Niklas Luhmann is widely recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the social sciences today. This major new work further develops the theories of the author by offering a challenging analysis of the relationship between society and the environment. Luhmann extends the concept of "ecology" to refer to any analysis that looks at connections between social systems and the surrounding environment. He traces the development of the notion of "environment" from the medieval idea--which encompasses both human and (...) natural systems--to our modern definition, which separates social systems from the external environment. In Luhmann's thought, human beings form part of the environment, while social systems consist only of communications. Utilizing this distinctive theoretical perspective, Luhmann presents a comprehensive catalog of society's reactions to environmental problems. He investigates the spheres of the economy, law, science, politics, religion, and education to show how these areas relate to environmental issues. Ecological Communication is an important work that critically examines claims central to our society--claims to modernity and rationality. It will be of great importance to scholars and students in sociology, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and law. (shrink)

Germany's leading contemporary social theorist provides a definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system which not only represents an important intellectual step in discussions of art but also an important advance in systems theory. Luhmann insists on the radical incommensurability between psychic systems (perception) and social systems (communication). Art is a special kind of communication that operates at the boundary between the social system and consciousness in ways that profoundly irritate communication while remaining strictly internal to the (...) social. Each chapter elaborates a particular aspect of the general problem of art's status as a social system. The book draws on a vast body of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory, combined with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory. The book also engages virtually every major theorist of art and aesthetics from Baumgarten to Derrida. (shrink)

This is part 2 och an interview with Prof. J. Conant, conducted by Niklas Forsberg. This article will be published at the end of June 2016.

This is part 2 of an interview with Prof. J. Conant, conducted by Niklas Forsberg.

Translator's Introduction Political Theory in the Welfare State [Politische Theorie im Wohl- fahrtsstaat] was originally published (Olzog, Munich) in. ...

Name der Zeitschrift: Nordic Wittgenstein Review Jahrgang: 2 Heft: 1 Seiten: 131-160.

AimsTo examine attitudes towards physician-assisted suicide (PAS) among physicians in Sweden and compare these with the results from a similar cross-sectional study performed in 2007.ParticipantsA random selection of 250 physicians from each of six specialties (general practice, geriatrics, internal medicine, oncology, surgery and psychiatry) and all 127 palliative care physicians in Sweden were invited to participate in this study.SettingA postal questionnaire commissioned by the Swedish Medical Society in collaboration with Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. ResultsThe total response rate was 59.2%. Slightly (...) fewer than half [47.1% (95% CI 43.7–50.5)] of the respondents from the six specialties accepted PAS, which is significantly more than accepted PAS in the 2007 study [34.9% (95% CI 31.5–38.3)]. Thirty-three percent of respondents were prepared to prescribe the needed drugs. When asked what would happen to the respondent’s own trust in healthcare, a majority [67.1% (95% CI 63.9–70.3)] stated that legalizing PAS would either not influence their own trust in healthcare, or that their trust would increase. This number is an increase compared to the 2007 survey, when just over half [51.9% (95% CI 48.0–55.2)] indicated that their own trust would either not be influenced, or would increase.ConclusionsThe study reveals a shift towards a more accepting attitude concerning PAS among physicians in Sweden. Only a minority of the respondents stated that they were against PAS, and a considerable proportion reported being prepared to prescribe the needed drugs for patient self-administration if PAS were legalized. (shrink)

Focusing on the penultimate chapter of Collingwood's An Essay on Philosophical Method, this paper offers a re-evaluation of several points in leading interpretations of his philosophy. It is argued that this chapter, 'Philosophy as a Branch of Literature', invites us to rethink the relation between a systematic or problem-oriented and an historical or exegetical philosophy; how linguistic analysis (particularly in the form of ordinary language philosophy) relates to the history of philosophy; and how the question of literature in philosophy is (...) not merely a question about literature, but of philosophy. In contrast to influential interpreters such as e.g. Connelly and D'Oro, it is here argued that Collingwood (a) offers a profound criticism of the idea that philosophical problems are eternal, (b) invites us to deepen our understanding of ordinary language philosophy aswell as (c) the idea of a therapeutic method in philosophy, and (d) problematizes the tendency to think that the question about the form philosophical writing takes is a secondary issue that can be side-stepped. (shrink)

This book involves an in-depth analysis of the ethical, political and philosophical issues related to health-oriented screening programs.

