Methods and Models

by Rebecca B. Morton

1999 · Cambridge University Press

At present much of political science consists of a large body of formal mathematical work that remains largely unexplored empirically and an expanding use of sophisticated statistical techniques. While there are examples of noteworthy efforts to bridge the gap between these, there is still a need for much more cooperative work between formal theorists and empirical researchers in the discipline. This book explores how empirical analysis has, can, and should be used to evaluate formal models in political science. The book is intended to be a guide for active and future political scientists who are confronting the issues of empirical analysis with formal models in their work and as a basis for a needed dialogue between empirical and formal theoretical researchers in political science. These developments, if combined, are potentially a basis for a new revolution in political science.

Of Mice and Primates

by Rebecca L. Walker, Professor of Philosophy and Professor Social Medicine Rebecca L Walker

2025 · Oxford University Press

Moral theory has primarily approached questions in animal ethics using utilitarian and rights-based theories. When applied to ethical questions in animal research, these theories typically yield conclusions about whether, or when, such animal uses are morally permissible. Rebecca Walker here argues for an alternative approach using virtue ethics, a moral perspective with roots in ancient Greek philosophy, to consider the ethical questions that arise within the very practice of laboratory animal research. Focused on questions of how we ought to live, what it means to flourish, and how virtues and vices yield practical moral guidance, Walker's use of virtue ethics yields important new insights into animal research ethics.