Ethics and Society, Misc

Historically, studies in Kant’s ethics have tended to prioritize his formal work in moral philosophy. This has begun to change with a welcome new emphasis on his later practical works, but commentators still tend to approach this material in the shadow of the Groundwork with the same limited set of concerns and problems in mind. Practical Kantian Ethics reverses the usual order of interpretation, beginning with his applied moral philosophy, without preconceptions about his view, and using this later work to (...) offer a radically new account. -/- The “inner freedom” model it proposes connects and explains diverse threads in Kant’s moral theory informing obscure aspects of the Groundwork but also, and just as importantly, offering a radically different and comprehensive vision of Kantian moral life. This new account transcends the narrow rational asceticism often associated with Kant’s view, embedding morality in our humanity, recognizing the vital role of emotion in moral life, and prioritizing framing moral commitments and questions of character over obedience to formal rules. In doing so, it makes community and collective and individual judgment essential in giving content to ideals of practical respect, creating important space for moral disagreement and growth. The net result is a nuanced account focused on the integration of diverse norms and the lived experience of morality, capable of guiding ordinary moral judgement and informing deliberation in hard cases where different grounds of obligation conflict. (shrink)

The authors review existing concepts of digital ethics and lay the groundwork for deeper, and more critical, approaches. 1) What is digital ethics - and what does it mean? 2) Digital ethics and critique 3) Digital economy and technological design 4) Digitality embedded in the everyday 5) Digitality, culture and society 6) Paradoxes of digital transformation: Towards a (new) digital ethics .

Two doxastically significant demands of friendship have been discussed in recent literature, a demand to be epistemically partial and a demand to take our friends seriously. Though less discussed than epistemic partialism, I suggest that the demand to take our friends seriously is motivated by similar cases and considerations, and can avoid key objections to epistemic partialism that have been raised. I further suggest that it does justice to what we care about in friendship, and thus is to be preferred.

Revista Intelligence Info este o publicație trimestrială din domeniile intelligence, geopolitică și securitate, și domenii conexe de studiu și practică. -/- ISSN 2821-8159 ISSN-L 2821-8159, DOI: 10.58679/II78699.

En esta entrevista, Rocío Hernández Arias explica la conceptualización de utopía y las subclasificaciones que se derivan de ella. Para ello, fue esencial precisar la orientación que ha tenido para poder discernir en cuanto al significado de estos postulados. En un primer instante, distingue sus respectivos campos semánticos y los arguye desde un recuento histórico. Por ejemplo, hace referencia a la utopía literaria, la utopía empírica y la utopía hispánica. Luego de diferenciarlos, comenta acerca de uno de sus hallazgos relevantes, (...) que es el poder haber auscultado el vínculo de la utopía con la libertad. Dicho de otro modo, para ella, es imprescindible detectar también la trabazón de literatura utópica con el movimiento libertario. Asimismo, aparte de la fundamentación que realiza sobre el término de utopía, será necesaria la alegación que le brinda a la noción de anarquía y cómo se desarrolla en la historia de Hispanoamérica. Es así como Hernández Arias logra dominar estas teorías y taxonomías para extrapolar sus conocimientos en otro tipo de discursos. A su vez, esto revela la constante confrontación que existirá entre múltiples disciplinas: la filosofía, la política, la historia, la literatura y la sociología. Por lo tanto, el aporte de esta entrevista se encuentra en la trascendencia que tienen las categorías multidisciplinarias en el decurso del tiempo y cómo estas se han incorporado en la ideología perenne de los ciudadanos. (shrink)

Bernard Williams’ books demand an unusual amount of work from readers. This is particularly true of his 1985 magnum opus, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (ELP)—a work so charged with ideas that there seems to be nothing more to say, and yet at the same time so pared-down and tersely argued that there seems to be nothing left to take away. Reflecting on the book five years after its publication, Williams writes that it is centrally concerned with a Nietzschean (...) question: the question of philosophy’s authority, in particular when it comes to telling us how to live (1990, p. XIX). Some ethical theories seem implicitly committed to the idea that philosophy has everything to tell us about how to live. This Williams rejects. But the question then is how much philosophy has to tell us, and as critical as Williams may be of philosophy’s ambitions in this regard, his answer in ELP is certainly not nothing. The book even suggests some things that philosophy might say. But what Williams emphatically insists on, both in the book and in his later reflection on it, is that the question needs to be taken more seriously than it has been. (shrink)

