This paper analyses recent calls for so called “neurorights”, suggested novel human rights whose adoption is allegedly required because of advances in neuroscience, exemplified by a proposal of the Neurorights Initiative. Advances in neuroscience and technology are indeed impressive and pose a range of challenges for the law, and some novel applications give grounds for human rights concerns. But whether addressing these concerns requires adopting novel human rights, and whether the proposed neurorights are suitable candidates, are a different matter. This (...) paper argues that the proposed rights, as individuals and a class, should not be adopted and lobbying on their behalf should stop. The proposal tends to promote rights inflationism, is tainted by neuroexceptionalism and neuroessentialism, and lacks grounding in relevant scholarship. None of the proposed individual rights passes quality criteria debated in the field. While understandable from a moral perspective, the proposal is fundamentally flawed from a legal perspective. Rather than conjuring up novel human rights, existing rights should be further developed in face of changing societal circumstances and technological possibilities. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers of science have recently called for an extension of evolutionary theory. This so-called ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ seeks to integrate developmental processes, extra-genetic forms of inheritance, and niche construction into evolutionary theory in a central way. While there is often agreement in evolutionary biology over the existence of these phenomena, their explanatory relevance is questioned. Advocates of EES posit that their perspective offers better explanations than those provided by ‘standard evolutionary theory’. Still, why this would be the case (...) is unclear. Usually, such claims assume that EES’s superior explanatory status arises from the pluralist structure of EES, its different problem agenda, and a growing body of evidence for the evolutionary relevance of developmental phenomena. However, what is usually neglected in this debate is a discussion of what the explanatory standards of EES actually are, and how they differ from prevailing standards in SET. In other words, what is considered to be a good explanation in EES versus SET? To answer this question, we present a theoretical framework that evaluates the explanatory power of different evolutionary explanations of the same phenomena. This account is able to identify criteria for why and when evolutionary explanations of EES are better than those of SET. Such evaluations will enable evolutionary biology to find potential grounds for theoretical integration. (shrink)

The analytic movement advertised its 'linguistic turn' as a radical break from the two-thousand-year-old substance tradition. But this is an illusion. On the fundamental level of ontology, there is enough reformulation and presupposition of traditional 'no entity without identity' themes to analogize Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine to Aristotle as paradigmatic of modified realism. Thus the pace of ontology is glacial. Frege and Russell, not Wittgenstein and Quine, emerge as the true analytic progenitors of 'no entity without identity,' offering between (...) them at least twenty-nine private language arguments and sixty-four 'no entity without identity' theories. (shrink)

Why act when the effects of one’s act are negligible? For example, why boycott sweatshop or animal products if doing so makes no difference for the better? According to recent proposals, one may still have a reason to boycott in order to avoid complicity or participation in harm. Julia Nefsky has argued that accounts of this kind suffer from the so-called “superfluity problem,” basically the question of why agents can be said to participate in harm if they make no difference (...) to it. This paper develops and responds to Nefsky’s challenge. (shrink)

This article examines the political perspective of corporate social responsibility from the standpoint of normative Islam. We argue that large firms within Muslim majority countries have the moral obligation to assist governments in addressing challenges related to sustainable socioeconomic development and in advancing human rights. In substantiating our argument, we draw upon the Islamic business ethics, stakeholder theory, and corporate governance literatures, as well as the concepts of Maqasid al Shariah (the objectives of Islamic law) and fard al ‘ayn (obligation (...) upon all individuals within society) versus fard al kifayah (obligation upon some individuals within society) to introduce a normative model elucidating critical Islamic precepts. Finally, we propose an Islamic “political” corporate governance framework, which democratizes firm decision making by embedding “core” stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Shariah scholars in the corporate board, thereby enhancing the ability of businesses to respond to stakeholder concerns and priorities, while mitigating interstakeholder and intraboard power asymmetries. (shrink)

This book presents the latest research, conducted by leading philosophers and scientists from various fields, on the topic of top-down causation. The chapters combine to form a unique, interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon George Ellis's extensive research and novel perspectives on topics including downwards causation, weak and strong emergence, mental causation, biological relativity, effective field theory and levels in nature. The collection also serves as a Festschrift in honour of George Ellis' 80th birthday. The extensive and interdisciplinary scope of this book (...) makes it vital reading for anyone interested in the work of George Ellis and current research on the topics of causation and emergence. (shrink)

