Multidimensional adjectives are ubiquitous in natural language. An adjective F is multidimensional just in case whether F applies to an object or pair of objects depends on how those objects stand with respect to multiple underlying dimensions of F-ness. Developing a semantics for multidimensional adjectives requires us to address the problem of dimensional aggregation: how do the application conditions of an adjective F in its positive and comparative forms depend on its underlying dimensions? Here we develop a (...) semantics for multidimensional adjectives that incorporates aggregation functions. We then explore an analogy between dimensional aggregation and preference aggregation, bringing results from social choice theory to bear on the number and kind of aggregation functions that are admissible in a context. These results suggest that, for any given adjective, there will often be multiple aggregation functions admissible, meaning that multidimensional comparatives are often vague. (shrink)

Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a given concept (...) might be measurable on different types of scales—e.g., some ordinal and some cardinal. An underappreciated impossibility theorem due to Anna Khmelnitskaya shows that seemingly plausible constraints on aggregation across scale types are inconsistent. This impossibility threatens to render the notion of overall Fness incoherent. We attempt to defuse this threat, arguing that the impossibility depends on an overly restrictive conception of measurement and of how measurement constrains aggregation. Adopting a more flexible—and, we think, more perspicuous—conception of measurement opens an array of possibilities for aggregation across disparate scale types. (shrink)

How can we develop an adequate scientific understanding of the minds of nonhuman animals? We argue for a methodology based on multi-dimensional profile accounts. Such accounts are already used for the comparative study of norm cognition, consciousness, empathy and causal cognition, among others. This methodology demands that a cognitive capacity is characterized by a set of independent dimensions where each dimension is connected to operationalizable empirical indicators. Based on the level of realization for each indicator the level of implementation of (...) a dimension is determined for a species, resulting in a multi-dimensional profile for each species. We analyze what this methodology is committed to. Then, we argue that this methodology has several benefits over competing unidimensional methodologies, by overcoming intractable disagreements, capturing the evolutionary continuity of cognition, alleviating anthropocentrism, and delivering more informative accounts of animal cognition. By demonstrating how this multidimensional methodology can be fruitfully combined with a methodology which focuses on the search for natural kinds in comparative cognition, we address the most important objection to the multidimensional profile methodology. We conclude that multidimensional profile accounts of all complex cognitive capacities should be developed and then used to facilitate scientific understanding of animal minds. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is on the metaphysical nature of multidimensional properties, properties like virtue, beauty, or health which can be had in different ways and to different degrees. Do such properties form their own sui generis kind, as existing discussions seem to suggest, or can we rather reductively account for them, relying on notions which may already be present in our ontology or ideology? In this paper, I will introduce a reductionist account of multidimensional properties, making (...) a partial case for Reductionism. (shrink)

Assigning responsibility for terrorist actions requires, among other things, understanding of the factors that motivate and entrench terrorist beliefs. This chapter endorses a normative approach to the epistemology of terrorism called multidimensionalism, focusing on etiological questions about the sources and causes of terrorist beliefs. The chapter offers a description of multidimensionalism informed by recent work by Quassim Cassam, exemplified in terrorism studies by Richard English and Lisa Stampnitzky, among others. When etiological studies of terrorist beliefs fail to be properly (...) class='Hi'>multidimensional, they run the risk of becoming epistemically myopic, a concept elaborated in terms of failures of explanatory breadth and depth. The dangers of epistemic myopia are illustrated with a critical discussion of two influential models of the etiology of terrorism, the radicalization model and the rational agent model. The author concludes that properly multidimensional approaches to the etiology of terrorism are vital to attempts to assign responsibility for terrorist actions. (shrink)

The present study explored the multidimensionality of moral identity. In four studies (N = 1,159), we compiled a comprehensive list of moral traits, analyzed their factorial structure, and established relationships between the factorial dimensions and outcome variables. The resulting dimensions are Connectedness, Truthfulness, Care, and Righteousness. To examine relations to personality traits and pro- and antisocial inclinations we developed a new instrument, the Moral Identity Profile (MIP). Our results show distinctive relationships for the four dimensions, which challenge previous unidimensional conceptualizations (...) of moral identity. We discuss implications, limitations, and how our conceptualization reaffirms the social aspect of morality. (shrink)

