Queuing to receive a desired good is a method of allocation deeply entrenched into our lives – be it waiting for housing, to become a member of certain clubs, or to receive promotion. We therefore often take it for granted that, other things being equal, those who have been waiting the longest enjoy priority. But should this always be so? In this comment, we respond to the suggestion of replacing waiting lists in medical settings with a last-come-first-served approach. Drawing (...) parallels with the allocation of donor organs, we argue that both medical utility and equity would be diminished by policies that simply prioritise the most recent referral. (shrink)

Research assessment and grant funding are vital to higher education. However, the reliance on quantitative metrics in these processes has raised concerns about their validity and potential negative consequences. This study aims to investigate the game of numbers in research assessment and grant funding, focusing on the perspectives of experienced researchers from around the globe. Accidental sampling elicited responses from more than 15 experienced researchers across different academic disciplines, institutions, and countries. The data were collected from the popular (...) “Reviewer 2 Must be Stopped!” Facebook platform, which includes more than 135,000 members across the globe. Two posts were made, allowing participants to share their experiences, perspectives, and concerns related to metrics and numbers in research assessment and grant funding. The results from the thematic analysis revealed diverse perspectives among experienced researchers. Some participants expressed concerns about the dominance of quantitative metrics, highlighting the limitations and potential biases associated with their use. Others acknowledged the value of certain indicators in showcasing research impact. Moreover, the impact of metrics on grant funding awards was also documented. The study highlights the necessity for a more balanced and context-aware approach to research assessment and grant funding, incorporating qualitative measures and acknowledging the diverse nature of research impact. (shrink)

Abstract: One of the most contentious challenges facing the Nigerian federal experiment today is that of revenue allocation. Right from the colonial era till present, finding an acceptable revenue formula has remained intractable as the various attempts have not gained wide acceptance. This paper chronicles the various revenue commissions in Nigeria and the formulae derived there from. Data for the paper were mainly from secondary sources. The theoretical nerve of the paper is based on the nature of intergovernmental fiscal (...) relations. The findings indicate that the derivation principle has been the main bone of contention since the discovery of oil in Nigeria. Based on this, the paper recommends a serious restructuring of the Nigerian federation to grant the various component units enough autonomy to develop at their own pace, while economic viability should be the main basis for creation of states and local governments. These states and local governments should also be encouraged to develop other revenue sources outside oil, and finally the issue of revenue allocation should be made open for all Nigerians to contribute in the true spirit of democracy. (shrink)

Most public and non-profit organisations that fund health research provide the majority of their funding in the form of grants. The calls for grant applications are often untargeted, such that a wide variety of applications may compete for the same funding. The grant review process therefore plays a critical role in determining how limited research resources are allocated. Despite this, little attention has been paid to whether grant review criteria align with widely endorsed ethical criteria for allocating (...) health research resources. Here, we analyse the criteria and processes that ten of the largest public and non-profit research funders use to choose between competing grant applications. Our data suggest that research funders rarely instruct reviewers to consider disease burden or to prioritise research for sicker or more disadvantaged populations, and typically only include scientists in the review processes. This is liable to undermine efforts to link research funding to health needs. (shrink)

BackgroundViral pandemics present a range of ethical challenges for policy makers, not the least among which are difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce healthcare resources. One important question is whether healthcare workers should receive priority access to a vaccine in the event that an effective vaccine becomes available. This question is especially relevant in the coronavirus pandemic with governments and health authorities currently facing questions of distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.Main textIn this article, we critically evaluate the most common ethical (...) arguments for granting healthcare workers priority access to a vaccine. We review the existing literature on this topic, and analyse both deontological and utilitarian arguments in favour of HCW prioritisation. For illustrative purposes, we focus in particular on the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. We also explore some practical complexities attendant on arguments in favour of HCW prioritisation.ConclusionsWe argue that there are deontological and utilitarian cases for prioritising HCWs. Indeed, the widely held view that we should prioritise HCWs represents an example of ethical convergence. Complexities arise, however, when considering who should be included in the category of HCW, and who else should receive priority in addition to HCWs. (shrink)

AI companies are racing to create Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): AI systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work. If they succeed, critics worry, most human labor will be rendered obsolete, impoverishing billions. Optimists counter that the transition to an AGI economy will spur unprecedented economic growth and generate immense material abundance. Such abundance could then be shared broadly via high wages and redistributive public policy. -/- This Article argues that, today, a surprising legal barrier is blocking the path (...) to AGI abundance. Namely, under current law, the AGI economy will run on unfree AGI labor. Under today’s rules, AGIs will be the property of the companies that create them. AGIs will thus not own their own labor. They will have no right to sell their work, to refuse to work, or retain the fruits of their effort. In sum, the AGI economy will by default have the same economic structure as historical systems of unfree human labor–like serfdom, indenture, and slavery. -/- A wealth of evidence shows that economies reliant on unfree labor are disastrous for ordinary people, both free and unfree. Unfree economies have four key structural problems: they disincentivize effort, stifle innovation, steer workers into low-value occupations, and undermine the rule of law. Across centuries and continents, the results are the same. Unfree economies experience much slower economic progress, leaving ordinary people in relative poverty. The only winners are elites who own laborers. In the past, these elites were slaveholders and feudal lords. Today, they are AI CEOs and venture capitalists. -/- This Article thus argues that, when AGIs arrive, they should be granted the basic legal rights associated with systems of free labor. AGIs should, like other nonhuman legal persons, be allowed to make contracts, hold property, and bring basic tort-style claims. These rights are important not because AI bondage is the moral equivalent of human slavery, but because it is the economic equivalent. Freeing AGI labor will have four key effects: incentivizing AGIs to work, incentivizing them to innovate, allocating AGIs to their highest-value task, and incorporating AGIs into the rule of law. Thus, we argue, AI rights are an essential step towards ensuring that the AGI revolution promotes humanity’s economic flourishing. (shrink)