This collection of five essays by Germany’s most prominent and influential social thinker both links Luhmann’s social theory to the question “What is modern about modernity?” and shows the origins and context of his theory. In the introductory essay, “Modernity in Contemporary Society,” Luhmann develops the thesis that the modern epistemological situation can be seen as the consequence of a radical change in social macrostructures that he calls “social differentiation,” thereby designating the juxtaposition of and interaction between a growing number (...) of social subsystems without any hierarchical structure. “European Rationality” defines rationality as the capacity to see the difference between systems and their environment as a unity. Luhmann argues that, in a world characterized by contingency, rationality tends to become coextensive with imagination, a view that challenges their classical binary opposition and opens up the possibility of seeing modern rationality as a paradox. In the third essay, “Contingency as Modern Society’s Defining Attribute,” Luhmann develops a further and probably even more important paradox: that the generalization of contingency or cognitive uncertainty is precisely what provides stability within modern societies. In the process, he argues that medieval and early modern theology can be seen as a “preadaptive advance” through which Western thinking prepared itself for the modern epistemological situation. In “Describing the Future,” Luhmann claims that neither the traditional hope of learning from history nor the complementary hope of cognitively anticipating the future can be maintained, and that the classical concept of the future should be replaced by the notion of risk, defined as juxtaposing the expectation of realizing certain projects and the awareness that such projects might fail. The book concludes with “The Ecology of Ignorance,” in which Luhmann outlines prospective research areas “for sponsors who have yet to be identified.”. (shrink)

The importance of GS for understanding Nietzsche’s philosophy cannot be overestimated. While it can be disputed whether or not modern Nietzsche scholarship started with the revaluation of GS—as the editors claim with Giorgio Colli—the work forms an important link between the early and late writings of Nietzsche and especially Z. Klassiker Auslegen—Interpreting Classics—is a series dedicated to interpreting important works of philosophy as a whole through chapters successively discussing the individual chapters of the work. The book at hand consists of (...) two introductions—one for the volume, another one discussing the genesis of the edition of GS—and eight chapters covering each of the preface, the “Prelude in... (shrink)

Massimiliano Tomba’s Insurgent Universality traces a global history of revolutionary institution-building as ‘theory in action’, pushing radical democracy beyond an ontology of the political. This contribution aims to clarify the place of ‘insurgent institutions’ in Tomba’s work and suggests that an unresolved tension persists between insurgent universality as popular institutions on the one hand, and as a negative dis-ordering on the other. Exploring the promise and limitations of ‘insurgent institutions’ in light of their durability, its first part reads Insurgent Universality (...) alongside Santi Romano, the legal pluralist whose concept of the institution Tomba adopts. Secondly, the article turns to Hannah Arendt’s understanding of authority and Miguel Abensour’s discussion of ‘insurgent institutions’ as two potentially helpful accounts of democratic practice within durational time. Where Tomba remains focused on constellations between moments of rupture, Arendt and Abensour offer a politically generative understanding of durability specific to radical-democratic institutions. (shrink)

What challenges must a principle of need for prioritisations in health care meet in order to be plausible and practically useful? Some progress in answering this question has recently been made by Hope, Østerdal and Hasman. This article continue their work by suggesting that the characteristic feature of principles of needs is that they are sufficientarian, saying that we have a right to a minimally acceptable or good life or health, but nothing more. Accordingly, principles of needs must answer two (...) distributive questions: when do we have sufficient and how should we prioritise among those who do not yet have a sufficiency? Furthermore, it is argued that Roger Crisp’s theory of need, which combines sufficientarianism with prioritarianism below the threshold of need, is better equipped than alternatives to answer these questions as well as meeting the challenges formulated by Hope, Østerdal and Hasman. However, Crisp’s theory faces two major challenges. First, it has to say something about the currency of distribution: a principle of need must be complemented either with a theory on the human good or a theory about the proper goals of health care. Second, it has to say something about where the threshold should be set. However, any attempt to set a threshold seems morally arbitrary in the light of the sufficientarian idea that those just above the threshold never should be given priority over those just below the threshold. (shrink)

