In his article “Utility Cascades”, Max Khan Hayward argues that act-utilitarians should sometimes either ignore evidence about the effectiveness of their actions or fail to apportion their support to an action's effectiveness. His conclusions are said to have particular significance for the effective altruism movement, which centers seeking and being guided by evidence. Hayward's argument is that act-utilitarians are vulnerable to succumbing to “utility cascades”, that these cascades function to frustrate the ultimate goals of act-utilitarians, and that one apposite way to avoid them is by “ostriching”: ignoring relevant evidence. If true, this conclusion would have remarkable consequences for act-utilitarianism and the effective altruism movement. However, Hayward is mistaken – albeit in an interesting way and with broader significance for moral philosophy. His argument trades on a subtle mischaracterization of act-utilitarianism. Act-utilitarians are not especially vulnerable to utility cascades (or at least not objectionably so), and they shouldn't ostrich.

Writing on social media often departs from prescriptive norms through the use of non-standard words, spellings and punctuation. Amongst these traits is the repetition of letters (e.g. <ouiiiii> for oui ‘yes’). In this study, we draw upon a corpus of over 65 million tweets from three dialects of French (Laurentian, Metropolitan and Midi) to test phonological motivations for the choice of repeated letter in a word with repetition. Using mixed-effects multinomial regression, we compare dialectal differences in whether repetition targets final consonants (silent or pronounced), word-final orthographic <e> corresponding to phonological schwa, and prosodically accented penults. We demonstrate that repetition covertly signals phonological properties. We conclude that prosody mediates morphological and phonological effects and that grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences vary between regions, thereby producing phonological patterns that writers likely did not intend to convey at the time of writing. We also propose that orthographic repetition on Twitter has two prosodic sources: the default pitch accent in French (shifted or not) and focus.

The Gersum Project has significantly developed our understanding of Norse-derived terms in English by providing a highly systematic typology for their identification. However, this article shows that, in order to fully comprehend the lexical impact that Anglo-Scandinavian contact had on medieval English, we need to go beyond the identification of the Norse-derived terms and explore their process of integration into English. To exemplify the benefits of this approach, the article analyses the make-up of the lexico-semantic field of emotion, particularly fear, in the texts attributed to the Gawain-poet, and examines the interaction between native, Norse- and French-derived terms. This analysis moves away from the traditional study of the texts’ vocabulary in relation to their sociohistorical context, considering the terms instead from semasiological, onomasiological and stylistic perspectives. By taking this novel approach, this article addresses key linguistic and literary topics: the formal and semantic factors that facilitated the integration of Norse-derived terms into this lexico-semantic field and, more broadly, the impact that multilingualism had on the expression of emotions in medieval England; diachronic and diatopic variation in the field; and the Gawain-poet's artistry and interest in fear as a key emotion closely linked to other affective and cognitive processes.

The Book of Job treats of the Problem of Evil. It is divided into two documents: (1) the framework story, that is, the Prologue and the Epilogue (Job 1:1–2:13; 42:7–17); and (2) the speeches by Job, his friends, and God. In the framework story, Job is presented as a just man who serves God in good times and bad (Job 1:21; 2:10). In the speeches, God is accused by Job of ‘destroying the hope of man’ (Job 14:19). God replies with an ad hominem argument: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?’ (Job 38:4). If God argues that it is unfair for humans to judge God, Job argues that it is unfair for God to judge humans.

This paper presents a new kind of problem in the ethics of distribution. The problem takes the form of several ‘calibration dilemmas’, in which intuitively reasonable aversion to small-stakes inequalities requires leading theories of distribution to recommend intuitively unreasonable aversion to large-stakes inequalities. We first lay out a series of such dilemmas for prioritarian theories. We then consider a widely endorsed family of egalitarian views and show that they are subject to even more forceful calibration dilemmas than prioritarian theories. Finally, we show that our results challenge common utilitarian accounts of the badness of inequalities in resources.

