This collection of contributions from both linguists and lawyers brings a pragmatic perspective to the linguistic basis for legal meaning and for finding a norm by which to decide a case. That is, it turns from notions of linguistic meaning as residing in the text, as literal meaning waiting to be dug out, to focus instead on how readers infer pragmatic meaning, and on the kinds of inferencing that characterise legal discourse.

Naturalness delves into a long withstanding argument of everyday life—the argument of naturalness. This book questions why what is natural has been seen in some ways as superior to what is artificial and discusses the role and validity of naturalistic arguments in domains such as politics, ethics, and reasoning.

ZusammenfassungDas Verfahren des Sterbefastens ) hat eine lange Tradition, die, soweit wir wissen, bis in die Antike zurückreicht. Besonders in jüngster Zeit findet es Interesse bei älteren Menschen, die dem Tode nahe sind und über Zeitpunkt und Umstände ihres Todes ein gewisses Maß an Gestaltungsspielraum behalten wollen. Unter den Befürwortern dieses Verfahrens ist allerdings u. a. strittig, wieweit Sterbefasten als eine „passive“ Form von Suizid gelten kann. Auf dem Hintergrund der WHO-Definition des Suizids verteidigt der Beitrag eine affirmative Antwort und (...) diskutiert, wieweit sich daraus Konsequenzen für die ethische Beurteilung des Sterbefastens ergeben. (shrink)

Christliche Ethik in der technischen Welt.--Kybernetik und christliches Ethos.--Christliche Anthropologie und biologische Zukunft des Menschen.--Die Stadt als Ort der Utopie.--Christliche Zukunftshoffnung und rationale Zukunftsplanung.--Verantwortung für die Folgen der Freiheit, theologische Überlegungen zum Thema Umweltschutz.

We conjecture that the text of § 9 in Kant's "Doctrine of Virtue" might have been assembled in a wrong order, because of issues in the preparation of the manuscript for publication. We show that textual clues suggest to consider the possibility of reordering two passages in the section, which might yield a more coherent argumentative structure.

Während die terminale Sedierung neueren niederländischen Erhebungen zufolge bereits in mehr als 5% aller Sterbefälle zur Leidensminderung am Lebensende angewandt wird, sind viele der durch dieses Verfahren aufgeworfenen begrifflichen und ethischen Fragen weiterhin offen. Kontrovers ist insbesondere die begriffliche Einordnung der Kombination von terminaler Sedierung und Behandlungsabbruch sowie die Frage nach den dafür einschlägigen ethischen Kriterien. Ausgehend von einer Analyse von drei Szenarien mit unterschiedlicher kausaler Rollenverteilung argumentiere ich dafür, den Standardfall der Kombination von terminaler Sedierung und Behandlungsabbruch unter die (...) Kategorie der „passiven Sterbehilfe“ zu subsumieren und für sie dieselben ethischen Kriterien wie für den Behandlungsabbruch allein gelten zu lassen. Eine tentative vergleichende Bewertung ergibt, dass die terminale Sedierung als ultima ratio der Leidensminderung am Lebensende gegenüber der Alternative des assistierten Suizids insgesamt als ethisch vorzugswürdig gelten sollte, ohne jedoch die Alternative des assistierten Suizids als in toto unzulässig erscheinen zu lassen. (shrink)

Essential for the concept of the law of nature is not only spatio-temporal universality, but also functionality in the sense of the dependency on physical conditions of natural entities. In the following it is explained in detail that just the neglect of this functional property is to be understood as the real reason for the occurrence of the Goodman paradox – with the consequence, that the behavior of things seems to be completely at the mercy of change of unique unrepeatable (...) temporal points. It is exactly this (mis-)understanding that also generated the induction problem. From the intrinsic connection between universality and functionality, however, – that is my claim – the ontological consequence of a nature results, for which lawfulness is coupled to essentially functionally defined time sequences, thereby implying a potentiality dimension of nature, too. (shrink)

Essential for the concept of the law of nature is not only spatio-temporal universality, but also functionality in the sense of the dependency on physical conditions of natural entities. In the following it is explained in detail that just the neglect of this functional property is to be understood as the real reason for the occurrence of the Goodman paradox. As a consequence, the behavior of things seems to be completely at the mercy of the temporal change of unique absolute (...) temporal points. It is exactly this (mis-)understanding that also generated the induction problem. From the intrinsic connection between universality and functionality, however, - that is my claim - the ontological consequence of a nature results, for which the potentiality of lawfulness is coupled to essentially functionally defined time sequences. (shrink)

