If a serious Christian wants to think seriously about a serious subject, what does he or she do? Grounded in the best of the Christian theological tradition, Need to Know sets out a comprehensive, coherent, and clear model of responsible Christian thinking.

In a world riddled with disappointment, malice, and tragedy, what rationale do we have for believing in a benevolent God? If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why is there so much evil in the world? John Stackhouse takes a historically informed approach to this dilemma, examining what philosophers and theologians have said on the subject and offering reassuring answers for thoughtful readers. Stackhouse explores how great thinkers have grappled with the problem of evil--from the Buddha, Confucius, Augustine, (...) and David Hume to Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, and Alvin Plantinga. Without brushing aside the serious contradictions posed by a God who allows incurable diseases, natural disasters, and senseless crimes to bring misery into our lives, Stackhouse asks if a world completely without evil is what we truly want. Would a life without suffering be a meaningful life? Could free will exist if we were able to choose only good? Stackhouse examines what the best minds have had to say on these questions and boldly affirms that the benefits of evil, in fact, outweigh the costs. Finally, he points to Christian revelation--which promises the transformation of suffering into joy--as the best guide to God's. (shrink)

Although the emotional and motivational characteristics of dreaming have figured prominently in folk and psychoanalytic conceptions of dream production, emotions have rarely been systematically studied, and motivation, never. Because emotions during sleep lack the somatic components of waking emotions, and they change as the sleeper awakens, their properties are difficult to assess. Recent evidence of limbic system activation during REM sleep suggests a basis in brain architecture for the interaction of motivational and cognitive properties in dreaming. Motivational and emotional content (...) in REM and NREM laboratory mentation reports from 25 participants were compared. Motivational and emotional content was significantly greater in REM than NREM sleep, even after controlling for the greater word count of REM reports. (shrink)

What should be the Christian's attitude toward society? When so much of our contemporary culture is at odds with Christian beliefs and mores, it may seem that serious Christians now have only two choices: transform society completely according to Christian values or retreat into the cloister of sectarian fellowship. In this book, John Stackhouse argues that, rather than trying to root up the weeds in the cultural field, or trying to shun them, Christians should practice persistence in gardening (...) God's world and building toward the New Jerusalem. (shrink)

In this paper, we delve into the significant impact of recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future landscape of work. We discuss the looming possibility of mass unemployment triggered by AI and the societal repercussions of this transition. Despite the challenges this shift presents, we argue that it also unveils opportunities to mitigate social inequalities, combat global poverty, and empower individuals to follow their passions. Amidst this discussion, we also touch upon the existential question of the purpose of (...) human life in a world where machines predominantly perform work. Additionally, we explore the contentious issue of the moral status and rights of AI entities, contemplating the scenario where machines evolve to become sapient and sentient. The paper concludes with a call to action, emphasizing the necessity to acknowledge these potential outcomes and proactively seek solutions, as part of an inevitable journey through the evolution of human society shared with intelligent machines. (shrink)

This paper considers the hotly debated issue of whether one should grant moral and legal personhood to intelligent robots once they have achieved a certain standard of sophistication based on such criteria as rationality, autonomy, and social relations. The starting point for the analysis is the European Parliament’s resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics and its recommendation that robots be granted legal status and electronic personhood. The resolution is discussed against the background of the so-called Robotics Open Letter, which (...) is critical of the Civil Law Rules on Robotics. The paper reviews issues related to the moral and legal status of intelligent robots and the notion of legal personhood, including an analysis of the relation between moral and legal personhood in general and with respect to robots in particular. It examines two analogies, to corporations and animals, that have been proposed to elucidate the moral and legal status of robots. The paper concludes that one should not ascribe moral and legal personhood to currently existing robots, given their technological limitations, but that one should do so once they have achieved a certain level at which they would become comparable to human beings. (shrink)

We discuss the relationship between the interpretative problems of quantum gravity and those of general relativity. We argue that classical and quantum theories of gravity resuscitate venerable philosophical questions about the nature of space, time, and change; and that the resolution of some of the difficulties facing physicists working on quantum theories of gravity would appear to require philosophical as well as scientific creativity.

This document records the discussion between participants at the workshop "Philosophy of Gauge Theory," Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 18-19 April 2009.