This paper analyses managers'' moral decision-making, and studies the role of ethical theories in it by following the research tradition using the multidimensional ethics scale. The research question is: what kinds of ethical dimensions do Finnish business managers reveal when they are making moral decisions, and how have these dimensions changed in the 1990s? This question is answered by examining what kinds of factors emerge when the multidimensional ethics scale is used to analyse Finnish managers'' attitudes toward moral (...) dilemmas. The results show that Finnish managers'' decision-making reflects a variety of ethical theories. Teleological thinking is strongly emphasised by Finnish managers, and relativist thinking is used as well, but often combined with either deontology or justice thinking. In addition, a strong moralistic dimension emerged in Finnish managers'' decision-making. The analysis was carried out in two different surveys in years 1994 and 1999, and the results show that the ways of decision-making were more complex at the end of the 1990s than almost six years earlier. (shrink)

Semantic transparency is a key construct for understanding how complex words are represented and processed, yet it has been conceptualized and operationalized in diverse ways across studies. In this study, we validate whether semantic transparency exhibits multidimensional properties across different measures in Mandarin Chinese. We first construct a novel dataset consisting of 2675 nominal compounds, with a rich set of measures from human ratings, traditional distributional semantic models, and recent large language models. To investigate whether they inform the same (...) aspects of this construct, we then examine the latent structure among these measures through exploratory factor analysis. Our factor analysis reveals that this construct is fundamentally multidimensional, with measures assessing the semantic contribution of each constituent and the semantic predictability of overall compounds representing distinct factors in the latent structure. These derived composite factors also predict lexical decision performance, with the factor representing second constituent contribution showing significant facilitatory effects. Our work extends the cross‐linguistic validity of the multidimensionality hypothesis of this theoretical construct previously established in English and German to Chinese compounds. Additionally, we provide a valuable resource for future research on the representation and processing of compounds, together with methodological insights into using computational estimates to augment psycholinguistic datasets across dimensions of semantic transparency. (shrink)

We axiomatize, in the multidimensional case, a social evaluation function that can accommodate a natural Pigou–Dalton principle and correlation increasing majorization. This is performed by building upon a simple class of inframodular functions proposed by Müller and Scarsini under risk.

Pain is often used as the paradigmatic example of a phenomenal kind with a phenomenal quality common and unique to its instantiations. Philosophers have intensely discussed the relation between the subjective feeling, which unites pains and distinguishes them from other experiences, and the phenomenal properties of sensory, affective, and evaluative character along which pains typically vary. At the center of this discussion is the question whether the phenomenal properties prove necessary and/or sufficient for pain. In the empirical literature, sensory, affective, (...) and evaluative properties have played a decisive role in the investigation of psychophysical correspondence and clinical diagnostics. This paper addresses the outlined philosophical and empirical issues from a new perspective by constructing a multidimensional phenomenal space for pain. First, the paper will construe the phenomenal properties of pains in terms of a property space whose structure reflects phenomenal similarities and dissimilarities by means of spatial distance. Second, philosophical debates on necessary and sufficient properties are reconsidered in terms of whether there is a phenomenal space formed of dimensions along which all and only pains vary. It is concluded that there is no space of this kind and, thus, that pain constitutes a primitive phenomenal kind that cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of its varying phenomenal properties. Third, the paper addresses the utility of continued reference to pain and its phenomenal properties in philosophical and scientific discourses. It is argued that numerous insights into the phenomenal structure of pain can be gained that have thus far received insufficient attention. (shrink)

Linda Martín Alcoff and others have emphasised that the discipline of philosophy suffers from a ‘demographic problem’. The persistence of this problem is partly the consequence of various forms of resistance to efforts to address the demographic problem. Such resistance is complex and takes many forms and could be responded to in different ways. In this paper, I argue that our attempts to explain and understand the phenomenon of resistance should use a kind of explanatory pluralism that, following Quassim Cassam, (...) I call multidimensionalism. I describe four general kinds of resistance and consider varying explanations, focusing on those focused on vices and social structures. I argue that vice-explanations and structural- explanations are both mutually consistent and mutually entailing. If so, there is no need to choose between vice explanations and structural explanations or any other kinds of explanation. We can and should be multidimensionalists: using many together is better. (shrink)

The main claim of this chapter is that multidimensional consequentialists have reason to reject some of the key premises of Parfit’s Mere Addition Paradox as well as Arrhenius’s sixth impossibility theorem. The latter is the most general and far-reaching impossibility theorem in the literature on population ethics. The chapter shows that multidimensional consequentialists can reasonably maintain that the mere addition of people who have lives worth living is not always entirely right. To add what Parfit calls “extra people” (...) is right with respect to one moral aspect (the size of the population) but wrong with respect to another (the average quality of life). (shrink)

