Oxford University Press's Blog, page 571

Seditious Shakespeare: beyond hierarchy

Given that Shakespeare’s company enjoyed royal patronage, performed regularly at Court, and became known as the King’s Men upon the accession of James I in 1603, you’d be forgiven for assuming that his plays were bent on buttressing rather than subverting the status quo. That assumption certainly seems to be backed up in Troilus and Cressida by Ulysses’ apocalyptic vision of the anarchy that’s bound to ensue when “degree, priority and place” are not strictly observed: “Take but degree away, untune that string, / And hark what discord follows.” For those who take the conservative thrust of Shakespeare’s drama for granted, there’s no more eloquent proof of its commitment to the rigidly hierarchical regimes over which Elizabeth and James presided.

But splice Ulysses’ speech back into its dramatic context and it stands exposed as the devious ploy of a cynical politician rather than a front for his creator’s credo. In fact, if any character’s a shoo-in for Shakespeare’s mouthpiece in this terminally disenchanted play, it’s not the hero of Homer’s Odyssey but the scabrous, deformed slave Thersites. As the play’s caustic chorus, the “bitch-wolf’s son” exploits his intimacy with the audience to vent his contempt for leaders and lovers alike on both sides in the Trojan War. Undeterred by the thrashings he earns for his toxic abuse of his betters, Thersites persists in puncturing the illusions under which they blatantly labour. When he tells us that “All the argument is a whore and a cuckold,” there’s little doubt that the last word on the fabled siege of Troy has been given to a self-confessed “scurvy railing knave.”

That Shakespeare had a soft spot for slaves shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, if one thinks back to the Dromio twins in The Comedy of Errors at the dawn of his theatrical career and forward to Caliban in The Tempest in its twilight. Despite being beaten black and blue by their masters, the Dromios bamboozle them with their frivolous quibbling and insubordinate backchat. And it’s they who enshrine in the play’s closing lines the egalitarian spirit that drives Shakespeare’s drama from the outset: “We came into the world like brother and brother, / And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” The same spirit impels Caliban, the “freckled whelp, hag-born” in thrall to Prospero, when he defiantly retorts, “This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou tak’st from me,” and throws the legitimacy of sovereignty itself into question: “I am all the subjects that you have, / Which first was mine own king.”

Between the Dromios and Caliban a cavalcade of sharp-witted, quick-tongued commoners, born to labour for a living or to serve those born to command them, wisecracks its way through every type of play Shakespeare penned. Sometimes their task is to cut their superiors down to size by debunking their romantic postures or grandiose fantasies, an art at which Valentine’s servant Speed in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the wise fool Touchstone in As You Like It excel. Sometimes it means braving their masters’ wrath by speaking the truth to power in the guise of jests, as the Fool does in King Lear. And sometimes they press equivocation beyond a joke, like the Gardener in Richard II, who instructs his workmate in the Queen’s hearing: “Go thou, and, like an executioner, / Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays / That look too lofty in our commonwealth. / All must be even in our government.” Or like the fisherman overheard by Pericles explaining to his mates that fish live in the sea “as men do a-land — the great ones eat up the little ones,” which is why, he concludes, “We would purge the land of these drones that rob the bee of her honey.”

‘The Execution of Charles I of England’ (c 1649). Scottish National Galley. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Such seditious views might be dismissed as peculiar to disgruntled plebs in Shakespeare, were it not that such hostility to hierarchy turns out to be contagious. So contagious, indeed, that it refuses to confine itself to the lower echelons of the dramatis personae, breaks out in characters of every stamp, and finds its most powerful expression in a disaffected prince and a disabused king. The very notion of rank, on which their own royalty and the systemic injustice it sanctions depend, is nullified by the shattering transformation of consciousness Hamlet and Lear undergo. “The King is a thing (…) Of nothing,” observes Hamlet to the baffled Rosencrantz, before showing Claudius “how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar” and reminding him that death makes no distinction between beggars and kings. And in King Lear an autocratic monarch is robbed of his sovereignty, his sanity and the roof over his head, and forced to feel what the “Poor naked wretches” of his kingdom feel: hunger, cold, and despair. Not content with that, Shakespeare stages an encounter that compels the king to realize that beneath his royal robes and a mad beggar’s rags shivers the same “poor, bare, forked animal,” and to tear off the trappings of majesty that hide the simple proof of our innate equality.