The formerly established medically-based idea of disability, with its charity-based approach to treatment and services, is being replaced by a human rights-based approach in which people with impairments are no longer considered medical problems, totally dependent on the beneficence of non-impaired people in society, but have fundamental rights to support, inclusion, and participation. This interdisciplinary book examines the diverse concerns that people with impairments face in the context of human rights, provides insights into new developments on important issues relating human (...) rights to disability, and features new approaches and solutions to vital problems in the current debate. (shrink)

Great technological advances in such areas as computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics have brought the advent of artificially intelligent robots within our reach within the next century. Against this background, the interdisciplinary field of machine ethics is concerned with the vital issue of making robots “ethical” and examining the moral status of autonomous robots that are capable of moral reasoning and decision-making. The existence of such robots will deeply reshape our socio-political life. This paper focuses on whether such highly (...) advanced yet artificially intelligent beings will deserve moral protection once they become capable of moral reasoning and decision-making. I argue that we are obligated to grant them moral rights once they have become full ethical agents, i.e., subjects of morality. I present four related arguments in support of this claim and thereafter examine four main objections to the idea of ascribing moral rights to artificial intelligent robots. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical pitfalls and challenges that non-ethicists, such as researchers and programmers in the fields of computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics, face when building moral machines. Whether ethics is “computable” depends on how programmers understand ethics in the first place and on the adequacy of their understanding of the ethical problems and methodological challenges in these fields. Researchers and programmers face at least two types of problems due to their general lack of ethical knowledge or expertise. (...) The first type is so-called rookie mistakes, which could be addressed by providing these people with the necessary ethical knowledge. The second, more difficult methodological issue concerns areas of peer disagreement in ethics, where no easy solutions are currently available. This paper examines several existing approaches to highlight the ethical pitfalls and challenges involved. Familiarity with these and similar problems can help programmers to avoid pitfalls and build better moral machines. The paper concludes that ethical decisions regarding moral robots should be based on avoiding what is immoral in combination with a pluralistic ethical method of solving moral problems, rather than relying on a particular ethical approach, so as to avoid a normative bias. (shrink)

Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all (...) non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false. (shrink)

The edited volume _Future Law, Ethics, and Smart Technologies_ is a comprehensive interdisciplinary textbook for students, particularly law students, who want to become familiar with the complex issues at the intersection of law, ethics, and smart technologies.

This volume assesses how far the ideas and achievements of the 19th century British Idealist philosophical reformers are still important for us today when considering fundamental questions about the structure and objectives of the education system in England and Wales. Part 1 examines those ideas of the Idealists, especially T. H. Green, which had most bearing on the educational reforms carried out between 1870 and the 1920s and traces their connection with the philosophy and educational theory of Hegel and other (...) post-Kantians. Part 2 is an historical survey, concentrating on the innovations in the organization and contents of education in England and Wales brought about by the administrators and educationists educated in philosophical idealism. Part 3 considers what relevance the philosophical and practical ideas of this interconnected group of reformers have to education today. (shrink)

This article discusses ethical implications for the academy in the use of cyberspace and virtual reality in conducting its teaching and research responsibilities. It identifies important cyberspace ethics concerns as they intersect with the academy and provides an ethical framework for coming to grips with them. Topics discussed here include the sine qua non of academic collegiality and civility, concerns about digital alteration of images and sounds, and issues pertaining to academic administration and infrastructure.

This volume brings together a group of researchers from different European countries and disciplines who are involved in Clinical Ethics Consultation. The work provides a discussion on the theories and methods underlying CEC and on the issues of implementation and evaluation.

In his landmark article “How Medicine Saved the Life of Ethics” (1982), Stephen Toulmin persuasively argues that (serious) problems cannot be solved by mere rationalistic approaches in ethics and that ethics was eventually saved by dint of having to deal with vital questions and concrete problems in medicine. Whether one is a proponent of, for example, principlism or casuistry, one certainly has to admit that a convincing ethical theory or method must have practical application. Analogously, it is about time to (...) consider another vital and prominent issue in normative ethics—the universalism-relativism debate—that might profit from the bioethical approach of principlism (otherwise known as the four-principles .. (shrink)