According to the mixed lexicographic/additive account of ‘better than’ and similar aggregative value comparatives like ‘healthier than’, values are multidimensional and different aspects of a value are aggregated into an overall assessment in a lexicographic way, based on an ordering of value aspects. It is argued that this theory can account for an acceptable definition of Chang’s notion of parity and that it also offers a solution to Temkin’s and Rachels’s Spectrum Cases without giving up the transitivity of overall (...) betterness. Formal details and proofs are provided in an “Appendix”. (shrink)

Self-control allows people to align their behaviour with intention in the face of a motivational conflict. Lay beliefs about self-control are associated with self-control performance. However, previous research has focused on whether self-control is seen as a limited resource in the short term and mostly ignored beliefs about whether self-control is malleable in the long term. We examined these two aspects of lay beliefs in two preregistered questionnaire studies with adult UK participants (n1 = 182, n2 = 199). In both (...) studies, beliefs about the limitedness and malleability of self-control were relatively independent of each other. Moreover, limitedness beliefs varied depending on the self-control domain. Self-control beliefs were related to but relatively distinct from self-esteem, self-efficacy, and trait self-control. Beliefs about the malleability of self-control were moderately associated with beliefs about the malleability of overall personality, but not with beliefs about intelligence. Our results support a multidimensional and domain-specific approach when measuring self-control beliefs. (shrink)

We introduce a ranking of multidimensional alternatives, including uncertain prospects as a particular case, when these objects can be given a matrix form. This ranking is separable in terms of rows and columns, and continuous and monotonic in the basic quantities. Owing to the theory of additive separability developed here, we derive very precise numerical representations over a large class of domains (i.e., typically notof the Cartesian product form). We apply these representationsto (1)streams of commodity baskets through time, (2)uncertain (...) social prospects, (3)uncertain individual prospects. Concerning(1), we propose a finite horizon variant of Koopmans’s (1960) axiomatization of infinite discounted utility sums. The main results concern(2). We push the classic comparison between the exanteand expostsocial welfare criteria one step further by avoiding any expected utility assumptions, and as a consequence obtain what appears to be the strongest existing form of Harsanyi’s (1955) Aggregation Theorem. Concerning(3), we derive a subjective probability for Anscombe and Aumann’s (1963) finite case by merely assuming that there are two epistemically independent sources of uncertainty. (shrink)

A descriptive multidimensional preference-model (WM) is developed which amalgamates dimension-wise preference-relations (preferences in respect to different decision-criteria) into an overall-preference, according to the weights of the dimensions. Apart from the common preference-axioms, WM is based on an axiomatic system C for the weighing of the dimensions. Proofs of consistency and of independence of the axioms are presented. The overall-preference-rektion is shown to be nontransitive. The likewise nontransitive overall-indifference is divided into two other overall-indifference-relations, one of them is transitive, the (...) other nontransitive. Thus WM is able to explain ‘intransitivities’ even if perfect discriminability is assumed. System C is further interpreted as system of Qualitative Probability and its relations to the standard system of Qualitative Probability are analyzed. In the last section WM is compared with some other decision-models (Dominance-rule, Lexicographic-ordering, Majority-rule, Additive-difference-model), some possible interpretations of WM and the limits of WM are discussed. (shrink)

This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions (...) of the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances. (shrink)

Musically trained and untrained listeners were required to listen to 27 musical excerpts and to group those that conveyed a similar emotional meaning (Experiment 1). The groupings were transformed into a matrix of emotional dissimilarity that was analysed through multidimensional scaling methods (MDS). A 3-dimensional space was found to provide a good fit of the data, with arousal and emotional valence as the primary dimensions. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the consistency of this 3-dimensional space using excerpts of only (...) 1 second duration. The overall findings indicate that emotional responses to music are very stable within and between participants, and are weakly influenced by musical expertise and excerpt duration. These findings are discussed in light of a cognitive account of musical emotion. (shrink)

We consider application of the structural approximation method to research information flow in social networks. The notations of potential, interparticle flux and energy are considered in terms of social networks. The basic notations of society functioning related to the communication and information transfer processes are modeled by means of multidimensional potentials and the corresponding interactions arisen in networks. A graph associated to the network is considered in the high dimensional space R^d when d is comparable with the number of (...) vertices in graphs. (shrink)

A study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of academic dishonesty in fifth-grade students. Two methods were used to gather data: a sorting task, which was used to indirectly assess the students' perceptions, and a rating scale task, which was used to externally validate the results of the sorting task. Results of the multidimensional scaling analysis yielded two dimensions, the first being tests/homework and papers, and the second, more ambiguous appearing to differentiate based on seriousness.

