Dr. theol. Dr. phil. Detlef Schwartz, Jahrgang 1954, Pfarrer i. R. und langjähriger nebenamtlicher Universitätsdozent, mit Stationen in Deutschland und den USA sowie Lateinamerika, zieht eine vorläufige Bilanz seiner bisherigen Arbeit im Auslandsdienst der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland. Er ordnet diese ein in Erfahrungen in einem Pfarramt der United Church of Christ, USA, und seinen Beobachtungen in der Millionenmetropole Los Angeles. Die Konsequenz eines verstärkten Dialogs der Religionen, besonders mit dem Islam, koppelt er zurück an die Frage nach der (...) Notwendigkeit eines Paradigmenwechsels im Religionsunterricht hin zu einem den Dialog fördernden Kulturunterrichts."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Im Beitrag wird die übliche, intuitionsbasierte Bewertung ethischer Gedankenexperimente hinterfragt und stattdessen für ein neo-kantisches Verfahren der Bewertung argumentiert. Hierzu wird nach einer kurzen systematisch-historischen Verortung zunächst eine grobe Kategorisierung vorgenommen, die erstens nach der Funktion, zweitens nach der Fragestellung erfolgt, auf die Gedankenexperimente antworten. Das vorgeschlagene, neo-kantische Verfahren eignet sich insbesondere zur Bewertung einer bestimmten Kategorie von Gedankenexperimenten: Dilemmatische Situationen, in denen eine Abwägung von Menschenleben zur Debatte steht, weil nicht alle Beteiligten überleben können. Anhand von drei ausgewählten Gedankenexperimenten (...) wird das jeweilige Bewertungsverfahren betrachtet. Im Zuge des neokantischen Verfahrens wird ein „Rollentausch“ vorgenommen und danach gefragt, was alle Betroffenen „rationalerweise wollen“ können. Während die Präferenzen der Täter, die das Dilemma erst verursachen, nicht in die Überlegung eingehen, hängt die Bewertung der Perspektive der Opfer von Art und Ausmaß ihrer Bedrohung ab. Passagiere und Crew des entführten Flugzeugs, deren Tod unausweichlich bevorsteht, könnten einem Abschuss, der vielen anderen das Leben rettet, rationalerweise zustimmen. Beim Gedankenexperiment von Jim und den Indianern ist dies nur bedingt der Fall. In fast allen Varianten des Trolley-Experiments kann nicht davon ausgegangen werden, dass die jeweilige Person der Opferung ihres Lebens für andere zustimmt. In einem letzten Punkt wird auf den Einwand Humes eingegangen, dass weder ein radikal egoistisches noch ein übertrieben altruistisches Wollen als „irrational“ bezeichnet werden kann. (shrink)

Motivation ist in der Welt der Wirtschaft ein unschatzbarer Wert. Auch im personlichen Bereich gilt die Fahigkeit, sich selbst zu motivieren, als ein Schlussel zu einem gelungenen Leben. Die Frage, was Motivation ausmacht, wird nicht zuletzt in der praktischen Philosophie, der Ethik und Handlungstheorie diskutiert. Der Band geht zunachst der Frage nach, woher die Motive unseres Handelns stammen, ob es etwa die Vernunft ist, die motivierende Kraft hat, ob es Gefuhle sind oder aussere Faktoren. Es wird erortert, wie moralische Motivation (...) durch Werte philosophisch zu begreifen ist, und auf Fragestellungen der praktischen Anwendung eingegangen: Wo liegen Moglichkeiten und Grenzen der Motivation von Menschen in den gesellschaftlichen Bereichen der Okologie, der Medizin und der Teilhabe an demokratischen Prozessen? Aber auch in der theoretischen Philosophie werden begriffliche und weltanschauliche Probleme behandelt, die die empirischen Motivationstheorien aufwerfen. Das fuhrt schliesslich zu metaphysischen Fragen nach der Willensfreiheit des Menschen und der Kreativitat der Natur. (shrink)

