic tenets of liberal democracy.

This article discusses the evaluation of the management of the Laponia World Heritage site (Laponia WHS) in northern Sweden. After inscription on the World Heritage list in 1996, difficulties emerged in establishing a common understanding about the involvement of various stakeholders into the site’s management model, the key point of contention being the influence of the representatives from indigenous Sami people and how that should be organised. In 2011, the management organisation led by Laponiatjuottjudus (the Sami name for the Laponia WHS management organisation) was established and implemented. This organisation gave Sami representatives a majority in the Laponia steering board and the position as chairperson in the board. This marked a remarkable shift in the Swedish national management system of land in not only handing over a state decision-making power to the local level but also to representatives of the indigenous population. The evaluation of the management model presented by Laponiatjuottjudus resulted in a number of responses from several stakeholders participating in a consultation process. These responses, from stakeholders with conflicting positions in relation to the issue described above, are the subject of this study. The analysis of these data collected reveals the existence of four major approaches or narratives to the Laponia WHS, with narratives connected to nature, the indigenous population and local governance, the economic effects of the existing system, and lastly the local community narrative. The study concludes that present management of Laponia WHS, the Laponiatjuottjudus, is a unique attempt to widen the management and planning process that partly interferes with the existing national planning model. At the same time, the analysis reveals that the Sami demands for influence over land management in the north still faces major challenges connected to its colonial legacy.

Interest in the spread of human capital has grown in recent decades, as it is acknowledged to play an increasingly important role in supporting social and economic development. This paper, starting from the distinction between education – assessed by educational attainment – and literacy proficiency – that is, what people are actually able to do with the written word – examines the distribution of these properties in Italy. Results of analysis show that while the longstanding gap between the North and the South is gradually closing with regard to the distribution of educational credentials, there is still a significant difference in the acquired level of competence. There is also an unexpected result: the regions of the North-West, once the main driver of Italy's economic development, today deploy a smaller stock of human capital than the North-East and Central macro-regions. In light of these findings, improving the education system's effectiveness and creating adequate political, institutional and legal arrangements that favour the development of human capital appear to be an absolute priority for Italy.

Pandemics and other crisis situations result in unsettled times, or ontologically insecure moments when social and political institutions are in flux. During such crises, the ordinary and unnoticed routines that structure everyday life are thrust into the spotlight as people struggle to maintain or recreate a sense of normalcy. Drawing on a range of cases including China, Russia, the UK, and USA, we examine three categories of everyday practice during the COVID-19 pandemic that respond to disruptions in daily routines and seek a return to national normality: performing national solidarities and exclusions by wearing face masks; consuming the nation in the form of panic buying and conspiracy theories; and enforcing foreign policies through social media and embodiment. This analysis thus breaks with existing works on everyday nationalism and banal nationalism that typically focus on pervasively unnoticed forms of nationalism during settled times, and it challenges approaches to contentious politics that predict protest mobilization for change rather than restoration of the status quo ante. In highlighting the ways that unsettled times disrupt domestic and international structures, this work also presents a first attempt to link everyday nationalism with growing work on international practices.

In its General Comment No. 34 dealing with freedom of expression, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) rejected the idea that a blasphemy law could ever be human-rights compliant, unless its function was to prevent incitement to religious or racial hatred. This is a widely shared view that is consistently endorsed when any international blasphemy controversy (such as that involving the Danish Cartoons in 2005) arises. This article assesses the legitimacy of this view. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits freedom of expression to be limited inter alia in the name of public morality, provided that the law in question is also necessary to achieve this end. This article argues that because a blasphemy law can be a response to a public moral vision; therefore a blasphemy law can serve a legitimate purpose insofar as human rights law is concerned. It is further submitted that whereas some blasphemy laws are unacceptably draconian, it is not inherently impossible for such a law to represent a proportionate response to a public morals concern. Thus, the conclusion from the UNHRC is not warranted by the text of the ICCPR. Moreover, there is a risk that, in reaching this conclusion the committee is evincing an exclusively secularist worldview in its interpretation of the ICCPR that undermines its claim to universality.