Revista Intelligence Info este o publicație trimestrială din domeniile intelligence, geopolitică și securitate, și domenii conexe de studiu și practică. -/- Cuprins: -/- EDITORIAL Rolul serviciilor de informații în război, de Nicolae Sfetcu -/- INTELLIGENCE Intelligence Analysis, de Nicolae Sfetcu -/- ISTORIA Reformele serviciilor secrete de la Mihail Moruzov la Eugen Cristescu, între inovație și decadență, de Rodica Liseanu Take Ionescu – O biografie vectorială în istoria partidelor politice și în semantica diplomației, de Rodica Liseanu -/- GEOPOLITICA Apusul universalismului european, (...) de Lisa-Maria Achimescu Chinese Hegemony in the Production of Rare Earths, de Emilian M. Dobrescu România. Între ‘gura de rai’ geografică şi răspântia geopolitică, de Radu Carp -/- SECURITATE Schimbarea paradigmelor în mediul internațional de securitate, de Alexandru Cristian Adevăr și dezinformare în fenomenul OZN, de Dan D. Farcaș -/- ȘTIINȚA INFORMAȚIEI Utilizarea analiticii rețelelor sociale în intelligence, de Nicolae Sfetcu -/- ISSN 2821-8159 ISSN-L 2821-8159, DOI: 10.58679/II30199. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss various notions of value-experience and their role in obtaining moral maturity.

This study aims to explore a demoethical model for sustainable development in modern society. It proposes an approach that focuses on organizing activities to improve sustainable development. Specifically, it presents a demoethical model relevant to Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0 organizations. The objective is to identify demoethical values that can drive sustainable development in the era of digitalization. Through a literature review and analysis, this study identifies key components of the demoethical model and provides practical recommendations for stakeholders involved in (...) digital transformation. The analysis of demoethical norms and phenomena, such as education, nurturing, mind, knowledge, science, and honest work, has enabled the identification of values that align with sustainable development in society. The results of the study demonstrate that the notion of a demoethical foundation for sustainability is rooted in the concept of spirituality as the basis for a new societal development scenario and its relationship with nature. The study shows that ideas about the demoethical basis of sustainability are based on the priority of spirituality as the basis of a new scenario for the development of society, as well as the integration of demographic, socio-economical, and ecological components in system-wide modeling. (shrink)

Politics never became a central intellectual interest of Murdoch’s, but she produced one important and visionary political essay in the ‘50’s, several popular writings on political matters, and a significant chapter in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals that echoes throughout that book. In the 1958 “House of Theory,” she sees the welfare state as having almost entirely failed to address the deeper problems of capitalist society, including a failure to create the conditions for values she saw as central to (...) the socialist tradition—equality, absence of exploitation, meaningful work, and a sense of community. In Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Murdoch abandons the idea that moral ideals provide a guide to constructing a good society. She retains from her earlier work that the individual-moral domain is governed by perfectionism, but society cannot be. ‘Society must be thought of as a bad job to be made the best of’, for example, through the liberal idea of rights. Murdoch had a lifelong engagement with Marxism as a philosophy, introduced to her as a member of the Communist Party in the late ‘30’s and ‘40’s, and continuing through her subsequent long Labour period, and even when she moved to the Right in the Thatcher era. Marx and Marxism were always part of her mental universe, and she continued to work out what she agreed and disagreed with in it. (shrink)

In this chapter I show how challenges to our ability to tame the uncertainty of a pandemic leaves us vulnerable to uncertainty phobia. This is because not all the uncertainty that matters can be tamed by our knowledge of the relevant probabilities, contrary to what many believe. We are vulnerable because unrelievable wild uncertainty is a hard burden to bear, especially so when we must act in the face of it. -/- The source of unrelievable wild uncertainty is that the (...) nature of probability distributions matters for whether knowledge of them tames uncertainty. It matters because a warrant for the taming is provided by two theorems, but this warrant applies only to some kinds of probability distribution. Essentially, this is because the theorems are about what happens at a mathematical limit but real life never reaches the limit. Consequently, the warrant depends on how quickly the random processes producing the uncertainty converge towards their limit. If they are governed by one class of probability distributions, they converge quickly enough to possess the warrant. If they are governed by another class of probability distributions, they converge towards their limit too slowly and so do not possess that warrant. The random processes of pandemics involve the slow kind . -/- Faced with such a burden, as we are in a pandemic, we are tempted to retreat into uncertainty phobia, leading to fixed definite opinions, precisely when the exercise of sound judgement to determine our responses requires our opinions to be hedged and mobile. Coping with a pandemic requires us to bear the burden of unrelievable wild uncertainty rather than give in to the temptation of uncertainty phobia. Pandemics require the virtue of epistemic forbearance. (shrink)

