Sharing the Fruit of Labor: Flexible Application of Justice Principles in an Ultimatum Game with Joint-Production

Individuals often need to negotiate how to distribute jointly produced goods—equally (e.g., 50:50) or equitably (e.g., proportionally to their contributions). We examined whether people have stable preferences, or whether they switch between equality and equity in different situations. Pairs of anonymous participants first produced a common pie, and then distributed it in an ultimatum game. Results suggest that individuals apply different justice principles depending on their contribution. When they produced less than 50%, proposers divided the pie equally. However, when they produced more than 50%, their offers fell between equality and equity. Responders’ ratings of fairness and satisfaction varied similarly; with low production, equality was preferred, whereas with high production, equity was preferred. Nevertheless, equal and equitable offers were generally accepted, and only outright unfair offers were rejected. This suggests that individuals are relatively flexible about which justice principle should be applied, but punish proposers whose offers violate both principles.     

Criminology and victimology of rape in context with war-like conflicts using the example of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

The topic of this article is sexual violence in context with war-like conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The fundamental categories of sexual violence in war-like conflicts are described. The authors discuss the types of sexual violence as defined in the report of the UN Commission of Experts on the war-like conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Four criminal trials were evaluated: three held before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague/Netherlands and one before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha/Tansania. The defendants were found guilty of torture, crime against humanity and genocide. Potential procedures with respect to similar crimes in current or prospective conflicts are discussed. An alternative may be the assignment of medical personnel (for example of the German Federal Armed Forces). Finally, the post-war cooperation between the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University Medical Centre of Hamburg-Eppendorf as well as the medical and government institutions in Rwanda is presented, which has been going on since 2005.     

Limits of knowing or the consequences of difficult-access problems for multi-method research and public policy

How can scientists acquire an adequate level of knowledge on phenomena whose actors actively conceal their activities? Social phenomena such as terrorism, sects, corruption, Mafia organizations, drug dealers, or government intelligence agencies actively guard their secrecy, conceal their activities, decide who is allowed (not) to know, and have no interest in being observed or understood by others. The article discusses the consequences of researching difficult-access problems for doing multi-method research. In an ideal?Ctypical approach, we distinguish between social problems that can be easily accessed and those that are difficult to access or non-accessible. To distinguish the two, we define characteristics that eventually lead to the conclusion that scientific inquiry that follows the conventional paradigm of professionalism, transparency, and replicable research reaches its limits when confronted with the active resistance of phenomena that do not like to be observed, understood, or critically approached. From this flows, the necessity to think about interdisciplinary, collaborative, and investigative modes of research that come with various prices.     

Valuations – or How to Say the Unsayable

In this paper, the author revisits "the emotive theory of value" and argues that values are not entities but nothing other than "linguistic fictions". Accordingly, valuations—i.e., valuing actions—can be defined as approving or disapproving attitudes of a subject to some object. In this perspective, values cannot be true or false: What we can do is just compare them with regard to strength. As a consequence, value judgments are to be understood as sentences which are used either to say that a subject s values an object o positively or negatively, or to express (evince) a valuation. The author then shows some relations between normative and evaluative discourses. First, he claims that norms as well as valuations are not true or false. Second, he argues that both may be explained or justified, even if the former are usually justified teleologically whereas the latter are explained referring back to the subject's background and life-style. Third, he notes that a legal order originates from the fact that valuations "crystallize" into norms. Finally, the author examines some further questions related to his analysis. In particular, he argues that the different realms of values, e.g., morals, aesthetics, politics, etc., do not correspond to different evaluative attitudes, but to different phenomena and diverse spheres of human life.     

Delayed pericardial tamponade following a stab wound to a branch of the right coronary artery

A 45-year-old man was attacked with a knife and suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. After surgical treatment and hospitalization for 9 days he was discharged in a stable condition. The following day he was found dead in his apartment. The autopsy revealed a pericardial tamponade caused by acute bleeding from an injured branch of the right coronary artery. This case shows that life-threatening late complications in patients with penetrating cardiac wounds may occur despite an initially uneventful course.