Ein zentrales Thema des christlichen Glaubens wird in diesem Textbuch von fuhrenden zeitgenossischen Philosophen und Philosophinnen beleuchtet. In systematischer Anordnung werden neben deutschsprachigen "Klassikern" und neuen Originaltexten auch einige der einflussreichsten Autoren der angelsachsischen Debatte in Ubersetzung zuganglich gemacht. Auch diese von der analytischen Philosophie gepragten Texte wurden teilweise eigens fur diesen Band geschrieben oder uberarbeitet. Die Auseinandersetzungen im kontinentaleuropaischen protestantischen und katholischen Denken um Seele, Unsterblichkeit und leibliche Auferstehung in der Mitte des letzten Jahrhunderts werden hier auf lebendige und (...) begrifflich prazise Weise weitergefuhrt. Die Religionsphilosophie und die Theologie werden am Reichtum der Argumente und Positionen nicht vorbeigehen konnen. Mit Texten von Oscar Cullmann, Gisbert Greshake, Gerd Haeffner, Thomas Schartl, Eleonore Stump, Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman, Alvin Plantinga, William Hasker, Lynne Baker, Hud Hudson und Godehard Bruntrup. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungP. Bernays hat darauf hingewiesen, dass man, um die Widerspruchs freiheit der klassischen Zahlentheorie zu beweisen, den Hilbertschen flniter Standpunkt dadurch erweitern muss, dass man neben den auf Symbole sich beziehenden kombinatorischen Begriffen gewisse abstrakte Begriffe zulässt, Die abstrakten Begriffe, die bisher für diesen Zweck verwendet wurden, sinc die der konstruktiven Ordinalzahltheorie und die der intuitionistischer. Logik. Es wird gezeigt, dass man statt deesen den Begriff einer berechenbaren Funktion endlichen einfachen Typs über den natürlichen Zahler benutzen kann, wobei keine anderen (...) Konstruktionsverfahren für solche Funktionen nötig sind, als einfache Rekursion nach einer Zahlvariablen und Einsetzung von Funktionen ineinander .P. Bernays has pointed out that, in order to prove the consistency of classical number theory, it is necessary to extend Hilbert's finitary stand‐point by admitting certain abstract concepts in addition to the combinatorial concepts referring to symbols. The abstract concepts that so far have been used for this purpose are those of the constructive theory of ordinals and those of intuitionistic logic. It is shown that the concept of a computable function of finite simple type over the integers can be used instead, where no other procedures of constructing such functions are necessary except simple recursion by an integral variable and substitution of functions in each other. (shrink)

