Este volumen es el resultado del deseo común de un grupo de amigos de ofrecer un texto, el texto que cada uno ha juzgado oportuno, a un eminente profesor de la Universidad española; un profesor al que, ciertamente, la edad ha jubilado, pero que en absoluto ha dejado, y no solo por su actual condición de Emérito, de mantenerse en activo; un maestro del pensamiento cuyo recorrido intelectual ha suscitado en esos amigos suficiente atención y simpatía como para avenirse a (...) participar en esta tarea de reconocimiento. El profesor en cuestión es Félix Duque; un nombre que cualquiera que haya mínimamente seguido las aventuras filosóficas europeas de los últimos decenios, incluidas las españolas, sin duda habrá de reconocer de inmediato. Pues se trata de alguien que ha practicado con éxito todas las artes que se supone ha de frecuentar un universitario de primer rango, un transmisor crítico del saber, un investigador de vanguardia: el profesor Félix Duque, en efecto, no solo ha ocupado multitud de estrados, universitarios o no, multitud de aulas y de salas, universitarias o no; también ha dedicado no pocas horas a ofrecer al investigador traducciones y ediciones, tan rigurosas como útiles, de textos clásicos de la filosofía; y ha encontrado tiempo, además, para ofrecer una panorámica monumental de esa aventura crucial del intelecto que fue el idealismo alemán brotado de la crítica kantiana. Pero tampoco se ha detenido ahí una actividad como la suya, infatigable y paciente —aunque también a las veces, cómo no, relampagueante—. Y así, Félix (que es como le conocemos sus amigos), no ha vacilado en poner su ordenador al servicio de cuestiones estéticas, y políticas, y ciudadanas, como tampoco ha dudado en embarcarse, cuando la ocasión lo requería, en alguna polémica de fuste; intervenciones hechas siempre en el contexto de un análisis poderoso, y en absoluto complaciente, de las muchas tradiciones difíciles que heredamos los europeos. (shrink)

New technologies facilitate the enhancement of a wide range of human dispositions, capacities, or abilities. While it is argued that we need to set limits to human enhancement, it is unclear where we should find resources to set such limits. Traditional routes for setting limits, such as referring to nature, the therapy-enhancement distinction, and the health-disease distinction, turn out to have some shortcomings. However, upon closer scrutiny the concept of enhancement is based on vague conceptions of what is to be (...) enhanced. Explaining why it is better to become older, stronger, and more intelligent presupposes a clear conception of goodness, which is seldom provided. In particular, the qualitative better is frequently confused with the quantitative more. We may therefore not need “external” measures for setting its limits – they are available in the concept of enhancement itself. While there may be shortcomings in traditional sources of limit setting to human enhancement, such as nature, therapy, and disease, such approaches may not be necessary. The specification-of-betterment problem inherent in the conception of human enhancement itself provides means to restrict its unwarranted proliferation. We only need to demand clear, sustainable, obtainable goals for enhancement that are based on evidence, and not on lofty speculations, hypes, analogies, or weak associations. Human enhancements that specify what will become better, and provide adequate evidence, are good and should be pursued. Others should not be accepted. (shrink)

There is another Socratic method, Socratic mimēsis, and an instance of this is when Plato has Socrates play ‘the annoying questioner’ in the Hippias Major. Other interpreters have suggested that the reasons for Socrates’s dramatic play are depersonalization and distance. I argue for viewing Socrates’s role-playing as a way to dramatize the inner dialogue that happens inside one’s mind in what we may call conscience. Hippias the sophist lacks a conscience: his focus is acquisitive as opposed to inquisitive. Plato has (...) staged a pedagogical theater of Hippias’s failed lesson for the benefit of Plato’s audience, the listeners/readers of the dialogue. -/- . (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 64 Heft: 6 Seiten: 894-924.

