Environmental ethics has mostly been practiced separately from philosophy of technology, with few exceptions. However, forward thinking suggests that environmental ethics must become more interdisciplinary when we consider that almost everything affects the environment. Most notably,technology has had a huge impact on the natural realm. In the following discussion, the notions of synthesising philosophy of technology and environmental ethics are explored with a focus on research, development, and policy.

Shane Epting illustrates that the problem of “moral prioritization” rests at the heart of problems with city transportation systems. To overcome such challenges, he develops a multitiered assessment system that shows how to evaluate complicated affairs in urban mobility.

Despite numerous ethical examinations of automated vehicles, philosophers have neglected to address how these technologies will affect vulnerable people. To account for this lacuna, researchers must analyze how driverless cars could hinder or help social justice. In addition to thinking through these aspects, scholars must also pay attention to the extensive moral dimensions of automated vehicles, including how they will affect the public, nonhumans, future generations, and culturally significant artifacts. If planners and engineers undertake this task, then they will have (...) to prioritize their efforts to avoid additional harm. The author shows how employing an approach called a “complex moral assessment” can help professionals implement these technologies into existing mobility systems in a just and moral fashion. (shrink)

The United States Federal Government has repeatedly put the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico in harm’s way due to the injurious after-effects of air-to-ground weapons testing. Most of the harm happened during the Navy’s 70 years on the island. Yet, the harm continues today considering that aspects of the cleanup count as continued acts of environmental injustice, viewed within the context of the island’s colonial history. Usually, this harm deals with public health issues, but the remediation protocols do not account (...) for considerations such as cultural identity and heritage. This paper shows how the procedures for environmental remediation in Vieques qualify as a case of environmental injustice according to Robert M. Figueroa’s ‘environmental justice paradigm.’ The aim of employing this kind of approach is to pinpoint the underlying reasons why this is a case of environmental injustice. (shrink)

Moral issues in urban planning involving technology, residents, marginalized groups, ecosystems, and future generations are complex cases, requiring solutions that go beyond the limits of contemporary moral theory. Aside from typical planning problems, there is incongruence between moral theory and some of the subjects that require moral assessment, such as urban infrastructure. Despite this incongruence, there is not a need to develop another moral theory. Instead, a supplemental measure that is compatible with existing moral positions will suffice. My primary goal (...) in this paper is to explain the need for this supplemental measure, describe what one looks like, and show how it works with existing moral systems. The secondary goal is to show that creating a supplemental measure that provides congruency between moral systems that are designed to assess human action and non-human subjects advances the study of moral theory. (shrink)

Developing a way to address troublesome issues in areas such as urban planning is a chal-lenging undertaking. It includes making decisions that involve humans, nonhumans, future generations, and historical and cultural artifacts. All of these groups deserve consideration, but not equally. Figuring out how to approach this topic involves overcoming the problem of moral prioritization. The structure of weak anthropocentrism can help with this problem, suggesting that future research on the environmental aspects of metropolitan regions should make use of its (...) applicability. Despite its strengths, weak anthropocentrism must be expanded to address complicated urban issues. A multitiered weak-anthropocentric measure, a “complex moral assessment,” is needed to address these concerns. (shrink)

Transportation infrastructure tremendously affects the quality of life for urban residents, influences public and mental health, and shapes social relations. Historically, the topic is rich with social and political controversy and the resultant transit systems in the United States cause problems for minority residents and issues for the public. Environmental justice frameworks provide a means to identify and address harms that affect marginalized groups, but environmental justice has limits that cannot account for the mainstream population. To account for this condition, (...) I employ a complex moral assessment measure that provides a way to talk about harms that affect the public. (shrink)

Based on their research showing that growing cities follow basic principles, two theoretical physicists, Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, call for researchers and professionals to contribute to a grand theory of urban sustainability. In their research, they develop a ‘science of the city’ to help urban planners address problems that arise from population increases. Although they provide valuable insights for understanding urban sustainability issues, they do not give planners a manageable way to approach such problems. I argue that developing an (...) applied mereology to understand the concept of ‘city identity’ gives planners a theoretical device for addressing urban affairs, including ethical concerns. In turn, I devise a model of city identity to show how a ‘philosophy of the city’ contributes to a grand theory of urban sustainability. (shrink)