In this paper, we present an overview of the main conceptual framework for trustworthy AI and argue that the network account offers a superior alternative. We identify and illustrate the possible nodes within an AI network, specify the key attributes each node should possess, and clarify what constitutes a sufficient threshold for each attribute. Building on this foundation, we introduce a novel framework for the network account of trustworthy AI: Lexical Threshold-Based Multidimensional Utility Theory (LTMU). This framework lexically ranks (...) trust-relevant attributes, establishes minimum thresholds for each and assesses each attribute with a distinct utility scale. We then demonstrate how the LTMU framework can be applied to analyse two exceptional cases in which trust-relevant attributes come into conflict in different ways, arguing that its application yields reasonable and defensible outcomes in both scenarios. (shrink)

Introduction Babette Babich The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology: From Philology through Science and Technology to Theology Studies of hermeneutics have historically invoked horizons and numbered dimensions1 and ...

Multidimensional property supplementation is a grounded theory method for analysis that conceives of concepts as multidimensional spaces of possibilities. It is applied in an iterative process comprising four steps: expansion, whereby vague codes are split and contraries postulated; abstraction of practically significant differences in terms of properties and dimensions; geometrization of properties to create conceptual subspaces that supplant subcategories and have additional, emergent qualities; and unification of the concept by validating it against data and relieving it of properties (...) that do not tie in sufficiently with other concepts. Multidimensional conceptual models encourage the researcher to elaborate properties that explain, predict, or guide action. Fully developed, they can be easily connected to others in a process and function, by virtue of their emergent qualities, as falsifiable hypotheses in their own right. For these reasons, multidimensional property supplementation is open to epistemological justification without presuming acceptance of techniques specific to grounded theory. (shrink)

Adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) is a neuromodulation technology that enables real-time monitoring and automatic adjustment of stimulation parameters. While enhancing treatment precision, this technology also introduces more intricate ethical challenges than conventional DBS (cDBS). Current discussions of autonomy in aDBS often appeal to different definitions of autonomy, making it difficult to fully capture the distinctive problems posed by aDBS. To address this gap, this article proposes a multidimensional analytical framework centred on control, derived from aDBS’s two distinctive features: (...) ‘automatic unperceived operation’ and ‘patient-device shared control of neural activity’. Within this framework, control is categorised along two dimensions: source and perception. Using this framework, the study identifies three categories of ethical challenges: (1) unperceived external control by third parties (such as hacking) constitutes a potential manipulation of individual autonomy; (2) unperceived external control arising from system autonomy may become conflated with patients’ internal control, blurring human-machine boundaries and creating dilemmas of self-identity and responsibility attribution; and (3) perceived external control may foster patient dependence or even addiction to the technology, undermining individual capacities for internal control. This mapping provides a more explanatory conceptual toolkit for ethical assessment and policy-making around aDBS, aiming to ensure that technological innovation promotes human well-being while safeguarding individual dignity and autonomy. (shrink)

In precision medicine, digital twins—virtual models of patients created using personalized data and advanced machine learning—are potentially changing healthcare by predicting health outcomes and guiding medical decisions. However, their use raises complex ethical questions, particularly concerning their relationship to human dignity. Patients often regard dignity as central to their healthcare experience, and failing to incorporate this principle into the design and application of digital twins risks undermining personal autonomy, misusing sensitive data, eroding patient–provider trust, and creating broader ethical challenges. This (...) paper argues that digital twins are not mere data sets or predictive tools, but symbolic extensions of the dignity of the individuals they represent. Using David Kirchhoffer's multidimensional framework of human dignity, this study examines how digital twins engage with both absolute (inherent) and contingent (socially constructed) dimensions of dignity. The analysis begins by exploring the multidimensional concept of human dignity, followed by a discussion of how digital twins embody these dimensions, illustrated through examples such as digital brain twins, posthumous digital representations, and disability contexts. Finally, the paper addresses the ethical implications of these findings, emphasizing the moral responsibilities of researchers, developers, and clinicians to treat digital twins as representations of patient dignity, thereby ensuring these technologies advance healthcare without compromising the fundamental respect owed to every individual. (shrink)

