Explores the understanding of self-consciousness and personal identity - two fundamendtal features of human subjectivity - as it developed in early modern philosophy. Udo Thiel presents a critical evaluation of these features as they were conceived in the sevententh and eighteenth centuries. He explains the arguments of thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Wolff, and Hume, as well as their early critics, followers, and other philosophical contemporaries, and situates them within their historical contexts. Interest in the issues of self-consciousness and (...) personal identity is in many ways characteristic [of] and even central to early modern thought, but Thiel argues here that this is also an interest that continues to this day, in a form still strongly influenced by the conceptual frameworks of early modern thought. In this book he attempts to broaden the scope of the treatment of these issues considerably, covering more than a hundred years of philosophical debate in France, Britain, and Germany while remaining attentive to the details of the arguments under scrutiny and discussing alternative interpretations in many cases"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of dust jacket. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its (...) acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’. (shrink)

We develop and use an integrated individual-level model to explain the driving forces behind digital piracy practice in two nations. The proposed model combines the Norm Activation model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology models. This study also explores the effect of culture on intention to practice DP in two nations: US and India. A survey instrument was used to collect data from 231 US and 331 Indian participants. Use of the integrated model proves to be a (...) powerful and a viable approach to understanding DP across cultures. In each nation, all 10 path coefficients on the research model are statistically significant thereby establishing the fact that personal norm, together with other factors, influences INT to engage in DP, which in turn, may influence the actual practice. The results reveal a support for cross-cultural generalizability and applicability of the proposed model. Culture clearly plays a strong moderating role in two out of the three paths tested. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examines the intrinsic relation between institutions and social justice. Its starting point is that processes of institutionalization invoke societal groups to articulate justice demands which, in their turn, give rise to processes of institutional redesign. In liberal democracies, demands for justice are articulated as a pursuit for emancipation and empowerment of groups that feel excluded by dominant categorizations. The imminent presence of this twin pursuit for justice can be explained by the conceptual inconsistencies that characterize the distinction between (...) the public and private sphere. These inconsistencies also explain why demands for emancipation and empowerment are intrinsically ambiguous and inconsistent. In order to reconsider the question how institutions are to be adapted to allow for social justice while acknowledging the plurality, ambiguity and volatility of justice demands, the paper will propose an empirical and normative research agenda. (shrink)

Knowing that technologies are inherently value-laden and systemically interwoven with society, the question is how individual engineers can take up the challenge of accepting the responsibility for their work? This paper will argue that engineers have no institutional structure at the level of society that allows them to recognize, reflect upon, and actively integrate the value-laden character of their designs. Instead, engineers have to tap on the different institutional realms of market, science, and state, making their work a ‘hybrid’ activity (...) combining elements from the different institutional realms. To deal with this institutional hybridity, engineers develop routines and heuristics in their professional network, which do not allow societal values to be expressed in a satisfactory manner. To allow forms of ‘active’ responsibility, there have to be so-called ‘accountability forums’ that guide moral reflections of individual actors. The paper will subsequently look at the methodologies of value-sensitive design and constructive technology assessment and explore whether and how these methodologies allow engineers to integrate societal values into the design technological artifacts and systems. As VSD and CTA are methodologies that look at the process of technological design, whereas the focus of this paper is on the designer, they can only be used indirectly, namely as frameworks which help to identify the contours of a framework for active responsibility of engineers. (shrink)

Dr. Udo Lenzig ist Schulreferent im Kirchenkreis Julich.

This chapter contains sections titled: God and I God and the Teenage I – The Theodicy Fiasco God and the Adult I – Harmful Religious Beliefs at Life's Beginning God and the Adult I – Harmful Religious Beliefs During Our Lives God and the Adult I – Harmful Religious Beliefs at Life's End Why I Speak Out Notes.