Die nach den Konventionen der Alten Geschichte gemeinhin mit dem Beginn der Regierungszeit des Kaisers Diokletian (284 n. Chr.) einsetzende Epoche der Spätantike (die Papyrologen sprechen seit diesem Zeitpunkt dagegen zumeist von der „Byzantinischen Zeit“) zeitigte eine Fülle von administrativen und fiskalischen Reformen, die sich auch in Änderungen der Zeitrechnung in den Provinzen des Reiches niederschlugen. Am besten studieren lassen sich diese Auswirkungen in der Provinz Ägypten, wo mit den Papyri eine Fülle von datierten administrativen Aufzeichnungen sowie öffentlichen und privaten (...) Urkunden zur Verfügung steht. Hier manifestiert sich in diesen Phänomenen zugleich die zunehmende Angleichung Ägyptens an die administrativen und fiskalischen Strukturen in den anderen Provinzen des Reiches, wenn man so will die „Romanisierung“ Ägyptens, deren Ergebnis das Verschwinden zahlreicher Besonderheiten war, durch welche sich in der frühen und hohen Kaiserzeit die Verhältnisse in Ägypten von denen in den übrigen Teilen des Reiches signifikant unterschieden haben, wenngleich dieser Umstand es nach der Auffassung des Rez. keinesfalls rechtfertigt, der Provinz als solcher einen Sonderstatus im römischen Reichsverband zuzuschreiben, wie dies eine traditionelle Richtung der althistorischen Forschung lange Zeit getan hat und teilweise immer noch tut. Die weltweit besten Kenner der diversen chronologischen Systeme des byzantinischen Ägypten und der mit ihnen zusammenhängenden, z. T. äußerst verwickelten Probleme sind zweifellos Roger S. Bagnall und Klaas A. Worp (B&W), die bereits vor 27 Jahren mit den „Chronological systems of Byzantine Egypt“ (CSBE. Studia Amstelodamensia, VIII. Zutphen 1978) eine Summe der aus ihrer Editionstätigkeit erwachsenden intensiven Beschäftigung mit den chronologischen Problemen byzantinischer Urkunden aus Ägypten vorgelegt und nicht nur dem Editor solcher Dokumente im besonderen, sondern auch der historischen und papyrologischen Forschung im allgemeinen ein unentbehrliches Hilfsmittel an die Hand gegeben haben. Schon ein Jahr später folgten mit den aus ihrer Feder stammenden „Regnal Formulas in Byzantine Egypt“ (RFBE. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, Supplement 2. Missoula/Montana 1979) und 1987 mit den zusammen mit A. Cameron und S. Schwartz verfaßten „Consuls of the Later Roman Empire“ (CLRE) zwei weitere solcher unverzichtbaren Hilfsmittel, die den auf dem Gebiet der epigraphischen und papyrologischen Hinterlassenschaft der Spätantike tätigen Forschern die Arbeit beträchtlich erleichtern. In Anbetracht des in der seit dem Erscheinen von CSBE vestrichenen Zeit enorm angewachsenen Quellenmaterials, welches nicht nur vielfältige neue chronologische Probleme aufwarf, sondern auch bereits bekannte in neuem Licht erscheinen ließ – einen Prozeß, den B&W mit zahlreichen Artikeln zur Chronologie der Papyrusdokumente des byzantinischen Ägypten (siehe die Bibliographie in CSBE) gewissermaßen kommentierend begleitet haben – bedarf diese Neuauflage der CSBE sicherlich keiner Rechtfertigung. Auch wenn mit der Volltextdatenbank der „Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri“ (DDBDP) sowie mit dem „Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens“ (HGV) nunmehr – zum Zeitpunkt der Erstauflage der CSBE noch nicht existente – äußerst nützliche digitale Ressourcen zur Verfügung stehen, die die Sammlung und chronologische Auswertung der Dokumente bedeutend erleichtern (worauf B&W in der Einleitung zu CSBE zu recht hinweisen [viii]), so ist dies zweifellos immer noch eine mühe- und entsagungsvolle Kärrnerarbeit, für die den beiden Autoren nicht hoch genug gedankt werden kann. Hinzu kommt, daß sich diese Arbeit nicht nur auf die Sammlung der Dokumente und der ggfs. seit ihrer Edition erfolgten Berichtigungen beschränkt, sondern B&W in zahlreichen Fällen auch selbst Lesungen überprüft und berichtigt haben. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making descriptive theoretical models often conflict with each other and typically lack comprehensiveness. To address this deficiency, a revised EDM model is proposed that consolidates and attempts to bridge together the varying and sometimes directly conflicting propositions and perspectives that have been advanced. To do so, the paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the various theoretical models of EDM is provided. These models can generally be divided into rationalist-based ; and non-rationalist-based. Second, the proposed model, called (...) ‘Integrated Ethical Decision Making,’ is introduced in order to fill the gaps and bridge the current divide in EDM theory. The individual and situational factors as well as the process of the proposed model are then described. Third, the academic and managerial implications of the proposed model are discussed. Finally, the limitations of the proposed model are presented. (shrink)

Abstract:Extrapolating from Carroll’s four domains of corporate social responsibility (1979) and Pyramid of CSR (1991), an alternative approach to conceptualizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) is proposed. A three-domain approach is presented in which the three core domains of economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities are depicted in a Venn model framework. The Venn framework yields seven CSR categories resulting from the overlap of the three core domains. Corporate examples are suggested and classified according to the new model, followed by a discussion (...) of limitations and teaching and research implications. (shrink)

Smith et al. demonstrate the viability of animal metacognition research. We commend their effort and suggest three avenues of research. The first concerns whether animals are explicitly aware of their metacognitive processes. The second asks whether animals have metaknowledge of their own uncertain responses. The third issue concerns the monitoring/control distinction. We suggest some ways in which these issues elucidate metacognitive processes in nonhuman animals.