What the autocratic King James thought of King Lear when his company performed it at court in 1606 is unknown. But it’s worth recalling that a few decades later in 1649 his son, Charles I, was put to death by Parliament and his kingdom replaced by a Commonwealth, thus fulfilling the rebel Jack Cade’s prophecy in 2 Henry VI that “All the realm shall be in common.” Perhaps it’s not entirely fanciful to think that the glove-maker’s lad from Stratford played his part in creating the climate that made that revolution possible.

Featured image credit: Robson & Crane in Shakespeare’s “Comedy of errors”. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Seditious Shakespeare: beyond hierarchy appeared first on OUPblog.

Debating the brain drain: an excerpt on emigration

In October, authors Gillian Brock and Michael Blake wrote in insightful post on the high levels of migration of talented people from underdeveloped countries to developed ones. Below is an excerpt from their book, Debating Brain Drain, which provides more background information on this concerning issue.

The basic needs of desperately poor people rightly command our normative attention. We are concerned not only about the fact that there is poverty and unmet need in the world today, but also the scale of this needi­ness—so many in the world lack the basic necessities for a decent life. Some of these widespread, severe deprivations include lack of food, clean water, basic healthcare, primary education, basic security, infrastructure, and an environ­ment that can sustain and ensure secure access to these goods and services. An important part of enjoying the basic goods and services necessary for a decent life is the availability of skilled personnel able to provide these. Here there are severe shortages, especially in developing coun­tries where needs are gravest. For instance, about 2 million more teachers and 4.25 million more health workers are needed to supply basic health and education for all. These shortages are exacerbated by high numbers of skilled per­sonnel departing developing countries and seeking better prospects for themselves in developed ones. What, if any­thing, may developing countries defensibly do to stem the flow? This is the central question that orients my work in this book.

Before I can explain my approach to answering this question, further background is necessary. As noted, fuel­ing the shortage of skilled personnel is the very high rate of emigration among those with the necessary skills, a problem commonly referred to as “brain drain.” Though brain drain occurs in most sectors, brain drain among health professionals is particularly widespread and dam­aging for developing countries. These countries typically have poor health care resources anyhow, so the loss of trained healthcare workers is felt even more than it might be in places that are better resourced. In some cases, the departure of healthcare workers from developing coun­tries threatens the viability of the healthcare systems in those countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Skilled workers often have good reasons for wanting to leave poor countries of origin. Inadequate remunera­tion, bad working conditions, lack of professional develop­ment opportunities, lack of security, and lack of funding are important factors in their decision to leave. Developed countries frequently appear to offer better pay and work­ing conditions, or career and training opportunities that are not available in developing ones. Departure seems to be an entirely rational decision under such circumstances. Skilled workers, like everyone else, should have the right to exit countries in which they no longer wish to live. But there are normative questions about citizens’ responsibili­ties, fair terms of exit, and whether migration should be managed to ensure the burden of migration does not fall disproportionately on the world’s worst off, so that those who benefit from movement across borders do not also impose impermissible severe losses on those who suffer disadvantage because of that movement. As we discuss, these losses sometimes include significant reduction in educational and health services, poor health and educa­tional attainment, public funds wasted on expensive ter­tiary training which does not benefit citizens, fiscal losses, and—more generally—loss of assets required for benefi­cial development. As I also discuss, there are various ways to ensure that movements work well for all significant stakeholders, but one such way, for which I argue, is that developing countries may permissibly tax citizens who depart under certain conditions. I also argue that they may reasonably expect citizens with relevant skills to assist fel­low citizens for a short period of compulsory service under certain important conditions. Compulsory service and tax­ation are two kinds of measures that developing countries may take to help reduce poverty in their countries.

While there has been considerable normative theo­rizing on the topic of immigration, most analyses have focused on the relation between the migrant or prospective migrant and the society she will join—issues of admission, accommodation, integration, and so forth. By contrast, in this work I focus on the more neglected relationship between the migrant and the society she will leave, and the normative implications of her departure. The central ques­tions for analysis are these:

(1) Are there setbacks to significant interests that result from the departure of migrants?

(2) Even if there is such damage, is this compensated for by benefits that result from their exit?

I argue that, overall, departures can result in important net losses, which raises the following further questions for analysis.

(3) What kinds of policies might best address the identified harms?

(4) When there are important losses, what may gov­ernments permissibly do to address those losses?

(5) How should burdens associated with addressing harms best be distributed?

(6) Is it fair to impose costs on emigrants?

(7) What kind of normative account can best support appropriate burden-sharing arrangements?