Philosophy of the city has recently emerged as a new subfield, garnering global interest. While most inquiries in this area have ‘the city’ or an urban issue as common ground, particular approaches engage in a kind of study identified as ‘intra-disciplinary research.’ An intra-disciplinary approach draws from different areas of philosophy to address problems that extend beyond the limits of individual subfields. A close examination reveals that this practice challenges assumptions holding that definitively answering philosophical questions is the only path (...) to progress. Engaging in this kind of research adds to philosophy’s set of methods, and shows promise for philosophers wrestling with complex issues. (shrink)

While researchers have identified numerous problems with food systems, sustainable, just, and workable solutions remain scarce. Recent developments in the food justice literature, however, show which local food movements favor sustainability and justice as problem-solving measures. Yet, some of the ways that these approaches could work in concert are overlooked. Through focusing on how they are compatible, we can understand how such endeavors can improve the conditions for community control and reduce the detrimental effects of agribusiness. In this paper, the (...) author proposes a participatory budgeting project that involves a relatively new process called “vertical agriculture” to alleviate some of the harm that current agricultural practices cause. In turn, we see how such a measure can improve the integrity of municipal governance and reshape the power structures that control food systems. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophical examinations of automated vehicles have progressed far beyond initial concerns over the ethical decisions that pertain to programming in the event of a crash. In turn, this paper moves in that direction, focusing on the motivations behind efforts to implement driverless vehicles into urban settings. The author argues that the many perceived benefits of these technologies yield a received view of automated vehicles. This position holds that driverless vehicles can solve most if not all urban mobility (...) issues. However, the problem with such an outlook is that it lends itself to transportation planning for automated vehicles, rather than using them as part of planning efforts that could serve urban mobility. Due to this condition, present efforts aimed at improving transportation systems should resist dogmatic thinking. Instead, they should focus on goals that keep topics such a human flourishing, sustainability, and transportation justice firmly in view. (shrink)

The topic of food sovereignty has received ample attention from philosophers and interdisciplinary scholars, from how to conceptualize the term to how globalization shapes it, and several areas in between. This bounty of research informs us about food sovereignty’s practical dimensions, but the theoretical realm still has lessons to teach us, especially how to develop action-based guides to achieve it. This paper is an exploration in that direction. To have that effect, the author interrogates the question, “what is food sovereignty?”, (...) through asking about its motivations, scale, and the answers that will inform solutions. This process reveals that, despite the differences between conceptions of food sovereignties, there is a pattern at play that concerns their nature. The benefit of gaining an understanding of this pattern is to uncover the necessary elements that each solution will require. (shrink)

The need for the comingling of theory and practice in food justice is particularly striking in the context of the built environment, where reactive policies without a theoretical framework and theories which do not take into account the surprises found in application have both failed many times in the past. Shane Epting calls for transdisciplinary collaboration to find paths toward food justice.

This book makes the case that several urban technologies contribute to wicked problems such as climate change and vast social and economic inequalities. Such situations often create unfavorable conditions for mental life in cities. These conditions force us to expand the taxonomy of technology to include new designations: “wicked” and “saving” technologies. Epting holds that the latter can support worthwhile goals such as socially just urban sustainability. Along with fleshing out this view, he provides concrete examples of saving technologies, (...) which include cohousing initiatives, ariel cable cars, participatory budgeting, and car-free zones/cities. (shrink)

Several researchers hold that the cohousing movement supports sustainability, but it remains economically restrictive. This condition challenges cohousing’s status as sustainable, considering that its financially exclusive nature fails to meaningfully address sustainability’s social dimension. Yet, it is doubtful that the cohousing movement set out to create this outcome. When we examine the historical conditions that pertain to multifamily housing, we discover a long-standing pattern of discrimination. For today’s cohousing communities, we see that they are dealing with the residual effects of (...) such prejudicial practices. Most of the unfair treatment comes from zoning and lending, but we also see that cohousing has internal challenges that complicate matters. Through employing an environmental justice framework, however, we can parse kinds of responsibility. If planners, financiers, and cohousing communities can remove these barriers, then cohousing can bolster efforts in urban sustainability. (shrink)