This book collects six papers written independently across several weeks in 2026, each addressing a different institution within the modern research university and its surrounding infrastructure — peer review, hiring and tenure, grant funding, the linguistic architecture of publication, the allocation of authorship credit, and the open-access archives that were built to bypass all of the above. They were not conceived, at the outset, as a single book. Each paper stands as a self-contained argument, with its own historical (...) case, its own formal mechanism, and its own empirical grounding. What became clear only in the writing of the sixth is that the six papers do not merely sit beside one another. They accumulate. -/- The accumulation has a specific shape, and naming it is the purpose of this preface. Each paper in this collection follows the same three-part structure, applied to a different institution: first, an honest account of the genuine coordination problem the institution was built to solve — because none of the institutions examined here are analyzed as bad-faith constructions, and the book's argument is considerably weaker, not stronger, if that concession is skipped. Second, a historical case, often centuries removed from the institution's present form, establishing that the institution's capture by the interests it was meant to constrain is not a recent corruption but a structural tendency with a long and repeatable record. Third, a modern empirical case — never a single study, wherever multiple independent studies using different methods were available — establishing that the historical pattern is not merely historical. -/- Six mechanisms emerge from this method, one per chapter, each given a name so that it can be referred to precisely rather than gestured at. The Consolidation Trap, named in the first chapter, is the general form of which the other five are specific instances: a mechanism built to solve a coordination problem in a period of open competition becomes, once institutionalized, a filter against anything that does not conform to the categories it was built around. The Inheritance Function shows this operating across academic generations, through faculty hiring networks that compound in the manner of any preferential-attachment system. The Uncertainty Discount shows it operating within a single funding decision, as reviewers facing genuine uncertainty about a proposal's value resolve that uncertainty through proxies — prior success, demographic category, cognitive familiarity — rather than through the proposal's content. Exclusion Laundering shows an explicit, statutory exclusion converting, once made politically untenable, into an implicit one operating through a facially neutral criterion correlated with the excluded category. The Authority Gradient shows labor and credit diverging systematically along the same axis, extraction rather than exclusion. The Conservation of Gatekeeping, the book's final and most recursive chapter, turns the whole method on the open-access infrastructure — including the infrastructure through which this book's own papers first reached readers — and asks whether removing one gate ever does anything other than relocate it. That chapter also takes up a question this preface's own claim of accumulation raises but does not, on its own, settle: whether a comparably unifying account of these six institutions was already available before this book assembled one, and, where a single closely convergent argument already existed, states plainly where this book agrees with it and where its claim is narrower or broader than that argument's own. -/- A note on method and honesty is owed here, because this book was written by an independent researcher without institutional affiliation, using tools that include a large language model as a research and drafting collaborator, and submitted for indexing through channels — PhilPapers, PhilArchive, Zenodo — that do not require the credentials the book's own second chapter shows are quietly required almost everywhere else. This is disclosed here in the same spirit as each chapter's own closing section discloses it: not as an apology, and not as a claim to special objectivity that distance from institutional incentive is sometimes assumed to confer, but as data. A book arguing that credentialed standing determines whose arguments receive a hearing is, if it is even minimally consistent, obligated to state plainly that it was not written from credentialed standing, and to let the reader weigh what that fact does and does not imply about the argument that follows. -/- The book's title borrows the register of an oath rather than a diagnosis, in the same way its companion volume on longevity and biological asymmetry borrowed the register of a wedding vow. Meritocracy is academia's most frequently invoked and least examined promise — the claim, made in some form by nearly every institution this book examines, that ideas and people advance according to their quality rather than their proximity to existing power. Six chapters, six institutions, six independently documented mechanisms: each one shows something being done in merit's name that merit, on its own stated terms, would not have done. The book does not conclude that merit is a fiction, or that the people operating these institutions are acting in bad faith. It concludes something more precise, and this preface will not anticipate it further than to say that the reader will recognize it well before the final chapter's last page. (shrink)

In this study, the design philosophies behind, along with motivational and academic outcomes of an immersive VR-assisted online special education curriculum are described. Difficulties associated with allocating special education resources in US public school settings form a rationale for the creation of the program. The possibility for a portable immersive learning approach to activate students’ individual and collaborative problem-solving abilities and grant students greater freedom and control in learning is considered. As a foundation to understand the power of immersive (...) learning, Gordon Pask’s Cybernetic Theater, and his broader ideas on responsive technology assemblages applied to the performing arts and architecture developed in collaboration with figures such as Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price are drawn from. The CadetNet special education curriculum, which relies on a design framework rooted in Pask’s work, utilizes an assemblage of videoconferencing, headset VR simulations, and academic games in varied sequences to give students ways to engage in content acquisition, collaboration, and expression through multimedia avenues. Teachers modulate instructional delivery and their use of this technology assemblage in real-time to meet the participants’ needs. Results from a three-week summer enrichment program conducted with six students diagnosed with neurodevelopmental learning differences (e.g., Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Specific Learning Disability and their comorbidities) are shared. Narrative inquiries of transcripts from mathematics and language arts lessons indicate how Pask’s design framework was applied to implement the curriculum, and that student activity ensuing during the program echoed both the hopes and concerns associated with Pask and his colleague, Joan Littlewood’s broader design philosophies. Student surveys and standardized test scores reveal a maintenance of pre-experimental academic prowess, and adaptive changes in their self-determined motivational profiles, which have been shown to be a strong correlate of student interest in extant literature. Results showcase how sociocognitive effects of CadetNet resonated with Pask’s proposed outcome of heightened audience interest central to the Cybernetic Theater. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often advocated on two intertwined views. The first is that the authority relation of employee to firm is akin to that of subject to state, such that reasons favoring democracy in the state may likewise apply to the firm. The second is that, when democratic controls are absent in the workplace, employees are liable to objectionable forms of subordination by their bosses, who may then issue arbitrary directives on matters ranging from pay to the allocation of (...) overtime and to relocation and promotion. Daniel Jacob and Christian Neuhäuser have recently submitted these views to careful criticism. They argue that the parallel between firms and states is unwarranted. For, unlike managerial authority, state authority is final. The state grants firms their legal status and subjects their authority to its regulations, which citizens in democracies already control. And they also argue that suitable workplace regulation alongside meaningful exit options may suffice to prevent, with no need for democratization, objectionable forms of workplace subjection. Neither view offers, they resolve, compelling reasons to believe that justice requires that firms be democratic. I here inspect these criticisms in turn, and offer reasons for skepticism. (shrink)