RESUMENLa filosofía del último Schelling debiera entenderse más bien como una hermenéutica de la libertad, cuyos soportes metódicos serían la dialéctica y la narración. La primera, al contrario de la hegeliana, se escendiría en un desequilibrio que pasa a tensión por contraposición de los extremos y que es al fin superada por un tercer término que se yergue libremente sobre los dos pasos anteriores: una dialéctica, pues, discontinua por superación, no por asunción. A su vez, y en una recuperación suo (...) modo de la filosofía kantiana de la historia, la narración corresponde a una dinámica de la historia, igualmente discontinua (sin posibilidad de ser predeterminada en su curso) y escandida por eventos, en un proceso de retroducción del sentido y de producción de narratividad: ya no «ciencia» (en el alto sentido del hegelianismo) sino un trabajoso quehacer libre de los hombres libres. Si se quiere: la búsqueda de una todavía impensable compenetración de filosofía y religión.PALABRAS CLAVESCRISTIANISMO EXOTÉRICO Y ESOTÉRICO, RELIGIÓN FILOSÓFICA, REVELACIÓN (OFFENBARUNG: ACCIÓN DE DEJAR EN FRANQUÍA LO IMPREPENSABLE), HERMENÉUTICA DE LA LIBERTAD, DIALÉCTICA DE LAHISTORIA, ÉXTASIS DE LA RAZÓN, QUERER (WOLLEN)ABSTRACTThe later philosophy of Schelling should be rather understood as a hermeneutics of freedom, with dialectics and narration as its methodological basis. Unlike Hegelian, Schellingian dialectics splits into an imbalance, that leads to a tension in which the extremes are opposed. This tension is ultimately overcome by a third term, that raises in its freedom over the other two: a case of discontinuous dialectics, in the sense of overcoming, not of sublating. On the other hand, in a recovery /suo modo/ of Kantian philosophy of history, narration would be a dynamics of history, also discontinuous (non-predeterminable in its course) internally scanned by events, in a process of retroduction of meaning and of production of normativity: not a «science» (in the high Hegelian sense) anymore, but a laborious free task performed by free men. In other words: a search of a still unthinkable compenetration of philosophy and religion.KEYWORDSEXOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND ESOTERIC, PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION,REVELATION (OFFENBARUNG), FREEDOM HERMENEUTICS, DIALECTICSOF HISTORY, ECSTASY OF REASON, WANT ( WOLLEN ). (shrink)

This book is an introduction to and interpretation of the philosophy of language devised by Donald Davidson over the past 25 years. The guiding intuition is that Davidson's work is best understood as an ongoing attempt to purge semantics of theoretical reifications. Seen in this light the recent attack on the notion of language itself emerges as a natural development of his Quinian scepticism towards "meanings" and his rejections of reference-based semantic theories. Linguistic understanding is, for Davidson, essentially dynamic, arising (...) only through a continuous process of theory construction and reconstruction. The result is a conception of semantics in which the notion of interpretation and not the notion of knowing a language is fundamental. In the course of his book Bjorn Ramberg provides a critical discussion of reference-based semantic theories, challenging the standard accounts of the principle of charity and elucidating the notion of radical interpretation. The final chapter on incommensurability ties in with the discussions of Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science and suggests certain links between Davidson's analytic semantics and hermeneutic theory. (shrink)

Dynamic Topological Logic (DFH) is a multimodal system for reasoning about dynamical systems. It is defined semantically and, as such, most of the work done in the field has been model-theoretic. In particular, the problem of finding a complete axiomatization for the full language of DFH over the class of all dynamical systems has proven to be quite elusive. Here we propose to enrich the language to include a polyadic topological modality, originally introduced by Dawar and Otto in a different (...) context. We then provide a sound axiomatization for DFH over this extended language, and prove that it is complete. The polyadic modality is used in an essential way in our proof. (shrink)

Aim of the paper is to present a new logic of technical malfunction. The need for this logic is motivated by a simple-sounding philosophical question: Is a malfunctioning corkscrew, which fails to uncork bottles, nonetheless a corkscrew? Or in general terms, is a malfunctioning F, which fails to do what Fs do, nonetheless an F? We argue that ‘malfunctioning’ denotes the modifier Malfunctioning rather than a property, and that the answer depends on whether Malfunctioning is subsective or privative. If subsective, (...) a malfunctioning F is an F; if privative, a malfunctioning F is not an F. An intensional logic is required to raise and answer the question, because modifiers operate directly on properties and not on sets or individuals. This new logic provides the formal tools to reason about technical malfunction by means of a logical analysis of the sentence “a is a malfunctioning F”. (shrink)