Conscience-based refusals by health care professionals to provide care to eligible patients are problematic, given the monopoly such professionals hold on the provision of such services. This article reviews standard ethical arguments in support of conscientious refuser accommodation and finds them wanting. It discusses proposed compromise solutions involving efforts aimed at testing the genuineness and reasonability of refusals and rejects those solutions too. A number of jurisdictions have introduced policies requiring conscientious refusers to provide effective referrals. These policies have turned (...) out to be unworkable. They subject patients to a health care delivery lottery, which is incompatible with the fundamental values of medical professionalism. This paper sheds light on transnational efforts aimed at undermining progress made in reproductive health by means of conscientious refusal accommodation claims. The view that the accommodation of conscientious refusers is indefensible on consequentialist ethical grounds, as well as on grounds related to medical professionalism itself, is defended. (shrink)

Der Verf. beschreibt die Einstellung Alberts zur Alchemie und die verschiedenen Phasen seiner Auseinandersetzung mit dieser ars. Alberts naturwissenschaftliche Schriften haben prozessualen Charakter. Er rezipiert alchemische Literatur seit der Mitte der 40er Jahre und sucht nach einem philosophischen Fundament zur Sicherung der neuen Wissenschaft. Grundlage ist für ihn die aristotelische Naturphilosophie. Nachdem er im Frühwerk De quattuor coaequaevis das Problem der Materie generell diskutiert und die über Augustin rezipierten platonischen Positionen zugunsten einer aristotelisch gestützten Theorie verworfen hatte, wird seit dem (...) Sentenzenkommentar die Transmutation ausführlich diskutiert, . Albert, dessen Positionen erkennbar an den Schriften des Avicenna orientiert sind, weist die Ansätze zeitgenössischer Alchemisten zurück, die eine antimetaphysische und materialistische Grundhaltung vertreten und damit gleichsam Ansätze zu einer autonomen Naturwissenschaft zeigen. Er kritisiert zudem die mangelnde Qualität der Produkte der künstlichen Transmutation und ihre fehlende geheime Wirksamkeit im Verhältnis zu den naturalia. Dennoch hat Albert ein differenziertes Bild von der Alchemie. Ihn interessiert allerdings weniger die praktische Nützlichkeit als ihr Stellenwert im Kontext der Naturphilosophie. - Der Verf. druckt die einschlägige Stelle aus Alberts Sentenzenkommentar ab und kommentiert sie ausführlich. (shrink)

Despite the opening of the market and partial privatization of state‐owned companies in China, the state still represents the controlling shareholder in larger companies. By analyzing the weaknesses of Chinese corporate governance we illustrate the framework for harmful corruption. China is characterized by a weak legal system and strong influences of traditions such as guanxi. In this article we analyze the influence of guanxi on the Chinese corporate governance system. We find that guanxi is in general a double‐edged sword, but (...) business‐to‐government guanxi in particular can harm the weak Chinese corporate governance system and hamper its further economic development and growth. (shrink)

The way pollution is managed in Western countries is based on the preservation of the taboo character of waste, which is conceived to be privately produced and seen as a threat to public health. Public authorities have been given the responsibility to isolate waste and hide it from public eyes. However, this dominant approach is challenged by the emergence of new forms of pollution. New conceptual and policy frameworks to manage environmental degradation have to be developed. The prevailing institutional structures, (...) however, obstruct the successful societal uptake of alternative frameworks. (shrink)

New network technologies are framed as eliminating ‘transaction costs’, a notion first developed in economic theory that now drives the design of market systems. However, the actual promise of the elimination of transaction costs seems unfeasible, because of a cyclical pattern in which network technologies that make that promise create processes of institutionalization that create new forms transaction costs. Nonetheless, the promises legitimize the exemption of innovations of network technologies from critical scrutiny.