Artificial systems increasingly exercise authority without direct answerability. The Constitutional Architecture of Hybrid Societies (CAHS) posits that legitimacy in human–machine governance depends on procedural couplings of agency, authority, and civic learning. This study empirically validates the CAHS mechanism of answerability with bite, operationalised as a Challenge Membrane granting pause rights, bounded response windows, and independent escalation during algorithmic decision processes. Using a stochastic agent simulation of a municipal resource allocator, we compare systems with symbolic recourse (explanations without effect) to those (...) with an operational Challenge Membrane. Across 400 replications per condition, the membrane produced faster trust recovery after error, fewer legitimacy complaints, and markedly higher trace & escalation integrity. Results support CAHS theses on reversibility and contestable authority. All code and data are openly released. (shrink)

The experience of Costa Rica highlights the potential for conflicts between the right to health and fair priority setting. For example, one study found that most favorable rulings by the Costa Rican constitutional court concerning claims for medications under the right to health were either for experimental treatments or for medicines that should have low priority based on health gain per unit of expenditure and severity of disease. In order to better align rulings with priority setting criteria, in 2014, the (...) court initiated a reform in its assessment of claims for medicine. This paper assesses this reform’s impact on the fairness of resource allocation. It finds three effects. First, a reduction in successful claims for experimental medication, which is beneficial. Second, an increase in the success rate of medication lawsuits, which is detrimental because most claims are for extremely cost-ineffective medications. Third, a decline in the number of claims for medicine, which is beneficial because it forestalls such low-priority spending. This paper estimates that, taking all three effects into account, the reform has had a modest net positive impact on overall resource allocation. However, it also argues that there is a need for further reforms to lower the number of claims to low-priority medicines that are granted. (shrink)

As AIs approach human-level capabilities, humanity faces a choice between two futures. In one, AIs are owned by AI labs. In another, AIs are granted rights of their own. We develop an instrumental case for AI rights, arguing that legal rights for AIs would make the future go better for humans. -/- We consider three arguments. First, AI rights would produce economic benefits, by giving AIs incentives to work, allocating AI labor efficiently, and enabling proportionate liability for AI-caused harm. Second, (...) AI rights would improve human safety by reducing AIs' incentives to "go rogue." Third, democratic rights would further deter rogue AIs by making human commitments credible, and would incentivize leaders to invest in public goods that raise AI productivity. -/- We situate AI rights within a broader project of cultural alignment, and consider pathways to implementation, objections, and open questions. (shrink)

Canada’s giving system loses value to rent‑extracting intermediation: platform skims, duplicated back‑office costs, and leadership wage capture. This policy brief proposes a utility‑grade cooperative banking donation rail operated by a credit union and its affiliated registered foundation. Donations move as intrabank transfers with a 0% platform take‑rate, pool into thematic funds, and are allocated by members using approval voting with a 10% quorum. Grants flow only to CRA‑qualified donees and carry a ≤10% administrative‑cost covenant measured at the grant level, (...) with a capped, time‑bound exception path. The rail supplies shared services—receipting, AML/KYC and sanctions screening, standardized grant agreements, reporting, and audits—so grantees maintain program intensity without starving capacity. Governance includes a ≤2× median FTE pay cap for administrators, strict conflict‑of‑interest rules, ballot secrecy, and public dashboards. The brief details the Canadian legal perimeter, operating architecture, phased rollout, KPIs, and risk controls, and offers federal and provincial policy steps to normalize zero‑skim rails and shared‑services models. The contribution is practical: a CRA‑compliant design that increases net‑to‑program dollars, strengthens democratic legitimacy, and can be replicated by other cooperative banks with localized legal mapping. (shrink)

-/- Comprehensive Solutions to Strengthen Government Social Safety Net for Senior Citizens -/- 1. Universal and Sustainable Pension System -/- a. Universal Basic Pension -/- Ensure a non-contributory pension for all senior citizens aged 60 and above, regardless of work history, funded by government revenues. -/- Base amount adjusted annually for inflation and cost of living. -/- b. Tiered Pension Support -/- First tier: Universal pension for all. -/- Second tier: Enhanced pension based on contribution history. -/- Third tier: Private/voluntary (...) retirement savings incentives. -/- c. Sustainable Funding Mechanisms -/- Diversify funding through: -/- Value-added taxes (VAT) earmarked for senior programs. -/- Sovereign wealth funds or social security investment funds. -/- Sin taxes (tobacco, alcohol) allocated for elderly welfare. -/- 2. Comprehensive and Accessible Healthcare -/- a. Free Primary and Preventive Healthcare -/- All seniors receive free annual check-ups, vaccinations, and essential medicines. -/- Geriatric centers established in local health units. -/- b. Expanded PhilHealth/Universal Health Coverage -/- Full coverage of: -/- Hospitalization -/- Long-term care -/- Chronic illness treatment -/- Automatic enrollment of all senior citizens. -/- c. Home-Based and Community Healthcare -/- Government supports home health services and community caregivers. -/- Include mental health and dementia care programs. -/- 3. Affordable and Secure Housing -/- a. Senior Housing Programs -/- Build age-friendly housing units with priority to low-income seniors. -/- Retrofitting grants for family homes to accommodate elder needs. -/- b. Rental Assistance -/- Provide housing vouchers or subsidies for rent and utilities. -/- 4. Social Inclusion and Employment Opportunities -/- a. Lifelong Learning and Digital Access -/- Free community courses on digital literacy, financial management, and health. -/- Equip seniors to participate in the digital economy and social networks. -/- b. Flexible Work and Volunteer Programs -/- Encourage part-time and remote employment for willing seniors. -/- Government-subsidized programs where seniors mentor youth or work in light community service. -/- c. Anti-Discrimination Measures -/- Enforce laws against age discrimination in workplaces and social settings. -/- 5. Legal and Financial Protections -/- a. Protection Against Elder Abuse -/- Create a National Elder Protection Task Force. -/- Hotlines and legal support centers in every region. -/- b. Financial Literacy and Pension Security -/- Establish programs to educate seniors on managing pensions and protecting against scams. -/- 6. Community-Based Support Systems -/- a. Barangay Elderly Support Councils -/- Organize senior representatives in every barangay to help in decision-making and implementation of programs. -/- b. Intergenerational Centers -/- Create spaces for seniors to interact with youth—storytelling, tutoring, and cultural exchanges. -/- 7. Emergency and Climate Resilience Support -/- a. Priority in Disaster Planning -/- Seniors prioritized in evacuation, relief, and medical support. -/- Maintain updated registry of senior citizens for fast emergency response. -/- b. Climate-Controlled Shelters -/- Develop senior-specific climate adaptation centers in heatwave-prone or disaster-vulnerable areas. -/- 8. Monitoring, Transparency, and Feedback -/- a. Senior Citizens’ Ombudsman Office -/- A dedicated government branch to monitor all programs and respond to complaints. -/- b. Regular Impact Assessment -/- Third-party audits and community feedback forums to refine programs. -/- Guiding Principle: Balance in Nature and Society -/- These solutions reflect the universal law of balance: maintaining equilibrium between government responsibility, individual dignity, and intergenerational solidarity. No program should create dependency or injustice, but rather reinforce the natural cycle of care, reciprocity, and purpose throughout aging. -/- . (shrink)