The study examines employee, managerial, and ethics officer perceptions regarding their companies codes of ethics. The study moves beyond examining the mere existence of a code of ethics to consider the role that code content and code process (i.e. creation, implementation, and administration) might play with respect to the effectiveness of codes in influencing behavior. Fifty-seven in-depth, semi-structured interviews of employees, managers, and ethics officers were conducted at four large Canadian companies. The factors viewed by respondents to be important with (...) respect to code effectiveness include: provisions of examples; readability; tone; relevance; realism; senior management support; training; reinforcement; living up to standards; reporting requirement; anonymous phone line; communicating violations; and enforcement. The factors found to be potentially important include: justification for provisions; employee involvement; and sign-off requirements. Factors found not to be important include: objectives for the code; prior distribution; testing; and relating ones performance review to compliance with the code. (shrink)

Social choice rules are often evaluated and compared by inquiring whether they satisfy certain desirable criteria such as the Condorcet criterion, which states that an alternative should always be chosen when more than half of the voters prefer it over any other alternative. Many of these criteria can be formulated in terms of choice sets that single out reasonable alternatives based on the preferences of the voters. In this paper, we consider choice sets whose definition merely relies on the pairwise (...) majority relation. These sets include the Copeland set, the Smith set, the Schwartz set, von Neumann-Morgenstern stable sets, the Banks set, and the Slater set. We investigate the relationships between these sets and completely characterize their computational complexity, which allows us to obtain hardness results for entire classes of social choice rules. (shrink)

I discuss varieties of depth psychology that both emphasize the unconscious in particular ways and simultaneously accentuate human freedom and the underdetermination of the future. They recognize the soul as vital to the work of psychotherapy. Some even speak of a “mythopoetic” imagination. The soulful depth psychologists to be considered here include Frederic Myers, Theodore Flournoy, Carl G. Jung, Vera von der Heydt, Victor White, Otto Rank, Evangelos Christou, Richard Schwartz, and James Hillman. I will contend that these approaches (...) align with a Catholic anthropology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New under the SunBenjamin I. SchwartzOne of the most obvious remarks one can make about contemporary China is that China has no reason to be excited about contemporary Western millenarianism. If by "millenarianism" one refers to an apocalyptic transformation of the entire human condition based on the Christian calendar, then there is no reason for Chinese, Jews, and Moslems, who have their own historic visions, (...) to find any significance in the history of the last millennium. At the end of the first millennium or the beginning of the second, China was at a high point in its civilization. To the extent that apocalyptic tendencies could be found in either its high or its popular culture, these tendencies were the focus of Buddhism or religious Daoism. They were not tied to specific calendars, and in an Indian spirit they spoke in terms of "kalpas," which might last for hundreds of millions of years—or might occur next week.In addition, it should be noted—as has been pointed out by Professor Landes and others—that the notion that there was an all-consuming preoccupation with an impending apocalypse in the year A.D. 1000 is highly debatable. Among the more scholarly members of the clergy in medieval times there were already modes of thinking that, under the influence of Islamic and Jewish philosophers, were pointing in the direction of a non-apocalyptic scholastic philosophy.In all cultures down through the ages, an apocalyptic vision of deliverance has promised relief from the vast burden of human suffering and despair—a vision that would be recognized as such even by those who sought no apocalyptic solutions and who continued to believe that our this-worldly life still promised compensatory satisfactions, limited as these might be. They would not accept the Theravada/ Hinayana Buddhist belief that even what we call our individual pleasures are a function of our individual sufferings. According to that belief, our love of our children or our wives is poisoned by our acute awareness of the transient nature of their existence. Release from the world of samsara can be attained only by escaping the world of individuated samsara into the ineffable world of Nirvana.Turning to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, we find that the author, who represents an amalgam of Greek and Hebrew wisdom, is not an apocalyptist and still hopes that we will garner certain satisfactions from our lives as individuals in this mundane existence. Yet his disappointment, suffering, and exasperation over human vanities and duplicities often correspond to the catalogue of sufferings in the Theravada scriptures. But, like the Theravada Buddhists, he believes that in this world of ignorance (avidya) there is also "nothing new under the sun." In the endless generations of individual human lives, every mode of human ignorance and suffering has certainly existed in the endless cycle of samsara. It is nevertheless true that in the total attention on every aspect of human life from the techno-economic side, [End Page 193] we find a totally new way of neutralizing the age-old causes of human suffering. Gautama Buddha regarded our ordinary individual pleasures as poisoned by suffering, by the realization that individual pleasures soon fade away. Yet Prozac seems to continue to work without producing anxiety. Here, indeed, we have something new under the sun!In fact, the new technological-economic millenarianism does indeed represent something different from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century technological and economic transformations that seemed to offer the possibility of a steady amelioration of the human condition. Nineteenth-century technological and economic meliorism could be related to older forms of what might be called "materialistic" improvement. Yet nineteenth-century materialistic progressivism continued to be linked to other ethical concerns not only by Christian beliefs but also by many of the secular ideologies of nineteenth-century Europe. There were entire ideologies of socialism, liberalism, anarchism, romanticism, nationalism, et cetera, which continued to be deeply distressed by the non-"materialistic," ethical consequences of techno-economic progress. Techno-economic progress has not, after all, prevented the Holocaust, the Gulag, and the horrors of two world wars. On the contrary, it has raised... (shrink)