Featured image credit: Passport, CC0 public domain via Pixabay.

The post Debating the brain drain: an excerpt on emigration appeared first on OUPblog.

Ringing in the new year with Who’s Who

As 2015 draws to a close, Who’s Who prepares to usher in the new year with its latest cohort of changemakers in the United Kingdom. From government and media, to business and the arts, over 1,000 new entries provide a glimpse into the lives of the world’s most influential leaders, marking the end of a particularly memorable year. Below, explore leading personalities in every area of public life, as written by the entrants themselves.

Arts & Entertainment

Oscar-nominated Felicity Jones enters Who’s Who for the first time, along with fellow actor and writer Miles Jupp, who enjoys watching cricket and drinking cider in the bath. Dr. Gabriele Finaldi, the newly appointed Director of the National Gallery, Sean O’Connor, Editor of The Archers, and Christopher Priestley, the highly regarded painter and illustrator, also make their first appearance.

Publishing & Literature

The world of publishing boasted a motley crew, with the inclusion of crime writer Mo Hayder, author of Hanging Hill and Wolf, and Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones novelist and screenwriter, who enjoys everything from salsa to scuba diving. Also included in this year’s class were poet Imtiaz Dharker and playwright Moira Buffini, who topped off this diverse group of literary giants and brought our list full circle.

Business & Enterprise

Entrepreneurial spirit also flourished, particularly with the inclusion of London-based venture capitalist Eileen Burbidge, Zoopla Property founder and CEO Alex Chesterman, Not on the High Street co-founder and Director Sophie Cornish, Whitley Asset Management founder Edward Whitley, and the fashion designer and gentlemen’s tailor, Patrick Grant, who works with brands including Norton & Sons, E. Tautz, and Hammond & Co.

Science & Academia 

Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome Trust, made the grade, as did Professor Steven Cowley, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Cancer Research UK’s Chief Clinician Professor Peter Johnson—who enjoys theatre, opera, wine and sleeping through the news—is also new to Who’s Who; so too is stem cell biologist Dr. Douglas Winton, who lists his interests as travel, jam making, collecting books on islands, and finding good coffee bars.

Music

When it came to the musical sphere, Virgin EMI President Ted Cockle and Alison Goldfrapp hit the right notes, as did composer Jocelyn Pook. Award-winning poet and rapper Kate Calvert, best known for her work Brand New Ancients, also earned a spot in this year’s lineup.

Military & Global Affairs

Captain Samuel Shephard of the Royal Marines, awarded the George Cross in 2014 for bravery, Victoria Wallace, the Director General and Secretary of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Maajid Nawaz, the Chairman of counter-extremism think tank Quilliam Foundation, and counter-terrorism pundit Richard Barrett, all joined the ranks of Who’s Who this year. Group Captain Mark Hunt, Station Commander, RAF Cosford, who enjoys rescuing chocolate Labradors, running marathons, and is practising heartily to become a Master of Wines, is also included for the first time.

Human Rights

Last but not least, the youngest new entrant in this year’s Who’s Who update is Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaigner for education, Malala Yousafzai. She is joined by Victim Support CEO Mark Castle, and Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, Sarah Wootton.

Image Credit: “Malala Yousafzai” by Southbank Centre. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

The post Ringing in the new year with Who’s Who appeared first on OUPblog.

OUP’s NYC office hosts a spelling bee

This past summer, several employees at the New York City office of Oxford University Press took part in a rite that most of haven’t experienced since elementary school: a spelling bee.

In the age of autocorrect and spellchecker, the skill of spelling has undoubtedly lost some of its luster. Why bother knowing about the pesky -ff- in chauffeur when your smartphone will happily correct it for you? Luckily for us, we’ve got plenty of sharp minds still left at OUP, and talented spellers were out in force to compete.

Three editors from US Dictionaries editorial team handled judging duties, and challenged contestants to spell such mind-bending (and often tongue-twisting!) words as: absquatulate (to leave somewhere abruptly), bezoar (a small, hard mass that may form in the stomachs of certain animals), and viscid (glutinous or sticky). Another tough one that tripped up even one of OUP’s noted trivia masters was colporteur, which refers to a peddler of books, newspapers, and similar literature.

Besides spellings, there were also word facts to be had, including the amusing etymology of gerrymander, which means ‘to manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class’. The word actually comes from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, plus the word salamander, from the supposed similarity between the small amphibian and the shape of a new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party.

