Epistemology and Spiritual Authority. Vittorio A. van Bijlert., Vienna 1989. 191 pp. ÖS 230.00.

Max Weber has shown that the informing spirit of Western capitalism originated from the Christian Reformation. The capitalist spirit can be regarded as a stand-in of Western modernity as a whole. Western modernity was initially the outcome of the theology of Calvinism. Calvinist modernity inspired political revolutions that since the seventeenth century irreversibly transformed Western feudal societies into bourgeois democratic nation-states. Something comparable happened in India in the nineteenth century with the rediscovery of Vedanta. Rediscovery, reinterpretation and public dissemination of (...) Vedanta constituted the Indian version of a Reformation. In the beginning of the twentieth century this Vedantic Reformation inspired the revolutionary political movement, which sought to free India from foreign domination. Vedanta was regarded as informing the spirit of Indian modernity because Vedanta emphasizes individual emancipation. This same emancipation was to imply collective emancipation from the bonds of colonialism and tyranny. These values of Vedantic modernity remain an important source of inspiration for the socio-political emancipation of the whole of the Indian population. (shrink)

In the coming years people will live in an ever-globalizing world with possibilities and challenges that did not exist before. The contours of this new world are already with us—capital flow across the world with lightning speed; mass media events broadcast anywhere in the globe as if they happened next door; tests, food habits, consumer goods, cultural production and political ideas floating across the globe unhindered; the boundaries of nation states becoming more and more porous; and the Internet being a (...) major source of rapid unbound communication. All sectors of the society are affected by this global society, the technological revolution. In this connection ethics becomes an increasingly im portant issue in global decision making. The author suggests some solutions on the basis of Indian culture. (shrink)

Background The 2020-2021 coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is just the latest epidemic event that requires us to rethink and change our understanding of health. Health should no longer be conceived only in relation to human beings, but in unitary terms, as a dimension that connects humans, animals, plants, and the environment (holistic view, One Health). In general, alterations occurring in this articulated chain of life trigger a domino effect. Methodology In this paper, we review the One Health paradigm in the light (...) of the Covid-19 pandemic and distinguish two approaches within it that might be dubbed the Prudent one and the Radical one. Each approach is structured in three levels – epistemological, medical, and ethical. Results In this way, we show how we humans can better address the pandemic today and how, in the future, we can treat the whole living system better, by renouncing our anthropocentric perspective on health. Conclusion We hold that the Prudent approach can be very helpful, and we discuss the medical and ethical issues related to it. We also consider the Radical view and the epistemological turn it requires compared to the Prudent one. (shrink)

:The microbiome is proving to be increasingly important for human brain functioning. A series of recent studies have shown that the microbiome influences the central nervous system in various ways, and consequently acts on the psychological well-being of the individual by mediating, among others, the reactions of stress and anxiety. From a specifically neuroethical point of view, according to some scholars, the particular composition of the microbiome—qua microbial community—can have consequences on the traditional idea of human individuality. Another neuroethical aspect (...) concerns the reception of this new knowledge in relation to clinical applications. In fact, attention to the balance of the microbiome—which includes eating behavior, the use of psychobiotics and, in the treatment of certain diseases, the use of fecal microbiota transplantation—may be limited or even prevented by a biased negative attitude. This attitude derives from a prejudice related to everything that has to do with the organic processing of food and, in general, with the human stomach and intestine: the latter have traditionally been regarded as low, dirty, contaminated and opposed to what belongs to the mind and the brain. This biased attitude can lead one to fail to adequately consider the new anthropological conceptions related to the microbiome, resulting in a state of health, both physical and psychological, inferior to what one might have by paying the right attention to the knowledge available today. Shifting from the ubiquitous high-low metaphor to an inside-outside metaphor can thus be a neuroethical strategy to achieve a new and unbiased reception of the discoveries related to the microbiome. (shrink)

A new class of visuomotor neuron has been recently discovered in the monkey’s premotor cortex: mirror neurons. These neurons respond both when a particular action is performed by the recorded monkey and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Experimental evidence suggests that a similar matching system also exists in humans. What might be the functional role of this matching system? One (...) possible function is to enable an organism to detect certain mental states of observed conspecifics. This function might be part of, or a precursor to, a more general mind-reading ability. Two different accounts of mind-reading have been suggested. According to “theory theory‘, mental states are represented as inferred posits of a naive theory. According to “simulation theory‘, other people’s mental states are represented by adopting their perspective: by tracking or matching their states with resonant states of one’s own. The activity of mirror neurons, and the fact that observers undergo motor facilitation in the same muscular groups as those utilized by target agents, are findings that accord well with simulation theory but would not be predicted by theory theory. (shrink)

In the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected (...) 703 papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field (BEER, BEQ, BSE, BAS, JBE) in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: (i) the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; (ii) the variety of government levels involved; and (iii) the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in‐depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR. (shrink)

For a large proportion of our daily lives, spontaneously occurring thoughts tend to disengage our minds from goal-directed thinking. Previous studies showed that EEG features such as the P3 and alpha oscillations can predict mind-wandering to some extent, but only with accuracies of around 60%. A potential candidate for improving prediction accuracy is the Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential, which is used frequently in single-trial contexts such as brain-computer interfaces as a marker of the direction of attention. In this study, we (...) modified the sustained attention to response task that is usually employed to measure spontaneous thought to incorporate the SSVEP elicited by a 12.5-Hz flicker. We then examined whether the SSVEP could track and allow for the prediction of the stickiness and task-relatedness dimensions of spontaneous thought. Our results show that the SSVEP evoked by flickering words was able to distinguish between more and less sticky thinking but not between whether a participant was on- or off-task. This suggests that the SSVEP is able to track spontaneous thinking when it is strongly disengaged from the task but not off-task thought in general. Future research should determine the exact dimensions of spontaneous thought to which the SSVEP is most sensitive. (shrink)

de Bruin & Gallagher suggest that the view of embodied simulation put forward in our recent article lacks explanatory power. We argue that the notion of reuse of mental states represented with a bodily format provides a convincing simulational account of the mirroring mechanism and its role in mind -reading.

