Human existence and its temporal limits are central themes of western culture. In addition to discussing fundamental metaphysical questions and ethical questions, this book examines questions surrounding the possibility of radically extending one's life through new a anti-aging therapies. Does adding years to one's life make one happier?

Researchers in applied ethics, and some areas of bioethics particularly, aim to develop concrete and appropriate recommendations for action in morally relevant real-world situations. When proceeding from more abstract levels of ethical reasoning to such concrete recommendations, however, even with regard to the very same normative principle or norm, it seems possible to develop divergent or even contradictory recommendations for action regarding a certain situation. This may give the impression that such recommendations would be arbitrary and, hence, not well justified. (...) Against this background, we, first, aim at showing that ethical recommendations for action, although being contingent in some sense, are not arbitrary if developed appropriately. For this purpose, we examine two types of contingencies arising in applied ethics reasoning based on recent examples of recommendations for action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, we refer to a three-step model of ethical reasoning towards recommendations for actions. This, however, leaves open the question of how applied ethics may cope with contingent recommendations for action. Therefore, in a second step, we analyze the role of bridge principles for developing ethically appropriate recommendations for action, i.e., principles which connect normative claims with relevant empirical information to justify certain recommendations for action in a given morally relevant situation. Finally, we discuss some implications for reasoning and reporting in empirically informed ethics. (shrink)

Human–animal relations in post-industrial societies are characterized by a system of cultural categories that distinguishes between different types of animals based on their function in human society, such as “farm animals” or “pets.” The system of cultural categories, and the allocation of animal species within this cultural classification system can change. Options for change include re-categorizing a specific animal species within the categorical system. The paper argues that attempts by political actors to adapt the institutional system to cultural change that (...) calls for re-categorization of certain animal species can start a contradictory process that may lead to long-term survival of the respective institution despite the cultural change. It is common to explain the persistence of political institutions with institutional path dependency or policy preferences of the governing parties. This paper introduces a new institutional theoretical approach to the explanation, the approach of “rejecting changing a part for fear of undermining the whole.” This paper uses a case study of a series of failed political efforts to change the treatment of dogs in the framework of the agricultural human–animal policy in the Federal Republic of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, to evaluate its theoretical argument, using analyses of historical political documents, mass media, and communication documents between civil society actors and policymakers. This paper makes an innovative contribution to the theory and research on institutional change, the sociology of agriculture and food, and the sociology of human–animal relations. (shrink)

Academic publications of empirical public health research often entail recommendations for moral action that address practitioners and policy makers. These recommendations are regularly based on implicit moral judgments with the underlying reasons not explicitly stated. In this paper, we elaborate on the moral relevance of such judgments and the need to explain them in order to account for academic argumentation. We argue for an explicit reporting of bridge principles to increase the transparency of the reporting of public health research. The (...) reporting of bridge principles can inform readers, support them in understanding the relationship between empirical and normative claims in a specific paper, and may pave new ways for the rigorous reporting of empirical research that has moral implications. Furthermore, it can be used to classify studies to systematically address the justification for their argumentation. (shrink)

Anger has traditionally been associated with aggression and antagonistic behavior. A series of studies revealed that experiences of third-party anger can also lead to prosocial behavior. More specifically, three studies, hypothetical scenarios as well as a behavioral study, revealed that third-party anger can promote compensation of the victim. The results also showed a preference for such prosocial behaviors over antagonistic behaviors. We conclude that behaviors stemming from anger, whether antagonistic or prosocial, are reactions to inequity, albeit determined by the constraints (...) of the situation. (shrink)