Featured image credit: “ABC” by Blickpixel. Public domain via Pixabay.

The post OUP’s NYC office hosts a spelling bee appeared first on OUPblog.

Police killings and the Supreme Court

In 2010, Israel Leija was killed by a police officer during a high speed chase, which ended when Mullenix, a police officer, stationed on an overpass, shot several bullets into Leija’s car. The chase began when the police tried to arrest Leija at a drive-in restaurant for violating parole on a misdemeanor charge. When the officer approach Leija in his car, Leija drove off, with the police giving chase, while several other officers set up tire spikes along the road to stop him.

As is true of many deadly police encounters, there are two different ways to frame the facts. In one version, an intoxicated Leija led police on a 25-mile high speed chase, threatening to shoot police officers, and who was moments away from encountering an officer.  In this version, Mullenix was acting to prevent harm to his fellow officers, who were stationed on the road near the spikes. As Leija’s car approached the spikes, Mullenix shot at it six times. Four of the shots hit Leija’s upper body, killing him, and the car hit the spikes, rolled over twice and stopped.

In another version, Leija was described as not quite so reckless, and Mullenix as less a proactive police officer than a renegade one. In this description, while traveling at high speeds, Leija remained steadily on the paved road with his headlights on, did not interfere with other cars on the road, and endangered no pedestrians because the road was located in a rural area, with no businesses or residences. When Mullenix radioed his intent to fire at the vehicle to his supervisor, he was told to “stand by” and “see if the spikes work first.” Despite this, and without any training in stopping a car by shooting at it, let alone at night, Mullenix fired his shots, hitting not the car’s radiator, hood, or engine block, but Leija’s head, shoulder, and neck. He later remarked to his supervisor, who had told him earlier that day in a counseling session that he was not proactive enough, “How’s that for proactive?”

Civilian deaths at the hands of the police are often argued in the court of public opinion and in the lower rungs of our judicial system when indictments are sought. The circumstances surrounding Leija’s death, though, made it to the Supreme Court, giving us a rare glimpse of where the justices’ fall in the contentious public debate over police killings. The question before the Court in Mullenix v. Luna, bought by Leija’s mother and child and alleging a violation of Leija’s civil rights, was whether Mullenix used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The legal test is easily stated: First, did Mullenix’s use of deadly force violate the Fourth Amendment?  Generally, deadly force is considered unreasonable against a fleeing suspect who does not pose a substantial and immediate threat of harm to the officer or others. Second, given the circumstances of the case, would a reasonable officer have known that such conduct violated the Fourth Amendment? A no to any of these questions would give the officer qualified immunity, and hence no liability for the death.

In a per curium decision, dated 9 November, the Court found that Mullenix did not use excessive force, opting for the first framing of the facts described above. It set a high standard, noting that, at least in cases involving car chases, it must be “beyond debate” that the police officer acted unreasonably. Its decision was consistent with that of the grand jury, which had declined to indict Mullenix. But it was contrary to the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals whose decision it overturned. Only Justice Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion suggesting she alone understands what excessive force looks like to citizens on the ground. As she put it “by sanctioning a ‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing, the Court renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment hollow.”

The Mullenix case is one of a long line of cases where the justices seem intent on watering down Fourth Amendment protections that stand between citizens and sometimes too zealous police officers. In the related area of stop and frisk tactics, the Court over the years has expanded the powers of the police by allowing them to detain citizens without probable cause on the streets (Terry v. Ohio), to use traffic stops as a pretext to search for evidence of a crime (Whren v. United States) even when a police officer is mistaken that a traffic violation has occurred (Heien v. North Carolina), and to order passengers out of a car during a traffic stop (Maryland v. Wilson). While these cases do not involve racial profiling per se, they make it easier for the police to do so. Similarly, cases like Mullenix have real world implications, allowing reckless officers off the hook.

To be sure one person’s reckless officer is another person’s proactive one. But when it comes to something as serious as police encounters that end in the death of a civilian, the Court should ensure that the Fourth Amendment is operating at full strength. One could easily have imagined a different result in Mullenix if the Court had followed Justice Sotomayor’s lead, and applied the law to the facts with an eye towards protecting civilians.

Featured image credit: “National March Against Police Violence Washington DC USA 50309” by Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

The post Police killings and the Supreme Court appeared first on OUPblog.