At the centre of the philosophical tradition of Armenia is a thinker who in the Western tradition carries the Latin names ‘David Armenius philosophus’ or ‘David invincibilis’. Today, international philosophical-historical research is increasingly concerned with the enigmatic corpus of the works that have been handed down under the name of David. The historical-critical exploration of early Armenian philosophy and its specific achievements, as well as its intense relationship to late antique Byzantine thought, were, however, initiated by important scholars of Western (...) Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Before this time, there were few reliable references to ‘David’ in Western European research literature. It was the orientalist Carl Friedrich Neumann who brought about the turnaround. He studied in Heidelberg with Creuzer and Hegel, learned the Armenian language from the Mechitarists in Venice, and found inspiration in Paris. Then he examined the available Armenian and Greek sources of the Corpus Davidis and collected his findings in a monograph in 1829. Neumann’s deeply philosophical mind is clearly revealed in this treatise, entitled Mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de David. With great certitude, he traced down the pieces of information from David’s writings, as well as from the related ancient Armenian sources, which had great relevance for further research. These findings included communications on the biography of David and his own works, as well as on Aristotle, late antique Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Almost inevitably, Neumann also fell victim to errors, which, however, does not diminish his importance as a pioneer of research into late antique Armenian philosophy. Neumann put David on the map for Western scholars, thus prompting a wider interest in the hitherto isolated Armenian philosophical thought for the first time. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Eckharts Abendmahlverständnis ist prägendes Summarium seines philosophisch-theologischen Denkens. Autor des Abendmahles ist der ganze Christus, auch der leidende. Das Sakrament signalisiert die Einheit der Kirche. Durch das Sakrament wird Leben zugeteilt. Im Sakrament wird Christus in affectu und in intellectu begriffen.

ZusammenfassungFür Eckhart ist das intelligere dei die Grundlage des Seins . Das intelligere dei unterscheidet sich von dem intelligere hominis dadurch, dass dieses verursacht ist und erleuchtet wird, während jenes verursacht und erleuchtet. Das Erkennen des einen Gottes ist unbegrenzt. Der Mensch ist in die Dialektik von Endlichkeit und Unendlichkeit gestellt. Endlichkeit kommt dem intellectus agens, Unendlichkeit dem intellectus passibilis resp. possibilis zu, da letztere operatio dei sind. Der durch die Gottesgeburt geprägte Mensch wird durch Gott qualifiziert, capax infiniti und (...) damit wizzender mensche zu sein. Denn: »Darin erkennen wir Gott […], dass er uns sehend und erkennend macht.«SummaryAccording to Eckhart intelligere dei is the principle of being . There is a difference between the principle and act of intelligere dei and intelligere hominis. The last one is caused and illuminated, whereas the first one causes it self. The knowledge that God has, is unlimited. The human is placed between the dialectic of limited and unlimited. The limited belongs to the intellectus agens and the unlimited to the intellectus passibilis respectively intellectus possibilis because the last one is an operatio dei. God makes the human to the capax infiniti by means of »Gottesgeburt« in the baptized human soul . This way the human accedes to the knowledge. (shrink)

Dieser Band stellt Abhandlungen von Udo Müllges (1926-1985), Universitätsprofessor an der RWTH Aachen, vor, die in ihrer Gesamtheit ein pädagogisches Programm spiegeln, das auf der geisteswissenschaftlichen Tradition fußt und sich dieser verpflichtet weiß. Der Bogen ist von der konstitutiv-kritischen Frage nach dem Wissenschaftscharakter der Pädagogik bis hin zu aktuellen schulpolitischen Problemen gespannt. In ihrer Gesamtheit bieten die Beiträge einen Einblick in das breite Feld pädagogischer Forschung und eröffnen die Möglichkeit zur produktiven Auseinandersetzung mit den von Udo Müllges erarbeiteten Konzepten zur (...) Klärung gegenwärtiger theoretischer und praktischer Fragen. Das Buch bietet gleichermaßen Anregungen für Fachkollegen, Studierende und Praktiker des pädagogischen Bereiches. (shrink)

In a commentary published in Bioethics I defended Qatar as the location of the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics (Schuklenk 2023). I have since, reluctantly, changed my views on this.This brief resp...

We describe a number of conscientious objection cases in a liberal Western democracy. These cases strongly suggest that the typical conscientious objector does not object to unreasonable, controversial professional services—involving torture, for instance—but to the provision of professional services that are both uncontroversially legal and that patients are entitled to receive. We analyse the conflict between these patients' access rights and the conscientious objection accommodation demanded by monopoly providers of such healthcare services. It is implausible that professionals who voluntarily join (...) a profession should be endowed with a legal claim not to provide services that are within the scope of the profession's practice and that society expects them to provide. We discuss common counterarguments to this view and reject all of them. (shrink)

