Parfit's Moral Arithmetic and the Obligation to Obey the Law
Though consequentialist theories of political obligation have been widely criticized in recent years, a series of arguments presented by Derek Parfit, in Reasons and Persons, are now believed to have given this position new life.
On calculating the utility of acts
When a number of people cooperate with one another, by performing the same kind of act in order to secure a specific beneficial result, it sometimes happens 'that the production of the result is dependent upon that number exceeding a certain threshold. A clear example of this phenomenon is provided by the institution of elections. In a contest between two contenders, A and B, the best candidate is elected only in case a sufficient portion of the electorate votes for him. If n people vote, then A will be elected, under normal circumstances, just in case the number of people who vote for him is greater than n/2. In that case, we say the threshold for A's election is n/2 + 1, (or (n/2 + 1/2, if n is odd) which is exactly the number of votes needed to elect him. It has been held by some that cases such as these constitute counterexamples to Objective Act Utilitarianism. They believe that there are certain cases of obligation, e.g. one's obligation to vote, for which Objective Act Utilitarianism fails to give a satisfactory account. One such philosopher is Jonathan Harrison who writes:
The Open Mobile Alliance: Delivering Service Enablers for Next-Generation Applications
Apractical overview of OMA specifications and how they enable mobile multimedia services & much more ! The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is an industry forum, which develops open specifications to help in the creation of applications and services to be deployed over converged networks. The alliance is the leading industry forum for generating market-driven specifications for interoperable mobile service enablers that facilitate global user adoptions of mobile multimedia services. Members include traditional wireless industry segments, such as mobile operators mobile operators (e.g. AT&T, China Mobile, Orange, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Vodafone), equipment and mobile systems manufacturers (e.g. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Siemens, Sony-Ericsson), and Information Technology vendors (e.g. BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems and NEC). Since its formation in 2002, the OMA has made significant progress in areas such as push-to-talk over cellular, device management, presence and group management, and messaging. The Open Mobile Alliance: Provides a comprehensive overview of the service enablers published by the OMA, tying together all the different piece parts developed by the individual working groups Offers a thorough introduction to the OMA Service Environments (OSE) and the specification process for enabling technologies. Discusses enablers for services such as gaming, IMS, Parlay, mobile broadcast and web services. Contains contributions from all stakeholders in the mobile application value chain. The Open Mobile Alliance Alliance is an invaluable resource for OMA members, product managers, network architects and planners, standards managers, standards engineers and IT professionals. Advanced Students and lecturers on mobile application development and standardization courses will also find this book of interest."The success of OMA is due to its individual members' contributions, and this book is testament to their hard work. The individual members' efforts and the authors of this book are to be congratulated on their magnificent achievements." Mark Cataldo, Senior Advisor, Orange SA, OMA Technical Plenary Chairman