Recently, geologists in Southern Nevada discovered new deposits of naturally occurring asbestos and microscopic fibers in rocks and soil. The danger is that inhaling them can lead to mesothelioma. One problem is that this rare cancer often takes decades to manifest. This discovery abruptly stalled a highway project near Las Vegas. Due to this condition, management developed numerous protocols to keep workers safe. Using this case as a “thought model,” the author challenges an established way of categorizing kinds of technologies (...) as they relate to the concept of being. In turn, this thought model reveals that climate change alters the conditions for being, as recognized in the literature. Advancing this conversation requires that we must reclassify some technologies and develop a categorization for those that reflect a different way of thinking as it concerns being. (shrink)

Although there is a history in urban thought wherein scholars view cities as technologies, the encompassing character of such views inherently limits them. In turn, their usefulness does not efficiently support the kind of thinking that is required to deliver worthwhile outcomes that can promote social justice and human flourishing. However, narrowing the focus through examining municipalities as technologies offers possibilities that can help us achieve such goals. To maximize the utility of this endeavor, employing the structural-ethics approach provides a (...) way to assess urban technologies to achieve success. In this paper, the author explores the ideas above, revealing how they advance our thinking when it comes to remaking, planning, and building existing and future cities. The article concludes by linking these claims to other lessons in urban studies and geography. (shrink)

Corrective measures and remediation efforts aimed at alleviating the conditions of environmental injustice usually depend on federal or state funding. However, such resources could disappear, leavi...

The mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa strives to deliver transit services that promote social equity through bicycle lanes, improved sidewalks, and a world-famous Bus Rapid Transit system, “TransMilenio.” Through examining the principles that guide his planning, we can flesh out a starting point for socially just transit systems. While such measures can alleviate several harms that transit systems cause, they rest on an incomplete foundation due to their top-down nature. To amend this situation, the author argues for a restorative justice (...) approach to transportation democracy, using examples from Peñalosa’s mayoral tenure. In turn, lessons from Bogotá’s transportation history reveal how to develop transit systems that strongly favor justice. (shrink)

Most components of urban infrastructure remain hidden. Due to this condition, we do not think about them in a way that pays attention to the full scope of moral possibilities. For instance, when such topics are forced from the periphery of our thinking to the forefront of our minds, it is usually in terms of figuring out who to blame when they fail to function properly. In turn, one could argue that we only care to talk about an action’s moral (...) status that pertains to infrastructure when it becomes a hazard. While this point deserves examination, the more significant issue is that we lack the moral language required to have conversations about moral praise regarding public works. The purpose of this paper, then, is to flesh out how to discuss morality and infrastructure regarding moral praise. (shrink)

At the heart of some of the most influential strands of philosophical, political, and aesthetic modernism lies the conviction that modernity is fundamentally nihilistic. This book offers a wide-ranging critical history of the concept of nihilism from its origins in French Revolutionary discourse to its place in recent theorizations of the postmodern. Key moments in that history include the concept's appropriation by political activists in mid-nineteenth-century Russia, by Nietzsche in the 1880s, by the European avant-garde and 'high' modernists in the (...) early decades of the twentieth century, by conservative revolutionaries in Germany in the interwar years, and by major theorists in the post-Holocaust period. Focusing in particular on the abiding impact of Nietzsche's claim that art is the 'only superior counterforce' to nihilism, Weller argues that an understanding of modernism (and, indeed, of postmodernism) is impossible without a reflection upon the decisive role played by the concept of nihilism therein. (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. (...) Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship of various trait emotions to the ethical choices of 189 college students who completed a managerial decision-making task as part of an in-basket exercise in a laboratory setting. Prior research regarding emotion influences on ethical decision-making and linkages between emotions and cognition informed hypotheses about how different types of emotions impact ethical choices. Findings supported our expectations that positive and negative emotions classified as active would be more strongly related to interpersonally-directed ethical choices than to (...) organizationally-directed ones, and that passive emotions would be less related to ethical choices than active emotions. Implications for ethical decision-making research and organizational practices are discussed. (shrink)

Absolute devaluation : Friedrich Nietzsche -- Homelessness : Martin Heidegger -- Fatal positivities : Theodor Adorno -- The naive calculation of the negative : Maurice Blanchot -- Bad violence : Jacques Derrida -- The fracture : Giorgio Agamben -- Distortions, or, Nihilism against itself : Gianni Vattimo -- The denial of (Greek) thought : Alain Badiou.

The Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) is a suite of interoperable ontology modules that aims to provide coverage of all aspects of the infectious disease domain, including biomedical research, clinical care, and public health. IDO Core is designed to be a disease and pathogen neutral ontology, covering just those types of entities and relations that are relevant to infectious diseases generally. IDO Core is then extended by a collection of ontology modules focusing on specific diseases and pathogens. In this paper we (...) present applications of IDO Core within various areas of infectious disease research, together with an overview of all IDO extension ontologies and the methodology on the basis of which they are built. We also survey recent developments involving IDO, including the creation of IDO Virus; the Coronaviruses Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO); and an extension of CIDO focused on COVID-19 (IDO-CovID-19).We also discuss how these ontologies might assist in information-driven efforts to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate data discovery in the early stages of future pandemics, and to promote reproducibility of infectious disease research. (shrink)

A fundamental problem in artificial intelligence is that nobody really knows what intelligence is. The problem is especially acute when we need to consider artificial systems which are significantly different to humans. In this paper we approach this problem in the following way: we take a number of well known informal definitions of human intelligence that have been given by experts, and extract their essential features. These are then mathematically formalised to produce a general measure of intelligence for arbitrary machines. (...) We believe that this equation formally captures the concept of machine intelligence in the broadest reasonable sense. We then show how this formal definition is related to the theory of universal optimal learning agents. Finally, we survey the many other tests and definitions of intelligence that have been proposed for machines. (shrink)

Can mythology be a form of critical theory in the service of right? From the standpoint of an Enlightenment tradition, the answer is no. Mythology is characterised by irrationality, and works to mystify reality, whilst critical theory is set against the irrational, its entire force directed at demystifying reality. In a post-Enlightenment tradition, reason, including critical reason, may take mythological form—indeed, there is identity as much as non-identity between the two forms, a mimetic relationship in which the rational cannot be (...) freed of the mythological any more than myth can stand outside reason. However, the work of critical theory remains essentially the same. Whether in the form of rational myth or mythological reason, critical theory must remain in the service of right in the sense of ‘the true’, and thus remains an enlightenment project. In contrast, the aim of this essay is to put forward a model of critical theory that is sympathetic with mythology, not only in its form, but also in the work that it does, which is not in the service of the true but of the good. That model is Peter Fitzpatrick’s seminal work of jurisprudence, The Mythology of Modern Law. After addressing how Fitzpatrick’s Mythology is in the form of a negative mythology, the essay elaborates the critical work of such mythological critical theory. In the case of Mythology, that work involves creating the conditions for a mythological legal pluralism, through the decolonisation of law. (shrink)

This paper compares two theories and their two corresponding computational models of human moral judgment. In order to better address psychological realism and generality of theories of moral judgment, more detailed and more psychologically nuanced models are needed. In particular, a motivationally based theory of moral judgment is developed in this paper that provides a more accurate account of human moral judgment than an existing emotion-reason conflict theory. Simulations based on the theory capture and explain a range of relevant human (...) data. They account not only for the original data that were used to support the emotion–reason conflict theory, but also for a wider range of data and phenomena. (shrink)

Nihilists cannot square their position with common sense simply by paraphrasing away apparent ontological commitments in ordinary language. I argue for this claim by analogy. Paraphrase atheism says there is no God, but tries to square the truth of atheism with ordinary religious sentences by paraphrasing away apparent ontological commitments. Obviously, paraphrase does not reconcile atheism with ordinary language about God. I discuss two different reasons that paraphrase can fail and suggest that both reasons afflict paraphrase nihilism. Hence, paraphrase nihilism (...) cannot reconcile nihilism and common sense, and so nihilists must look for some other strategy that can evade the force of the Atheism Case. (shrink)

Boredom is a frequently experienced and unpleasant state (Bench & Lench, 2019; Danckert et al., 2018; Eastwood et al., 2012) that people are experiencing more frequently (Weybright et al., 2020). W...

