According to the standard account of forgiveness, you forgive your wrongdoer by overcoming your resentment towards them. But how exactly must you do so? And when is such overcoming fitting? The aim of this paper is to introduce a novel version of the standard account to answer these questions. Its core idea is that the reactive attitudes are a fitting response not just to someone’s blameworthiness, but to their blameworthiness being significant for you, or worthy of your caring, in virtue (...) of your relationship to it. Someone’s blameworthiness is significant for you to the extent you’re bound up with what grounds it––e.g. with the wrongdoer’s being a participant in human relationships, with their attitudes, or with the victim’s being a source of demands. So you may fittingly not care about someone’s blameworthiness if it’s sufficiently insignificant for you in this manner––e.g. if their wrong happened far off in place and time. And forgiveness revolves around this. You forgive your wrongdoer if and only if, partly out of goodwill towards them, you cease to care about their blameworthiness––a bit as if their wrong had happened far off. If I’m right, this agent-relativity-based account can resolve the apparent ‘paradoxy of forgiveness’, satisfies a number of desiderata, and is plausible on an intuitive level. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 13 Heft: 1 Seiten: 53-56.

This article uses the idea of resilience as a point of departure for analysing some contemporary challenges to the climate justice movement posed by social-ecological sciences. Climate justice activists are increasingly rallying for a system-change, demanding fundamental changes to political bureaucracy and the economy, which would put ecology, biodiversity and climate change first for all future political decisions. Since the concept of resilience has taken up a central role in recent developments in ecological sciences, it has also become part of (...) the activist debate. The article’s main argument is that the scientific framework behind resilience is not politically neutral and that this framework tends to weaken the activist’s demands for a just transition and place more emphasis on technical and bureaucratic processes. (shrink)

The normative mechanics of promising seem complex. The strength and content of promissory obligations, and the residual duties they entail upon being violated, have various prima facie surprising features. We give an account to explain these features. Promises have a point. The point of a promise to φ is a promise-independent reason to φ for the promisee’s sake. A promise turns this reason into a duty. This explains the mechanics of promises. And it grounds a nuanced picture of immoral promises, (...) an argument against promissory bare wrongings, and a constraint on theories of why we have promissory obligations at all. (shrink)

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

I propose to show that any direct moral bioenhancement procedures that could be realized within a relatively short period of time are not realistic options. This does not have to worry us; however; because alternative options for promoting morality are available. Consequently; moral bioenhancement is not an option for dealing successfully with the increased potential destructiveness of contemporary technologies within a short-term framework; i.e. within this century. In what follows; I will explain why this is the case; and why; contrary (...) to Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu; I think this need not worry us too much. In section 1.; I will critically analyze moral bioenhancement by means of citalopram; aimed at reducing the tendency to harm others directly. I give this prominence because it could be a practical option for altering human emotions and dispositions – to my mind; it seems the most promising practical option in this field. In later sections; I will consider other means of realizing moral bioenhancement; since the first option does not do the job it is supposed to; and because Persson and Savulescu are concerned with alternative approaches. (shrink)

I am focusing here on the main counterarguments that were raised against a thesis I put forward in my article “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” (2009), namely that significant similarities can be found on a fundamental level between the concept of the posthuman, as put forward by some transhumanists, and Nietzsche’s concept of the overhuman. The articles with the counterarguments were published in the recent “Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms” issue of The Journal of Evolution and Technology (January-July 2010). As several (...) commentators referred to identical issues, I decided that it would be appropriate not to respond to each of the articles individually, but to focus on the central arguments and to deal with the counterarguments mentioned in the various replies. I am concerned with each topic in a separate section. The sections are entitled as follows: 1. Technology and evolution; 2. Overcoming nihilism; 3. Politics and liberalism; 4. Utilitarianism or virtue ethics?; 5. The good Life; 6. Creativity and the will to power; 7. Immortality and longevity; 8. Logocentrism; 9. The Third Reich. When dealing with the various topics, I am not merely responding to counterarguments; I also raise questions concerning transhumanism and put forward my own views concerning some of the questions I am dealing with. (shrink)