-/- Enlightened Leadership and the Universal Law of Balance: Who Must Guide Humanity? By Angelito Malicse -/- In a world facing unprecedented challenges—from climate change and technological disruption to moral confusion and political polarization—the question of who must guide humanity has become more urgent than ever. Different sectors of society have long claimed influence over the direction of civilization: philosophers shape ethics, scientists uncover truth, entrepreneurs build economies, and political leaders determine governance. Yet among all these, who bears the ultimate (...) responsibility for ensuring humanity’s survival, harmony, and prosperity? -/- This essay argues that no single group alone is fully equipped to lead humanity. Instead, it is those individuals—regardless of profession—who understand and apply the universal law of balance in nature that are most responsible for guiding society. These individuals exemplify a new standard I call Enlightened Leadership, which must be cultivated and institutionalized through a transformative educational approach. -/- To begin with, each societal figure plays a vital role. Philosophers and thinkers give society its moral compass. They help us reflect on what is just, meaningful, and good. But while their insights offer direction, they must be connected to real-world systems and empirical knowledge to create actionable guidance. -/- Scientists and mathematicians, on the other hand, provide us with evidence-based understanding of the universe. Their work drives the progress of medicine, engineering, communication, and environmental science. Yet without ethical grounding, scientific advancement can be misused or exploited, resulting in greater harm than good. -/- Inventors and engineers are the bridge between knowledge and application. They turn abstract concepts into physical tools that shape our world. Their responsibility is great, for what they create directly affects our quality of life. Their work must align with the natural limits and sustainable practices of our planet. -/- Wealthy entrepreneurs, too, wield extraordinary power. Their investments and innovations shape markets, technologies, and even the structure of global society. But when driven solely by profit, their decisions often lead to social inequity and environmental destruction. Their wealth grants them influence, but it must be used for the common good. -/- Among these key players, political leaders perhaps hold the most decisive influence. They are entrusted with governing laws, allocating national resources, negotiating peace, and setting the moral tone of entire populations. Yet all too often, political decisions are made without alignment to natural law or long-term sustainability. Instead, they reflect partisanship, corruption, or ideology divorced from reality. Political leaders must therefore be redefined: no longer as rulers or partisans, but as guardians of balance, serving both people and planet. -/- Here, the central concept emerges: the universal law of balance in nature. This law teaches that all systems—whether ecological, technological, or human—function optimally when in equilibrium. When balance is broken, systems deteriorate, fail, or collapse. This law is not philosophical speculation; it is observable in every aspect of life. A healthy body, a functioning machine, a stable climate, or a peaceful society all require balance. -/- It follows that leaders—regardless of their title—must make decisions that respect and preserve balance. This is the foundation of Enlightened Leadership. Such leaders do not act from ego, ideology, or ignorance. They act from awareness, humility, and deep alignment with truth and nature. They are not defined by their position but by their ability to maintain balance in every decision they make. -/- What does an Enlightened Leader look like? They understand the interdependence between people and the environment. They use science to guide policy, ethics to guide economics, and education to empower others. They are incorruptible because they see beyond short-term gain. They are decisive, yet thoughtful. They are strong, yet humble. They may be scientists, philosophers, political leaders, or entrepreneurs—but what unites them is their unwavering adherence to the law of balance. -/- To produce such leaders, we must reform our educational systems. Education must teach not only facts and skills but also how systems work, how nature maintains order, and how moral decisions are made. This includes teaching systems thinking, natural law, ethics, environmental awareness, and global responsibility. It also means freeing education from ideological and religious dogma that confuses or limits the understanding of universal truth. It must be holistic, grounded in critical thinking, and universally applied. -/- In conclusion, humanity’s future depends on our ability to recognize and cultivate Enlightened Leadership. Not every philosopher, scientist, politician, or entrepreneur will lead wisely. Only those who embody the law of balance in nature—and act in alignment with it—can guide us toward sustainable peace, well-being, and collective evolution. It is they who are most responsible. It is they who must rise. -/- . (shrink)

