An analysis of the value systems of critical social issues is difficult to carry out in any qualified sense from an unstructured basis and that attempts to do so easily result in relatively superficial discussions of particular issues. Instead, we suggest how this might be viewed from a more holistic ethical and systems theological perspective. In doing so, we review a new framework that aims to distil relevant issues regarding necessary trade-offs and how this can be done. Broadly speaking, this (...) consists of a kind of Socratic dialogue that systematically examines the value basis of the decisions that need to be made, as well as whether the effects of the decisions become unacceptable and thus need to be modified vis-à-vis the normative system embraced by the decision-maker. We discuss the role of theologians in this and emphasise that they should take a larger place in discussions on how to deal with complex societal crises. (shrink)

This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The Prisoners Dilemma," the book brings together new work using models from game theory, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, as well as from philosophical analysis. Among the contributors are leading figures in these fields, including David Gauthier, Paul M. Churchland, Brian Skyrms, Ronald de (...) Sousa, and Elliot Sober. (shrink)

En ética de poblaciones, se apela a ciertas perspectivas léxicas y de nivel crítico totalistas para evitar la conclusión repugnante. Dado que la conclusión muy repugnante es una condición de adecuación más débil, podría pensarse que estas perspectivas también nos permitirán evitar esta conclusión. En este artículo argumento que no es así. Primero, muestro que estas perspectivas léxicas no evitan la conclusión muy repugnante. Después, muestro que las perspectivas de rango crítico totalistas tampoco la evitan. Finalmente, aclaro qué perspectivas nos (...) permiten evitar esta conclusión. (shrink)

This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The Prisoners Dilemma," the book brings together new work using models from game theory, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, as well as from philosophical analysis. Among the contributors are leading figures in these fields, including David Gauthier, Paul M. Churchland, Brian Skyrms, Ronald de (...) Sousa, and Elliot Sober. (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

Reflexive Methodology established itself as a groundbreaking success, providing researchers with an invaluable guide to a central problem in research methodology – how to put field research and interpretations in perspective, paying attention to the interpretive, political, and rhetorical nature of empirical research. Now thoroughly updated, the Second Edition includes a new chapter on positivism, social constructionism, and critical realism, and offers new conclusions on the applications of methodology. It provides further illustrations and updates that build on the acclaimed and (...) successful First Edition. (shrink)

Two views of scientific theories dominated the philosophy of science during the twentieth century, the syntactic view of the logical empiricists and the semantic view of their successors. I show that neither view is adequate to provide a proper understanding of the connections that exist between theories at different times. I outline a new approach, a hybrid of the two, that provides the right structural connection between earlier and later theories, and that takes due account of the importance of the (...) mathematical models of a theory and of the various distinct formulations that pick out these models. (shrink)

A social conception of science -- The pursuit of forms -- Beyond the doctrine of signs -- Structures of mediation -- Signs in action -- Prospects of communication -- From a rhetorical point of view.

Previous accounts of psychiatry within Communist Europe have emphasized the dominance of biological approaches to mental health treatment. Psychotherapy was thus framed as a taboo or marginal component of East European psychiatric care. In more recent years, this interpretation has been re-examined as historians are beginning to delve deeper into the diversity of mental healthcare within the Communist world, noting many instances in which psychotherapeutic techniques and theory entered into clinical practice. Despite their excellent work uncovering these hitherto neglected histories, (...) however, historians of the psy-disciplines in Eastern Europe have neglected to fully consider the ways that post-World War II psychotherapeutic developments were not simply continuations of pre-war psychoanalytic traditions, but rather products of emerging transnational networks and knowledge exchanges in the post-war period. This article highlights how psychotherapy became a leading form of treatment within Communist Yugoslavia. Inspired by theorists in France and the United Kingdom, among other places, Yugoslav practitioners became well versed in a number of psychotherapeutic techniques, especially ‘brief psychotherapy’ and group-based treatment. These developments were not accidents of ideology, whereby group psychotherapy might be accepted by authorities as a nod to some idea of ‘the collective’, but were rather products of economic limitations and strong links with international networks of practitioners, especially in the domains of social psychiatry and group analysis. The Yugoslav example underscores the need for more historical attention to transnational connections among psychotherapists and within the psy-disciplines more broadly. (shrink)