This book argues that it can be both reasonable and appropriate to adopt a certain kind of misanthropy. The author defends a cognitivist version of misanthropy, an attitude whose central feature is the judgment that humanity is morally bad. Misanthropy is often dismissed on moral grounds. Many people hold that malice toward human persons is problematic and vulnerable to moral objections. In this book, the author advocates for cognitivist misanthropy. He defends an Asymmetry Thesis, according to which a morally bad (...) deed carries more weight than a morally good deed, even if the harm of the former is exactly equal to the benefit of the latter. He makes the case that being misanthropic in the cognitivist sense is morally permissible and compatible with a broad range of moral reasons for action. He also considers the role of misanthropy in environmental thought, arguing that charges of misanthropy against certain "non-anthropocentric" views do not have the force they are typically thought to carry. Finally, the author investigates the practical implications of adopting cognitivist misanthropy, asking what living with such an attitude would involve. A Philosophical Defense of Misanthropy will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in ethics and the philosophy of human nature. (shrink)

Legitimacy is a concept that has been largely forgotten by the deconstructive discourse on law and politics. This article seeks, on the one hand, to reassess the role of legitimacy in deconstruction and, on the other hand, to bring deconstructive thinking to bear on the concept of legitimacy. By re-reading Derrida’s “Declarations of Independence” through the lenses of his later texts on sovereignty and (counter)signature, it is argued that, rather than being deconstructible, legitimacy is deconstructing any self-founding of law and (...) power. As such, legitimacy functions not as an evaluative concept of law and order but as a constantly insisting demand that facilitates the principles of responsibility and responsiveness. (shrink)

This article develops a diagnostic lens to make sense of the still baffling development of a ‘humanitarian marketplace’. Ambivalently hybrid initiatives such as volunteer tourism, corporate social responsibility or even fair trade do not strictly obey a distributive logic of market exchange, social reciprocity or philanthropic giving. They engender a type of ‘economy’ that must be apprehended in its own terms. The article argues that the large-scale collaborative effects of such a dispersed market can be theorized without resorting to the (...) classical biopolitical move of simplified agency/holistic reification. The argument proceeds counterintuitively, by appropriating the notion of symbiosis as redefined by contemporary biology, contending through historical contextualization and conceptual work that nature itself offers the best example to grasp spontaneous collaboration among unrelated human beings as a non-automatically balanced and intrinsically political affair that calls for critical management through an ex post facto interventionist policy of selective cultivation. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, there have been intense debates concerning the effects of markets on the morality of individuals’ behaviour. On the one hand, several authors argue that markets’ ongoing expansion tends to undermine individuals’ intentions for mutual benefit and virtuous character traits and actions. On the other hand, leading economists and philosophers characterize markets as a domain of intentional cooperation for mutual benefit that promotes many of the character traits and actions that traditional virtue ethics accounts classify as (...) virtuous. In this paper, I join this debate and argue for three claims of general interest to philosophers, economists and policy makers. First, market transactions do not reliably promote individuals’ intentions for mutual benefit, and often select against such intentions. Second, the set of so-called market virtues lacks a substantial overlap with the set of character traits that traditional virtue ethics accounts classify as virtuous. And third, many seemingly virtuous actions observed in market contexts are merely actions in accordance with virtue rather than genuine actions from virtue. These three claims do not license opposition to markets, but challenge the main empirical and theoretical presuppositions of leading virtue ethics defences of markets. (shrink)

I propose a distinction between two concepts: affliction and atrocity. I argue that an ethical position with respect to history’s horrors can be understood as a practice of refusing to permit affliction to be seen as atrocity. This is a practice of resisting the urge to quantify or qualify affliction in subjecting it to a count of bodies, which would be taken to totalize all the suffering in a given situation. We should, I contend, resist thinking that affliction qualified as (...) atrocity, subject to a count of bodies or the like, captures affliction itself. I then discuss several instances of the qualification of affliction as atrocity, including the Sétif and Guelma massacre, the crucifixion of Christ, and the biblical story of the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. I conclude by making a case that it’s ethically imperative that we recollect the self’s abnegation to those who aren’t counted, those who can’t be counted because they are afflicted without atrocity. (shrink)