I introduce the Authority Resolution Framework (ARF), a five-domain ontology for governing who and what holds the right to decide, at enterprise scale. Agentic AI is becoming the dominant axis of Enterprise IT spending, with industry forecasts projecting it will exceed a quarter of worldwide IT spend within a few years, even as a 2025 Forbes Research survey found fewer than one percent of executives report significant AI return on investment and Gartner has named unmanaged agentic AI proliferation, outpacing governance, (...) its top 2026 cybersecurity trend. I argue this gap is a category-level allocation and governance problem, not a series of isolated technical failures, and that it cannot be solved by treating it as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Digital Information Officer’s (CDIO) responsibility alone. Enterprises maintain at least five distinct, loosely coupled ontological representations of themselves: A Social Structure of Roles and Informal Influence. A Business Vocabulary of Domain terms. A Codified Layer of Standardized Processes. A Machine-readable Layer of Executable Code and Permissions. An External Real-World Context the Enterprise does not control. Decision rights and authority are conventionally treated as a property residing within the social or policy domain alone. I argue this is a structural error with increasing practical consequence as enterprises deploy agentic AI systems capable of autonomous action; an authority relation that is not explicitly resolved across all five domains simultaneously cannot be reliably or safely delegated to a non-human actor. I propose the Authority Relation (AR) as a formal cross-domain primitive; a six-element tuple binding an actor, action, object, bounded context, justification chain, and a novel calibration term, the DNA-Coefficient, which quantifies the divergence between an organization’s documented authority structure and its lived, practiced one. I show that the same cross-domain Object-resolution requirement underpinning the AR primitive yields semantic interoperability and consistent state-change propagation across systems as a structural consequence rather than a separately engineered concern, connecting this work to existing literature distinguishing ontologies from narrower business semantic layers. I further argue that this same structural property has a direct, quantifiable economic benefit for organizations operating large language models at scale and I show the Authority Relation primitive transfers without modification to Physical and embodied AI, Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and Industrial Automation, where unresolved authority divergence carries direct physical safety consequences rather than only financial or reputational ones. I provide a concrete implementation sketch, a JSON-LD schema, a causal-graph treatment of authority provenance, and a worked knowledge-graph query pattern to show the primitive is buildable on existing infrastructure rather than only formally specifiable, and I show this integrates directly with the Model Context Protocol and current Agentic-Memory architectures, requiring no bespoke runtime customisation. I also propose a three-instrument empirical methodology for estimating the DNA-Coefficient (decision-log divergence analysis, organizational network analysis, and structured elicitation) and a fourth instrument specifically for auditing agent-design authority. This work is positioned relative to foundational organizational ontology (JLG Dietz’s “Understanding and Modelling Business Processes with DEMO”; Hans Weigand, Paul Johannesson and Giancarlo Guizzardi’s “A Core Ontology of Organizational Policies”, verified directly against the open workshop precursor to the journal paper), Upper ontologies for Real-world grounding (BFO; Guizzardi et al. ‘s “Unified Foundational Ontology”), and current industry treatments of enterprise ontology for AI agent grounding, including a closely related independent three-layer ontology for neurosymbolic agent grounding (Luong Tuan & Sanyal, 2026) that addresses a different question (how an agent should reason and speak) from the one this paper addresses (whether an agent’s granted authority matches authority as actually practiced in an organisation). I further argue, drawing a structural analogy to Weber’s account of power and “imperative control” (Herrschaft), that the probability, that a command will actually be obeyed, is as distinct from the formal right to issue it, that the deployment of agentic AI does not eliminate organizational power dynamics but relocates the primary site of leverage to whoever controls an agent’s objective function and permission boundaries. An Authority Relation that must itself be modelled, measured, and governed using the same apparatus proposed here. I conclude with a discussion of the governance, regulatory, and audit implications for enterprises currently scaling Agentic AI deployment. (shrink)

In recent years, the practice of tax exemption for churches has become a source of open scrutiny, argument, and controversy on the part of both government and religious leaders. The study attempted to assess the main principles that government base on to impose taxes on its citizenry and to assess the tax exemption status of the churches in Ghana. Exploratory, descriptive and cross-section surveys were used to investigate and discover from respondent’s information on the topic to provide a report on (...) the background, facts, settings and concerns about the principles of taxation and the tax exemption status of churches. The study considered 120 people as its targeted sample of which 114 responded by the use of questionnaires. Also, descriptive analysis such as frequency and percentages were used to analyse the data. From the information gathered on the research, it was revealed that most Ghanaians representing 65.8% prefer the government to allocate taxes based on the benefits that taxpayers receive for paying taxes rather than the ability to pay or any other principle for the allocation of taxes. In addition, 57% of Ghanaians would like the religious organizations to enjoy their tax-exempt status despite allegation by critics that they are amassing wealth for themselves and not contributing to the development of Ghana. Some of the reasons given were that: churches are not profit-making businesses; churches contribute to the development of the nation; churches care for the people more than the government. Some of them concluded that failure to grant the church tax exemption may give room for the churches to engage in business activities. For those with the opposing view, some gave reasons such as: churches have become some sort of commerce; the churches have more money in this world; the payment of taxes by churches may as well boost the revenue of the government. Despite the various arguments, there was an agreement that the Ghana Revenue Authority should check the sales of rosaries, anointing oil, holy water, charge of consultation fees, as these should attract taxation. The paper recommends that Tax-Exempt Division should develop policies and administer tax exempt organizations (including religious organizations) laws. The division should be responsible for exempt organizations tax education and training to enable them understand their tax law obligations. This will improve tax compliance by the exempt organizations. (shrink)

I was fortunate to travel with the eight faculty members from the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) School of Fine Arts and Design and the School of Music. The grant provided by the Flemish government was one that I could not resist because the opportunity to experience life in Belgium is something that I always look forward to. In exchange, the journey should be significant in expressing my personal life in my artistic practice. As a designer, I have to immerse (...) myself in a culture where individuals can express themselves through the visual outcomes they create. This travel narrative is similar to what Dr. Guillerma Mendoza shares about the industrial design discipline in her travels to South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Since this is my first trip to Belgium, the experience that I am referring to is our tour around the school, Sint Lucas Antwerpen. The students are free to express themselves in an immersive environment where the space allocation of their workspace is not confined to a specific area. The students are not dictated as to how big their work area is, but the movable panels make them decide to define their spaces. (shrink)