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore links between the phenomenology-inspired philosophy of emotion, especially discussions of affective intentionality and situated affectivity, and those strands of work in the field of cultural affect studies that take their inspiration fromSpinoza and Deleuze. As bridges between these fields, I propose the concepts ‘disclosive posture’ and ‘affective arrangement’. ‘Disclosive posture’ condenses insights from phenomenological work on affectivity, especially those pertaining to what Heidegger calls Befindlichkeit. ‘Affective arrangement’ is a descendant of Deleuze and Guattari’s term agencement. (...) It refers to heterogeneous ensembles of elements coalescing into a sphere of heightened affective intensity in a local setting. I develop this notion into a tool for analyzing situated affectivity. As it does not yet figure prominently within debates in the philosophy of emotion, I will outline what is meant by ‘affective arrangement’ in some detail. Throughout, I discuss a productive tension between these two conceptual strands. (shrink)

Discussions in sociological theory often focus on ontological questions on the nature of social reality. Against the underlying epistemological realism, I argue for a constructivist notion of theory: Theories are webs of concepts that we use to guide empirical observations and to make sense of them. We cannot know the real features of the social world, only what our theoretical perspectives make us see. Theories therefore represent social phenomena by highlighting certain features and relating them in a logical system. In (...) this system, theoretical sentences can be considered true if they meet two conditions: They are consistent with the theory at hand and adequately map empirically observable relations between objects denoted by theoretical constructs. Truth is therefore relative to a perspective; it is not objectively determinable. Theories should be assessed not for their ontologies but for what they allow us to see and how they connect to empirical observations. (shrink)

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

This volume weaves together a variety of perspectives aimed at confronting a spectrum of ethico-political global challenges arising in the Anthropocene which affect the future of life on planet earth. In this book, the authors offer a multi-faceted approach to address the consequences of its imaginary and projective directions. The chapters span the disciplines of political economy, cybernetics, environmentalism, bio-science, psychoanalysis, bioacoustics, documentary film, installation art, geoperformativity, and glitch aesthetics. The first section attempts to flesh out new aspects of current (...) debates. Questions over the Capitaloscene are explored via conflations of class and climate, revisiting the eco-Marxist analysis of capitalism, and the financial system that thrives on debt. The second section explores the imaginary narratives that raise questions regarding non-human involvement. The third section addresses ’geoartisty,’ the counter artistic responses to the speculariztion of climate disasters, questioning eco-documentaries, and what a post-anthropocentric art might look like. The last section addresses the pedagogical response to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innocents, who are defrauded by miscreants carefully covering their tracks (...) so that these recipients have no reason to think they are buying stolen property. But of equal importance is simply that the duty to rectify past injustices is not comparable to the original duty to respect property rights in the first place. (shrink)

In the context of the current discussion about the ethical boundaries of humor, the study attempts to show that an approach based on Mukařovský’s functional theory is not only applicable to the discussion but also competitive. In the first part of the article, the author tries to answer the question of inserting a joke into the field of functions. He understands a joke as a sign that has in its most typical version a dominant f ictive-communicative function. It is precisely (...) in the dominance of the fictive-communicative function of the joke that he sees the reason for the borderline position of the joke between art and life. The fictiveness of jokes creates, on the one hand, the impression that they have as fictitious statements greater independence from nonaesthetic norms, similar to what works of art have. On the other hand, because of the communicative moment jokes have more potential to offend us than do artifacts with a dominant aesthetic function. The second part of the study is dedicated to the relationship between the joke and the listener and attempts to describe other forms in which the semantic energy of the joke can reveal itself. (shrink)

The main thesis of this monograph, and its novelty, is the attempt to read Newman's work not only as a defence of the author's life, but as a defence of individual life in general. This reading is done against the background of his profound personalism based on two foundations: truth and responsibility.