Terraforming is a process of planetary engineering by which the extant environment of a planetary body is transformed into an environment capable of supporting human inhabitants. The question I would like to consider in this paper is whether there is any reason to believe that the terraforming of another planet—for instance, the terraforming of Mars—is morally problematic. Topics related to the human exploration of space are not often discussed in philosophical circles. Nevertheless, there exists a growing body of philosophical literature (...) dedicated to sorting out the moral implications of the use of resources from (and in) space. Most of this literature is produced as environmental philosophy. Questions of .. (shrink)

Abstract:Recently, the idea that every hypothetical imperative must somehow be ‘backed up’ by a prior categorical imperative has gained a certain influence among Kant interpreters and ethicists influenced by Kant. Since instrumentalism is the position that holds that hypothetical imperatives can by themselves and without the aid of categorical imperatives explain all valid forms of practical reasoning, the influential idea amounts to a rejection of instrumentalism as internally incoherent. This paper argues against this prevailing view both as an interpretation of (...) Kant and as philosophical understanding of practical reason. In particular, it will be argued that many of the arguments that claim to show that hypothetical imperatives must be backed up by categorical imperatives mistakenly assume that the form of practical reasoning must itself occur as a premise within the reasoning. An alternative to this assumption will be offered. I will conclude that while instrumentalism may well be false, there is no reason to believe it is incoherent. (shrink)

To address growing concerns about academic integrity, college students (n?=?758) at honor system and non-honor system institutions were presented with eight scenarios to determine the influence of an honor system on their perceptions of and responses to academic dishonesty. Main effects for honor code status emerged. Students from traditional honor system schools considered the behaviors to be more dishonest, and were more likely to respond that they would report the incident when compared to students attending modified and non-honor system institutions. (...) Findings suggest traditional honor systems, with specific rules and regulations in place, are more effective at cultivating academic integrity among students; modified honor systems may not be as effective as previous research suggests. (shrink)

The principle of necessity as applied to self-defence requires the use of the least harmful defensively effective means of thwarting a wrongful threat. Yet –so I argue – a harm can be excessive even when it is the least harmful way of dealing with the threat at the time of the attack. I therefore propose a historical view of the requirement of necessity. Historical necessity requires the selection of the least harmful means to thwart a future attack at the point (...) in time at which we have a solid presumption that the future attack will take place. This may happen considerably before the time of the attack. Once you fail to acquire or preserve the least harmful defensive option for thwarting a future attack you may come to be irrevocably in breach of necessity. The paper tackles a number of objections to the view proposed. (shrink)