Bariatric surgery is effective on short- and medium-term weight loss, reduction of comorbidities, and overall mortality. A large and increasing portion of the population is eligible for bariatric surgery, which increases instant health care costs. A review of the literature identifies a series of ethical challenges: unjust distribution of bariatric surgery, autonomy and informed consent, classification of obesity and selecting assessment endpoints, prejudice among health professionals, intervention in people's life-world, and medicalization of appearance. Bariatric surgery is particularly interesting because it (...) uses surgical methods to modify healthy organs, is not curative, but offers symptoms relief for a condition that it is considered to result from lack of self-control and is subject to significant prejudice. Taking the reviewed ethical issues into account is important when meeting persons eligible for bariatric surgery, as well as in the assessment of and decision making on surgery for obesity. (shrink)

En este artículo me propongo hacer algunos planteamientos sobre la noción de “diversidad” que nos ayuden a situarla en el contexto general de la epistemología y en el particular de las ciencias sociales contemporáneas, sugerir varias estrategias para mejorar nuestra comprensión de algunas discusiones actuales relacionadas con la naturaleza de los múltiples saberes, su estatus epistemológico y sus relaciones y diferencias con la definición clásica de “conocimiento”, examinar el problema de si hay una o varias epistemologías y cuáles son las (...) implicaciones de cada alternativa, ofrecer una caracterización de ciencia empírica (aplicable en el campo de la investigación social) y mostrar sus relaciones con la tesis de la existencia de múltiples saberes. Por último, ofreceré algunos argumentos para ilustrar las razones por las cuáles es preferible usar un enfoque metodológico monista para investigar desde la diversidad. (shrink)

New technology generates fantastic possibilities which challenge traditional distinctions between good and bad. Genetic analysis of DNA for forensic purposes is but one example of this. Here society’s need for convicting criminals can conflict with the same society’s need to assure the confidentiality of information about its members and their trust in its institutions. In order to illustrate the complexity of such challenges, a case report from Norway is presented. The point is to reflect on the way we handle trailblazing (...) health technologies in general and on cases where law and order is gained by means that can be conceived of as immoral in particular. The case calls for careful ethical reflection. (shrink)

In the Preface to the second edition of the Science of Logic, Hegel speaks of an instinctive and unconscious logic whose forms and determinations 'always remain imperceptible and incapable of becoming objective even as they emerge in language.' In spite of Hegel's ambitions to provide a philosophical system that might transcend messy human nature, Félix Duque argues that human nature remains stubbornly present in precisely this way. In this book he responds to the 'remnants' of Hegel's work not to (...) explicate his philosophy, but instead to explore the limits of his thought. He begins with the tension between singularity and universality, both as a metaphysical issue in terms of substance and subject, and as a theological issue in terms of ideas about the human and divine nature of Jesus. Duque argues that the questions these issues bring out require a search for some antecedent authority, for which he turns to Hegel's theory of "second nature" and the idea of nature as reflected in the nation state. He considers Hegel's evaluation of the French Revolution in the context of political and civil life, and in a religious context, how Hegel saw considerations of authority and guilt sublimated and purified in the development of Christianity. (shrink)

Biographical note: The author is associate professor in ethics and political philosophy, Department of Philosophy, NTNU Trond.

Fifteen years ago, Ruth Macklin shook the medical community with her claim in the BMJ that dignity is a useless concept. Her essay provoked a storm of reactions. What have we learned from the debate? In this article I analyse the responses to her essay and the following debate to investigate whether she was right that “[d]ignity is a useless concept in medical ethics and can be eliminated without any loss of content.” While some of the commentaries misconstrued her claim (...) and argue against strawmen, others forcefully maintained that the concept of dignity has functions beyond “respect for persons and their autonomy.” One important point that came out of the debate is that dignity is a generic concept that covers more ground than “respect for persons or their autonomy.” In particular, dignity seems to have a wide range of protective functions as well as having reciprocal, relational, and social aspects. Dignity appears more attributional and norm‐formative than respect for persons and autonomy. While the claim that dignity is unclear, vague, and can be used sloganistically seems highly relevant, it is argued that this vagueness fulfils important functions in ethics. Moreover, dismissing dignity because of its lack of clarity has implications for “respect for persons” and “autonomy,” which are also used vaguely and sloganistically. No doubt medical ethics should use as a clear concept as the context requires. Nonetheless, dignity still seems to be a widely used generic concept in ethical debates and doing as much ethical work as “respect for persons” or “respect for autonomy.” Therefore, the death of dignity seems to be greatly exaggerated. (shrink)