This paper addresses the cultural sustainability of artificial intelligence use through one of its most widely discussed instances: autonomous driving. The introduction of self-driving cars places us in a radically novel moral situation, requiring advance, reflectively endorsed, forced, and iterable choices, with yet uncharted forms of risk imposition. The argument is meant to explore the necessity and possibility of maintaining one of our most fundamental moral-cultural principles in this new context, that of the equal treatment of persons. It is claimed (...) that the implementation of this principle requires central and uniform regulation in autonomous mobility. (shrink)

This work is on Hobbesian Conception of Human Nature: Moral Implications for Nigeria Society. It will be absurd indeed to discuss about Ethics and Society without talking about the concept of human nature. In other words, there is no philosophy of life without a theory of human nature. Human nature can be defined as the psychological and social qualities that characterized humankind, especially in contrast with other living things. The problem here is that Hobbes believes that the state of nature (...) was the worst case scenario. Hobbes was ready to sacrifice all of his freedom to avoid the state of nature. Applying this position to the Nigerian society, it is glaring that this view gives justification to authoritarian government and tyranny. This work therefore intends to expose Hobbes concept of human nature and then apply his view to moral issues in Nigeria society. Hobbes view of human nature has a much laudable appeal which can make available a structure for modern day politics in Nigeria. Notwithstanding the issues inherent in Hobbes concept of human nature it could be used as a yardstick in analyzing some perennial, moral and political issues in Nigeria society. (shrink)

For liberalism, values such as respect, reciprocity, and tolerance should frame cultural encounters in multicultural societies. However, it is easy to disregard that power differences and political domination also influence the cultural sphere and the relations between cultural groups. In this essay, I focus on some challenges for cultural pluralism. In relation to Indian political theorist Rajeev Bhargava, I discuss the meaning of cultural domination and epistemic injustice and their historical and moral implications. Bhargava argued that as a consequence of (...) colonialism, “indigenous cultures” were inferiorized, marginalized, and anonymized. Although cultures are often changing due to external influences, I argue that epistemic injustice implies that a culture is forced to subjection, disrespected, and considered as inferior and that it threatens the dominated people’s epistemic framework, collective identity, and existential security. Finally, I refer to John Rawls’s theory of political liberalism as a constructive approach to avoid parochialism and Western cultural domination -/- . (shrink)

The emerging sexual ethics that characterise the contemporary society, remains new to Africa, a phase of the erosion of African ethos, and a negation of the sacredness and classical norms of sex, which deserves to be addressed by all and sundry. It is a contemporary trend brought to fore by homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, among which are the radical feminists, who indoctrinate many with the practice and continuously push very hard for legalisation and acceptance by all cultures and religions. But (...) interestingly, many cultures and religions still remain opposed to the practice and its evolved ethics since they abuse human sexuality and African ethos. Clearly, adherents and feminists of the ill-practices with the new sex ethics have lost touch with moral sanity and the metaphysical Being, God. Only worthwhile cultural traits need be borrowed into and imbibed by other cultures in contact. The rising ugly development can best be addressed through strong opposing legislations, the sustenance of cultural and moral norms and values (ethics) and attitudinal change. (shrink)

Planteamos el problema siguiente: Descartes contesta la acusación irracional de Voetius interpretando, excepcionalmente, los Evangelios y afirma que las _leyes de caridad _son _afines _a las _leyes de la amistad natural _que rigen las funciones del pastor y del profesor. Proponemos que Descartes excluye el examen de las virtudes teologales e incursiona en el derecho privado y civil para probar que Voetius no es un _verdadero _profesor, ni un _verdadero _pastor, y usurpa las atribuciones del juez. Frente a la irracionalidad, (...) la búsqueda de la verdad se despliega en el alegato jurídico. -/- Descartes and the laws of charity. Public and private law in the Letter to Voetius Abstract. We pose this problem: Descartes responds to Voetius’ irrational accusation by resorting once, on his own initiative, to Gospel, an interpretation that reviews the laws of charity as akin to the laws of natural friendship governing pastor and teacher roles. We propose that the Letter be a legal argument. Descartes has no interest in theological virtues: facing irrationality, he delves into private law to prove that Voetius is not a true teacher, or a true pastor, and encroaches on the function of judge. (shrink)

We project the future accumulation of profiles belonging to deceased Facebook users. Our analysis suggests that a minimum of 1.4 billion users will pass away before 2100 if Facebook ceases to attract new users as of 2018. If the network continues expanding at current rates, however, this number will exceed 4.9 billion. In both cases, a majority of the profiles will belong to non-Western users. In discussing our findings, we draw on the emerging scholarship on digital preservation and stress the (...) challenges arising from curating the profiles of the deceased. We argue that an exclusively commercial approach to data preservation poses important ethical and political risks that demand urgent consideration. We call for a scalable, sustainable, and dignified curation model that incorporates the interests of multiple stakeholders. (shrink)