En este artículo sostengo que Gabriel Marcel desarrolla una metafísica de la existencia humana a partir de una fenomenología. Para mostrar esta hipótesis, parto del diagnóstico que hace el autor de la situación del hombre contemporáneo. Marcel afirma que el ser humano ha sido reducido a un mero haz de funciones no dando espacio para el misterio. A partir de ese diagnóstico, desarrollo el concepto de exigencia ontológica el cual nos permite, sostengo, pasar de una fenomenología a una (...) metafísica, desde el momento en que Marcel plantea que la exigencia ontológica no es solo una necesidad subjetiva de sentido, sino el correlato del misterio ontológico en el cual nos encontramos insertos. La filosofía del misterio del Marcel, eje central de su metafísica de la existencia humana, es explicada y explicitada en la segunda parte de este trabajo, a partir del dato de la encarnación y del problema de la participación. In this article, I hold that Gabriel Marcel proposes a kind of metaphysics of human existence that arises from a phenomenology. In order to show this hypothesis, I start from the description that the author does of the situation of contemporary man. Marcel affirms that human being has been reduced to a mere assembly of functions, without leaving any room to mystery. Starting from this account, I develop the concept of ontological need, concept that allows us to go from phenomenology to metaphysis, because the concept of ontological need, according to Marcel, is not only the expression of a subjective need of finding sense, but the expression of the ontological mystery in which we find ourselves. The philosophy of mystery of Marcel, backbone of his metaphysics of the human existence, is explained in the second part of this article, by giving an account of the basic fact of being an incarnated being and by discussing the problem of participation. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, critical art history often chose to ally itself with a restrictive brand of formalism. As a result, representation- and ideology-critical analyses regularly reduced the artwork to the bare bones (Hegel) of the material signifier in its social use. By contrast, in the texts assembled here, elements of a critical materialism are combined with an effort to reevaluate the meta-physical implications of modern abstraction and art since the 1960s. Taking Gilles Deleuze s readings of Spinoza, Nietzsche, and (...) Bergson as his starting point, the author delineates a topic in which the artwork s capacity for resistance is grounded in its relationship to an immanent infinity: the Spinozian substance, Nietzsche s Becoming, Bergson s duree. Against the backdrop of a critical rereading of Heidegger, this infinite dimension is interpreted in temporal and ontological terms as the vertical past of production, which can only be grasped in broken and technically encrypted form in the present shape and materiality of the artwork. Hence the notion of an aesthetics of production does not imply a nostalgia for the artisanal or for the artwork s singularity. The concept of production developed in this book aims at a realm that lies beyond finite representation but is still understood in materialist terms, and that threatens the circulation of positive, conceptually standardized knowledge. In case studies on Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Michael Asher and in framing essays on Kant and Nietzsche as well as Heidegger and Spinoza, this book articulates a concept of the artwork in the long modern era which takes account of the twentieth century s critique of metaphysics but without surrendering the truth claim of art and philosophy in favor of a culturalist and sociological relativism. ". (shrink)

The 2018 eligibility regulation for female competitors with differences of sexual development (DSD) issued by World Athletics requires competitors with DSD with blood testosterone levels at or above 5 nmol/L and sufficient androgen sensitivity to be excluded from competition in certain events unless they reduce the level of testosterone in their blood. This paper formalises and then critically assesses the fairness-based argument offered in support of this regulation by the federation. It argues that it is unclear how the biological advantage (...) singled out by the regulation as an appropriate target for diminishment, is relevantly different from other biological advantages that athletes may enjoy, and specifically that Sigmund Loland’s recent attempt to drive a wedge between heightened levels of blood testosterone and other biological advantages fails. The paper also suggests that even if heightened blood testosterone levels do differ relevantly from other types of biological advantage, the regulation is further challenged by studies indicating that athletes with blood testosterone at the high end of the normal range have a competitive advantage over athletes with blood testosterone levels at the low end of it. Finally, the paper contends that the premises of the fairness-based argument do not unequivocally support the conclusion that DSD athletes with heightened levels of testosterone should diminish those levels, since, just as powerfully, they support allowing athletes with normal levels of testosterone to use performance-enhancing drugs in the name of fairness. (shrink)

The development of the individual attributes of ethics of responsibility in conjunction with the principles of civic liberalism in Slovak political thought is associated with the thinking of Ján Palárik. His political ideas published in the second half of the 19th century come out of an effort to characterize and achieve reform of the Habsburg monarchy on the basis of constitutionalism and federalism. These attributes, in Palárik’s opinion, were to bring more effective solutions to the issue of educating people in (...) their mother tongue and the creation of civic culture. A part of Palárik’s approach to the formation of civic skills is also the advocating of free expression, the idea of pluralism and gradualism within the idea of the unity of the different. His realistic approach to politics was framed by knowing and respecting the objective limits when implementing the aims of national civic freedom. Palárik linked the development of the state and the process of acculturation of the people with application of the principles of practical reasonableness and ethics of responsibility. He found its essence in understanding the interconnectedness of political goals and ideals, which were to be reflected in close association with the real limitations of the capabilities of individuals and social circumstances. (shrink)

I show that extant attempts to capture and generalize empirical adequacy in terms of partial structures fail. Indeed, the motivations for the generalizations in the partial structures approach are better met by the generalizations via approximation sets developed in “Generalizing Empirical Adequacy I”. Approximation sets also generalize partial structures.