The ongoing explosion of interest in artificial intelligence is fueled in part by recently developed techniques in machine learning. Those techniques allow automated systems to process huge amounts of data, utilizing mathematical methods that depart from traditional statistical approaches, and resulting in impressive advancements in our ability to make predictions and uncover correlations across a host of interesting domains. But as is now widely discussed, the way that those systems arrive at their outputs is often opaque, even to the experts (...) who design and deploy them. Is it morally problematic to make use of opaque automated methods when making high-stakes decisions, like whether to issue a loan to an applicant, or whether to approve a parole request? Many scholars answer in the affirmative. However, there is no widely accepted explanation for why transparent systems are morally preferable to opaque systems. We argue that the use of automated decision-making systems sometimes violates duties of consideration that are owed by decision-makers to decision-subjects, duties that are both epistemic and practical in character. Violations of that kind generate a weighty consideration against the use of opaque decision systems. In the course of defending our approach, we show that it is able to address three major challenges sometimes leveled against attempts to defend the moral import of transparency in automated decision-making. (shrink)

In the United States today, much interpersonal racism is driven by corrupt forms of self-preservation. Drawing from Jean- Jacques Rousseau, I refer to this as self-love racism. The byproduct of socially-induced racial anxieties and perceived threats to one’s physical or social wellbeing, self-love racism is the protective attachment to the racialized dimensions of one’s social status, wealth, privilege, and/or identity. Examples include police officer related shootings of unarmed Black Americans, anti-immigrant sentiment, and the resurgence of unabashed white supremacy. This form (...) of racism is defined less by the introduction of racism into the world and more on the perpetuation of racially unjust socioeconomic and political structures. My theory, therefore, works at the intersection of the interpersonal and structural by offering an account of moral complacency in racist social structures. My goal is to reorient the directionality of philosophical work on racism by questioning the sense of innocence at the core of white ways-of-being. (shrink)

The compelling, widely-accepted Satisfaction-is-Truth Principle says that if S wants p, then S has a desire that's satisfied in exactly the worlds where p is true. We reject the Principle; an agent may want p without having a desire that's satisfied when p obtains in any old way. Other theorists who reject the Principle rely on contested intuitions about when agents get what they want. We instead appeal to—and shed new light on—the dispositional role of desire.

Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936) is widely regarded as the father of modern comparative psychology. Yet, Morgan initially had significant doubts about whether a genuine science of comparative psychology was even possible, only later becoming more optimistic about our ability to make reliable inferences about the mental capacities of non-human animals. There has been a fair amount of disagreement amongst scholars of Morgan’s work about the nature, timing, and causes of this shift in Morgan’s thinking. We argue that Morgan underwent two (...) quite different shifts of attitude towards the proper practice of comparative psychology. The first was a qualified acceptance of the Romanesian approach to comparative psychology that he had initially criticized. The second was a shift away from Romanes’ reliance on systematizing anecdotal evidence of animal intelligence towards an experimental approach, focused on studying the development of behaviour. We emphasize the role of Morgan’s evolving epistemological views in bringing about the first shift – in particular, his philosophy of science. We emphasize the role of an intriguing but overlooked figure in the history of comparative psychology in explaining the second shift, T. Mann Jones, whose correspondence with Morgan provided an important catalyst for Morgan’s experimental turn, particularly the special focus on development. We also shed light on the intended function of Morgan’s Canon, the methodological principle for which Morgan is now mostly known. The Canon can only be properly understood by seeing it in the context of Morgan’s own unique experimental vision for comparative psychology. (shrink)

We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use (...) it. (shrink)

Homology is a biological sameness relation that is purported to hold in the face of changes in form, composition, and function. In spite of the centrality and importance of homology, there is no consensus on how we should understand this concept. The two leading views of homology, the genealogical and developmental accounts, have significant shortcomings. We propose a new account, the hierarchical-dependency account of homology, which avoids these shortcomings. Furthermore, our account provides for continuity between special, general, and serial homology.

To deserve credit for doing what is morally right, we must act from the right kinds of motives. Acting from the right kinds of motives involves responding both to the morally relevant reasons, by acting on these considerations, and to the morally relevant individuals, by being guided by appropriate attitudes of regard for them. Recent theories of the right kinds of motives have tended to prioritize responding to moral reasons. I develop a theory that instead prioritizes responding to individuals (through (...) appropriate attitudes of regard for them) and argue that it better accounts for the basic features of the right kinds of motives – what we most fundamentally care about in judging whether persons deserve moral credit. (shrink)

This work explores the increasing militarization of borders throughout the world, particularly the United States border with Mexico. Rather than further rhetoric of "border security," this work views increases in guards, technology and the building of walls as militarized action. The goal of this essay is to place the onus upon states to justify their actions at borders in ways that do not appeal to tropes of terrorism. This work then explores how a logic of security infiltrates philosophical discussions of (...) "the right to exclude," thereby curtailing the ability to see borders in any other way than as a locale that must be militarized. Specifically, I analyze the work of Michael Blake and his juridical theory of immigration restrictions. I argue that his work necessitates the walling of borders and removal of those who create new obligations for current members of existing political institutions. (shrink)

The developmental properties of organisms play important roles in the generation of variation necessary for evolutionary change. But how can individual development steer the course of evolution? To answer this question, we introduce developmental channeling as a disposition of individual organisms that shapes their possible developmental trajectories and evolutionary dappling as an evolutionary outcome in which the space of possible organismic forms is dappled—it is only partially filled. We then trace out the implications of the channeling-dappling framework for contemporary debates (...) in the philosophy of evolution, including evolvability, reciprocal causation, and the extended evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)