Human civilisation faces a range of existential risks, including nuclear war, runaway climate change and superintelligent artificial intelligence run amok. As we show here with calculations for the New Zealand setting, large numbers of currently living and, especially, future people are potentially threatened by existential risks. A just process for resource allocation demands that we consider future generations but also account for solidarity with the present. Here we consider the various ethical and policy issues involved and make a case for (...) further engagement with the New Zealand public to determine societal values towards future lives and their protection. (shrink)

L’origine della storia dell’Europa merita di essere ripercorsa. Troppo spesso infatti si tralascia il fatto che la cultura europea è secondaria ad Atene e Gerusalemme. Nel presentare lo scenario attuale si ragiona spesso sul collante monetario che tiene uniti gli stati, sulla buona morale che li accomuna aperta alla convivenza con l’estraneo, tuttavia non si considera mai il fatto che l’ethos ha ragioni storiche. Si parla di diritti, si erige l’eguaglianza a principio sovrano, trascurando che la Dichiarazione Universale che tutela (...) tali diritti non è stata accettata da una parte significativa di mondo. E ancora si parla spesso di bilancio demografico nazionale e integrazione, ignari dell’ipotesi recentemente avanzata di un’Europa balcanizzata. E infine si trascura che l’ethos di un popolo trova il suo inizio in una credenza e dunque in una tradizione. In questo breve saggio tenterò di tratteggiare brevemente l’odierno quadro europeo, mettendo in evidenza i legami forti, imprescindibili, sui quali poggia l’etica di una civiltà, e con essa i diritti che la società tutela e promuove. Tenterò altresì di porre in evidenza la trasformazione in atto a livello sociale circa l’etica occidentale consentita, il suo “legittimo” allargamento, e sul perché si ritenga corretto promuoverla. Keywords: Europa, Cristianesimo, Bene, Male, Diritto, Dichiarazione dei diritti umani (1948), Dichiarazione del Cairo (1990), Sacro. Bibliography/Authors: R. Brague, J. Ratzinger, J. Habermas, J. Weiler, M.A. Glendon, Z. Bauman, O. Rey. (shrink)

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, corporations have faced a crisis of trust, with growing sentiment against ‘elites and ‘big business’ and a feeling that ‘something ought to be done’ to re-establish public regard for corporations. Trust and trustworthiness are deeply moral significant. They provide the ‘glue or lubricant’ that begets reciprocity, decreases risk, secures dignity and respect, and safeguards against the subordination of the powerless to the powerful. However, in deciding how to restore trust, it is difficult to (...) determine precisely what should be done, by whom, and who will bear the cost, especially if any action involves a risk to overall market efficiency and corporate profitability. The paper explores whether corporations have a moral duty to be trustworthy, to bear the cost of being so and thus contribute to resolving the current crisis of trust. It also considers where the state and other social actors have strong reason to protect and enforce such moral rights, while acknowledging that other actors have similar obligations to be trustworthy. It outlines five ‘salient factors’ that trigger specific rights to trustworthiness and a concomitant duty on corporations to be trustworthy: market power, subordination (threat and intimidation), the absence of choice, the need to preserve systemic trust, and corporate political power which might undermine a state’s legitimacy. Absent these factors and corporations do not have a general duty to be trustworthy, since a responsible actor in fair market conditions should be able to choose between the costs and benefits of dealing with generally trustworthy corporations. (shrink)

The historical relationship between health care professionals and people with disabilities is fraught, a fact all the more troubling in light of the distinctive roles clinicians play in both establishing and responding to that which is considered normal or abnormal by society at large. Those who wish to improve their clinical practice might struggle, however, to keep up with developments across numerous disability communities as well as the ever-growing body of disability studies scholarship. To assist with this goal, I offer (...) an overview of recent disability theory, outline a set of responsibilities clinicians have to disability communities, and provide recommendations for clinicians who hope to justly treat patients with disabilities and improve their care and health outcomes. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do (...) so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two-tier system itself—manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co-constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work. (shrink)