A multidimensional pseudo-Boolean algebra is constructed based on generalized sequences of classes, drawing on N.A. Vasiliev's philosophical ideas and V.A. Smirnov's formalizations. Vasiliev's non-Aristotelian logics, which challenge the laws of non-contradiction and the excluded middle, are extended to n-dimensional logics where atomic statements represent positive, negative, or indifferent states. Finite linear sequences are generalized into partially ordered sequences, forming an implicative lattice with defined intersection and union operations. This structure satisfies the properties of a pseudo-Boolean algebra, providing a formal (...) framework for multidimensional logics applicable to imaginary and normative scenarios, such as deontic logic. The approach parallels non-Euclidean geometry, offering a novel perspective on logical systems and their ontological implications. (shrink)

Trust is a basic feeling and attitude. It shapes human relations as the glue that holds groups and even societies together. Now that AI is increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, the extent to which we can trust these systems has become a key question. It can be discussed from a psychological person perspective (“Under which conditions are we inclined to trust AI systems?”) or from an objective systems perspective (“Under which conditions is a system worthy of trust, and to (...) what degree?”). To offer a general framework for comparing different systems, we adopt a system-level perspective, abstracting from subjective psychological conditions. An especially innovative aspect of this comparative framework is its integration of two dimensions: uncertainty (currently a hot topic in AI research) and commitment (a rather new one for AI systems). This allows us compare certain AI systems, like ChatGPT or autonomous cars, to more familiar systems, like classical (non-autonomous) cars and (prototypical) democratic institutions. We can therefore clarify in which dimensions they differ. This overview can be used both to understand specific features of AI systems and to reveal deficits in their trustworthiness that must be overcome to make AI systems acceptable. Despite intense and widespread discussion of whether and to what degree we can trust AI systems, we still lack a general framework for any systematic comparison of trustworthiness. Our account is supposed to develop further and improve the famous analysis of Glikson & Wooley (2020) by proposing a multidimensional framework of trustworthiness, with three central steps. First, drawing on noteworthy articles in the existing literature, we identify six central dimensions of trust from a general perspective: objective functionality, transparency, uncertainty (quantification), embodiment, immediacy behaviors, and commitment. Second, we develop a more detailed perspective, partially characterizing each dimension by detailing several of its specific features. Finally, we show how we can evaluate each feature of any dimension (implemented as low, medium, or high) and thereby calculate an average value for each dimension a system has. This results in a multidimensional account of trust that allows us compare different systems’ trustworthiness as a basis for the future development of AI systems. (shrink)

What are the possible varieties of cognition-artifact relations, and which dimensions are relevant for exploring these varieties? This question is answered in two steps. First, three levels of functional and informational integration between human agent and cognitive artifact are distinguished. These levels are based on the degree of interactivity and direction of information flow, and range from monocausal and bicausal relations to continuous reciprocal causation. In these levels there is a hierarchy of integrative processes in which there is an increasing (...) degree of hybridization. Therefore, from a functional and informational level of abstraction, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between agent and artifact in this hierarchy. Second, a multidimensional matrix for exploring cognition-artifact relations is sketched. The dimensions in the matrix include reliability, durability, trust, procedural and representational transparency, individualization, bandwidth, speed of information flow, distribution of computation, and cognitive and artifactual transformation. Together, these dimensions constitute a multidimensional space in which particular cognition-artifact relations can be located. The higher a particular cognition-artifact relation scores on these dimensions, the more integration and hybridization occurs, and the more tightly coupled the overall system is. It is then better, for explanatory reasons, to see agent and artifact as one cognitive system with a distributed informational architecture. (shrink)

Most accounts of welfare aggregation in the tradition of Arrow's and Sen's social-choice-theoretic frameworks represent the welfare of an individual in terms of a single welfare ordering or a single scalar-valued welfare function. I develop a multidimensional generalization of Arrow's and Sen's frameworks, representing individual welfare in terms of multiple personal welfare functions, corresponding to multiple 'dimensions' of welfare. I show that, as in the one-dimensional case, the existence of attractive aggregation procedures depends on certain informational assumptions, specifically about (...) the measurability of welfare and its comparability not only across individuals but also across dimensions. I state several impossibility and possibility results. Under Arrow-type conditions, insufficient comparability across individuals leads to dictatorship of a single individual, while insufficient comparability across dimensions leads to dominance of a single dimension. Given sufficient comparability both across individuals and across dimensions, a range of possibilities emerges. I discuss the substantive implications of the results. (shrink)

Measures of need-based justice that have been proposed lately rely on a single dimension of need that is taken into account. This is shown to be problematic since humans experience different kinds of need that appear to be incommensurable.