In this article, we introduce and demonstrate the concept-metaphor of broken data. In doing so, we advance critical discussions of digital data by accounting for how data might be in processes of decay, making, repair, re-making and growth, which are inextricable from the ongoing forms of creativity that stem from everyday contingencies and improvisatory human activity. We build and demonstrate our argument through three examples drawn from mundane everyday activity: the incompleteness, inaccuracy and dispersed nature of personal self-tracking data; the (...) data cleaning and repair processes of Big Data analysis and how data can turn into noise and vice versa when they are transduced into sound within practices of music production and sound art. This, we argue is a necessary step for considering the meaning and implications of data as it is increasingly mobilised in ways that impact society and our everyday worlds. (shrink)

Provability logics are modal or polymodal systems designed for modeling the behavior of Gödel’s provability predicate and its natural extensions. If Λ is any ordinal, the Gödel-Löb calculus GLPΛ contains one modality [λ] for each λ < Λ, representing provability predicates of increasing strength. GLPω has no non-trivial Kripke frames, but it is sound and complete for its topological semantics, as was shown by Icard for the variable-free fragment and more recently by Beklemishev and Gabelaia for the full logic. In (...) this paper we generalize Beklemishev and Gabelaia’s result to GLPΛ for countable Λ. We also introduce provability ambiances, which are topological models where valuations of formulas are restricted. With this we show completeness of GLPΛ for the class of provability ambiances based on Icard polytopologies. (shrink)

Trust relations in the health services have changed from asymmetrical paternalism to symmetrical autonomy-based participation, according to a common account. The promises of personalized medicine emphasizing empowerment of the individual through active participation in managing her health, disease and well-being, is characteristic of symmetrical trust. In the influential Kantian account of autonomy, active participation in management of own health is not only an opportunity, but an obligation. Personalized medicine is made possible by the digitalization of medicine with an ensuing increased (...) tailoring of diagnostics, treatment and prevention to the individual. The ideal is to increase wellness by minimizing the layer of interpretation and translation between relevant health information and the patient or user. Arguably, this opens for a new level of autonomy through increased participation in treatment and prevention, and by that, increased empowerment of the individual. However, the empirical realities reveal a more complicated landscape disturbed by information ‘noise’ and involving a number of complementary areas of expertise and technologies, hiding the source and logic of data interpretation. This has lead to calls for a return to a mild form of paternalism, allowing expertise coaching of patients and even withholding information, with patients escaping responsibility through blind or lazy trust. This is morally unacceptable, according to Kant’s ideal of enlightenment, as we have a duty to take responsibility by trusting others reflexively, even as patients. Realizing the promises of personalized medicine requires a system of institutional controls of information and diagnostics, accessible for non-specialists, supported by medical expertise that can function as the accountable gate-keeper taking moral responsibility required for an active, reflexive trust. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag bietet eine umfassende Diskussion des Textes “Humanismus und Christentum” (1950) des dänischen Philosophen und Theologen Knud E. Løgstrup. Er verortet den Text in seinem geistesgeschichtlichen Kontext und analysiert seine wichtigsten Argumente wie auch seine zentrale These, der zufolge Humanismus und Christentum einen entscheidenden Grundsatz teilen, insofern beide die Ethik als “stumm“ oder “unausgesprochen“ verstehen. Darüber hinaus wird dargelegt, wie Løgstrups Text zentrale Überlegungen in dessen späteren Publikationen, besonders in dem Hauptwerk Die ethische Forderung (1956), vorwegnimmt.