Background: Recent studies on public attitudes toward life extension technologies show a mix of ambivalence toward and support for extending the human lifespan. Attitudes toward genetic modification of organisms and technological enhancements may be used to categorize individuals according to political or ideological orientation such as technoprogressive or conservative and it could be easy to assume that these categories are related to more general categorizations related to culture, e.g. between Traditional and Secular-rational values in the World Values Survey. This paper (...) discusses how attitudes toward aspects of radical life extension may be related to cultural values as revealed in an online deliberative survey among university students conducted between January 2012 to January 2013. Survey results suggest that attitudes toward radical life extension tend to be mixed among groups categorized as Traditional, Secular-rational, Survivalist, and Self-expressionist. The study explored the relation between responses of 326 university students to 5 key questions on radical life extension and the cultural values they tend to favor as indicated by their response to 20 statements from the World Values Survey.Design and Method: The survey consisted of 3 stages: an online pre-discussion survey, face-to-face discussion, and post-discussion survey. After completing the 5 main survey questions in stage 1, participants were presented two additional questionnaires: one on cultural attitudes using 20 statements from the 2004-2008 World Values Survey and another on health attitudes with 12 statements from Dutta-Bergman’s 2004 study. In stage 2, participants were engaged in a face-to-face discussion in class focusing on their responses to the five key questions. After the discussion, they were invited to reconsider the choices and reasons they posted in stage 1 in the light of the face-to-face class discussion in stage 2.Results: Responses to the five survey questions showed that there tended to be more individuals across groups who disagreed with adopting technologies that radically extend the human lifespan beyond the current limit of 120 years. Attitudes toward radical life extension did not correspond to cultural attitudes indicated by responses to the WVS questions. The proportion of agreement/disagreement to statements presented in each of the five questions varied across cultural groups and there tended to be more individuals who disagreed with radical life extension in all groups. Changes in responses after the discussion stage were not significant and most respondents maintained their prior views.Discussion: Cultural attitudes associated with familiar technologies may not correspond with attitudes toward newer technologies since beliefs and values may need to be adapted to new imagined situations that the new technologies elicit. Moral understandings associated with familiar technological habits and beliefs are not necessarily carried over to new technologies. (shrink)

When people die suddenly and unexpectedly ethical issues often come to the fore. The aim of the study was to describe experiences of members of stroke teams in stroke units of ethical problems and how the teams manage the situation when caring for patients faced with sudden and unexpected death from stroke. Data were collected through four focus group interviews with 19 team members in stroke-unit teams, and analysed using interpretive content analysis. Three themes emerged from the analysis characterized by (...) information, decisions about care and support for the next-of-kin in the changing and uncertain situation, with mutual trust as the core. Mutual trust, both within the stroke team and with next-of-kin was seen by the stroke-team members as a way of handling ethical problems by administering care with the patient’s best interest at heart. (shrink)

BackgroundHuman embryonic stem cells as a source for the development of advanced therapy medicinal products are considered for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Research has shown promising results and opened an avenue of great importance for patients who currently lack a disease modifying therapy. The use of hESC has given rise to moral concerns and been the focus of often heated debates on the moral status of human embryos. Approval for marketing is still pending.ObjectiveTo Investigate the perspectives and concerns of patients (...) with PD, patients being the directly concerned stakeholders in the ethical discussion.MethodsQualitative semi-structured interviews related to this new therapy in seventeen patients from two Swedish cities.ResultsThe participants expressed various interests related to the use of human embryos for development of medicinal therapies; however, overall, they were positive towards the use of hESC for treatment of PD. It was deemed important that the donating woman or couple made the choice to donate embryos voluntarily. Furthermore, there were concerns that the industry does not always prioritise the patient over profit; thus, transparency was seen as important. (shrink)

This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. Artificial Morality goes further, (...) by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

Evolutionary theodicies are attempts to explain how the enormous amounts of suffering, premature death and extinction inherent in the evolutionary process can be reconciled with belief in a loving and almighty God. A common strategy in this area is to argue that certain very valuable creaturely attributes could only be exemplified by creatures that are produced by a partly random and uncontrolled process of evolution. Evolution, in other words, was the only possible way for God to create these kinds of (...) creatures. This article presents and examines two versions of the “only way”-argument. The anthropocentric version tries to justify God’s use of evolution by reference to the value of human freedom, and argues that freedom presupposes that God lets go of full control over the process of creation . The non-anthropocentric version presents a similar argument with respect to more inclusive creaturely properties, such as that of being “truly other” than God, or of being a “creaturely self” with a certain degree of autonomy in relation to God . With the help of a number of thought-experiments of the “Twin-Earth”-type, the author argues that both the anthropocentric and the non-anthropocentric only way-arguments fail. (shrink)