Systemic: Why the world has become a more dangerous place

Is the world a more perilous place than ever before? Why are there so many crises? What can we do about it? Newspaper headlines routinely reflect the fact that terrorist attacks, industrial accidents, and economic and financial meltdowns are becoming more frequent and more far-reaching in their effects. There is no denying that the 21st century has become the century of living dangerously—with unpredictable consequences for the future.

Much of the disruption in today’s world has to do with the fact that the global economy and the global geopolitical landscape has become more systemic in nature. By systemic I mean that we have more moving parts interconnected with one another, and more of them are out of whack. Telling the shock-diffusing from the shock-absorbing dynamics is of fundamental importance when it comes to navigating global uncertainties.

Consider the example of terrorism. The reason why it has become such an intractable problem is not that the perpetrators, accomplices, and bystanders are fanatically committed to a destructive ideology. Rather, we have created a global system in which the free movement of people, youth unemployment, rising inequality in the cities, and the diminished resourcefulness of the state conspire to make us vulnerable. I am not arguing that international migration or international tourism should be curbed. I am simply pointing out that we have not fully grasped the implications of that combination of forces. In particular, we have debilitated the ability of the state to anticipate and to cope with problems of a systemic nature, and we are paying a price for that.

Let’s turn now to the global economy. The crisis of 2008 was a sobering event, one that in many ways accelerated the pace of change and exacerbated the consequences of long-standing trends such as the rise of the emerging economies, income and wealth inequality, and the obsolescence of the global financial architecture. What made this crisis spread like wildfire was the tightly-coupled nature of the global economy in terms of integrated manufacturing systems spanning multiple economies, portfolio investment, and cross-border banking assets.

 The first line of defense against this dangerous world of ours is resolute and coordinated action by governments.

There are two main ways to reduce the shock-diffusing nature of the global system at the present time. The first has to do with reducing the degree of coupling among the various components of the global system, and with creating more buffers to absorb shocks. The second consists of giving governments the tools they need to cope with shocks. The two tools are actually interrelated. Spending by governments and their ability to intervene through structural, fiscal, and monetary policies is essential to creating a safe and well-functioning global system. There really is no substitute for governments when crises hit, be it a terrorist attack, a recession, or a financial meltdown. The first line of defense against this dangerous world of ours is resolute and coordinated action by governments.

And yet, the trends towards population ageing, social inequality, and public indebtedness are undermining the ability of governments to act. A new approach to retirement—one including work as well as leisure—is needed to ensure the viability of pay-as-you-go pension schemes. Social inequality not only creates social and political tensions, but it also weakens the incentives to work hard. Political pressures to further reduce taxes have to be balanced against the need to provide for a wide array of public goods, including education, healthcare, security, and economic governance to prevent the economy from falling prey to recessions or, even worse, deflation.

The future will be bleak if we do not manage globalization and the frequent tensions, crises, and disruptions that it creates and magnifies. We have much to gain from free trade and free capital flows, the free movement of people, and the free exchange of information. But we also need to acknowledge that the gains come with risks, and that those risks need to be managed.

Headline image credit: New York Skyline by Mark Ittleman. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

The post Systemic: Why the world has become a more dangerous place appeared first on OUPblog.

How much do you know about money during the Elizabethan Era? [quiz]

If you were living in Elizabethan England you would find that common goods, such as spices and books, would cost you no more than a pound or two. However, you would probably be earning about the same amount depending on your trade or craft. Even Shakespeare only earned a few pounds for his playwriting and acting. What would you spend your wages on if your income was as little as four pounds a week? More importantly, would you be able to manage your finances according to the costs of 16th and 17th century England? Take our quiz to prove just how much you know about money in Shakespeare’s time.

 

Featured Image: “English money” by Images Money (TaxRebate.org.uk). CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

The post How much do you know about money during the Elizabethan Era? [quiz] appeared first on OUPblog.

Predictive brains, sentient robots, and the embodied self

Is the human brain just a rag-bag of different tricks and stratagems, slowly accumulated over evolutionary time? For many years, I thought the answer to this question was most probably ‘yes’. Sure, brains were fantastic organs for adaptive success. But the idea that there might be just a few core principles whose operation lay at the heart of much neural processing was not one that had made it on to my personal hit-list. Seminal work on Artificial Neural Networks had shown great promise. But it led not to a new and unifying vision of the brain so much as a plethora of cool engineering solutions to specific problems and puzzles. Meantime, the sciences of the mind were looking increasingly outwards, making huge strides in understanding how bodily form, action, and the canny use of environmental structures were co-operating with neural processes. This was the revolution summarily dubbed ‘embodied cognition’.