In the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare, proponents of conscience rights often point to the imperative to protect the health professional’s moral integrity. Their opponents hold that the moral integrity argument alone can at most justify accommodation of conscientious objectors as a “moral courtesy”, as the argument is insufficient to establish a general moral right to accommodation, let alone a legal right. This text draws on political philosophy in order to argue for a legal right to accommodation. The moral (...) integrity arguments should be supplemented by the requirement to protect minority rights in liberal democracies. Citizens have a right to live in accordance with their fundamental moral convictions, and a right to equal access to employment. However, this right should not be unconditional, as that would unduly infringe on the rights of other citizens. The right must be limited to cases where the moral basis is more fundamental in a sense that all reasonable citizens in a liberal democracy should accept, such as the constitutive role of the inviolability of human life in liberal democracies. There should be a legal, yet circumscribed, right to accommodation for conscientious objectors refusing to provide healthcare services that they reasonably consider to involve the intentional killing of a human being. (shrink)

In what sense is Nature in God, according to Schelling's Essay on Human Freedom ? The answer to this question, it is argued, involves disclosing the inseparability between 'what is said' and 'how it is said' in the Freiheitsschrift , the discursive performativity on the basis of which Schelling's essay must be read. Part I introduces three 'bonds' that determine Schelling's thinking: a discursive bond , a manifestive bond and a bond of freedom . Part II shows that these three (...) bonds intersect in the Freiheitsschrift . Disclosed at the core of this intersection is, not a bond, but a gap: that between "Nature—in God." This gap is narratively performed with the stroke of a pen—with a dash. (shrink)

Resumen: ¿Puede el cine filosofar? ¿Puede la imagen en movimiento ser medio para que la filosofía opere en otra materia expresiva? Este artículo tiene como interés auscultar la capacidad de ciertos cines de hacer filosofía al interior de la gran pantalla. Por eso, se exponen las líneas teóricas que permiten la defensa de un cine filosófico capaz de ofrecer conceptos a través de la dimensión expresiva propia de las imágenes en movimiento. Dicho proceso tiene lugar al interior del trabajo poético (...) que el cine de autor ofrece y que, a razón de su distancia del tono general del cine clásico, supone una crítica a la metafísica en el territorio del séptimo arte. Se realiza el análisis de parte de la obra iniciática del director Wong Kar-Wai y su singular poética del des-encuentro. A razón de su trabajo al filo del cine moderno es posible evidenciar cómo el cine puede darnos qué pensar.: Is it possible for the cinema to philosophize? Can the moving image work as a means for philosophy to operate under a different expressive language? This article discusses the ability of certain cinemas to do philosophy on the big screen. It describes the theoretical approaches that argue for a philosophical cinema capable of offering concepts through the expressive dimension of moving images. This process takes place within the poetic work that an auteur’s cinema offers which, because of its distance from the general tone of classical cinema, implies a critique of metaphysics from within the territory of the seventh art. The article analyzes part of the early work of the director Wong Kar-Wai’s and his unique poetics of dis-encounter. Through his work on the margins of modern cinema, it is possible to show how the seventh art can offer us something to think about. (shrink)

People tend to overestimate emotional responses to future events. This study examined whether such affective forecasting errors occur for feelings of regret, as measured by self-report and subsequent decision-making. Some participants played a pricing game and lost by a narrow or wide margin, while others were asked to imagine losing by such margins. Participants who experienced a narrow loss reported more regret than those who imagined a narrow loss. Furthermore, those experiencing a narrow loss behaved more cautiously in a subsequent (...) gambling task. Thus, the study provides self-report and behavioral evidence for a reversal of the affective forecasting phenomenon for feelings of regret. (shrink)