Institutionalized and internalized, competence intersubjectivity contain many user-illusions and an imaginary or manifest image of reality, including of themselves (Dennett and Sellars),. This can be contrasted we a comprehension or comprehensive, understanding intersubjectivity. It is possible and perhaps even necessary to transform or replace the competence intersubjectivity to a comprehension or understanding (scientific, Dennett and Sellars) image of reality and themselves.Ethics and morality and studies of ethics and morality deal with the reality of competence intersubjectivity (by means of socio-cultural practices (...) that are derived from, based on an created by means of this restrictive, misleading, unreal, illusory, unrealistic intersubjectivity and the life-worlds associated with it) and human life-worlds constituted on the basis of and in terms of this intersubjectivity. This is why I am a nihilist, a libertarian, at least a minarchist or rather an anarchist and epistemologically a sceptic. Kant’s things in themselves are similar to Dennett and Searle’s notions of manifest and scientific image. With my addition that we are socialized and internalize the competent, know how to do it, institutionalized manifest, everyday intersubjectivity, instead of the comprehension, insights and understanding knowing that, scientific intersubjectivity of all scientific disciplines. This piece can be read as independent as comments on meta-ethics, or it can be read as a chapter in my Book ‘Intersubjectivity (continued)’, or it can be read as an introduction to my thoughts on philosophy and more specifically Intersubjectivity as – Determining the nature of philosophy Determining the nature of the subject-matter of philosophy, sociology, social psychology, aspects of cognitive sciences, ethics, epistemology, etc, Determining the nature of philosophical methodology and approaches. (shrink)

When soldiers come home from war, some experience lingering emotional effects from the choices they were forced to make, and the outcomes of these choices. In this article, we consider the gap between objective assessments of blame and subjective assessments of self-blame, guilt, and shame after war, and we suggest a way of understanding how soldiers can understand their moral responsibility from both of these vantage points. We examine arguments from just war theory regarding the objective moral responsibility of combatants (...) and consider the role moral luck plays in our assessment of moral responsibility. We then use P.F. Strawson’s account of the reactive attitudes to demonstrate the limitations of focusing excessively on the objective stance to determine the blameworthiness of soldiers. We argue that we should think about blame alongside moral emotions like guilt and shame, which will allow us to better understand subjective blame and the experiences of soldiers who blame themselves after war. We claim that objective determinations of heroism or responsibility do not adequately capture the complexity of moral emotions for soldiers returning home after war. As part of a shared moral community, civilians owe veterans more than automated responses based on the civilian experience. (shrink)

Near the end of W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, the book’s eponymous protagonist recalls visiting the zoo of the Jardin des Plantes with his friend Marie.1 The zoo is in bad shape; the pair overhear children questioning their parents: “Mais il est où? Pourquoi il se cache? Pourquoi il ne bouge pas? Est-ce qu’il est mort?” Sebald writes:I recollect that I myself saw a family of fallow deer gathered together by a manger of hay near the perimeter fence of a dusty (...) enclosure where no grass grew, a living picture of mutual trust and harmony which also had about it an air of constant vigilance and alarm. Marie particularly asked me to take a photograph of this beautiful group, and as she did so, said Austerlitz, she said... (shrink)

Conceiving of nuclear energy as a social experiment gives rise to the question of what to do when the experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. To be able to appropriately respond to such a situation, the nuclear energy technology in question should be reversible, i.e. it must be possible to stop its further development and implementation in society, and it must be possible to undo its undesirable consequences. This paper explores these two conditions by applying them to geological disposal (...) of high-level radioactive waste. Despite the fact that considerations of reversibility and retrievability have received increased attention in GD, the analysis in this paper concludes that GD cannot be considered reversible. Firstly, it would be difficult to stop its further development and implementation, since its historical development has led to a point where GD is significantly locked-in. Secondly, the strategy it employs for undoing undesirable consequences is less-than-ideal: it relies on containment of severely radiotoxic waste rather than attempting to eliminate this waste or its radioactivity. And while it may currently be technologically impossible to turn high-level waste into benign substances, GD’s containment strategy makes it difficult to eliminate this waste’s radioactivity when the possibility would arise. In all, GD should be critically reconsidered if the inclusion of reversibility considerations in radioactive waste management has indeed become as important as is sometimes claimed. (shrink)