Stephen Hawking has argued that universes containing evaporating black holes can evolve from pure initial states to mixed final ones. Such evolution is non-unitary and so contravenes fundamental quantum principles on which Hawking's analysis was based. It disables the retrodiction of the universe's initial state from its final one, and portends the time-asymmetry of quantum gravity. Small wonder that Hawking's paradox has met with considerable resistance. Here we use a simple result for C*-algebras to offer an argument for pure-to-mixed state (...) evolution in black hole evaporation, and review responses to the Hawking paradox with respect to how effectively they rebut this argument. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Buch ist nicht nur ein anspruchsvoller philosophischer Ratgeber mit Blick auf das gute Leben in Zeiten der Orientierungslosigkeit, sondern eine Hommage an die Philosophie und die Relevanz des philosophischen Denkens für unser alltägliches Leben. Der antike Philosoph Sokrates hat einmal gesagt, dass ein Leben, das nicht hinterfragt wird, nicht lebenswert sei. Damit meint er, dass man seine eigenen Handlungen und die ethisch-moralische Ausrichtung seines Lebens bzw. seiner eigenen Lebensweise stets kritisch hinterfragen muss. Was soll ich tun? Wie kann (...) ich ein gutes Leben führen? Welche Handlungen sollte ich vermeiden und wie werde ich ein moralisch besserer Mensch? Was sind die Grundlagen der Moral? In welchem Staat gedeiht das beste Leben am besten? Diese und ähnliche Fragen stehen im Mittelpunkt des Buches. (shrink)

A vast amount of ink has been spilled in both the physics and the philosophy literature on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Important as it is, this problem is but one aspect of the more general issue of how, if at all, classical properties can emerge from the quantum descriptions of physical systems. In this paper we will study another aspect of the more general issue-the emergence of classical chaos-which has been receiving increasing attention from physicists but which has (...) largely been neglected by philosophers of science. (shrink)

Physicists who work on canonical quantum gravity will sometimes remark that the general covariance of general relativity is responsible for many of the thorniest technical and conceptual problems in their field.1 In particular, it is sometimes alleged that one can trace to this single source a variety of deep puzzles about the nature of time in quantum gravity, deep disagreements surrounding the notion of ‘observable’ in classical and quantum gravity, and deep questions about the nature of the existence of spacetime (...) in general relativity. Philosophers who think about these things are sometimes skeptical about such claims. We have all learned that Kretschmann was quite correct to urge against Einstein that the “General Theory of Relativity” was no such thing, since any theory could be cast in a generally covariant form, and hence the general covariance of general relativity could not have any physical content, let alone bear the kind of weight that Einstein expected it to.2 Friedman’s assessment is widely accepted: “As Kretschmann first pointed out in 1917, the principle of general covariance has no physical content whatever: it specifies no particular physical theory; rather, it merely expresses our commitment to a certain style of formulating physical theories” (1984, p. 44). Such considerations suggest that general covariance, as a technically crucial but physically contentless feature of general relativity, simply cannot be the source of any significant conceptual or physical problems.3 Physicists are, of course, conscious of the weight of Kretschmann’s points against Einstein. Yet they are considerably more ambivalent than their philosophical colleagues. Consider Kuchaˇr’s conclusion at the end of a discussion of this topic. (shrink)

This article examines the nature of human dignity against the background of old age and introduces the novel idea of treating human dignity as a formal principle related to the more foundational notion of indignity. The discussion starts with the objection that the notion of human dignity can be used to justify contrary positions and is therefore inconclusive. This pitfall can be averted by appealing to the notion of indignity rather than dignity in one's moral reasoning and decision‐making. Cases of (...) indignity are more primary and indicate the violation of the very core of a human being. The verifiable property of vulnerability is central to this identification of indignity, as is illustrated by reference to the experiences of elderly people. The article argues for applying the concept of human dignity to reverse the conditions that existed before a particular indignity emerged, rather than trying to define positively the notion of human dignity in the first place. (shrink)

The volume presents 20 essays on the ontological, moral, and legal status of the in vitro embryo.