Experimental modeling in biology involves the use of living organisms (not necessarily so-called "model organisms") in order to model or simulate biological processes. I argue here that experimental modeling is a bona fide form of scientific modeling that plays an epistemic role that is distinct from that of ordinary biological experiments. What distinguishes them from ordinary experiments is that they use what I call "in vivo representations" where one kind of causal process is used to stand in for a physically (...) different kind of process. I discuss the advantages of this approach in the context of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, DavosSebastian LuftPeter E. Gordon. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 448. Cloth, $39.95.Much ink has been spilled on the dispute between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger that took place in the Swiss resort town Davos in 1929—famous since Thomas Mann staged his Magic Mountain there—and which has since been referred to as the “Davos Dispute.” While the debate (...) itself and accounts accompanying it have been widely known to historians [End Page 508] of philosophy, Harvard historian Peter E. Gordon shows in this marvelous new book how memory has shaped the event into something much larger than anyone could have foreseen. It is, Gordon claims, the silent work of memory that has made this debate, rather innocuous at the time, into what can be retrospectively be considered the truly earth-shattering philosophical event of the twentieth century.In hindsight, the symbolism of the debate between a German who became a leading Nazi philosopher in 1933 and a Jew who, in the same year, was dismissed from his professorship and forced to flee Germany, could not be greater. It only grows if one connects the historic events with their respective philosophies: on the one side the liberal modern Cassirer, whose philosophy allegedly glorified the Weimar stalemate, and on the other side the radical Heidegger, whose call for “authentic existence” took on a bone-chilling reality as he embraced Hitler in 1933 as the führer to lead Germany back to its authentic roots.Two volumes—the 1999 collection, 70 Jahre Davoser Disputation, edited by E. Rudolph and D. Kaegi, and, in 2000, A Parting of the Ways by Michael Friedman—were the first to delve into the debate’s symbolic meaning. It was Friedman’s thesis that the fateful “parting of the ways” between Continental and Analytic philosophy could be traced to this meeting, which was also attended by Rudolf Carnap. Despite these studies, there has until now not been a comprehensive treatment that pulls together all threads into one narrative, covering the entire intellectual, historical, cultural, and philosophical landscape of the time. Gordon’s book achieves just that and will be, for years to come, the landmark work on this encounter.The book begins from the background in post-World War I philosophy in Germany, which was perceived, along with culture, as being in crisis (ch. 1), to “set the stage” on the “Magic Mountain” (ch. 2). It proceeds to summarize the individual lectures by Cassirer and Heidegger, giving a detailed interpretation of the protocol prepared by students of the interlocutors (chs. 3–4). The author then takes a deep breath in chapter 5 to place the debate in the larger context of Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies. But the story does not end there, as chapter 6 examines the relation between both thinkers after the debate. Finally, in chapter 7, Gordon assesses the newer debates concerning this dispute up to the debate between Bourdieu and Habermas concerning Heidegger’s Nazi involvement, though it does not re-engage with Friedman’s thesis, as might have been desired.Regarding his interpretation, Gordon juxtaposes Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies along the Kantian distinction between spontaneity and receptivity, where both paradigms make different claims on the “normative image of humanity” (5 ff.). Whether humanity is interpreted as spontaneous and world-creating, in optimistic Enlightenment terms (Cassirer), or as receptive and open to the world, i.e. as the “shepherd” rather than the “lord of being” (Heidegger), both are answering the fourth of Kant’s questions, “What is man?” While this distinction is useful for understanding the basic relation between them, it is also—as the author would concede—somewhat too coarse to do justice to their mutual differences and commonalities. Were one to assert a systematic critique, Gordon does not really make up his mind as to the true significance of these paradigms: are they mutually exclusive oppositions or, as he implies elsewhere, two alternative versions of philosophical modernism with a common ground? There is evidence for both readings. This question, however, is for the philosopher to answer—the philosopher who wants to push... (shrink)

Griffiths et al. have proposed a quantitative measure of causal specificity and used it to assess various attempts to single out genetic causes as being causally more specific than other cellular mechanisms, for example, alternative splicing. Focusing in particular on developmental processes, they have identified a number of important challenges for this project. In this discussion note, I would like to show how these challenges can be met.