Recent developments in the natural and social sciences have brought great benefits to humanity, both in terms of our material wellbeing and our intellectual and conceptual capacities. Yet, despite a broad ethical consensus and highly developed innate faculties of reason and conscience, there seems to be a significant discrepancy between how we ought to behave and how we actually behave, leading to a disregard for the dignity of human persons across the globe. This book suggests that the problem arises from (...) various misunderstandings of the nature of the self and that the solution could lie in adopting a holistic concept of the human person within the context of a carefully cultivated ethical literacy. It argues that the ideas of the Iranian philosopher Ostad Elahi (1895–1974) provide a powerful and compelling alternative to the dominant post-Enlightenment understanding of selfhood, education and morality. (shrink)

To forestall scepticism about meaning in life as a distinct final value, I sketch a preliminary characterization of meaning as superlative final value in life. I then make the case that this characterization helps us better appreciate a neglected substantive account of meaning, namely, Richard Taylor's creativity account. After laying out the creativity account, I argue that it is not just very compelling, but more compelling under the superlativeness characterization than the most prominent of the recent substantive accounts.

Values are an important part of human existence, his society and human relations. All social, economic, political, and religious problems are in one sense is reflection of this special abstraction of human knowledge. We are living in a globalized village and thinking much about values rather than practice of it. If we define religion and spirituality we can say that religion is a set of beliefs and rituals that claim to get a person in a right relationship with God, and (...) spirituality is a focus on spiritual things and the spiritual world instead of physical/earthly things. If we think rationally we can find the major evils related to religion exiting in present society are due to lack of proper understanding of religion and spirituality. If we really know our own religions and values associated with it, we can create a beautiful world, full or love and respect for each and every human being. The proper knowledge and practice of any religion’s values can make an integrated man. In the book, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Dr. Ambedkar elucidated the significance and importance of Dhamma in human life. The Dhamma maintained purity of life, which meant abstains from lustful, evil practices. The Dhamma is a perfection of life and giving up craving. Dhamma’s righteousness means right relation of man to man in all sphere of life. The basic idea underlying religion is to create an atmosphere for the spiritual development of the individual. He said that Knowing the proper ways and means is more important than knowing the ideal. The major objective of this paper is to the study the religious philosophy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and to study how he established that religious and spiritual values enables religious people in particular and humanity at large to solve contemporary problems. (shrink)

The relationship between knowledge, belief, and ethics is an inaugural theme in philosophy; more recently, under the title “ethics of belief” philosophers have worked to develop the appropriate methodology for studying the nexus of epistemology, ethics, and psychology. The title “ethics of belief” comes from a 19th-century paper written by British philosopher and mathematician W.K. Clifford. Clifford argues that we are morally responsible for our beliefs because each belief that we form creates the cognitive circumstances for related beliefs to follow, (...) and we inevitably influence each other through those beliefs. This study argues that recent cognitive research supports Cliffordian insights regarding patterns of belief formation and social influence. From the confirmation offered by such research, it follows that informational accuracy holds serious ethical significance in public discourse. Although scientific and epistemological matters are not always thought to be linked to normative morality, this study builds on Clifford's initial insights to show their linkage is fundamental to inquiry itself. In turn, Clifford's ethical and epistemic outline can inform a framework grounded in “public reason” under which seemingly opposed science communication strategies are philosophically united. With public discourse on climate change as the key example, empirically informed and grounded strategies for science communication in the public sphere are considered. (shrink)

The ecofeminist argument for veganism is powerful. Meat consumption is a deeply gendered act that is closely tied to the systematic objectification of women and nonhuman animals. I worry, however, that presenting veganism as "the" moral ideal might reinforce rather than alleviate the disordered status quo in gendered eating, further disadvantaging women in patriarchal power structures. In this chapter, I advocate a feminist account of ethical eating that treats dietary choices as moral choices insofar as they constitute an integral part (...) of our relationships to ourselves and to others. I believe that we should think of dietary choices in Aristotelian moral terms as a mean relative to us, falling on a continuum between the vice of doing injustice to ourselves, on the one hand, and the vice of doing injustice to others, on the other. On this view, what it is moral to eat for individuals is not a fixed ideal, but rather depends on particulars of our physiological, psychological, economic, cultural, and relational situations. (shrink)

In this paper, prediction markets that encourage traders to bet on matters of life and death are used to explore the varieties and dynamics of moral repugnance. We define moral repugnance as morally charged feelings of revulsion that correspond (correctly, incorrectly, and indeterminately) to moral reasons and contexts. Rich variations of moral repugnance and their dynamic qualities are presented by investigating the contextual frames in which they arise. These contextual frames constitute interacting conditions composed of information about states of affairs, (...) moral reasons, and feelings of revulsion. Through careful study of two medical prediction markets that encourage betting on death, we can observe the interaction between these causal conditions to see how the varieties of moral repugnance emerge. We also present three interesting results that arise from analyzing the dynamics of moral repugnance in response to prediction markets. First, a prediction market can elicit several conflicting types of moral repugnance at the same time. Second, moral indeterminacy can arise in two different ways when judging prediction markets. Finally, some prediction markets can generate a moral endogeneity problem, a disruptive feedback loop between a given prediction market and the morally relevant outcome it predicts. (shrink)

