A minister of the French government summoned a few of the most eminent merchants and asked them for suggestions on how to stimulate trade-as if he would know how to choose the best of these. After one had suggested this and another that, an old merchant who had kept quiet so far said: “Build good roads, mint sound money, give us laws for exchanging money readily but as for the rest, leave us alone! [Lasst uns machen] ” If the government were to consult the Philosophy Faculty about what teachings to prescribe for scholars in general, it would get a similar reply: just don’t interfere with the progress of understanding and science. (I. Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties, AK VII, 19-20 n2)
When Francesca Di Donato wrote the article we are proposing for open peer review, the COARA principles and its internal governance could perhaps still be developed in a Kantian way. Now, however, with the benefit of hindsight, we are in a better position to see whether this alleged potential has been developed or not.
In the concluding remarks of her article, Francesca Di Donato argues, following Kant, that the evaluation of research belongs only to the scientific community: “philosophical activity is fundamental research, the exercise of a method which consists in subjecting any doctrine to criticism, and as such it is the fundamental precondition of all knowledge. It consists of free communities of peers who learn from their mistakes and constantly self-correct.” Therefore, she concludes, “changing the way we evaluate is not enough if we do not also discuss the evaluators themselves. The last point is at the core of a responsible research assessment reform. In fact, the ARRA requires the direct involvement of individual academics and of scientific communities in the definition of new criteria and processes (ARRA, 2022, pp. 3, 5, 6, 9), but academic communities should assume collective ownership and control over the infrastructures necessary for successful reform. This last point is not as prominent in the ARRA as it should have been – and should be a central governing principle in the future CoARA.”
The following presentation addresses two questions:
- Did COARA take Francesca Di Donato’s suggestions seriously?
- If not, why not? Simple reluctance or deeper structural reasons?
Although Kant was an early reader of Adam Smith’s work, he did not embrace a “naturalistic” view of property and the
market. Despite their very different theoretical approaches, Kant’s redefinition of ius in re (real right) is surprisingly similar to David Graeber’s: “an understanding or arrangement between people concerning things.” Such an interpersonal nature of property implies that it can only overcome its temporariness in a civil constitution. In other words, not only property may and should be politically discussed, but the constitutional pact can also publicly “de-reify” entities that were treated as things in the status quo ante.
A similar de-reification can be found in the Metaphysics of Morals, where Kant places books and money in the sphere of personal rights, i.e., the right to obtain services from people.
Regarding money, Kant not only quotes Adam Smith almost verbatim, but also uses his vocabulary. However, his conjectural history of the origin of money differs from Smith’s, producing an almost chartalist theory that connects money to political imposition and human labor rather than to a spontaneous market process.
Of course, Kant never developed a full theory of political economics. Nevertheless, his appropriation of Adam Smith’s concepts to express his own moral and political ideas raises a broader, foundational question: could economics be republican?
So-called ‘AI’ is a derivative of a surveillance business model that allows Big Tech to provide extrajudicial surveillance services for both civil and military purposes. As such mass surveillance is banned, Big Tech, through regulatory capture, has produced the AI Act, under which fundamental rights can be violated with impunity as long as there is no foreseeable harm. So Big Tech’s next target is any norm that still protects fundamental rights.
The attacks on the GDPR are sneaky attacks on the fundamental rights that the GDPR protects, not attacks on the alleged obstacles that stifle innovation.
On this neoliberal attack on fundamental rights, Daniela Tafani submits to open peer review her article, GDPR could protect us from the AI Act. That’s why it’s under attack.
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