In analytic philosophy, the concept of trust is often considered primarily to be a three-place relation between trustor, trustee, and the domain of trust. The analysis of trust is unsatisfactory, however, if such a relationship is derivative of other forms of trust, and consequently the analysis has only succeeded in explaining a particular branch of trust rather than explaining the root. Annette Baier considers a climate of trust, with all the moral perils of intimacy, explanatorily superior to contract-based, rational trust (...) between non-intimate equals in modern Western philosophy and thus provides an example of how the traditional analytic model is problematic. In this paper, I propose another account on which the conventional three-place trust relationship investigated in analytic philosophy is derivative. Based on Heidegger's fundamental ontology, humans are constitutively hermeneutic. If Heidegger's fundamental ontology or a similar hermeneutic anthropology is accepted, then trust relationships between humans are explanatorily subordinated to trust relationships between readers and texts rather than the other way around, as traditional accounts suggest. This reversal has a significant impact not only on our analysis of trust, but also on moral theory, personal identity, and scientific method. My paper details both the reversal in explanatory primacy and the implications for these philosophical disciplines. (shrink)

Per the standard reading of his view, Hart held that the legally valid norms of any legal system are those identified as such by the criteria of validity effectively accepted in common by the system's officials. Here, I focus on the presupposition underlying this Hartian account of legal facts – namely, that the officials of any legal system share a perspective that fixes the identity of their system's legally valid norms. Below, I hope to establish the appeal of this presupposition (...) and the attendant Hartian project of providing an account of the identity of the legally valid norms of any legal system. Nonetheless, as I explain, the phenomenon of disagreement that Ronald Dworkin describes threatens Hart's crucial presupposition, thereby posing a mortal threat to his account of legal facts. Moreover, as I hope the following survey illustrates, the phenomenon of disagreement similarly threatens many other contemporary theories of law, for these theories join the project of providing a Hartian account of legal facts. A final objective of this survey is to highlight two mutually exclusive strategies for responding to the phenomenon of disagreement: rejecting the Hartian presupposition and commitment to legal facts or affirming this Hartian project by explaining how officials share a legal fact-fixing perspective despite disagreeing about their system's criteria of validity. (shrink)

Two questions are the starting point for the discussion contained in this article: (a) Does the future exist? (b) What is the future? A preliminary analysis of these questions leads to the conclusion that their solution needs to introduce three different principal modes of existence characterized for objects belonging to the time sphere of being. They are: real (actual) existence (i.e. existence of „now”), postreal existence (the past) and potential (prereal) existence. In accordance with this differentiation the answer to point (...) (a) is generally determined by the following theses: (1) The future exists in potentiality, (2) The future exists neither in reality nor in postreality. The notion of potential existence includes two categories of objects. The first one - objects which in fact will become real objects (present). They may be described as potential objects sensu stricto. The second category constists of the quasi-potential objects, that is the objects whose potentiality of becoming real (actual) ones will never come into existence. The differentiation of categories mentioned above makes possible to formulate three definitions of the future: (D1) The future is the domain of potential, or quasi-potential objects, (D2) The future is the domain of the potential objects, (D3) The future is the domain of quasi-potential objects. The definition (D3) is obviously inadequate, hence the solution of the problem, what is the future, may be reduced to the choice between definitions (D1) and (D2). The arguments of the paper convince us that the adequate definition of the future is the definition (D2). First - contrary to (D1) - it describes the future as ontologically homogeneous domain containing only objects which will become objects of the present and subsequently past objects. Second, when the future is defined by the competitive definition (D1) it is doubtful whether the language systems, referring to the time sphere of being, can fulfill the basic principles of the classical logig: the principle of contradiction and the principle of excluded middle. (shrink)

The main thesis of the paper is that change and time depend existentially on a specific property of being, described by the author as the Heraclitean unstability (i.e. a kind ofsusceptibility to non-existence). Change and time are, in substance, quite different aspects of being; but they are mutually connected: time cannot exist without occurence of changes; and vice versa. All these intuitions are logically reconstructed by the author.