Religious considerations and language do not typically belong in the professional advice rendered by a doctor to a patient. Among the rationales mounted by Greenblum and Hubbard in support of that conclusion is that religious considerations and language are incompatible with the role of doctors as public officials.1 Much as I agree with their conclusion, I take issue with this particular aspect of their analysis. It seems based on a mischaracterisation of what societal role doctors fulfil, qua doctors. What obliges (...) doctors to communicate by means of content that is expressed in public reason-based language is not that they are public officials. Doctors as doctors are not necessarily public officials. Rather, doctors have such obligations, because they are professionals. Unlike public officials doctors are part of a profession that is to a significant extent self-governing. This holds true for all professions. The …. (shrink)

This essay inquires into the semantics of the term “experience” in a selection of prose novels from the early modern period. Against the background of a complex history of discourses about experience, ultimately leading to a fully articulated concept of “empiricism” and “experiment”, the author traces the term’s usages in Hartlieb’s ‘Alexander’, in the novel ‘Fortunatus’ as well as in Wickram’s ‘Of Good and Bad Neighbours’. Furthermore, he elaborates those cultural topoi of experience that are based principally on an understanding (...) of “memory” and “adaptation”. As a result, the author is able to show, that all three texts place varying emphases on the topics of experience. (shrink)

This paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997. An earlier version of this paper appeared in OECD’s STI Review No. 21, 1998, OECD. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organization founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Information at [email protected].

Background: The advent of AIDS brought about a group of patients unwilling to accept crucial aspects of the methodological standards for clinical research investigating Phase 1 drugs, surgeries or devices. Their arguments against placebo controls in trials, which depended-at the time-on the terminal status of patient volunteers led to a renewed discussion of the ethics of denying patients with catastrophic illnesses access to last-chance experimental drugs, surgeries or devices. Sources of data: Existing ethics and health policy literature on the topic (...) of access to experimental drugs. Areas of agreement: The positions of those arguing for or against free access to experimental drugs for terminally ill patients are irreconcilable. Areas of controversy: At stake are questions about the kinds of personal sacrifices society can reasonably expect patients in clinical trials to make to ensure statistically predictive results. These would benefit by necessity a much larger number of current and future patients-the conflict is about individual versus public interests. It is also about the question of whether or not the state can legitimately prevent patients with terminal illnesses from unfettered access to experimental drugs, surgeries or devices in order to motivate them to participate in clinical trials. We review the ethical arguments for and against the provision of access to Phase 1 agents for terminally ill patients. Growing points: Finding a compromise between providing free or no access to Phase 1 drugs for terminally ill patients. Areas timely for developing research: We ought to investigate means to increase access to experimental drugs for terminally ill patients without sacrificing necessary clinical trials' sounds scientific methods. (shrink)

Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can (...) be integrated into approaches for political decision making about risk. The article starts with an analysis of the dichotomous view of reason and emotion in risk theory, in approaches to participatory risk assessment as well as in relevant approaches to political philosophy. This article then presents alternative approaches in political philosophy and political theory that do explicitly endorse the importance of emotions. Based on these insights, a procedural approach for policy making is presented, in which emotional responses to technological risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. This approach allows for morally better political decisions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals’ capacity to protect themselves, while caring for infected patients during an infectious disease pandemic, depends on their ability to practise universal precautions. In turn, universal precautions rely on the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE). During the SARS-CoV2 outbreak many healthcare workers across the globe have been reluctant to provide patient care because crucial PPE components are in short supply. The lack of such equipment during the pandemic was not a result of careful resource allocation decisions in the (...) global north, where the short supply could be explained through their high cost. Instead, they were the result of democratically elected governments prioritising low tax regimes over an adequate resourcing of their healthcare delivery systems. Such decisions were made despite global health experts warning about the high probability of pandemics like SARS-CoV2 occurring during our lifetimes. Avoidable allocation decisions by democratically elected political leaders resulted in a lack of sufficient PPE for healthcare professionals. After discussing and discounting various ethical arguments in support of a professional obligation to treat, even without or with suboptimal PPE, I conclude that these policy decisions were sufficiently grave that they provide a sound ethical rationale to justify healthcare workers’ refusal to provide care to infected patients. (shrink)