The number of diagnoses and the number of persons having diagnoses have increased substantially, and studies indicate that diagnoses are given or upheld even if they are unwarranted, that is, that they do not satisfy professionally accepted diagnostic criteria. In this article, the authors investigate the ethics of withholding and withdrawing unwarranted diagnoses. First, they investigate ethical aspects that make it difficult to withhold and to withdraw such diagnoses. Second, they scrutinize whether there are psychological factors, both in persons/patients and (...) healthcare professionals, making it difficult to withdraw and withhold unwarranted diagnoses. Lastly, they use recent elements of the withholding-versus-withdrawing treatment debate in medical ethics to investigate whether there are any differences between withholding and withdrawing treatment and withdrawing and withholding unwarranted diagnoses. The authors conclude that it is crucial to acknowledge and address all these issues to reduce and avoid unwarranted diagnoses. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been an increased emphasis on non-technical skills in medical teams. One promising approach that relates teamwork to medical efficiency is the theory of Shared Mental Models. The aim of the present study was to investigate the suitability of the Shared Mental Model approach for teamwork between operators in emergency medical communication centers and the first line ambulance personnel in real-life settings. These teams collaborate while working from geographically dispersed positions, which makes them distinct from the (...) kinds of teams examined in most previous research on team effectiveness. A pressing issue is therefore whether current models on co-located teams are valid for medical distributed teams. A total of 240 participants from 80 emergency medical teams participated in the study. A team effectiveness model was proposed based on identified team coordinating mechanisms and the “Big five” team processes. Path analyses showed that SMM was positively associated with team effectiveness and negatively related to mission complexity. Furthermore, the coordinating mechanisms of SMM and Closed Loop Communication was positively related to “Big five” team scores. However, no effects were found for the “Big five” team processes on effectiveness, which could indicate that the model needs to be adjusted for application to geographically dispersed teams. Possible implications for team training of distributed emergency response teams are discussed. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to study the relationship between Epicureanism and pandemic priority-setting and to explore whether Epicurus's philosophy is compliant with the later developed utilitarianism. We find this aim interesting because Epicurus had a different way of valuing death than our modern society does: Epicureanism holds that death—understood as the incident of death—cannot be bad (or good) for those who die (self-regarding effects). However, this account is still consistent with the view that a particular death can be (...) bad for everyone else but those who die, such as family, friends, and society (other-regarding effects). During the pandemic, the focus has been on the number of deaths more than on the suffering and reduced well-being of those infected and the rest of society. However, since the pandemic requires prioritization, it is, on a utilitarian account, important to consider priorities that do the most good overall. In this article, we approach the harm of death from an Epicurean point of view, seeking to flesh out potential implications for pandemic priority-setting, and healthcare in general, using a case study of COVID-19 priority-setting. We also explore whether this would conflict with utilitarianism. We conclude that an Epicurean pandemic priority-setting approach would be different but, surprisingly, not radically different from many of the actual priority-setting decisions we saw under the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This article argues that anthropology may represent untapped perspectives of relevance to social theory. The article starts by critically reviewing how anthropology has come to serve as the ‘Other’ in various branches of social theory, from Marx and Durkheim to Parsons to Habermas, engaged in a hopeless project of positing ‘primitive’ or ‘traditional’ society as the opposite of modernity. In contemporary debates, it is becoming increasingly recognized that social theory needs history, back to the axial age and beyond. The possible (...) role of anthropology in theorizing modernity receives far less attention. That role should go much beyond representing a view from ‘below’ or a politically correct appreciation of cultural diversity. It involves attention to key theoretical concepts and insights developed by maverick anthropologists like Arnold van Gennep, Marcel Mauss, Victor Turner and Gregory Bateson, concepts that uniquely facilitate an understanding of some of the underlying dynamics of modernity. (shrink)

In a 2010 paper Daley argues, contra Fodor, that several syntactically simple predicates express structured concepts. Daley develops his theory of structured concepts within Tichý’s Transparent Intensional Logic . I rectify various misconceptions of Daley’s concerning TIL. I then develop within TIL an improved theory of how structured concepts are structured and how syntactically simple predicates are related to structured concepts.

The concept of disease has been the subject ofa vast, vivid and versatile debate. Categoriessuch as ``realist'', ``nominalist'', ``ontologist'',``physiologist'', ``normativist'' and``descriptivist'' have been applied to classifydisease concepts. These categories refer tounderlying theoretical frameworks of thedebate. The objective of this review is toanalyse these frameworks. It is argued that thecategories applied in the debate refer toprofound philosophical issues, and that thecomplexity of the debate reflects thecomplexity of the concept itself: disease is acomplex concept, and does not easily lenditself to definition.