Why hasn’t Uruguay enfranchised emigrants yet? This study examines an underresearched case of nonenfranchisement and engages with debates on external voting, diaspora politics, and citizenship beyond borders. Building on qualitative and participatory methods, the analysis unveils the obstacles to franchise reform despite significant progress from 2004 to 2019. Although external voting was not enacted legally, emigrants’ voting rights were debated, formally acknowledged, and encouraged. It is not the lack of norm entrepreneurs but the cumulative effect of indecisive actions that perpetuates a counterproductive dynamic and de facto uneven access to this right. An unresolved debate simultaneously advances conversations but precludes compromises, turning resolution deferral into an implicit form of regulating emigrants’ political inclusion or exclusion. Presenting original evidence, this study expands existing accounts, highlights the interaction between institutional and social drivers of change, and invites further research on the role of policy diffusion, domestic politics, and timing.

This article discusses the phenomenon of normative resilience, with a focus on evaluative resilience. An object can become more or less valuable. In addition to this change in an object's value, the object's value can become more or less resilient. If it is less resilient, it cannot withstand as much evaluative change without its degree of value changing, as compared to an object with more resilient value. The article consists of three parts. First, examples of resilience are presented to give the reader an intuitive understanding of the phenomenon, Second, the Fitting Attitudes Analysis of value is invoked to provide a formal account of evaluative resilience. Third, the theoretical and practical advantages of acknowledging the existence of evaluative resilience are brought to light.

The literature on comparative partisanship has demonstrated the low rates of party identification in Latin America. Such low rates are commonly interpreted as a sign of citizens’ disengagement with parties and democracy in the region. This article revisits this interpretation by considering voters’ adverse affection toward a party, or negative partisanship. It shows that examining the negative side of partisanship can help us develop a clearer perspective on the partisan linkages in the electorate. To support this claim, this study analyzes an original conjoint experiment in Argentina and Mexico, as well as two other public opinion surveys fielded in Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador. The study presents empirical evidence indicating that negative partisanship helps voters without an attachment to a party to distinguish themselves from nonpartisans, is independent of positive partisanship, and is different from a general distrust of the democratic system.

Should Germany be prosecuting crimes committed in Syria pursuant to universal jurisdiction (UJ)? This article revisits the normative questions raised by UJ—the principle that a state can prosecute serious international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by foreigners outside of its territories—against the backdrop of increasing European UJ proceedings regarding Syrian conflict–related crimes, focusing on Germany as an illustrative example. While existing literature justifies UJ on the basis of universal prohibition of certain atrocities, this creates residual normative issues. Alternatively, this article applies the “two-tiered test” derived from the “dual foundation” thesis of the Eichmann judgment, in which the normative appropriateness of UJ is evaluated against both accounts of universal prohibition and the specific politics surrounding the prosecution. It contends that the large number of Syrian refugees in Germany means that Germany, in particular, should initiate Syrian conflict–related UJ proceedings to prevent continued harm and recognize the political agency of refugees. Ultimately, the article suggests UJ should normatively be thought of as a domestic, rather than international, political event.

The large-scale provision of defenses around small towns in Roman Britain during the 2nd c. CE is without parallel in the Roman Empire. Although the relationship between defended small towns and the Roman road network has been noted previously, provincial-level patterns remain to be explored. Using network analysis and spatial inference methods, this paper shows that defended small towns in the 2nd c. are on average better integrated within the road network – and located on road segments important for controlling the flow of information – than small towns at random. This research suggests that the fortification of small towns in the 2nd c. was structured by the connectivity of the Roman road network and associated with the functioning of the cursus publicus.

To what extent can presidents exert gatekeeping power in opposition-led legislatures? Drawing on a study of roll rates in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, where presidents lack legislative majorities and often face a legislature controlled by the opposition, this article argues that gatekeeping power is divided among multiple actors. It finds that presidents exert weak gatekeeping power over the agenda. While presidents and their parties are rarely defeated in votes related to presidential initiatives, they generally create stable, informal coalitions with opposition parties to pass their bills. Moreover, the agenda-setting power of the president and the president’s party is weaker with bills that originate in the legislative branch, where the party is occasionally rolled on legislative initiatives and during the amendment stage if it is not also the median party.

Regional trade agreements have important consequences for developing countries, but the public opinion literature on trade agreements suffers from several shortcomings. Most significant is that studies tend to take a single year as the point of analysis, leaving us uncertain as to how opinion evolves. This study uses polling data to examine Mexicans’ attitudes toward NAFTA over a ten-year period. Results from regression analyses show an association between Mexicans’ support for the United Nations and their support for NAFTA, and a weaker relationship for other types of cues (presidential, the United States), than other studies have found. The data also reveal an association between Donald Trump’s arrival in the presidency and increased support for NAFTA.