Language Lost and Found takes as its starting-point Iris Murdoch's claim that "we have suffered a general loss of concepts." By means of a thorough reading of Iris Murdoch's philosophy in the light of this difficulty, it offers a detailed examination of the problem of linguistic community and the roots of the thought that some philosophical problems arise due to our having lost the sense of our own language. But it is also a call for a radical reconsideration of how (...) philosophy and literature relate to each other on a general level and in Murdoch's authorship in particular. (shrink)

Ever since the inception of its academic career, sociology has approached its subject-matter in two different ways; one positivist, the other critical. Important theories, such as those of Karl Marx or Emile Durkheim, have always emphasized either one of these perspectives, but could never completely ignore the other one. The result was that as an empirical science, sociology has been interested in latent structures, while as critical theory, it has pointed out that social reality is not what it seems to (...) be. Therefore, all attempts at building a unified theory of society on the basis of the critical/positivist distinction had to lead into the paradox of treating appearance and reality, or latent and manifest structures, as one and the same thing. This situation is now changing in radical ways which sociology has yet to appreciate. I am referring to recent interdisciplinary discussions about theories of self-referential systems, autopoietic system closure, the second-order cybernetics of observing systems, and constructivist epistemology and information processing. We can draw upon these recent discussions in order to understand society as a self-observing system that defines its own identity while, at the same time, leaving an "unmarked space" for the possibility to describe society in quite different ways. (shrink)

This article is about the justifiability of accepting worse cost effectiveness for orphan drugs, that is, treatments for rare diseases, in a publicly financed health care system. Recently, three arguments have been presented that may be used in favour of exceptionally advantageous economic terms for orphan drugs. These arguments share the common feature of all referring to considerations of justice or fairness: the argument of the irrelevance of group size, the argument from the principle of need, and the argument of (...) identifiability. It is argued that all of these arguments fail to support the conclusion that orphan drugs should be subsidized to a larger extent than treatments for common diseases. The argument of the irrelevance fails to distinguish between directly and indirectly relevant considerations of fairness or justice. The recent attempt to revive the moral relevance of identifiability has provided no novel reasons to think that identifiability is morally relevant in itself or due to considerations of fairness and justice. The argument from the principle of need does not fail due to any inherent flaw in the principle as such. Rather, this principle can be interpreted in different ways, and none of these interpretations support exceptionally advantageous terms economically for treating rare diseases specifically. It is concluded that we are awaiting justice based reasons for the preferential treatment of orphan drugs. (shrink)

Two experiments with undergraduates as subjects were carried out with the aim of replicating and extending previous results showing that the implication of the behavioral life-cycle hypothesis (H. M. Shefrin & R. H. Thaler, 1988) that people classify assets in different mental accounts (current income, current assets, and future income) may explain how consumption choices are influenced by temporary income changes. In both experiments subjects made fictitious choices between paying for a good in cash or according to a more expensive (...) installment plan after they had received an income which was either less, the same, or larger than usual. In Experiment 1 subjects were supposed to have savings so that the total assets were equal, whereas in Experiment 2 the total assets varied. The results of both experiments supported the role of mental accounts in demonstrating that subjects were unwilling to pay in cash after an income decrease even though they had access to saved money. Thus, in effect they chose to pay more for the good than they had to. Indicating a need for further refinement of the concept of mental account, choices to pay in cash after an income decrease tended to be more frequent when the consumption and savings motives were compatible than when they were incompatible. Furthermore, increasing the total assets made subjects more willing to pay in cash after an income decrease. (shrink)