Abstract:The “nonidentical” is Adorno’s term for anything that cannot be grasped by a concept or a system of concepts: sensual experience and events; emotions, understood as unconscious but influential layers of the psychic system; emergent results of interactions; the possibility of non-alienated and non-reified social circumstances. Within practices of music pedagogy, the nonidentical is relevant under all these aspects: the naming of musical issues does not encompass (let alone substitute for) the musical phenomenon (and it is not self-evident how to (...) conceptualize appropriate deictic actions). Emotionality should not be tamed (and it is an open question how to bring it to bear in a sensible way). Emergent results of the interaction in music lessons are a problem for planning classes, a planning which has to consider learning outcomes. The school system is almost completely shaped by economics of education (and cannot easily try to simulate processes of non-alienated and non-reified interactions between all participants). Corresponding research has to focus on identities constituting practices in music pedagogy; but it can develop a sensitivity to realizations of the nonidentical and induce new practices which are structured according to Critical Theory. The paper is concerned with the complementarity of identities and the nonidentical with regard to music pedagogy in a broader perspective, classifying practices of music pedagogy within a system of this discipline–on the basis of a logic of reflection. (shrink)

Widespread consideration of the role of the public sector was bound to develop in a society confronted by a serious economic crisis.The reforms of local government carried out in the 60s and 70s have not led to the strengthening of local authorities and their means, as claimed deceptively in politica! speeches, hut towards more influence by central government on these authorities and ultimately to its increased power over the administration of society.There is not doubt that the state in its diligence (...) to run almost everything is not only failing in its task of governing hut is also putting society at risk. The administrations which come under the intermediary authorities could form a useful counterforce against the ever present invasion of the state.For reason of its reduced capabilities local government shows the first virtue of not being able to claim hegemony, but also of being an instrument close to the citizen and his control. Furthermore it could manage many tasks in the best way. (shrink)

Two processes have shaped the political order of the modern age: bureaucratization and democratization. The political sociology of Max Weber is commonly associated only with the first of these. Its relationship to democracy, by contrast, seems ambiguous. Political scientists oriented towards natural law, such as Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin or Robert Eden, condemn the value-relativism of his political sociology, its agnosticism or even nihilism, and conclude that it is incapable of taking a positive stance vis-à-vis democracy. Others take offence at (...) the overemphasis on power in Weber’s theory (Aron, von Ferber), at the élitist or oligarchic understanding of politics which puts Weber close to pre-fascist élite theorists such as Mosca, Pareto or Michels (Mommsen), at the latent fascism implicit in his concept of charisma (Becker 1988) and so on. Max Weber appears as a forerunner of Carl Schmitt (Mommsen, Habermas), or as a precursor of the authoritarian and dictatorial Führerstaat (Löwith). Even those who value him for his pitiless unmasking of the illusory character of modern mass democracy and its transformation into Bonapartist Caesarism (Marcuse, Lukács) leave little doubt that they regard Weber as standing solidly on the side of the latter.1 Max Weber and democracy? Not all his interpreters, perhaps, but certainly a large number, would find ‘Max Weber contra democracy’ a more accurate title. (shrink)

Bevor die präsentationstheoretischen Verhältnisse der spinozistischen Philosophie analysiert werden, sei ein schematischer Überblick über deren Konzeption vorangestellt. Folgt man der Reihenfolge der Definitionen des ersten Teils der Ethik, hat man mit der Bestimmung der Substanz zu beginnen.

The French molecular biologist François Jacob outlined a theory of evolution as tinkering. From a methodological point of view, his approach can be seen as a biologic specification of the relation between laws, describing coherently the dynamics of a system, and contingent boundary conditions on this dynamics. From a semiotic perspective, tinkering is a pragmatic concept well-known from the information-theoretic anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss. In idealized contrast to an engineer, the tinkerer has to accept the concrete restrictions on his material (...) resources as only gradually changeable constraints on his projects. Jacobian biopragmatics examines evolution as a biologic analogue to human tinkering devoid of any projecting subjectivity. To validate this analogy, four basic principles concerning main formal aspects of evolutionary objects, agents, histories, and consistency criteria are proposed. (shrink)

This article discusses paleographic and linguistic aspects of the Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions on the Tillya-tepe and Pushkalavati coins and adduces some epigraphic and literary parallels. It proposes a syntactically separate reading of the two sides of the Tillya-tepe coin, and concludes that in spite of some differences of execution the coins may have been produced in the same workshop.