SummaryHow can the immense amount of suffering and waste inherent in the evolutionary process be reconciled with the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent God? A widely embraced proposal in the area of “evolutionary theodicy” is the so-called “Only Way”-argument. This argument contends that certain valuable goods – in particular, creaturely independence and human freedom – can only come about through a genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled process of evolution. In a previous article, I have argued that the “Only (...) Way”-argument can be defeated by a “Twin Earth”-thought experiment: If God is omnipotent, he could have created – directly, without evolution – creatures that are molecule-for-molecule identical to those that he actually created through evolution. If the creatures that he actually created have freedom and independence, there is no valid reason to deny that the non-evolved “twin creatures” would also be free and independent. Recently, Eikrem and Søvik have suggested a way of blocking my Twin Earth-argument by appealing to the distinction between type-values and token-values. While ES admit that the Twin Earth-argument shows the non-necessity of evolution for the existence of certain type-goods, they argue that an evolutionary creation can be justified by appeal to valuable token-goods that could not have existed without evolution. In this article, I respond to ES’s token-goods argument by showing that it is incompatible with a basic presupposition of “Only Way” evolutionary theodicies, namely the claim that the evolutionary process is genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled. (shrink)

This paper examines a dilemma in reproductive and population ethics that can illuminate broader questions in axiology and normative ethics. This dilemma emerges because most people have conflicting intuitions concerning whether the interests of non-existent beings can outweigh the interests of existing beings when those merely potential beings are expected to have overall net-good or overall net-bad lives. The paper claims that the standard approach to this issue, in terms of exemplifying the conflict between Narrow Person-Affecting Views and Impersonal Views, (...) is not correct. It argues that, instead, we can approach the issue through the distinction between Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Views about the relative importance of positive and negative value. The paper also claims that Asymmetrical Views provide the most intuitively satisfactory solution to the dilemma and can in addition be defended independently on further grounds. Keywords: person-affecting views, impersonal views, symmetry, asymmetry. (shrink)

This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. _Artificial Morality_ goes further, (...) by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

In this article, I first interpret and evaluate the main argument of E. V. R. Kojonen's book, The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. I then address a challenge against this argument (as well as against design arguments in general), namely, the problem of seemingly malevolent and bad designs in nature. Evolutionary theodicists commonly deal with this problem by assuming that the evolutionary process is not fully under God's control. This solution, however, is deeply problematic from the perspective of classical theism. (...) I therefore suggest another approach to the problem, inspired by the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

This panel discussion took place on June 26, 2021, as part of the programming for an exhibition by critical art collaborative Cesar & Lois at experimental art and research project space Yes We Cannibal (Baton Rouge, LA). The exhibition was entitled Eat the Anthropocene with Cesar & Lois, mycelia and friend entities and ran for six weeks. The panel discussion collected scholars from art, anthropology, literature, landscape architecture, and amateur Mycology to elucidate themes relevant to the artwork, which features a (...) variety of experimental collaborations between codices and fungal life. (shrink)

1 This article examines Peirce's semiotic philosophy and its development in the light of his characterisations of "representationism" and "presentationism". In his definitions of these positions, Peirce overtly pits the representationists, who treat percepts as representatives, against the presentationists, according to whom percepts do not stand for hidden realities. The article shows that Peirce's early writings—in particular the essay "On the Doctrine of Immediate Perception" and certain key texts from the period 1868–9—advocate an inferentialist approach clearly associated with representationism. However, (...) although Peirce continues to deny the cognitive import of first impressions throughout his philosophical career, the new view of perception that emerges in the early 1900s indicates a significant move in the direction of a presentationist point of view, a development partly corresponding to changes in his theory of categories. The strongest evidence for this reading is found in Peirce's contention that the percept is not a sign. The discussion concludes with considerations of possible objections and alternatives to the proposed interpretation in addition to some reflections on the consequences and relevance of Peirce's turn toward presentationism. (shrink)

Epigrams of Lingayat saints of the 16th century espousing the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy; transcribed from a palm-leaf manuscript preserved in the Karnatak University.

Linguistics; Arab languages; teaching and learning.

En este artículo se explica en qué consisten las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento, presenta algunas de las principales razones a su favor y expone cuáles son sus implicaciones con respecto a la consideración moral de los animales. Se argumenta que conforme a estas éticas los usos como recursos de los animales lesivos para estos deberán ser rechazados. A continuación, se examinan las posiciones que aceptan el uso de los animales siempre que este tenga lugar reduciendo los daños infligidos a (...) estos. Se presentarán una serie de razones por las que tales posiciones resultan cuestionables y por las que van a entrar en conflicto con las implicaciones de las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento. (shrink)

Over the last few decades feminists, science and technology studies scholars and others have grappled with how to take materiality into account in understanding social practices, subjectivity and events. One key area for these debates has been drug use and addiction. At the same time, neuroscientific accounts of drug use and addiction have also arisen. This development has attracted criticism as simplistically reinstating material determinism. In this article we draw on 80 interviews with health professionals directly involved in drug-related public (...) policy and service provision in three countries to identify the main ways the neuroscience of addiction (and thus the agency of the brain) is understood. We analyse these understandings using contemporary posthumanist theory to develop new options for conceptualizing matter in public responses to addiction. We close by calling for a new approach to addiction and the brain based on a process model of materiality and public debate. (shrink)

