Robots are now associated with various aspects of our lives. These sophisticated machines have been increasingly used in different manufacturing industries and services sectors for decades. During this time, they have been a factor in causing significant harm to humans, prompting questions of liability. Industrial robots are presently regarded as products for liability purposes. In contrast, some commentators have proposed that robots be granted legal personality, with an overarching aim of exonerating the respective creators and users of these artefacts from (...) liability. This article is concerned mainly with industrial robots that exercise some degree of self-control as programmed, though the creation of fully autonomous robots is still a long way off. The proponents of the robot’s personality compare these machines generally with corporations, and sporadically with, inter alia, animals, and idols, in substantiating their arguments. This article discusses the attributes of legal personhood and the justifications for the separate personality of corporations and idols. It then demonstrates the reasons for refusal of an animal’s personality. It concludes that robots are ineligible to be persons, based on the requirements of personhood. (shrink)

В монографии рассматриваются интерпретативные стратегии деконструкции, их историко-философские истоки, а также их значение для постметафизического мышления. Для научных работников, студентов и аспирантов.

This book discusses how rational choice theory grew out of RAND's work for the US Air Force. It concentrates on the work of William J. Riker, Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan, Russel Hardin, and John Rawls. It argues that within the context of the US Cold War with its intensive anti-communist and anti-collectivist sentiment, the foundations of capitalist democracy were grounded in the hyper individualist theory of non-cooperative games.

As I understand him, Veatch claims that there is a kind of proposition in which essential predicates figure, such propositions having the following characteristics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics by Alexander R. PrussBenedict M. Guevin O.S.B.One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics. By Alexander R. Pruss. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 465. $45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-268-03897-7.As a professor of moral theology in general and of sexual ethics in particular, I found Alexander Pruss’s largely philosophical account of sexual ethics to be (...) refreshing. As much as I try to dissuade my students from using religious legalism to justify the rightness or wrongness of certain sexual practices, I find it almost impossible to break them of the bad habit of using such phrases as “Because the Church teaches...” or “Because the Bible says...”. Even when I counter by saying, “The Church teaches that something is good because it is good and not because the Church says it is good, and such goodness is grounded in the natural law and a sound anthropology,” such legalism still persists. And so, to read Pruss’s extensive analysis of sexual ethics using both personalist and Thomistic principles as well as what we have received from divine revelation is a much-needed tonic not only for students of theology and philosophy but for all those interested in discovering the role of human reason and biology in crafting a sexual ethic.After an introduction, the proper beginning of Pruss’s analysis is found in chapter 2. Here, the author discusses love and its forms with a particular focus on the meaning of agapē in the New Testament. Pruss argues that, philosophically speaking, we should love everyone. But love should not be understood as monolithic. There are various kinds of love: agapē, philia, and erōs. The New Testament understanding of agapē contains the other two, for it is love itself. This kind of love is a love that loves the other as the other is, for the other’s sake, and in a way that is appropriate to that person in the light of objective facts. Moreover, this kind of love is not simply a feeling or an emotion but is concentrated in an action that is an expression of one’s will.In chapter 3, Pruss takes up the issue of desire. He evaluates desire in two ways: (1) desire and libido, and (2) sexual desire, need, and pleasure. He [End Page 485] concludes that sexual desire is not a need in the same way that we desire food, drink, communication, love, and to be loved. Without these latter, human life would be seriously lacking or, in the case of food and drink, quickly cut short. Second, he observes that circumstances may not be appropriate for fulfilling one’s sexual desire. Finally, while human life would be seriously compromised by the lack of food, drink, communication, love, and the need to be loved, abstaining from the fulfillment of sexual desire even over a long period of time would not be detrimental to human well-being in the same way.Pruss does not imply by the preceding that sexuality does not matter. Chapter 4, in fact, deals with the meaningfulness of sexuality. There are two sets of rules regarding sexuality and its expression. Some rules are moral in nature, like the prohibition against rape. Other rules are customs, for example, the exchanging of rings after the exchange of marital vows. With respect to the moral rules regarding sexuality, Pruss highlights casual sex, sexual assault, gay rights, and romantic love. Apart from sexual assault and rape—both of which lack consent—casual sex, homosexual sex, and romantic love have the following in common, namely, that sex is indeed innately important to human beings and that sex aspires to be romantic in nature. While, as in the case of casual sex, romantic love does not necessarily give rise to true love, romantic love is often the prelude to a deep and unique form of love. Why this is so has to do with the meaning of sexual union.Sexual union is the topic of chapter 5, presented under the title “One Flesh, One Body.” Scripture, Pruss affirms, describes the person as... (shrink)

Th e con fusion a nd b arren ness o f psycho logy is no t to be e xplain ed b y calling it a “yo ung science”; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the oth er case, con cep tual co nfusion and m ethod s of pro of.) (...) The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by. (PI p. 232). (shrink)