New emerging biotechnologies, such as gene editing, vastly extend our ability to alter the human being. This comes together with strong aspirations to improve humans not only physically, but also mentally, morally, and socially. These conjoined ambitions aggregate to what can be labelled “the gene editing of super-ego.” This article investigates a general way used to argue for new biotechnologies, such as gene-editing: if it is safe and efficacious to implement technology X for the purpose of a common good Y, (...) why should we not do so? This is a rhetorical question with a conditional, and may be dismissed as such. Moreover, investigating the question transformed into a formal argument reveals that the argument does not hold either. Nonetheless, the compelling force of the question calls for closer scrutiny, revealing that this way of arguing for biotechnology is based on five assumptions. Analysis of these assumptions shows their significant axiological, empirical, and philosophical challenges. This makes it reasonable to claim that these kinds of question based promotions of specific biotechnologies fail. Hence, the aspirations to make a super-man with a super-ego appear fundamentally flawed. As these types of moral bioenhancement arguments become more prevalent, a revealing hype test is suggested: What is special with this technology, compared to existing methods, that makes it successful in improving human social characteristics in order to make the world a better place for all? Valid answers to this question will provide good reasons to pursue such technologies. Hence, the aim is not to bar the development of modern biotechnology, but rather to ensure good developments and applications of highly potent technologies. So far, we still have a long way to go to make persons with goodness gene. (shrink)

How are we individually and as a society to handle new and emerging technologies? This challenging question underlies much of the bioethical debates of modern times. To address this question we need suitable conceptions of the new technology and ways of identifying its proper management and regulation. To establish conceptions and to find ways to handle emerging technologies we tend to use analogies extensively. The aim of this article is to investigate the role that analogies play or may play in (...) the processes of understanding and managing new technology. More precisely we aim to unveil the role of analogies as analytical devices in exploring the "being" of the new technology as well the normative function of analogies in conceptualizing the characteristics and applications of new technology. Umbilical cord blood biobanking will be used as a case to investigate these roles and functions. (shrink)

To approach the philosophical anthropology of Donald Davidson is to get ready for an unusually high number of laps around the hermeneutic circle. Apparently a problem-oriented philosopher, Davidson presents his views in a continuing series of dense, tightly focussed papers on narrowly circumscribed topics. The lines of the big picture are mostly implicit. Yet it is the scope and the power of this picture that has made Davidson one of the most significant philosophers of this century. Naturally, this makes Davidson's (...) work an extremely tempting—and extremely treacherous—target for the exegete with synthesizing tendencies. Until now, the sense of danger seems to have won out; secondary expositions have largely confined themselves to particular aspects of his thought. For those seeking to appreciate the cohesion and comprehensiveness of Davidson's vision, there has been no alternative but, as Ted Honderich says, to “struggle and learn,” working their way through Davidson's papers, continually calibrating and recalibrating interpretations of Davidson's detailed philosophical proposals with the emerging pattern of their interrelationships. (shrink)

This article presents and evaluates arguments supporting that an approval procedure for genome-edited organisms for food or feed should include a broad assessment of societal, ethical and environmental concerns; so-called non-safety assessment. The core of analysis is the requirement of the Norwegian Gene Technology Act that the sustainability, ethical and societal impacts of a genetically modified organism should be assessed prior to regulatory approval of the novel products. The article gives an overview how this requirement has been implemented in the (...) regulatory practice, demonstrating that such assessment is feasible and justified. Even in situations where genome-edited organisms are considered comparable to non-modified organisms in terms of risk, the technology may have—in addition to social benefits—negative impacts that warrant assessments of the kind required in the Act. The main reason is the disruptive character of the genome editing technologies due to their potential for novel, ground-breaking solutions in agriculture and aquaculture combined with the economic framework shaped by the patent system. Food is fundamental for a good life, biologically and culturally, which warrants stricter assessment procedures than what is required for other industries, at least in countries like Norway with a strong tradition for national control over agricultural markets and breeding programs. (shrink)

Geographical variations are documented for a wide range of health care services. As many such variations cannot be explained by demographical or epidemiological differences, they are problematic with respect to distributive justice, quality of care, and health policy. Despite much attention, geographical variations prevail. One reason for this can be that the ethical issues of geographical variations are rarely addressed explicitly. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to analyse the ethical aspects of geographical variations in the provision of health (...) services. Applying a principlist approach the article identifies and addresses four specific ethical issues: injustice, harm, lack of beneficence, and paternalism. Then it investigates the normative leap from the description of geographical variations to the prescription of right care. Lastly, the article argues that professional approaches such as developing guidelines, checklists, appropriateness criteria, and standards of care are important measures when addressing geographical variations, but that such efforts should be accompanied and supported by ethical analysis. Hence, geographical variations are not only a healthcare provision, management, or a policy making problem, but an ethical one. Addressing the ethical issues with geographical variations is key for handling this crucial problem in the provision of health services. (shrink)