It has been argued that multidimensionalism about normative support is a promising theory of the latitude exemplified by practical norms governing actions. One might, thus, suspect that a similar form of multidimensionalism might be an adequate explanation of the kind of latitude exemplified in one’s doxastic attitudes and provide further resources to epistemic permissivists regarding epistemic norms governing beliefs. In this paper, I raise some concerns regarding this contention. First, I provide a general theory of how multidimensionalism about normative support (...) can be applied to the so-called right kind of reasons for attitudes, given that the former is commonly coated in contrastivist terms. Second, I offer a theory of how right kind of reasons for intentions could have different dimensions of strength, depending on how they relate to the fittingness and unfittingness of the attitudes in question. Finally, I show that this straightforward way to allow for multiple dimensions of normative strength of right kind of reasons does not translate well to the case of doxastic attitudes. (shrink)

This paper analyses the possibility of granting legitimacy to democratic decisionmaking procedures in a context of deep pluralism. We defend a multidimensional account according to which a legitimate system needs to grant, on the one hand, that citizens should be included on an equal footing and acknowledged as reflexive political agents rather than mere beneficiaries of policies, and, on the other hand, that their decisions have an epistemic quality. While Estlund’s account of imperfect epistemic proceduralism might seem to embody (...) a dualistic conception of democratic legitimacy, we point out that it is not able to recognize citizens as reflexive political agents and is grounded in an idealized model of the circumstances of deliberation. To overcome these ambiguities, we develop an account of democratic legitimacy according to which disagreement is the proper expression of citizens’ reflexive agency and the attribution of epistemic authority does not stem from a major expertise or specific ability, but it comes through the public confrontation among disagreeing agents. Consequently, the epistemic value of deliberation should be derived from the reasons-giving process rather than from the reference to the alleged quality of its outcomes. In this way, we demonstrate the validity of the multidimensional perspective of legitimacy, yet abstain from introducing any outcome-oriented criterion. Finally, we argue that this account of legitimacy is well suited for modeling deliberative democracy as a decision-making procedure that respects the agency of every citizen and grants her opportunity to influence public choices. (shrink)

Chronic Kidney Disease affects 13% of China’s population, with hemodialysis consuming 1–3% of national healthcare expenditure. Hemodialysis patients face complex physical-psychological burdens, while physicians in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hospitals navigate unique ethical dilemmas arising from dual Western-TCM practice paradigms, cultural expectations, and systemic healthcare pressures. This study employed Social-Ecological Systems Theory to analyze these multilayered challenges and developed a structured ethical model. This study followed a qualitative phenomenological research design. Maximum variation purposive sampling was employed to recruit 28 hemodialysis (...) physicians from six TCM hospitals across five cities in Shandong Province, China. Data were collected through focus group and in-depth individual interviews with 28 hemodialysis physicians from November 2024 to January 2025, and were analyzed following Colaizzi’s descriptive analysis framework. The framework of the Society Ecosystems Theory was applied to analyze how multilevel systemic interactions shape ethical challenges, thereby constructing a multidimensional conceptual model. Ethical challenges encountered by hemodialysis physicians were categorized into three themes with seven subthemes and 17 subcategories. Based on these findings, a three-tiered model was developed: macro-system challenges involving policy, organizational, and cultural dimensions; meso-system challenges emerging from interprofessional dynamics, particularly doctor-doctor, doctor-nurse, and doctor-patient relationships; and micro-system challenges pertaining to individual difficulties. The conceptual model reveals the multi-level nature of ethical challenges in hemodialysis practice, spanning systemic policies, interprofessional relationships, and individual dilemmas. The findings specifically call for targeted interventions at each level: policy reforms to address resource constraints, team-based strategies to improve clinical collaborations, and support systems to alleviate practitioners’ ethical distress. These evidence-based insights empower stakeholders to develop comprehensive solutions addressing the interconnected challenges identified. (shrink)

Following Axel Honneth, I accept that recognition is integral to individuals’ self-realization and to social justice and that instances of misrecognition are injustices that cause moral injuries. The change in approach to misrecognition that I advocate is to replace a macrosocial top-down picture of misrecognition, such as Honneth’s typology, with a fine-grained phenomenological picture of multiple dimensions in misrecognition behaviors that offers greater explanatory power. This paper explains why a multidimensional view of misrecognition is needed and explores the various (...) ways that engagement with pathological norms or disengagement from individuals lead to injustices of misrecognition and how understanding behaviors in terms of these two dimensions—norms and individuals—illuminates causes of injustice. The multidimensional view of misrecognition replaces Honneth’s binary view of misrecognition as the contrary to recognition without replacing Honneth’s conceptions of the value of recognition. (shrink)