My personal grail, though, was always something rather more systematic: a principled science of the embodied mind. I think we may now be glimpsing the shape of that science. It will be a science built around an emerging vision of the brain as a guessing engine – a multi-layer probabilistic prediction machine. This is an idea that, in one form or another, has been around for a long time. But exciting new developments are taking this vision to some brand-new places. In this short post, I highlight a few of those places. First though, what’s the basic vision of the predictive brain?

A prediction machine of the relevant stripe is a multi-layer neural network that uses rich downwards (and sideways) connectivity to try to perform a superficially simple, yet hugely empowering, task. That task is the ongoing prediction of its own evolving flows of sensory stimulation. When you see that steaming coffee-cup on the desk in front of you, your perceptual experience reflects the multi-level neural guess that best reduces visual prediction errors. To visually perceive the scene in front of you, your brain attempts to predict the scene in front of you, allowing the ensuing error signals to refine its guessing until a kind of equilibrium is achieved.

Image courtesy of Gary Lupyan. Used with permission.

Such an architecture makes full use of the huge amounts of downwards and recurrent connectivity that characterize advanced biological brains. This is important since the bulk of our actual neural connectivity is recurrent, involving loops in which information flows downwards and sideways. So much so that the AI pioneer Patrick Winston wrote, in a 2012 paper, that “Everything is all mixed up, with information flowing bottom to top and top to bottom and sideways too. It is a strange architecture about which we are nearly clueless”.

One key role of all that looping connectivity, it now seems, is to try to predict the streams of sensory stimulation before they arrive. Systems like that are most strongly impacted by sensed deviations from their predicted sensory states. It is these deviations from predicted states (known as prediction errors) that now bear much of the information-processing burden, informing us of what is salient and newsworthy within the dense sensory barrage.

Systems like this are already deep in the business of understanding. To perceive a hockey game using multi-level prediction machinery is to be able to predict distinctive sensory patterns as the play unfolds. And the more experience has taught you about the game and the teams, the better those predictions will be. What we quite literally see, as we watch a game, is here constantly informed and structured by what we know and what we are thus already busy (consciously and non-consciously) expecting.

This, as has recently been pointed out in a New York Times piece by Lisa Feldman Barrett, has real social and political implications. You might really seem to see your beloved but recently deceased pet start to enter the room, when the curtain moves in just the right way. The police officer might likewise really seem to see the outline of that gun in the hands of the unarmed, cellphone-wielding suspect. In such cases, the full swathe of good sensory evidence should soon turn the tables – but that might be too late for the unwitting suspect.

On the brighter side, a system that has learnt to predict and expect its own evolving flows of sensory activity in this way is one that is already positioned to imagine its world. For the self-same prediction machinery can also be run ‘offline’, generating the kinds of neuronal activity that would be expected (predicted) in some imaginary situation. Sometimes, however, the delicate balances between top-down prediction and the use of incoming sensory evidence are disturbed, and our grip on the world loosens in remarkable ways. Thinking about perception as tied intimately to multi-level prediction is thus also delivering new ways to think about the emergence of delusions, hallucinations, and psychoses, as well as the effects of various drugs, and the distinctive profiles of non-neurotypical (for example, autistic) agents.

The most tantalizing (but least developed) aspect of the emerging framework concerns the origins of conscious experience itself. To creep up on this suppose we ask: what might it take to build a sentient robot? By that I mean: what might it take to build a robot that begins to have some sense of itself as a material being, with its own concerns, encountering a structured and meaningful world?

A growing body of work by Professor Anil Seth (University of Sussex) and others may – and I say this with all due caution and trepidation – be suggesting a clue.  That work involves the stream of interoceptive information specifying the physiological state of the body – the state of the gut and viscera, blood sugar levels, temperature, and much much more (Bud Craig’s recent book How Do You Feel offers a wonderfully rich account of this).

What happens when a multi-level prediction engine crunches all that interoceptive information together with information specifying structure in the external world? Our multi-layered predictive grip on the external world is then superimposed upon another multi-layered predictive grip – a grip on the changing physiological state of our own body.  And predictions along each of these dimensions will constantly interact with predictions along the other. To take a very simple case, the sight of water, when we are thirsty, should incline us to predict drinking in ways that the sight of water otherwise need not. Our predictive grip upon the external world thus becomes inflected, at every level, by an accompanying grip upon ‘how things are (physiologically) with us’. Might this be part of what enables a robot, animal, or machine to start to experience a low-grade sense of being-in-the-world? Such a system has, in some intuitive sense, a simple grip not just on the world, but on the world ‘as it matters, right here, right now, for the embodied being that is you’. Agents like that experience a structured and – dare I say it  – meaningful world: a world where each perceptual moment presents salient affordances for action, permeated by a subtle sense of our own present and unfolding bodily states. A recipe for Sentient Robotics 101.beta perhaps?