Policymakers need to start considering the impact smart connected toys (SCTs) have on children. Equipped with sensors, data processing capacities, and connectivity, SCTs targeting children increasingly penetrate pervasively personal environments. The network of SCTs forms the Internet of Toys (IoToys) and often increases children's engagement and playtime experience. Unfortunately, this young part of the population and, most of the time, their parents are often unaware of SCTs’ far-reaching capacities and limitations. The capabilities and constraints of SCTs create severe side effects (...) at the technical, individual, and societal level. These side effects are often unforeseeable and unexpected. They arise from the technology's use and the interconnected nature of the IoToys, without necessarily involving malevolence from their creators. Although existing regulations and new ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence provide remedies to address some of the side effects, policymakers did not develop these redress mechanisms having children and SCTs in mind. This article provides an analysis of the arising side effects of SCTs and contrasts them with current regulatory redress mechanisms. We thereby highlight misfits and needs for further policymaking efforts. (shrink)

PurposeStarting from the end‐to‐end principle, a founding element of the internet's technical architecture, the paper aims to discuss its extension and effects at the social level. It shows how the internet moves power from governments and private entities to individual citizens, restructuring our societies and creating a new global stakeholder class – individual users of the internet. It connects the advent of this stakeholder class with a traditional principle of internet governance, “rough consensus”. It discusses advantages and risks of this (...) change, suggesting that this shift of power might be beneficial to solve deadlocks in the governance of global phenomena and to ensure that solutions pursue the global public interest. Finally, it discusses how this social evolution can be protected from opposing forces, countering the opinion that the freedom of the internet is intrinsic and not needing regulatory supports.Design/methodology/approachThe paper builds upon observation of case studies, such as the struggle between the industry and users over peer‐to‐peer music downloads, and upon the author's first‐hand experience in global internet governance processes.FindingsThe paper formalizes a social expression of the end‐to‐end principle and demonstrates the need for such principle to be recognized and protected by regulation, to preserve the social model described in the paper and its benefits.Originality/valueThe paper explores the connections between the technical, economic and social architectures of the global network, providing support for understanding the political dynamics of the internet and other global phenomena, and for designing effective governance processes to address them. (shrink)

The growth of global value chains (GVCs) and the emergence of novel forms of value chain governance pose two questions for normative business ethics. First, how should we conceptualize the relationships between members of a GVC? Second, what ethical implications follow from these relationships, both with respect to interactions between GVC members and with respect to achieving broader transnational governance goals? We address these questions by examining the emergence of transnational eco-labeling as an increasingly prominent form of GVC governance that (...) is redefining the relationship between nominally independent firms. On the first question, we argue that GVCs occupy a middle ground between intrafirm and interfirm transactions, thereby posing a challenge to theoretical frameworks that attempt to apply ethical standards based on transaction types. On the second question, we argue that this unique institutional status leads to a range of novel ethical considerations and dilemmas for GVC members. Lead firms, their suppliers, and third-party standard-setters all confront new ethical quandaries when third-party eco-labeling is introduced to a GVC. The nature of these quandaries means that, while GVCs may be well-positioned to serve as instruments of transnational governance, they are frequently not well-oriented to do so. Our analysis marks an initial attempt to map the ethical considerations that apply to members of a GVC, and in doing so, places the literature on normative business ethics and transnational governance in a closer conversation. (shrink)

United Nations (UN) leaders suggest that the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the SDGs provide a valuable platform to call for a basic income (BI) globally. Adopting a critical historical studies approach, the article traces the evolution of ‘development’, including the UN decades of development, the Millennium Development Goals, and the SDGs. It subsequently describes the structural adjustment and poverty reduction efforts by (...) the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and then outlines why the SDG framework may be helpful in advancing a BI. We argue that as climate-related disasters increase, a BI will be vital in providing a modicum of security in an increasingly unstable world. Calls for BI must be anchored to a broader change agenda that recognizes the causes of poverty and income inequality, and seeks their dismantling and redress. (shrink)

We develop the theory of partial satisfaction relations for structures that may be proper classes and define a satisfaction predicate ($\models^*$) appropriate to such structures. We indicate the utility of this theory as a framework for the development of the metatheory of first-order predicate logic and set theory, and we use it to prove that for any recursively enumerable extension $\Theta$ of ZF there is a finitely axiomatizable extension $\Theta'$ of GB that is a conservative extension of $\Theta$. We also (...) prove a conservative extension result that justifies the use of $\models^*$ to characterize ground models for forcing constructions. (shrink)

The goal of cognitive modeling is to build faithful simulations of human cognition. One of the challenges is that multiple models can often explain the same phenomena. Another challenge is that models are often very hard to understand, explore, and reuse by others. We discuss some of the solutions that were discussed during the 2015 International Conference on Cognitive Modeling.