It is intended in this study to present initial reliability and validity data for the Russian adaptation of the Multidimensional Inventory of Religious/Spiritual Well-being (MI-RSWB-R), as being related to personality factors and psychopathology. Therefore, the first version of the MI-RSWB-R was applied to a sample of 192 (147 females) non-clinical subjects, together with the NEO Five Factor Inventory and the Symptom-Check-List (SCL-90-R). The original six-factor structure of the scale could be replicated for the MI-RSWB-R, which also provides satisfying psychometric (...) properties. In accordance with previous research the RSWB total score was linked to more favorable personality traits such as Extraversion ( r =.45), Openness to Experience ( r =.39), and Agreeableness ( r =.38), which was paralleled by substantial negative correlations with increased psychopathology. Our findings support the reliability and structural validity of the MI-RSWB-R as a standardized instrument for addressing the spiritual dimension in Russian populations. Further research in clinical surroundings is now recommended. (shrink)

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the adoption and popularity of AI applications vary substantially across national markets. Systematically characterizing and comparing these popularity patterns has therefore become an important research issue. This study develops a multidimensional evaluation framework encompassing technological performance, functional and scenario adaptability, market ecosystem, sociocultural environment, and network effects. Using this framework, the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method is applied to conduct a comprehensive evaluation and ranking of twelve mainstream AI applications in the UK (...) and US markets. In a research context characterized by a small sample size and multiple heterogeneous indicators, the study provides an exploratory assessment of the relative popularity of AI applications. The results reveal two main findings. First, clear heterogeneity exists across application types: text-based AI applications generally achieve higher composite rankings, whereas image-generation applications display a more dispersed distribution of scores. Second, when benchmarked against user adoption shares in the UK and US markets as a proxy for real-world popularity, the composite evaluation results show a high degree of consistency with observed usage patterns. This consistency suggests that the proposed multidimensional evaluation framework is capable of capturing key features of AI application popularity in practice. By adopting a composite evaluation perspective, this study avoids the limitations of causal inference under small-sample conditions and offers a quantitative reference for comparative studies of AI applications and market positioning strategies. (shrink)

In this article, we present a case for the recognition of multiple religions, arguing that states have a non-absolute duty to recognise religions which it is likely they should discharge along different dimensions and to different degrees. More concretely, we focus on several Western European states (or regions thereof), arguing that they would be more legitimate if they were to recognise an extensive range of faiths and ethno-religious groups. In order to make this argument, we deploy a method of iterative (...) contextualism, consisting of two interlocking steps which can be thought of as obverse halves of a hermeneutic circle. First we identify and describe two cross-contextual principles, which we call identification and discretionary recognition. Then we suggest how it may be shown that these principles are already present to a significant degree in Denmark, Finland and Alsace-Moselle – the three contexts with which we are particularly concerned here. This, then, is a normatively robust and contextually sensitive argument for the multidimensional recognition of religion by a state, and at the same time it explains how we apply the method of iterative contextualism. (shrink)

In the context of multidimensional measures of well-being, a key question for policy is whether particular groups have differing priorities and are therefore likely to react differently to given economic or social shocks. We explore this issue by presenting the results of two related analyses that suggest positive answers on both counts. First, we apply reference class weights to unique data on adult capabilities in the UK and show that relative weights vary across some groupings. Furthermore, in some cases, (...) deprivation rankings of groups vary depending on which weights are used. Second, we explore possible behavioural consequences of different weights by examining the extent to which groups respond differently to three economic and social shocks (unemployment, widowhood and ill health). In this case, we find that weights and responses vary noticeably with age and region and sometimes with gender. We conclude that whilst equal weighting may be practically unavoidable when constructing indices of welfare in the absence of information on weights, their estimation from survey or experimental data is likely to be justified and may change views about policy needs or efficacy. (shrink)

Four studies are reported using both a questionnaire and an interview focussed on the questionnaire items to assess the development of moral autonomy in a total of 720 respondents from 12 to 21 years of age. The studies were intended to extend the analysis of the development of moral autonomy offered by an existing multidimensional model of the development of moral reasoning. Results showed the need to add a dimension of individual differences to the single dimension currently used to (...) describe autonomy‐related developmental changes in the content of judgements. A further dimension, indexing individual differences in use of justification types was also identified. It was found that justifications for moral judgements were more theoretical than in a Kohlberg‐style interview. A content‐related categorisation of justifications revealed a substantial connection between justification and judgement content. (shrink)