In recent years a number of books have been published that offer short autobiographical essays of academics, focusing on their research and how their life history affected their scholarly development. These could be labeled as "intellectual journey narratives." Some volumes focus on philosophers and their religious faith or lack thereof (e.g., Clark, 1997, Antony, 2007). Psychology has its own version of the intellectual journey narrative, in T. S. Krawiec's (1972, 1974, 1978) multivolume set of autobiographical essays by contemporary psychologists. In (...) 1987, Rosemary Pilkington edited her first volume of essays entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 1. It contains autobiographical essays by Jule Eisenbud, Montague Ullman, Jan Ehrenwald, Eileen Coly, Joseph H. Rush, Gertrude R. Schmeidler, Emilio Servadio, Renée Haynes, Hans Bender, Karlis Osis, George Zorab and Bernard Grad. The second (2013) volume contains autobiographical essays by Mary Rose Barrington, Eberhard Bauer, William Braud (now deceased), Stephen Braude, Richard S. Broughton, Larry Dossey, Sally Rhine Feather, Erlendur Haraldsson, Arthur Hastings, Stanley Krippner, Lawrence LeShan, Roger Nelson, John Palmer, Guy Leon Playfair, William G. Roll (now deceased), Serena Roney-Dougal, Stephan A. Schwartz, Rex G. Stanford, Russell Targ, Charles T. Tart, and Walter von Lucadou. Between the two volumes almost every significant contemporary parapsychologist is represented, with the major exceptions being the late John Beloff and the late Ian Stevenson. (shrink)

Organizational participants learn that "getting ahead" in organizational life comes from dramatizing a fantasy about the organization's perfection. The fantasy is the return to narcissism, in which the organization and its highest participants are seen as the center of a loving world. Since the return to narcissism is impossible, orienting the organization to the dramatization of this fantasy means that the organization loses touch with reality. The result is organizational decay-a condition of systemic ineffectiveness. Organizational decay is illustrated through the (...) case of General Motors. Specific dimensions considered are: commitment to bad decisions; advancement of participants who detach themselves from reality and discouragement of reality-oriented participants who are committed to their work; creation of the organizational jungle; isolation of management; development of a hostile orientation to the environment; transposition of work and ritual; loss of creativity; dominance of the financial staff; development of cynicism or the loss of reality; and overcentralizatior. Organizational decay may be compared with the consequences of hubris. (shrink)

Decision making is the physician's major activity. Every day, in doctors' offices throughout the world, patients describe their symptoms and com plaints while doctors perform examinations, order tests, and, on the basis of these data, decide what is wrong and what should be done. Although the process may appear routine-even to the physicians in volved-each step in the sequence requires skilled clinical judgment. Physicians must decide: which symptoms are important, whether any laboratory tests should be done, how the various items (...) of clinical data should be combined, and, finally, which of several treatments (including doing nothing) is indicated. Although much of the information used in clinical decision making is objective, the physician's values (a belief that pain relief is more important than potential addiction to pain-killing drugs, for example) and subjectivity are as much a part of the clinical process as the objective findings of laboratory tests. In recent years, both physicians and psychologists have come to realize that patient management decisions are not only subjective but also prob abilistic (although this is not always acknowledged overtly). When doc tors argue that an operation is fairly safe because it has a mortality rate of only 1 %, they are at least implicitly admitting that the outcome of their decision is based on probability. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Geschichte der Neueren Erkenntnistheorie" verfügbar.

A. W. Brian Simpson, Cannibalism and the Common Law Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

The essay departs from a detailed discussion of Jakobson’s description of the »poetic function.« It comes to the conclusion that the distinctive feature of poetic language, defined by Jakobson as the production of paradigmatic similarity, cannot be understood as a result of the projection of the paradigmatic axis of language onto its syntagmatic axis. Furthermore, the semantic effect of these similarities does not consist exclusively in a production of ambivalence; frequently, they produce coherence, as can be shown with reference to (...) examples of metaphors, metonymies and allegories. In a second step, the essay turns to a detailed interpretation of the 8th sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, which examines its intertextual relations to other son- nets of this cycle as well as those to scholastic theology and Platonic philosophy. This interpretation further develops the idea that poetic language produces coherence; for, precisely those lines that at first seem incomprehensible can be understood as implicit propositions and coherencecreating statements. In its concluding section, the paper characterizes the implicit production of coherence as the specific feature of poetic language and discusses the necessity of a hermeneutics of literary texts. (shrink)