The phonetic change between b and w is analyzed in a new way. The phenomenon can be considered as firmly established in current research and the list of examples is here enriched by further material. The objects of investigation consist of writings of single words, as well as plays on words.

Die Ästhetik wird als eigenständige philosophische Disziplin im zweiten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts von Gelehrten an der Universität Halle begründet. Zur gleichen Zeit treibt die Frage nach dem 'ganzen Menschen' in Halle die Gemüter um: Eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen, die Anthropologie, kündigt sich an. Treffend ist deshalb von einer "Gleichursprünglichkeit von Ästhetik und Anthropologie" gesprochen worden. Worin genau sie besteht, klärt dieses Buch.

The ways in which the sciences have been delineated and categorized throughout history provide insights into the formation, stabilization, and establishment of scientific systems of knowledge. The Dresdener school’s approach for explaining and categorizing the genesis of the engineering disciplines is still valid, but needs to be complemented by further-reaching methodological and theoretical reflections. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social practice is applied to the question of how individual agents succeed in influencing decisively a discipline’s changing object orientation, institutionalisation and self-reproduction. (...) Through the accumulation of social, cultural and economic capital, they succeed in realising their own organisational ideas and scientific programs. Key concepts for the analysis include the struggle for power and resources, monopolies of interpretation, and the degree of autonomy. A case study from the Aachener Technische Hochschule shows that the consolidation of ferrous metallurgy can be conceived as a symbolical struggle between Fritz Wüst, professor for ferrous metallurgy, and the German Iron and Steel Institute, leading to a construction of a system of differences in which scientists accepted being scientists rather than entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs accepted becoming entrepreneurs and renounced science. (shrink)

This paper responds to the reform agenda of Reiner Eichenberger who proposes the deregulation of the voting system in order to enhance the competition among the candidates and to improve the responsiveness of elected representatives. Based on the theory of parliamentary representation the paper argues that a simple transfer of economic principles into the realm of politics comes to its limits where the differences between the economic and political systems are significant. Regulation in politics is necessary and unavoidable where the (...) abuse of political power is to be prevented. (shrink)

A wide variety of bioethical themes have recently been debated and researched in Sweden, including genetic screening, HPV vaccination strategies, end-of-life care, injustices and priority setting in healthcare, dual-use research, and the never-ending story of scientific fraud. Also, there are some new events related to Swedish biobanking that might be of general interest. Here we will concentrate on four themes: end-of-life care, dual-use research, scientific fraud, and biobanking.

This paper is devoted to an examination of Bolzano’s notion of necessary existence, which has so far received relatively little attention in the literature. We situate Bolzano’s ideas in their historical context and show how he proposed to correct various flaws of his predecessors’ definitions. Further, we relate Bolzano’s conception to his metaphysical and theological assumptions, arguing that some consequences of his definition which have been deemed counterintuitive by some of his interpreters turn out to be more reasonable given the (...) broadly Leibnizian background of his metaphysics. Finally, we consider some difficulties that arise from Bolzano’s evolving views on freedom, which, at least in his early thought, was intimately linked with contingency. In an appendix, we discuss a recent debate on Bolzano’s notion of necessary truth between Textor and Rusnock that has some bearing on our overall line of interpretation of Bolzano’s notion of necessary existence. (shrink)

This chapter presents a survey of the most important features of the formal semantic analysis of modality and mood. It first focuses on modality as exemplified by the modal verbs, presenting the main concepts and introducing the most common basic formal apparatus used in its analysis, and surveying some of the issues that are currently central in the field. The chapter then turns to the treatment of mood, discussing formal semantic treatments of both “sentential mood” and “verbal mood”. The last (...) part of the chapter addresses the issue of modal subordination. The chapter aims to give a sense of the major phenomena and theoretical approaches, as well as introduce the primary literature. (shrink)