‘Return to nature’ has become a buzzword in both scientific and public discourse. The growing interest in this phenomenon calls for the development of reliable tools for scientific research, for example the adaptation of various connectivity to nature (CN) scales developed by researchers from other cultural circles and other countries. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Polish version of the AIMES scale for multidimensional assessment of CN as conceptualized by Ives et al. (...) (2018). Validation studies were conducted using a survey administered on Prolific, an online platform, with a sample of 516 Poles (56% of them women) aged 18-66. The Polish version of AIMES showed high internal consistency (α =.92). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the scale structure consists of a unified second-order factor with five first-order factors: attachment, identity, materialism, experiential, and spiritual. Relevance analysis showed significant positive associations of CN with perception of nature and silence, pro- environmental attitude and behaviour, psychological well-being, gratitude/awe, forgiveness, spirituality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, and a marginal positive association with openness to experience. The results strengthen the psychometric qualities of the AIMES scale, indicating its applicability to the study of CN in Polish contexts. (shrink)

By defending practical wisdom (phronesis) as a multidimensional virtue that complements the moral virtues, we offer a critique of “practical wisdom eliminativism”, with special attention to the context of medicine, arguing that the core dimensions of practical wisdom enjoy broad consensus. As the meta-virtue that demonstrates excellence in ethical decision-making, practical wisdom recognizes and employs the best means to achieve good and worthwhile ends by integrating goals, perception of context, moral virtues, deliberation, reason-guided emotion, and motivation. In medicine, practical (...) wisdom encompasses patient-centered deliberation directed toward ends of health and flourishing that promote the patient’s good. To counter the notion that practical wisdom is a redundant concept (the eliminativist view), we provide philosophical arguments, evidence from medical practitioners, and psychometric data from a detailed empirical study of US and UK adults. Practical wisdom has survived for more than 2300 years as a unified and unifying intellectual meta-virtue that guides the moral virtues. We believe the reasons we put forward explain why phronesis should be expected to endure as a meaningful, multidimensional concept reflecting the nature of moral deliberation in response to practical challenges in life and medicine. (shrink)

Adams’s Thesis, the claim that the probabilities of indicative conditionals equal the conditional probabilities of their consequents given their antecedents, has proven impossible to accommodate within orthodox possible-world semantics. This essay proposes a modification to the orthodoxy that removes this impossibility. The starting point is a proposal by Jeffrey and Stalnaker that conditionals take semantic values in the unit interval, interpreting these (à la McGee) as their expected truth-values at a world. Their theories imply a false principle, namely, that the (...) probability of a conditional is independent of any proposition inconsistent with its antecedent. But they also point to something important, namely, that our uncertainty about conditionals is not confined to uncertainty about the facts (what the actual world is like) but also expresses uncertainty about the counterfacts (what the world would be like if one or another supposition were true). To capture this observation, this essay proposes that the semantic contents of conditionals be treated as sets of vectors of possible worlds, not singleton worlds, with the coordinates of each specifying the world that is or would be true under the supposition that it represents. The probabilities of truth for conditionals will then depend on the joint probabilities of the facts and counterfacts, the latter in turn depending on the mode of supposition. The implication of this treatment is that the probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities whenever the mode of supposition is evidential. (shrink)

This book explores perspectives from new comparativism and new dialogism to expand research horizons and develop a comprehensive, multidimensional, and multilevel research method and model. By compiling recent research examples and case studies, the author reconstructs and reevaluates various explanations, integrating different ideas logically while presenting critical and forward-looking concepts. The work encourages discussions that span disciplines, cultures, and methodologies related to human existence. It aims at individuals engaged in cultural interactions and those interested in rigorous approaches to identifying, (...) verifying, clarifying, and justifying philosophical issues. The writing seeks to contribute meaningfully to multicultural and interdisciplinary educational goals. The examination begins with an introduction to the "Multidimensionality of East-West Dialogues" and proceeds to analytically compare specific focal issues alongside relevant cultural and humanistic examples. It also inquires into applied concepts such as "Cosmopolitanism," "Rights," "Tolerance," "Conflict," "Love," "Death," "Beauty," and even "Martial Arts.". (shrink)