This article argues that Hannah Arendt’s essay “Civil Disobedience” contains a critique of white constitutionalism. A close reading of Arendt’s comments on the failure of Reconstruction to durably found Black citizenship reveals that the anti-Blackness of her account does not consist in ignoring the racialization of constitutional order but, to the contrary, in a dismissal of Black politics due to the limitations of a white constitutional heritage. In “Civil Disobedience,” Arendt thus stood on the edge of an insight that she (...) failed to develop more fully: Black movements had brought to light the limitations that racial domination places on the “augmentation” of America’s founding principles. For Arendt, the notion of the “principle” is meant to mediate the novelty of action with the durability of order. But to the extent that she views American institutions as defined by the “inherited crime” of slavery, feedback across temporal strata—between a principle in past, present, and future—is structurally blocked. The symbolic whiteness of citizenship undermines institutional durability, as it generates a crisis of constitutional authority for all. Tracing the sources behind Arendt’s pessimistic vision, the article demonstrates echoes between her account and the literature on which she relied: Tocqueville; Stanley Elkins; and, possibly, W. E. B. Du Bois. It concludes with a reading of Arendt’s commentary on Reconstruction as the attempt to recover a lost moment of foundation, an unredeemed promise of refounding. (shrink)

In recent years, the issue of accepting a higher cost per health improvement for orphan drugs has been the subject of discussion in health care policy agencies and the academic literature. This article aims to provide an analysis of broadly egalitarian arguments for and against accepting higher costs per health improvement. More specifically, we aim to investigate which arguments one should agree upon putting aside and where further explorations are needed. We identify three kinds of arguments in the literature: considerations (...) of substantial equality, formal equality, and opportunity cost. We argue that considerations of substantial equality do not support higher costs per health improvement orphan drugs, even if such considerations are considered valid. On the contrary, arguments of formal equality may support accepting a higher cost per health improvement for orphan drugs. However, in order to do so, a number of both normative and empirical issues must be resolved; these issues are identified in the article. For instance, it must be settled to what extent the opportunity cost in terms of foregone health for other patients is acceptable in order to uphold formal equality. We conclude that certain arguments can be set aside, and future focus should be put on the unresolved normative and empirical issues related to formal equality and opportunity cost. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some concerns regarding the effects of enhancement technologies on autonomy and authenticity, insofar as authenticity relates to autonomy. As a preliminary, it describes how enhancement and autonomy should be understood in this context along with some examples of enhancement. The chapter moves on to explain why enhancement can promote autonomy. Three types of concerns regarding the effect of enhancement technologies on autonomy are raised: (i) that medical technologies should not be used to enhance autonomy, since this is (...) not the proper use of such technologies; (ii) that some enhancement technologies are inimical to our authenticity; and (iii) that the widespread use of some enhancement technologies have negative overall consequences on people's autonomy. Different kinds of enhancements typically arouse different kinds of concerns as regards autonomy. These include cognitive, mood, physical, and aesthetic enhancement. (shrink)

abstract Even though much research has been devoted to studies of safety, the concept of safety is in itself under‐theorised, especially concerning its relation to epistemic uncertainty. In this paper we propose a conceptual analysis of safety. The paper explores the distinc‐tion between absolute and relative safety, as well as that between objective and subjective safety. Four potential dimensions of safety are discussed, viz. harm, probability, epistemic uncertainty, and control. The first three of these are used in the proposed definition (...) of safety, whereas it is argued that control should not be included in a reasonable definition of safety. It is shown that strictly speaking, an objective safety concept is not attainable. Instead, an intersubjective concept is proposed that brings us as close as possible to an objective concept. (shrink)

In this article I try to show in what sense Emmanuel Levinas’ ‘ethics as first philosophy’ moves our ethical thinking away from what has been called ‘centrist ethics’. Proceeding via depictions of the structure of Levinasian ethics and including references to examples as well as to some empirical research, I try to argue that human beings always already find themselves within an ethical universe, a space of meaning. Critically engaging with the writings of David Gunkel and Lucas Introna, I try (...) to argue that these thinkers, rather than clarifying, distort our ethical understanding of how we stand in relation to artefacts. Drawing a distinction between how pervasive our ethical relationship to other human beings, and living animals, is and how the nature of artefacts is tied to us, I conclude by indicating that the aspiration to give artefacts an ethical face suggests a fantasy to avoid ethical responsibility and generates what I call a ‘compensatory logic’. (shrink)

