Vittorio Bufacchi

Voting, Rationality and Reputation

Why do people vote? This paper presents a solution to the voting paradox in rational choice theory, based on the interaction between two concepts: externalities (James Coleman) and reputation (Einar Overbye). Elaborating on the idea that voting is an investment in ones reputation, I will argue that there are two concepts of reputation: reputation-of-power and reputation-of-trust. The solution to the voting paradox can be found in the reputation-game between social actors holding these two different forms of reputation. During an electoral campaign, powerful opinion leaders can employ their reputation-of-power (power to impose sanctions) in order to get mere voters to vote in a certain way. The aim of the powerful opinion leaders is not to influence the outcome of the election but simply to acquire or maintain their reputation, while mere voters have an interest to vote as told in order to appear trustworthy (reputation-of-trust) to powerful opinion leaders. The act of voting is an unintended consequence of this power game.

Ethical Decision Making and Decision Support Systems in Public Procurement - A Theoretical Discussion

Decision making concerned with public procurement (PP) decisions presents a theoretical discussion of the challenges that extend beyond those associated with the purchasing function of private enterprise, because it seeks to serve the elusive concept of ‘public good’. In particular, ethical issues arising from such decision making are particularly complex. Lately, public purchasing managers have been faced with the added complexities attached to increasing levels of regulations that constrain their decision making and introduce unprecedented levels of scrutiny and requirements for compliance. Considering the broad European Union (EU) context, this research study investigates the ethical dimensions of spending public funds and considers the impact decision support systems could have on the work of managers engaged in public procurement. The article argues that public procurement creates a highly constrained setting for decision makers, which limits the range of means they can apply in their projects. This opens up a potential role for decision support system (DSS) tools in shaping the decision making of managers engaged in PP decisions and in particular in promoting ethical decisions. The main conclusion, however, is that although introducing ICT tools such as DSS may help promote such important values as transparency and accountability, the application of technology also raises fresh concerns regarding the limitations inherent in control-oriented regulations when it comes to fostering efficiency and ethical behaviours in managerial decision making.

the ripples of violence

The received view in mainstream philosophy is that violence is an ‘act’, to be defined in terms of ‘force’ and ‘intentionality’. This approach regrettably and inexcusably tends to prioritise the agent performing the act of violence in question. This paper argues that we should resist this tendency, in order to prioritise the victim or survivor of violence, and her personal experience, not that of the perpetrator. Starting from an analysis of the devastating impact of violence that characterises the experience of sexual violation and its aftermath, based on the memoirs of Susan Brison (philosopher) and Alice Sebold (novelist), we will then proceed to argue that violence should not be thought of merely in terms of an ‘act’, but also as an ‘experience’, the difference being that an act is temporally determinate while an experience is temporally indeterminate. With the help of a phenomenological approach, we will argue that violence has time-indeterminate intended and unintended consequences; these are the ripples of violence. Finally, some of the moral, legal and political implications of acknowledging the temporal indeterminacy of violence will be highlighted.

The Truth About Rights

Arguably the biggest challenge facing theories of rights today comes from moral sceptics of all persuasions who are constantly singing the praises of anti-foundationalism, and in so-doing undermining the validity of human rights. This article has two principle aims: to show how different theories of rights tend to presuppose related theories of truth and to argue how Pragmatism, as a theory of truth and a theory of rights, can provide human rights with the foundations it desperately needs. Parts I and II will show how the two major schools of thought on the nature of rights, the Interest (or Benefit) Theory of Rights, and the Choice (or Will) Theory of Rights, correlate with two dominant theories of truth: the Correspondence and the Coherence Theory of Truth. Part III will explore the Pragmatist conception of truth and how it correlated with a Pragmatist Theory of Rights. Finally, Part IV will argue that in terms of human rights, the choice we face is not between foundationalism and anti-foundationalism. There is a third-way that deserves closer analysis called “quasi-foundationalism.”

The injustice of exploitation

Is exploitation unjust? This essay attempts to resolve this famous question by suggesting a new approach to the relationship between exploitation and injustice. The literature on exploitation so far has focussed almost exclusively on the question of the circumstances of exploitation. This paper, by contrast, consists in investigating a different question, namely: what are the motives of exploitation? There are two different types of motive behind the act of exploitation: to secure an economic gain by using another person to ones advantage, and to humiliate and degrade another person for the sake of identifying with power. Understanding exploitation in terms of the latter motive enables us to see the injustice of exploitation from a different angle, pushing us beyond the narrow perspective (popular amongst Marxists) that tends to equate exploitation with the economics of an unfair exchange.

Democratic justice and contractarian injustice

This paper places Weale’s theory in its historical context, clarifying the dispute between Brian Barry’s justice as impartiality and David Gauthier’s justice as mutual advantage. Contra Weale, who argues that justice can involve both mutual advantage and impartiality, this paper suggests that impartiality and mutual advantage are incompatible, and that Barry’s position is preferable to Gauthier’s. Three specific issues will be addressed: First, Weale’s theory of democratic justice includes an account of injustice which is unpersuasive. Secondly, deliberative democracy does not only require equality of power, as Weale suggests, but also material (economic) equality. Thirdly, Weale’s claim that workers should be allowed to keep the full fruits of their labour is questionable.

Justice, Equality, Liberty

Social cooperation is the cement of political society. The structure and legitimacy of political power are determined by how the benefits of social cooperation are secured. The difference between a democracy and a non-democracy fundamentally comes down to whether social cooperation is voluntary or imposed by force: the more extensive the level of voluntary social cooperation, the stronger the democratic fibre of society.

Deliberative Democracy in Action

Democracy has a fraught relationship with social injustice. Democracy is often promoted, if not imposed, as a cure for the social injustice of oppressive regimes, and yet in young democracies this ideal is often used as nothing more than a rhetorical device, and in some cases even as a convenient facade to hide the worst kind of social injustice. In the case of Guatemala for example, it was in the name of democracy that in the past 50 years 200,000 people, the vast majority of which were innocent civilians, were massacred. During the 1980s, the Guatemalan government appealed to the intransigent defence of democracy to justify counterinsurgency strategies of abominable cruelty, even though those communities that were singled out for extermination, the Comunidades de Poblacion en Resistencia, or Communities of Population in Resistance (CPRs), lived according to one of the most advanced forms of democratic ethos and organization existing anywhere in the world.

Violence and Integrity

In the previous chapter it was suggested that the current state of play in the literature on violence reflects a disquieting schism between two rival positions, with one faction defining violence narrowly around the notion of excessive force, while the other defines violence more broadly around the notion of a violation of rights. These two rival positions were labelled respectively the Minimalist Conception of Violence (MCV) and the Comprehensive Conception of Violence (CCV), and it was even suggested that perhaps there are not one but two concepts of violence.

Political Scepticism: A Reply to the Critics

In a previous article in this journal (Bufacchi, 2001) I argued that political scepticism is a defining characteristic of liberal democracy. I have been criticised for inadequately distinguishing political scepticism from fallibilism (Festenstein, 2001) and for failing to appreciate the role of moral autonomy within liberal democracy (Hyland, this issue). In this article I respond to my critics, first by clarifying the difference between political scepticism and fallibilism, and secondly by suggesting that political scepticism is a necessary condition for moral autonomy.