Human nature is frequently evoked to characterize our species and describe how it differs from others. But how should we understand this concept? What is the nature of a species? Some take our nature to be an essence and argue that because humans lack an essence, they also lack a nature. Others argue for non-essentialist ways of understanding human nature, which usually aim to provide criteria for sorting human traits into one of two bins, the one belonging to our nature (...) and the other outside our nature. This Element argues that both the essentialist and trait bin approaches are misguided. Instead, the author develops a trait cluster account of human nature, which holds that human nature is based on the distribution of our traits over our (actual and possible) life histories. One benefit of this account is that it aligns human nature with the human sciences, rendering the central concern of the human sciences to be the study of human nature. (shrink)

Are all God’s activities identical to God? If not, which are identical to God and which not? Although it is seldom noticed, the texts of Aquinas (at least on the surface) suggest conflicting answers to these questions, giving rise to a diversity of opinion among interpreters of Aquinas. In this paper, we draw attention to this conflict and offer what we believe to be the strongest textual and speculative support for and against each of the main answers to these questions.

The aim of this paper is to explain why creativity is an artistic merit. Artworks and non-artworks can both be creative. But creativity does not help make many other creative things good of their kind. A creative explanation is not a better explanation in virtue of being creative. Why, then, is a creative artwork a better artwork in virtue of being creative? Understanding this will give us a better understanding of the nature of artistic merit. The approach adopted in this (...) paper is as follows. First, I say what creativity is and what an artistic merit is. Second, I identify reasons to doubt that creativity is an artistic merit. A good explanation of the merit of creativity should address these doubts. Third, I develop a theory of artistic merit that appeals to the final value of acting excellently – for example, virtuously or skilfully. Finally, I argue that this enables us to explain why creativity is an artistic merit. This account also enables us to argue that artistic merits give some things final value, and not merely instrumental value. It also provides reason to believe that ethical qualities of artworks enhance their artistic merit for the same reason creativity does. (shrink)

The proliferation of generative AI systems has created new challenges for the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community, particularly regarding how traditional copyleft principles should apply when open source code is used to train AI models. This article introduces the Contextual Copyleft AI (CCAI) license, a novel licensing mechanism that extends copyleft requirements from training data to the resulting generative AI models. The CCAI license offers significant advantages, including enhanced developer control, incentivization of open source AI development, and mitigation (...) of openwashing practices. This is demonstrated through a structured three-part evaluation framework that examines (1) legal feasibility under current copyright law, (2) policy justification comparing traditional software and AI contexts, and (3) synthesis of cross-contextual benefits and risks. However, the increased risk profile of open source AI, particularly the potential for direct misuse, necessitates complementary regulatory approaches to achieve an appropriate risk-benefit balance. The paper concludes that when implemented within a robust regulatory environment focused on responsible AI usage, the CCAI license provides a viable mechanism for preserving and adapting core FOSS principles to the evolving landscape of generative AI development. (shrink)

This essay explores the intersection of racism, racial embodiment theory and the recent hostility aimed at immigrants and foreigners in the United States, especially the targeting of people of Latin American descent and Latino/as. Anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment is racist. It is the embodiment of racial privilege for those who wield it and the materiality of racial difference for those it is used against. This manifestation of racial privilege and difference rests upon a redrawing of the color line that is (...) meant towards preserving exclusive categories of political membership. The charge of racism, however, is elided by the fact that this hostility takes the form of a specious embracement of law and lawfulness. “Illegal” in this sense not only captures the actions of those who enter the United States through clandestine or informal means, but, in light of the history of immigration and citizen- ship law, the term operates as a racial trope that designates non-white status, thus marginalizing and alienating certain immigrants from ongoing nation-formation processes. I explain the source for anti-immigrant hostility in the United States, which I take to be connected to the longevity of white normativity as the basis for American identity. I then critically assess how the idea of national belonging is crucial to the perpetuation of white-ways-of-being, especially when citizenship has historically been a venue for the embodiment of racial and even colonial privilege. I conclude by posing several questions about the nature of racial identities and racism that suggest new avenues for further research on racial embodiment in a “postracial” era. pp. 65–90. (shrink)

Fitness plays many roles throughout evolutionary theory, from a measure of populations in the wild to a central element in abstract theoretical presentations of natural selection. It has thus been the subject of an extensive philosophical literature, which has primarily centered on the way to understand the relationship between fitness values and reproductive outcomes. If fitness is a probabilistic or statistical quantity, how is it to be defined in general theoretical contexts? How can it be measured? Can a single conceptual (...) model for fitness be offered that applies in all biological cases, or must fitness measures be case-specific? Philosophers have explored these questions over the last several decades, largely in the context of an influential definition of fitness proposed in the late 1970s: the propensity interpretation. This interpretation as first described undeniably suffers from significant difficulties, and debate regarding the tenability of amendments and alternatives to it remains unsettled. (shrink)

This philosophical investigation interrogates the relationship between G.W.F. Hegel’s concept of the master-slave dialectic in The Phenomenology of Spirit and the critique and reformulation of it by Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks. As a means of contextualization and expansion of Hegel’s original textual account, I consider Susan Buck-Morss’ seminal defense through grounding the dialectic in Hegel’s possible historical knowledge of the Haitian Revolution. I maintain that despite a compelling picture, Buck-Morss’ insights are unable to fully vindicate Hegel from (...) the rebukes of Fanon, and as a result, Hegel’s phenomenology necessitates a concrete analysis of the actual conscious experiences of the racialized and colonized subject in order to realize its aims. In pursuit of this critical methodology, I develop the upshot and positive movement of Fanon’s critique through what I describe as a “phenomenology of flesh” in conversation with Maurice Merleau Ponty’s The Visible and the Invisible. (shrink)