The high frequency that the question “where are you from” gets asked in ordinary conversation, as well as the insistence on getting private information from people one hardly knows, reveal an interesting phenomenon: an exceptional reversing of the codes of politeness, where indiscretion becomes the rule while efforts to avoid it become impolite acts. In order to explain this phenomenon, this article compares the hypothesis of racial micro-aggression defended by the existing literature and supported by the results of the French (...) survey Trajectories and Origins, to the hypothesis of methodological nationalism. The article shows that the second hypothesis provides a better explanation of how the “where are you from” question is actually practiced. The article’s thesis is that the importance of the “where are you from” question in ordinary conversations is a measure of the banalization of methodological nationalism. (shrink)

Hugh Lafollette’s theoretical justification of parental licensing hinges upon consideration of the harms associated with raising children. If we understand Lafollette’s stance as one in which the moral status of children is equal to that of other human beings, we must consider what such a commitment might require of social institutions such as the family. Unlike other licensing programs, I argue that Lafollette’s parental licensing program serves as a tool by which fair equality of opportunity can be acquired for those (...) living within a given society. I attempt to demonstrate how the normative views as to the sovereignty of parents serve to discount the moral status of children, thus limiting the protections offered against child maltreatment. I will show how Lafollette’s theoretical justifications align with concerns addressed in John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and Rawlsian views as to the importance of access to fair equality of opportunity. (shrink)

Trudy Govier worked closely with Wilhelm Verwoerd and Desmond Tutu in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This paper shares her insights regarding the meaning and importance of concepts such as acknowledgment, apology, forgiveness and reconciliation. The paper goes on to focus on the topic of reconciliation in the works of two philosophers. Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka had a great concern for reconciliation and restorative justice. He critiqued criminal justice systems that focused on punishment as retribution or deterrent. He (...) wrote in the 1960s and 70s that punishment as a concept and as a practice should be abolished. Instead, society should address the causes of social disharmony that lead to crime. His interview with sage Paul Mbuya Akoko shows that such an approach was one advocated by elders in Oruka’s Luo ethnic community, and by implication, in other parts of Africa as well. Oruka also wrote about Gandhi’s philosophy, suggesting that the nonviolent methods may be more fruitful than those counseled by Fanon. Also, Gandhi’s emphasis on the interdependence of all life is a fruitful basis for an ecological ethics. The philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi is then covered, with emphasis on his methods of conflict resolution. Gandhi’s methods steer a middle course between harmony and confrontation, and with a measured use of “compromise.” Gandhi advocated careful listening, and put it into practice while trying to quell riots in Calcutta. The paper ends by comparing and contrasting Oruka and Gandhi’s philosophical insights. (shrink)

Abstract The infantilization of older adults seems morally deplorable whereas very young children are appropriate recipients of such treatment. Children, we argue, are not mentally capable of acting autonomously and reasoning clearly. However, we have difficulty reconciling this justification with the fact that many of the elders whom we respect are mentally deficient in those very same ways. In this paper, I try to make sense of this asymmetry between our justifications for infantilizing the young and our conviction that our (...) elders ought to be respected. I argue that our intuitions against adult infantilization are non-consequentialist (i.e., deontic). I consider several candidates for the deontic factor that might explain the asymmetry of our judgments and practices. I argue that a very specific kind of dignity (one that is socially constructed and reified) grounds our disparate judgments and treatments of very young and very old persons with similar needs. (shrink)

The present essay deals with certain questions in the feld of humanistic philosophy, ethics and axiology, discussed in the light of still newer and newer challenges of our changing times. It highlights the signicant role of Professor Andrzej Grzegorczyk in solving and overcoming problems encountered in the life of man, which is based on his natural logic and incessant eorts aimed at preservation of fundamental moral values, as well as at shaping the principles of the individual and social life. The (...) views held by An- drzej Grzegorczyk, which are outlined in the work, form a certain rationalistic vision of the world and mankind. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed account and analysis of the academic scandal regarding the honorary doctorate awarded to Professor Michael Walzer by Belgrade University and the events that followed.