Research on value congruence rests on the assumption that values denote desirable behaviors and ideals that employees and organizations strive to approach. In the present study, we develop and test the argument that a more complete understanding of value congruence can be achieved by considering a second type of congruence based on employees’ and organizations’ counter-ideal values. We examined this proposition in a time-lagged study of 672 employees from various occupational and organizational backgrounds. We used difference scores as well as (...) polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our hypotheses. Consistent with our hypotheses, results reveal that counter-ideal value congruence has unique relations to employees’ trust in the organization that go beyond the effects of ideal value congruence. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this expanded perspective on value congruence. (shrink)

Abstrak: Tulisan berikut membahas pemikiran hukum Anglo-Amerika yang dikenal sebagai filsafat hukum. Dua pokok yang dibahas adalah masalah metodologi dan debat Hart/Dworkin. Inti pertanyaan yang dikaji di sini berkenaan dengan hakikat filsafat hukum. Untuk itu lang- kah yang diambil adalah dengan menelusuri situasi debat Hart/ Dworkin dan sesudahnya sebagai suatu debat metodologis dan kemudian menggunakannya untuk mengurai pertanyaan tadi. Debat tersebut telah memicu suatu palingan metodologis dalam filsafat hukum analitik yang lantas mengubah fokus dan makna dari kegiatan melakukan filsafat hukum, (...) yakni dari refleksi atas hakikat hukum (dan hubungannya dengan moralitas) menjadi refleksi atas hakikat kegiatan itu sendiri. Ber- dasarkan telaah kritis terhadap konstelasi dan tren populer dari sejumlah yang ide yang dikembangkan seputar eksistensi debat Hart/Dworkin, termasuk publikasi terbaru teks kuliah Dworkin di Harvard Law Review yang menanggapi Postscript Hart, tulisan ini mengemukakan argumen bahwa wacana filsafat hukum kontemporer menyentuh ranah kritik ter- hadap dua tesis metafisis, epistemologis, dan etis yang tampak sejajar, yakni dikotomi fakta dengan nilai dan pemisahan hukum dengan moralitas. Kata-kata Kunci: Metodologi filsafat hukum, debat Hart/Dworkin, hukum dan moralitas, filsafat hukum analitik, palingan metodologis, metodologi normatif, metodologi deskriptif. Abstract: This paper presents an exploration of the Anglo-American legal thought, better known as jurisprudence. A subject matter of it is two interrelated themes, i.e. the problem of methodology and the “Hart/Dworkin debate”. The main question addressed here concerning the nature of jurisprudence. It takes an inquiry to the Hart/Dworkin debate situation and its aftermath as a methodological debate and whilst use it to scrutinize that question. The debate has been stirred up the so called methodological turn in analytical jurisprudence, thus vary the focus and meaning of the activity of doing jurisprudence, from a reflection of the nature of law (and its relationship to morality) to a reflection of the nature of that activity itself. Based on the critical examination of constellation and popular trend of some ideas which developed around the existence Hart/Dworkin debate, including the recent publication of Dworkin’s lost text in Harvard Law Review replying to Hart’s Postscript, this paper argues that the contemporary discourse of jurisprudence attains the significance of a criticism of two kinds of metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical theses which are apparently parallel, i.e. the fact/value dichotomy and the separation of law and morality. Keywords: methodology of jurisprudence, Hart/Dworkin debate, law and morality, analytic jurisprudence, methodological turn, normative methodology, descriptive methodology. (shrink)

Why do we seek out and enjoy uncertain success in playing games? Game designers and researchers suggest that games whose challenges match player skills afford engaging experiences of achievement, competence, or effectance—ofdoing well. Yet, current models struggle to explain why such balanced challenges best afford these experiences and do not straightforwardly account for the appeal of high- and low-challenge game genres like Idle and Soulslike games. In this article, we show that Predictive Processing (PP) provides a coherent formal cognitive framework (...) which can explain the fun in tackling game challenges with uncertain success as the dynamic process of reducing uncertainty surprisingly efficiently. In gameplay as elsewhere, people enjoydoing better than expected, which can track learning progress. In different forms, balanced, Idle, and Soulslike games alike afford regular accelerations of uncertainty reduction. We argue that this model also aligns with a popular practitioner model, Raph Koster’sTheory of Fun for Game Design, and can unify currently differentially modelled gameplay motives around competence and curiosity. (shrink)