It is argued that the narrow concept of selection used since the time ofDarwin is only concerned with the relation between organism and its environment . It did not include the organism itself, which was the object of the pre-phylogenetic idealistic morphology. An adequate understanding of the mechanism of evolution dispenses with the concept of morphology as the basis of phylogeny.Es wird aufgezeigt, da\ der aufDarwin selbst zurückgehende eingeengte Gebrauch des Selektionskonzeptes auf die Beziehung zwischen Organismus und Umwelt die biologische (...) Konstruktion der vorphylogenetischen idealistischen Morphologie überlassen hat. Ein zutreffendes VerstÄndnis des Evolutionsmechanismus begreift aber die biologische Apparatur ein, entzieht der Morphologie, soweit sie sich als Vorbedingung phylogenetischen Arbeitens versteht, den Boden. (shrink)

Die Studie befaßt sich mit Kritik und Rezeption des scholastischen Aristoteles beim jungen Luther. Der Autor behandelt Fragen der Aristoteles-Rezeption des jungen Luther: Welchen Aristoteles meinte der junge Luther jeweils in seinen zahlreichen Stellungnahmen zu "Aristoteles"? Was ist deren genauer Inhalt? Wie argumentiert Luther in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles, und welche Probleme ergeben sich dabei? Welches sind die unterschiedlichen Formen dieses Rezeptionsverhältnisses? Die systematischen Probleme, die sich dabei zeigen, analysiert der Autor an ihrem historischen Ort.

Lattice-gas cellular automaton (LGCA) and lattice Boltzmann (LB) models are promising models for studying emergent behaviour of transport and interaction processes in biological systems. In this chapter, we will emphasise the use of LGCA/LB models and the derivation and analysis of LGCA models ranging from the classical example dynamics of fluid flow to clotting phenomena in cerebral aneurysms and the invasion of tumour cells.

Krause’s philosophy deserves to be memorized as the first link in a chain of thinking on animal rights that is still on the way today. Though Krause was not the first to talk of animal rights in the history of animal ethics, his theory of animal rights is pathbreaking in embedding a conception of animal rights in an all-encompassing metaphysical system. The essay situates Krause’s theory of animal rights in the framework of his general theory of rights and points to (...) the challenges Krause’s theory faces by the inevitability of trade-offs between animal and human rights. (shrink)

There are many treatises concerning the soul. Plato was not the first to write on the subject. From Greek philosophy and religion the soul wandered over to Christianity. According to this religion, the soul accompanies the body, which it inhabits for a short while in order to then return to its primary homeland embodied in areas of primary existence and truth. There are many treatises concerning the soul. Plato was not the first to write on the subject. Wisława Szymborska, in (...) her collection of poems published in 2002 and titled A Moment, poses the most essential questions: Why does man exist? Why isn’t there nothingness? She also asks: What is the soul? Does man really possess a soul? What is the relationship between man and soul – to whom does the soul really belong? This is a treatise in the form of a poem which appears to be plain and modest, yet the questions it asks are fundamental. This interpretation aims to develop and translate from the language of poetry the religious and philosophical questions embraced by Szymborska’s poem. (shrink)

DieIntuition, moralischePerspektiveGefühl (s. a. Affekt)derGefühl (s. a. Affekt)moralisches Moral (der moral point of view) ist keine der Welt rein betrachtend, beschreibend oder messend gegenüberstehende Perspektive, sondern eine wertende Einstellung mit gefühlshaften Elementen. Dies zeigt sich sowohl in den Sprachformen, mit denen wir moralische Einstellungen ausdrücken, als auch in den inneren Zuständen, die auf der Seite des moralisch Urteilenden und Bewertenden das moralische Urteil begleiten. Typische moralische Urteile enthalten neben beschreibenden Anteilen wertende Anteile, in ihnen drücken sich bestimmte Pro- und Kontra-Einstellungen (...) aus. (shrink)

The work [11] deals with questions of first-order definability in algebraic function fields. In particular, it exhibits new cases in which the field of constant functions is definable, and it investigates the phenomenon of definable transcendental elements. We fix some of its proofs and make additional observations concerning definable closure in these fields.

There is hardly an analogy in the history of philosophy that has been referred to as often as the one that Kant himself draws in the second preface of the Critique of pure reason between Copernicus′ revolution in astronomy and his own revolution in metaphysics; and yet there is to the present day no detailed analysis thereof. The analogy is much more complex than meets the superficial eye: In the first passage , Kant does not draw a simple comparison to (...) Copernicus′ famous heliocentric hypothesis . In the second passage , Kant connects the reference to Copernicus with a reference to Newton by drawing an extremely rich analogy between the law of gravitation and the moral law of freedom. The revolution in metaphysics is related to the revolution in ethics; that famous analogy of Kant really is a Copernican-Newtonian analogy. (shrink)

David Hume is quoted in Binmore’s book Natural Justice more than any other author, past or present, and throughout with a markedly positive attitude. It is argued that this affinity is reflected in many characteristic features of Binmore’s approach to fairness and social justice and especially in the central role motivational issues are made to play in his theory. It is further argued that Binmore shares with Hume not only important strengths but also certain weaknesses, among them a tendency to (...) derive from the limited evidence of past history far-reaching statements on human nature and the conditions thereby imposed on social morality. (shrink)