We demonstrate how to validly quantify into hyperintensional contexts involving non-propositional attitudes like seeking, solving, calculating, worshipping, and wanting to become. We describe and apply a typed extensional logic of hyperintensions that preserves compositionality of meaning, referential transparency and substitutivity of identicals also in hyperintensional attitude contexts. We specify and prove rules for quantifying into hyperintensional contexts. These rules presuppose a rigorous method for substituting variables into hyperintensional contexts, and the method will be described. We prove the following. First, it (...) is always valid to quantify into hyperintensional attitude contexts and over hyperintensional entities. Second, factive empirical attitudes validate, furthermore, quantifying over intensions and extensions, and so do non-factive attitudes, both empirical and non-empirical , provided the entity to be quantified over exists. We focus mainly on mathematical attitudes, because they are uncontroversially hyperintensional. (shrink)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted. The (...) centerpiece of Rorty's critique is the provocative account offered in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979, hereafter PMN). In this book, and in the closely related essays collected in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982, hereafter CP), Rorty's principal target is the philosophical idea of knowledge as representation, as a mental mirroring of a mind-external world. Providing a contrasting image of philosophy, Rorty has sought to integrate and apply the milestone achievements of Dewey, Hegel and Darwin in a pragmatist synthesis of historicism and naturalism. Characterizations and illustrations of a post-epistemological intellectual culture, present in both PMN (part III) and CP (xxxvii-xliv), are more richly developed in later works, such as Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989, hereafter CIS), in the popular essays and articles collected in Philosophy and Social Hope (1999), and in the four volumes of philosophical papers, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991, hereafter ORT); Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991, hereafter EHO); Truth and Progress (1998, hereafter TP); and Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007, hereafter PCP). In these writings, ranging over an unusually wide intellectual territory, Rorty offers a highly integrated, multifaceted view of thought, culture, and politics, a view that has made him one of the most widely discussed philosophers in our time. (shrink)

This article raises the question of whether bioethics qualifies as a discipline. According to a standard definition of discipline as “a field of study following specific and well-established methodological rules” bioethics is not a specific discipline as there are no explicit “well-established methodological rules.” The article investigates whether the methodological rules can be implicit, and whether bioethics can follow specific methodological rules within subdisciplines or for specific tasks. As this does not appear to be the case, the article examines whether (...) bioethics’ adherence to specific quality criteria (instead of methodological rules) or pursuing of a common goal can make it qualify as a discipline. Unfortunately, the result is negative. Then, the article scrutinizes whether referring to bioethics institutions and professional qualifications can ascertain bioethics as a discipline. However, this makes the definition of bioethics circular. The article ends by admitting that bioethics can qualify as a discipline according to broader definitions of discipline, for example, as an “area of knowledge, research and education.” However, this would reduce bioethics’ potential for demarcation and identity-building. Thus, to consolidate the discipline of bioethics and increase its impact, we should explicate and elaborate on its methodology. (shrink)

This paper examines whether a firm’s financial performance is associated with superior environmental, social and governance scores in emerging markets of multinationals in Latin America. The study addresses the current research gap on this issue; it develops hypotheses and tests them by applying linear regressions with a data panel drawn from the Thomson Reuters Eikon™ database to analyse data on 104 multinationals from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru between 2011 and 2015. The results suggest that the relationship between the (...) ESG score and FP is significantly statistically negative. Furthermore, in examining environmental, social and governance separately to accurately determine each variable’s relationship to multilatinas’ FP, the results reveal a negative relationship. Finally, the empirical analysis provides evidence for a moderating effect of financial slack and geographic international diversification on the relationship between ESG dimensions and firms’ FP. This study furthers understanding of the relationship between ESG dimensions and FP for the Latin American business context. (shrink)