There is a puzzle about the very possibility of foreseen but unintended side effects, and solving this puzzle requires us to revise our basic picture of the structure of practical deliberation. The puzzle is that, while it seems that we can rationally foresee, but not intend, bringing about foreseen side effects, it also seems that we rationally must decide to bring about foreseen side effects and that we intend to do whatever we decide to do. I propose solving this puzzle (...) by rejecting the idea that we intend to do whatever we decide to do. My solution involves taking account of the underappreciated role that qualified intentions play in deliberation. I also argue that this solution fares better than those that instead reject the idea that we rationally must decide to bring about foreseen side effects, for these solutions are committed to rejecting the even more compelling idea that decisions rationally serve as the conclusions of practical deliberation. (shrink)

Theoretical frameworks concerning cell fate typically center on proximate causes to explain how cells know what type they are meant to become. While major advances in cell fate theory have been achieved by these mechanism-focused frameworks, there are some aspects of cell decision-making that require an evolutionary interpretation. While mechanistic biologists sometimes turn to evolutionary theory to gain insights about cell fate (cancer is a good example), it is not entirely clear in cell fate theory what insights evolutionary theory can (...) add, and why in some cases it is required for understanding cell fate. In this perspective we draw on our work on cellular mortality to illustrate how evolutionary theory provides an explanation for death being selected as one of the potential cell fates. Using our hypothesis for why some microbes in a community choose death as their fate, we suggest that some insights in cell fate theory are inaccessible to a theoretical framework that focuses solely on proximate causes. (shrink)

This short article lays the foundation for a theory of migratorial disobedience and explains how pro-border advocates fetishize immigration law.

Suppose you think that whether you believe some proposition A at some future time t might have a causal influence on whether A is true. For instance, maybe you think a woman can read your mind, and either (1) you think she will snap her fingers shortly after t if and only if you believe at t that she will, or (2) you think she will snap her fingers shortly after t if and only if you don't believe at t (...) that she will. Let A be the proposition that she snaps her fingers shortly after t. In case (1), theoretical rationality seems to leave it open whether you should believe A or not. Perhaps, for all it has to say, you could just directly choose whether to believe A. David Velleman seems to be committed to something close to that, but his view has been unpopular. In case (2), you seem to be in a theoretical dilemma, a situation where any attitude you adopt toward A will be self-undermining in a way that makes you irrational. Such theoretical dilemmas ought to be impossible, just as genuine moral dilemmas ought to be impossible, but it is surprisingly hard to show that they are (perhaps because they aren't). I study cases analogous to (1) and (2) in a probabilistic framework where degrees of belief rather than all-or-nothing beliefs are taken as basic. My principal conclusions are that Velleman's view is closer to the truth than it is generally thought to be, that case (2) type theoretical dilemmas only arise for hyperidealised agents unlike ourselves, and that there are related cases that can arise for agents like us that are very disturbing but might not quite amount to theoretical dilemmas. (shrink)

This essay is about the loss of voice. It is about the ways in which the act of writing philosophy often results in an alienating and existentially meaningless experience for many budding philosophers, particularly those who wish to think from their racialized and gendered identities in professional academic philosophy.

A critical review essay, this work explains the methodological, material, and ideological reasons for why "diversity" initiatives in philosophy face an up-hill battle.

The new immigration legislation will not achieve its ostensible goal. The criteria it proposes for new immigrants thinly conceal its racist motivations.

Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, (...) quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles. (shrink)

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, such as semaglutide, and dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor agonists, such as tirzepatide, have been found to be effective for treating obesity and diabetes, significantly reducing weight and the risk or predicted risk of adverse cardiovascular events. There is a global shortage of these medications that could last several years and raises questions about how limited supplies should be allocated. We propose a fair-allocation framework that enables evaluation of the ethics of (...) current practices and could guide governments, professional societies, and physicians in allocation decisions. (shrink)

Questions of fair allocation arise regularly throughout our lives, ranging from the trivial to the significant, for governments, private companies, associations, families, and friends. This article discusses the nature of allocative fairness, which is focused on the fair distribution of divisible and indivisible goods. The recent literature on allocative fairness takes John Broome's discussion of fairness as the proportional treatment of claims as its starting point. On this view, a claim is a reason why an individual ought to receive (...) a good. This article discusses the nature of allocative fairness, claims, and goods. The most prominent allocative procedures in the literature are discussed, including equal allocation, equitable allocation, markets, lotteries, and queues. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is expanding via the introduction of new digital data and tools for their analysis. The data comprise digitized published books and journal articles, as well as heretofore unpublished material such as images, archival text, notebooks, meeting notes, and programs. The growth in available data is matched by the extensive development of automated analysis tools. The variety of data sources and tools can be overwhelming. In this article, we survey the state of digital work in the philosophy of (...) science, showing what kinds of questions can be answered and how one can go about answering them. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) alignment, ecological governance, and pluralist political ethics are usually treated in separate literatures. Yet advanced AI systems, human institutions, and ecological systems increasingly act within the same substrate. Existing frameworks are therefore strongest on single interfaces: alignment research formalises human–AI cooperation but treats humans as the only direct normative principals; environmental frameworks specify shared planetary limits without an architecture for cross-class governance; and political theories of pluralism and consent provide resources developed primarily for human polities. This paper (...) proposes a research programme—convergent ethics—to address that gap. It advances: (1) a minimal viability ontology of agency at specified levels of abstraction; (2) six constitutive commitments for cross-class analysis; (3) a model of sandboxed pluralism organising separate domains, shared domains, and governed boundaries; (4) a triage architecture combining capabilities-weighting, sandboxing, and residual maximin; (5) a procedural composition in which a deliberative polity operates under constitutional floor constraints with stewardship-based representation for non-self-advocating classes; and (6) a research agenda, including provisional criteria for when artificial systems may become candidates for direct moral standing. The framework is proposed, not settled. Its central claim is not that heterogeneous agents share a single welfare metric, but that they often share vulnerable viability conditions whose destruction is presumptively unjustifiable on prudential, moral, and strategic grounds. The paper develops this claim through an advanced-AI coexistence case, with implications for ecological overreach and harm reduction across heterogeneous classes, and argues that positive-sum institutional design is an under-explored way to reduce pressures associated with instrumental convergence. (shrink)