En teoría del valor y en teoría normativa, es común considerar que lo positivo y lo negativo tienen la misma importancia. Algunas rechazan esta idea y consideran que lo negativo tiene mayor importancia. Aquí se presentarán algunos de los argumentos en favor de la asimetría. Tras esto, daré cuenta de los diferentes tipos de posiciones asimétricas defendibles. Explicaré cuáles son las características de cada teoría y qué puntos a favor y en contra de estas posiciones se pueden postular. Por último, (...) consideraré que no hay razones para creer que haya una posición asimétrica claramente superior a las demás. (shrink)

This article investigates the announced refusal to answer as a form of dispreferred and challenging response in broadcast political interviews. The aim is to study how the rightness and wrongness of conduct is dealt with in situations of announced refusal. More specifically, the paper focuses on: announced refusal as a particular type of conduct; the orientation to norms and accountability in situations of announced refusal; how the legitimacy of politics and journalism is negotiated in broadcast interviews. The data consist of (...) 23 cases from Swedish election campaigns, and the analysis is based on Conversation Analysis, focusing on how the participants treat themselves and others as normatively accountable. The study indicates that the politicians understand themselves as accountable and avoid hostile actions in the interviews. Their refusals are designed mainly to be understood as appropriate distancing actions without explicitly complaining about the interviewers’ conduct. (shrink)

How ethical praxis is shaped by different contexts and situations has not been widely studied. We performed a follow-up study on stroke team members’ experiences of ethical problems and how the teams managed the situation when caring for patients faced with sudden and unexpected death from stroke. A number of ways for handling ethical problems emerged, which we have now explored further. Data were collected through a three-part form used as base for individual interviews with 15 stroke team members and (...) analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. In the analysis, the approaches in the form were condensed into strategies, and the two different ways those strategies were preferred and used by the team members were shown. Hindrances perceived by the team members to impede them from working the preferred way were also revealed and grouped into eight categories. (shrink)

It is often claimed that our knowledge of the evolutionary process adds an extra dimension to the classical problem of natural evil and makes this problem worse. Especially the principle of natural selection is often portrayed as morally inappropriate or “unfitting” for a perfectly good God to use as a means for creating biological complexity. In this article, I argue that this common view is misconceived, and that natural selection is a wholly innocuous principle. The real source of evolutionary evils (...) is the fact that resources in nature are scarce – a fact that was known long before Darwin. The problem of natural and evolutionary evil, therefore, is best construed as a question about why God permits scarcity in nature. I argue that recent research about the interrelation between competition and cooperation in the evolutionary process provides resources for answering this perennial question in a more satisfactory way than could be done before the advent of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in the late 19th century entails many problems, some of which are perceptual. Presenting doxology as a post-phenomenological way of approaching epistemic and perceptual questions, this article draws on the problematics of cave art and contemporary cognitive science to discuss the process of perception — what it takes to see what one sees — in caves (and elsewhere). The article concludes that in order to see and perceive anything at all, both our physical and (...) our conceptual resources — the light of the sun as well as the light of the mind, as Empedocles might have said — are needed. The light of the mind is always inextricably linked to doxa. Thus, the article argues that a doxological approach to questions of perception and knowledge is required. (shrink)

The history of the relationship between philosophy and education has been a long and troubled one. In part, this stemmed from the problematic nature of philosophy itself, but this difficulty was compounded by controversy as to the age at which training in philosophy should begin. Although Socrates seemed indifferent to whether he conversed philosophically with young or old, his pupil, Plato, was inclined to restrict philosophy to mature students, on the grounds that it made the younger ones unduly contentious. Since (...) philosophers in those days had the reputation of being ‘friends of wisdom,’ and since being a friend of wisdom seemed to require extensive experience, it came to be taken for granted, generation after generation, that philosophy was not for the young. It has sometimes been made available, on a limited basis, at the secondary school level, but almost never to students in the lower grades. To the suggestion that this prevented children from having access to ideas, theories and abstract concepts, the stock response was that children were mired in the ‘concrete’ level of experience and had no interest in abstractions. To the report that very young children almost invariably greeted opportunities to discuss philosophy with joy and delight, the standard reply was that this proved that the children could not be doing philosophy, since the study of philosophy is a serious and difficult matter. The recent career of philosophy in elementary and secondary education has been a matter of overcoming precisely these objection and misconceptions. Unfortunately, a listing of the advantages to be derived by the young from the study of philosophy—its strengthening of reasoning and judgment, its fostering of concept-formation skills, its clarification of values and ideals—is likely to obscure the intrinsic satisfactions that children derive from their classroom communities of philosophical inquiry. But even here there are signs of change, and a new appreciation of the educational possibilities of philosophy is at last beginning to surface in the schools. (shrink)