This paper examines farmer intentions to adapt to global climate change by analyzing responses to a climate change scenario presented in a survey given to large-scale farmers across the US Corn Belt in 2012. Adaptive strategies are evaluated in the context of decision making and farmers’ intention to increase their use of three production practices promoted across the Corn Belt: no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. This paper also provides a novel conceptual framework that bridges a typology of adaptation (...) with concepts that help predict intentionality in behavior change models. This conceptual framework was developed to facilitate examination of adaptive decision making in the context of agriculture. This research effort examines key factors that influence farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the practices evaluated given a climate change scenario. Twenty-two covariates are examined across three models developed for no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. Findings highlight that farmers who believed they should adjust their practices to protect their farm from the negative impacts of increased weather variability were more likely to indicate that they would increase their use of each of the practices in response to climate change. Additionally, visiting with other farmers to observe their practices was positively associated with farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the adaptive strategies examined. Farmers who were currently using no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage were also more likely to plan to increase their use of these practices in response to increased weather variability associated with climate change. However, farmers who reported high levels of confidence in their current practices were less likely to plan on changing their use of these practices in response to climatic changes. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 1, Page 88-117, March 2022.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Some authors fear that humanity is on the verge of its own extinction and must either change its behaviour or inevitably cause its own demise. This situation has spawned a vigorous (bio)ethical debate in recent years concerning whether one should enhance human beings cognitively or morally in order to promote moral action and reduce harm. This article defends making moral bioenhancement compulsory to avoid grossly immoral actions and the global extinction of humanity, if it is available, safe and easy to (...) administer. Two crucial issues will be examined in more detail. First, moral enhancement and free will, and second, the applicability problem, which concerns one particular political approach to accomplishing that goal. (shrink)

A comprehensive look at the intellectual and cultural innovations of the Weimar period During its short lifespan, the Weimar Republic witnessed an unprecedented flowering of achievements in many areas, including psychology, political theory, physics, philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, and the arts. Leading intellectuals, scholars, and critics—such as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Martin Heidegger—emerged during this time to become the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. Even today, the Weimar era remains a vital resource for (...) new intellectual movements. In this incomparable collection, Weimar Thought presents both the specialist and the general reader a comprehensive guide and unified portrait of the most important innovators, themes, and trends of this fascinating period. The book is divided into four thematic sections: law, politics, and society; philosophy, theology, and science; aesthetics, literature, and film; and general cultural and social themes of the Weimar period. The volume brings together established and emerging scholars from a remarkable array of fields, and each individual essay serves as an overview for a particular discipline while offering distinctive critical engagement with relevant problems and debates. Whether used as an introductory companion or advanced scholarly resource, Weimar Thought provides insight into the rich developments behind the intellectual foundations of modernity. (shrink)

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence This article provides a comprehensive overview of the main ethical issues related to the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human society. AI is the use of machines to do things that would normally require human intelligence. In many areas of human life, AI has rapidly and significantly affected human society … Continue reading Ethics of Artificial Intelligence →.

Ratio, Volume 35, Issue 3, Page 181-193, September 2022.

Die Vorstellung, dass sich alle ethischen Probleme mit nur einem Moralprinzip auflosen lassen, kann niemals der Komplexitat der moralischen Wirklichkeit gerecht werden. Dieses Buch stellt sich damit gegen einen erheblichen Teil der ethischen Tradition. Es ist leitende Uberzeugung, dass die traditionellen ethischen Theorien zwar jeweils einen Teilaspekt der moralischen Wirklichkeit richtig herausarbeiten - in der Anwendung jedoch falschlicherweise geglaubt wird, dass die Theorie grundsatzlich das Ganze der moralischen Wirklichkeit abdecke. Die Komplexitat eines schwierigen moralischen Problems kann nur mittels einer pluralistischen (...) ethischen Methode angemessen gewurdigt werden. (shrink)

The widespread view — proclaimed by proponents of disability studies, some disability federations, and many disabled people — that there is a human right to inclusive education, was eventually substantiated by international law with the UN Disability Convention in 2006. One of the most discussed issues in disability studies concerns the CRPD; the contributions are legion. Surprisingly, there are hardly any substantial contributions that pay particular attention to the important question of whether inclusive education is a moral human right, and, (...) if so, how this particular human right could be morally justified. A related topic that is frequently discussed concerns the question of whether inclusive education is compatible with the International Bill of Human Rights. Other scholars, such as Theresia Degener, wholeheartedly support the idea that inclusive education is a substantial legal and moral human right. (shrink)