There is much that I’ve left out from this post – most importantly, the crucial role of self-estimated sensory uncertainty (‘precision’), and the role of action and environmental structuring in altering the predictive tasks confronting the brain: changing what we need to predict, and when, in order to get things done. That’s where these stories score major points by dovetailing very neatly with large bodies of work in embodied cognition.

Nor have I mentioned the many outstanding problems and puzzles. For example, it is not known whether multi-level prediction machinery characterizes all, or even most, aspects of the neural economy. Most importantly of all, perhaps, it is not yet clear how best to factor human motivation into the overall story. Are human motivations (e.g. for play, novelty, and pleasure) best understood as disguised predictions – deep-seated expectations that there will be play, novelty, and pleasure? That is a challenging vision, but one that could offer a deeply unifying perspective indeed.

Feature Image: “I love water,” by Derek Gavey. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr. 

The post Predictive brains, sentient robots, and the embodied self appeared first on OUPblog.

Migrant, refugee, or human? The unsettled issue of human rights in Europe

Europe has an apparent human rights surfeit. The European Convention on Human Rights and its dedicated Court of Human Rights establishes a pan-European human rights minimum. The EU has its Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Court of Justice, widely regarded as the most powerful supranational court in the world. The EU and its Member States repeatedly affirm their commitment to refugee protection, and to human rights in general. However, on closer inspection, the human rights of migrants and refugees are far from secure. Part of the problem is that human rights law and migration control are in tension, and there are many unsettled issues. International human rights law is statist, in that while states must protect the rights of all within their ‘jurisdiction’ (itself a contested concept), non-citizens may be refused entry or deported. The figure of the ‘migrant’ sits uneasily with the basic human equality than underpins human rights law. Accordingly, under what conditions human rights guarantees demand admission or security of residence is highly contested. Even the issue of when states may detain migrants to enforce migration control prompts different answers in different legal regimes.

My starting intuition was that shifting immigration and asylum into the EU institutional context has transformative potential. After all, the EU is a different beast –  it is not a state but establishes an ‘Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’ with its own ‘Common European Asylum System.’ In engaging with immigration and asylum policy, the EU is engaged in a crucial element of self-definition: ‘destination Europe’ refers not only to the migrants’ destination but also the political form of the EU.

In contrasting the approaches, interactions, and frictions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, many questions arise. Three key areas which need to be addressed are:

Why has 2015 seen hundreds of thousands of refugees risk their lives to seek protection in the EU?

Human rights and refugee law both contain strong norms of non-refoulement, or non-return to face persecution or serious human rights violations. However, those seeking refuge rarely have a legal route to claim asylum in the EU. To claim asylum, they must normally be on the territory, and usually this means a dangerous irregular journey. EU law requires the states where they arrive (predominantly Greece and Italy in 2015) to process their asylum-claims (unless they have close family elsewhere). However, that allocation mechanism would be unworkable if it was properly enforced. It creates many legal frictions, as people resist being transferred back to countries of first arrival, which often run weak asylum systems. Both Courts have been confronted with the human side of these ‘Dublin’ cases, and have taken subtle but significantly different approaches. To illustrate, if an asylum-seeker in Germany seeks nowadays to resist a Dublin removal to, say, Italy, on the grounds that her living conditions there would be undignified, the outcome of her case is hard to predict. It would depend at least in part on which regional German court it went before, or indeed whether she had recourse to the CJEU, ECtHR, or indeed the UN Human Rights Committee.

The human rights of migrants and refugees are far from secure … The figure of the ‘migrant’ sits uneasily with the basic human equality than underpins human rights law. 

When is it legal to detain migrants?

The right to liberty is protected in all human rights instruments. Yet, migrants may be detained for reasons that do not pertain to citizens: if they are deemed to be unauthorised entrants or facing deportation. The legality of detention carried out for immigration-related reasons is contested, with EU law establishing standards on detention of asylum-seekers and pre-deportation detention.

On what basis may family reunion be denied? 