The Republic of Fiji Islands has been under military rule since December 2006. Yet, the regime of Frank Bainimarama is not really like any other military regime in the world, nor does the 2006 coup resemble the earlier military interventions in the country. It is attempting development without freedom, but can it succeed? It is important to recognize that dictatorships can be of very different kinds. What happens with the Bainimarama regime will have a major impact upon the Pacific scene, (...) not only for the Fiji Islands but also for the Pacific Forum and the role of China in regional integration. And the course of future events will depend much upon what strategy Fiji's strongman chooses and what kind of constitution is put in place. (shrink)

This article is a microlevel discussion of indigenous/white relations at an Australian feminist refuge. It argues that the organization and practices of the refuge, including those which were specifically ‘feminist’ and those purporting to be anti-racist, reproduced a pattern of institutional racism which privileged and naturalized ‘whiteness’, white feminism and white women, and perpetuated the racial disadvantage of Aboriginal women, including continuing accountability to white colonizing women, loss of employment and economic security and contingent rather than guaranteed access to appropriate (...) domestic violence crisis services. The article focuses on three interrelated concepts which were fundamental to the white women's construction and legitimation of their positions in the events: ‘sisterhood’, ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘the good feminist worker’. (shrink)

Cílem studie je interpretovat fenomenologii obrazotvornosti Gastona Bachelarda jakožto fenomenologickou redukci sui generis. Autor článku představuje snění jako proces návratu do naivního vědomí prvotní (zakládající) a primitivní povahy, v němž je možné dosáhnout stavu dětství, harmonizujícího vztah subjektu ke světu. Svět je v této koncepci znovu zhodnocován (valorizován) a otevírá se jako domov, a to jednak prostřednictvím vzpomínek, jednak recipročním charakterem obrazotvornosti. Studie ukazuje fenomenologickou redukci v Bachelardově pojetí jako opozitní, ale komplementární k vědeckému rozumu a zdůrazňuje její terapeutický charakter.

The notion of “weak action” is developed in this paper in an attempt to overcome the schism between the action of a free political subject on the one hand, and their dependency on the support of others and the environment on the other. This paper focuses foremost on Judith Butler’s later work raising two different questions. First, following Butler and her critical reading of Levinas, the problem is raised how and at what price the ethics of vulnerability would be able (...) to become not only the source of a critique of politics, but also the source of a concrete political action. Second, through Butler’s reinterpretation of Arendt’s political thinking, the notion of “action” is enriched by the dimension of vulnerability. (shrink)

More than a century after the first appearance of Norden’s classic commentary on Aeneid VI in 1903 the time has come to see to what extent the new discoveries of Orphic materials and new insights in the ways Virgil worked enrich and/or correct our understanding of that text. We will therefore take a fresh look at Virgil’s underworld, but limit our comments to those passages where perhaps something new can be contributed. This means that we will especially concentrate on the (...) Orphic, the Eleusinian, and the, if usually neglected, Hellenistic-Jewish backgrounds of Aeneas’s descent. Yet a Roman poet hardly could totally avoid his own Roman tradition or the contemporary world, and, in a few instances, we will comment on these aspects as well. As Norden observed, Virgil had divided his picture of the underworld into six parts, and we will follow these in our argument.Plus d’un siècle après la publication, en 1903, du commentaire classique de Norden sur le livre six de l’Énéide, il est temps de considérer à quel point les nouvelles découvertes de matériel orphique et les nouvelles idées sur la manière de travailler de Virgile enrichissent et/ou corrigent la compréhension de ce texte. Il s’agit dès lors de porter un regard neuf sur l’au-delà de Virgile, mais en limitant nos commentaires aux passages sur lesquels il est possible d’apporter quelque chose de nouveau. Ce sont les éléments orphiques et éleusiniens, tout autant que l’arrière-plan hellénistique juif – souvent négligé – sur lesquels l’analyse se concentre. En outre, un poète romain pouvait difficilement négliger totalement sa propre tradition romaine ou le monde contemporain, et, à quelques reprises, ces aspects seront également commentés. Comme Norden l’a observé, Virgile a réparti l’image de l’au-delà en six parties, et c’est son parcours que notre analyse épouse. (shrink)