La pregunta por el alcance y la relevancia de la angustia en la obra escrita de Martin Heidegger es uno de los problemas fundamentales del debate contemporáneo, y no solamente en cuanto a sus declinaciones filosofizantes. En este trabajo se delimita el lugar de ¡a angustia en Ser y Tiempo, centrándose, en un primer momento, en contextualizar la temática al interior del proyecto inconcluso de Ser y Tiempo, para luego introducir la noción de la angustia en tanto apertura distinguida o (...) destacada del Dasein. The question about the extent and relevance of the concept of anxiety inside the written work of Martin Heidegger is one of the fundamental problems not only the p h i l o s o p h i c al declinations of the contemporary debate turn around. In the present article the place of anxiety in Being and Time is delimitated, focusing the discussion, in first place, on locating the thematic in the context of the unconcluded project of Being and Time, followed by the introduction of the notion of anxiety as distinguished or outstanding aperture of the Dasein. (shrink)

Two experiments with undergraduates as subjects tested explanations of how a prior temporary income change influences choices between buying and deferred buying. In Experiment 1 predictions from the behavioral life-cycle theory (Shefrin & Thaler, 1988), the renewable resources model (Linville & Fischer, 1991) and the loss-sensitivity principle (Garling & Romanus, 1997) were contrasted. The results are inconsistent with the latter two explanations since the framing of buying as positive (buying a new model of a product) or negative (replacing a broken (...) product) did not interact with the income change. Congruent with the behavioral life-cycle theory, willingness to buy was greater when subjects received a temporary income increase than when they received a temporary income decrease although total assets were equal. Further support for the behavioral life-cycle theory is obtained in Experiment 2 where four income-change conditions and durable and nondurable goods are compared. (shrink)

Reinhart Koselleck never gave spatial aspects centre stage in his work, but is nevertheless referred to as a pioneer of the ‘spatial turn’. This article explores this paradox by examining Koselleck's understanding of and approach to spatial aspects, the role they played in his work, and the reception of his work on spatial matters by other scholars. The aim is to achieve a better grasp of Koselleck's work and to clarify in what sense we can label him a pioneer of (...) the ‘spatial turn’. The article presents three arguments: (1) Spatial aspects represent a somewhat marginal and sketchy rather than integral part of Koselleck's thinking, and they stand in the shadow of his much stronger interest in historical time. (2) Koselleck's work nevertheless contains spatial analytical features, which embody, respectively, anthropological and social, geographical and geopolitical, and phenomenological and linguistic dimensions. (3) The reception of the spatial aspects of Koselleck’ work is disparate and unconnected, and those finding inspiration in Koselleck do not regard him as a spatial thinker. These caveats, the article concludes, should be kept in mind in discussions of whether Koselleck ought to be understood as a pioneer of the ‘spatial turn’. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a continual rise of interest in the empirical study of questions traditionally located in moral philosophy, i.e., studies in Experimental Ethics. In this chapter we briefly outline the recent history of this field. To do so we have to cross disciplinary borders to quite some extent. Tracing the beginnings of Experimental Ethics back to early works in moral psychology, we delineate a sequence of theories which eventually flow into current Experimental Ethics. We then briefly review four (...) topics which are intensively investigated in Experimental Ethics at the moment: moral relativism, individual and cross-cultural differences in moral judgment, and interactions of moral evaluation with other philosophical concepts. We conclude with a short historically informed comment on the demarcation problem of Experimental Ethics. (shrink)

The functional separation of risk assessment and risk management has long been at the heart of risk analysis structures. Equally long it has been criticized for creating technocratic risk management due to valuations being done in the risk assessment to which the stakeholders do not have access. The criticism has mostly been of an ethical nature. Arguably, in separating risk assessment and risk management, one hopes to fulfil two requirements: Social requirement: we want risk management to meet the goals and (...) needs of society. Scientific requirement: we do not want political views to influence the assessment of facts. We ask in this paper whether it is, in principle, possible to separate risk assessment from risk management. The crucial distinction between risk assessment and risk management we take to be between what kinds of values are involved in them and that separation is meant to shield risk assessment from risk management values and vice versa. Risk assessment is judged to be a scientific activity that should only involve scientific values. We go through a paradigmatic example of good science to see what those scientific values are and whether they are the only ones influencing science. We also present an example of a risk assessment in order to compare it to science. We conclude that the values involved in both science and risk assessment are of the same kind and that they both involve extra-scientific values. The paper ends with a short discussion of whether the above requirements can be met even though risk assessment and risk management are interdependent. (shrink)