This question also raises many more – Must family members demonstrate they are capable of ‘integration?’ When may the law deny spouses a right to live together in the country of nationality of one spouse? The human right to family life provides the basis for national and supranational judicial scrutiny of restrictions on the migration of families, in particular family reunification. Yet, migration laws, including those of the EU, create highly stratified family migration entitlements. While EU citizens enjoy relatively clear family reunion entitlements under some circumstances, ECHR protections defer to states’ migration control prerogatives, and EU legislation permits may limitations on family rights, in the name  of ‘integration’, for instance. Interactions across these fields are varied and inconsistent, some progressive, some regressive.

We must therefore focus on the importance of interrogating migration control and migration status, in order to avoid the statism that characterizes the normal framing of these issues. While human rights law unsettles the statist migration control assumption, much depends on the institutional setting of the human rights adjudicator when faced with states’ migration control prerogatives. As there are good reasons for the EU system to offer a transformative legal and political space, constructive human rights pluralism opens up greater space for contestation and inclusion.

Human rights universalism does not require open borders, but it does require that there are clear limits to what may be done do in the name of migration control, and that the statuses accorded to migrants allow them to live full, dignified lives.

Featured image credit: Going South by Alexander Mueller. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

The post Migrant, refugee, or human? The unsettled issue of human rights in Europe appeared first on OUPblog.

Talk is cheap: diverse dignities at the centre of mental disorder

It may be fairly easy to say that the dignity of a person in the domain of psychiatry should be respected. Justification is easy to find. For example, the South African Constitution proclaims ‘everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.’

When simply a pretence, this kind of talk is obviously cheap. But pretence isn’t the only reason behind such statements. Cheap talk presents as a gap between a principle and its practice. In paying lip-service to the principle, ‘respect’ becomes a mere token of respect rather than the real McCoy, with that being the action of holding the dignity of the person in high regard. And before prematurely thinking of course, I do that, recognise the taxing challenges in doing so.

I highlight here two major challenges in the practice of holding the dignity of a person in high regard: recognising the effects mental disorder has on one’s dignity, and accounting for the diversity of ways in which mental disorder is evaluated as dignified and undignified.

We can list a few potential but well-known effects of mental disorder on one’s dignity. When someone is depressed, that person usually undervalues his or her self-worth and dignity. A person in a manic episode often overvalues his or her worth and dignity, sometimes to a delusional extent. Some deeds in mania and psychosis such as sexual indiscretions, indiscriminate spending, and grossly disorganised behaviour bring the indignities of shame, embarrassment and humiliation for the family and the patient (sometimes only after recovery). Fears about the indignities of embarrassment and humiliation are at the core of social anxiety disorder/social phobia. Families and society do sometimes respond to the manifestations of mental disorder in undignifying ways – such as laughter, jokes, rejection, condescendence, etc. – even if merely trying to deal with the psychological threat of also being afflicted by mental disorder.

Presuming these effects on one’s dignity, even flagging some of them, might seem to undermine the very respect for dignity I’m advocating. One’s dignity is after all not necessarily affected when suffering from mental disorder. However, failing to recognise them when they are indeed present, is worse, for it precludes accounting for them in restoring dignity. The action of holding in high regard the dignity of a person suffering from mental disorder thus includes the pursuit of restoring dignity when so affected. Crucial in determining an appropriate course of action is to identify in whose view the dignity of the person is so affected: the patient, the family, the community, the practitioner, and/or the society at large.

The second major challenge I highlight in the practice of holding the dignity of a person in high regard is to account for the differences among people, families, and communities in evaluating what is dignified and undignified. Surely, we share values by which almost anyone would concur something is dignified or undignified. Holding the dignity of a person in high regard is itself a shared value. But ethically sound practice should also account for a range of diverse values in a given context. For example, an applicant to the High Court in South Africa argued a few months ago that he should be assisted by his physician to commit suicide, for the excruciating pain he was suffering was undignified, and therefore in breach of his constitutional right to dignity. Not everyone, however, considers the suffering of excruciating pain as undignified. Many people have attested to the dignity with which they have endured, or have seen others endure, suffering.

Accounting for both diverse and shared values in what counts as dignified and undignified goes some way, but to hold the dignity of a person in high regard in the domain of psychiatry requires that the values, shared and diverse, that are not principally about dignity, are accounted for too.

Featured image credit: Photo by Foundry. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

The post Talk is cheap: diverse dignities at the centre of mental disorder appeared first on OUPblog.