I conceptualise the role of dualities in quantum gravity, in terms of their functions for theory construction. I distinguish between two functions of duality in physical practice: namely, discovering and describing ‘equivalent physics’, versus suggesting ‘new physics’. I dub these the ‘theoretical’ versus the ‘heuristic’ functions of dualities. The distinction seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the philosophical literature: and it exists both for dualities, and for the more general relation of theoretical equivalence. The paper develops the heuristic function (...) of dualities: illustrating how they can be used, if one has any luck, to find and formulate new theories. I also point to the different physical commitments about the theories in question that underlie these two functions. I show how a recently developed schema for dualities articulates the differences between the two functions. (shrink)

En el presente artículo proponemos abordar el problema de la pobreza desde dos perspectivas ético-filosóficas: En primer lugar, la pobreza como problema que debe solucionarse desde la caridad; En segundo lugar, la pobreza como problema de justicia. En definitiva queremos hacer una apología de los pobres, marginados y excluidos en el mundo y, en particular, en las democracias occidentales que se abrogan y llevan a gala el título de democracias incluyentes, que ayude a estas personas a tener una nueva oportunidad (...) que les saque de la pobreza. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article se propose d’examiner comment la notion de « culture de guerre », avancée par certains historiens pour qualifier l’engagement des intellectuels français dans l’Union sacrée contre l’Allemagne dès 1914, se décline dans le cas de Durkheim. À travers l’exemple de son texte de propagande le plus connu : L’Allemagne au-dessus de tout, on se propose de débusquer les arguments sociologiques plus ou moins implicites qu’il mobilise pour dénoncer la « mentalité allemande ». Il en résulte qu’au regard (...) de sa vision de l’évolution des sociétés, la conception du rôle de l’État défendue par l’Allemagne en guerre doit être comprise comme une régression, un « retour vers le primitif », donc comme une énigme sociologique impensée et impensable dans la logique rationaliste qui était la sienne. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a threat to both physical and mental health. The spreading disease and its impacts, the containment measures and the way all of our lives have dramatically changed ha...

Zusammenfassung Vor dem Hintergrund steigender Erlöse in der Fußball-Bundesliga zeigt sich eine zunehmende Professionalisierung nicht nur bei einem Blick auf die Managementstrukturen der Vereine, sondern auch bei näherer Betrachtung der Gehaltsdeterminanten von Fußballspielern. Die Gehaltshöhe hängt unter anderem von der in der Bundesliga in der Vergangenheit gezeigten Leistung ab. Fraglich ist, wie sich die Höhe der Gehälter von Spielern ergibt, die neu in die Liga wechseln und bei deren Leistungsbewertung gewisse Informationsdefizite auf Seiten der Vereine vorliegen, und wie diese Informationsdefizite (...) ausgeglichen werden. Die Analyse der Marktwerte von 7.019 Spieler-Jahres-Beobachtungen zeigt, dass die Vereine recht gut in der Lage sind, die spätere Leistung ihrer Spieler einzuschätzen und die Marktwerte der Spieler entsprechend beurteilt werden. Wechseln Spieler aus einer anderen Liga in die Bundesliga, so dient die Liga ihrer letzten Karrierestation als Proxy für die später erwartete Leistung, und sie weisen in Abhängigkeit der Liga, in der sie in der Vorsaison gespielt haben, unterschiedliche Marktwerte auf, was gleichzeitig auf Unterschiede in den Gehältern schließen lässt. (shrink)

Marcel Conche nous livre ici une approche simple de philosopher. D'ailleurs, selon lui le philosophe n'est qu'un chercheur de vérité. C'est en cela que la philosophie est un moyen pour s'approcher de la sagesse. Marcel Conche nous invite ici à recouvrer, afin de penser la nature, une essence grecque. Le philosophe, dit naturaliste, remet entre autres plusieurs idées en place: critique du platonisme, absurdité de la philosophie chrétienne de Descartes à Hegel tout en n'oubliant pas Kant.