This study investigates current linkages between ethical theory and management behavior. The vignettes used in this investigation represent ethical dilemmas in the areas of coercion and control, conflict of interest, physical environment, and personal integrity. The results indicate that even with the heightened state of ethical awareness that has evolved in recent years the link between ethical philosophy and management behavior remains basically the same as it was in the mid 1980s. Specifically, practitioners still rely almost totally on the utilitarian (...) ethical philosophy when making business decisions. (shrink)

In addiction, apparently causally significant phenomena occur at a huge number of levels; addiction is affected by biomedical, neurological, pharmacological, clinical, social, and politico-legal factors, among many others. In such a complex, multifaceted field of inquiry, it seems very unlikely that all the many layers of explanation will prove amenable to any simple or straightforward, reductive analysis; if we are to unify the many different sciences of addiction while respecting their causal autonomy, then, what we are likely to need is (...) an integrative framework. In this paper, we propose the theory of “Externalist” or “4E” – for extended, embodied, embedded, and enactive – cognition, which focuses on the empirical and conceptual centrality of the wider extra-neural environment to cognitive and mental processes, as a candidate for such a framework. We begin in Section 2 by outlining how such a perspective might apply to psychiatry more generally, before turning to some of the ways it can illuminate addiction in particular: Section 3 points to a way of dissolving the classic dichotomy between the “choice model” and “disease model” in the addiction literature; Section 4 shows how 4E concepts can clarify the interplay between the addict’s brain and her environment; and Section 5 considers how these insights help to explain the success of some recovery strategies, and may help to inform the development of new ones. (shrink)

The current linkages between ethical theory and management behavior are investigated. The vignettes used in this investigation represent ethical dilemmas in the areas of coercion and control, conflict of interest, physical environment, and personal integrity. Overall, even with heightened ethical awareness the link between ethical philosophy and management behavior remains similar to that of the early 1990s. Generally, practitioners still rely heavily on the utilitarian ethical philosophy when making business decisions. However, more managers are now likely to select ethically appropriate (...) actions either because it is ethical to do so, or because the consequences or risk of not doing so are too great. This shift could positively impact the ethical climate of business decision-making. (shrink)

Most philosophers and political scientists readily admit that Thomas Hobbes is a significant figure in the history of political thought. His theory was, arguably, one of the first to provide a justification for political legitimacy from the perspective of each individual subject. What has been largely missing in the literature, however, is the application of Hobbesian theory to a variety of current issues in both public policy and applied ethics. The essays in this volume, written by some of the top (...) Hobbesian scholars in the world, provide fresh perspectives on a litany of intransigent local, political, and international issues in applied ethics and public policy. The topics addressed in _Hobbesian Applied Ethics and Public Policy _include the right to die, abortion, same-sex marriage, free speech, terrorism, and international justice. This book will be of interest to Hobbesian scholars, as well as those interested in contemporary issues in applied ethics, political philosophy, and public policy. (shrink)

"Lesbian feminism began and has fueled itself with the rejection of liberalism.... In this rejection, lesbian feminists were not alone. They were joined by the New Left, by many blacks in the civil rights movement, by male academic theorists.... What all these groups shared was an intense awareness of the ways in which liberalism fails to account for the social reality of the world, through a reliance upon law and legal structure to define membership, through individualism, through its basis in (...) a particular conception of rationality." In tracing how lesbian feminism came to be defined in uneasy relationships with the Women’s Movement and gay rights groups, Shane Phelan explores the tension between liberal ideals of individual rights and tolerance and communitarian ideals of solidarity. The debate over lesbian sado-masochism—an expression of individual choice or pornographic, anti-feminist behavior?—is considered as a test case. Phelan addresses the problems faced by "the woman-identified woman" in a liberal society that presumes heterosexuality as the biological, psychological, and moral standard. Often silenced by laws defining their sexual behavior as criminal and censured by a medical establishment that persists in defining homosexuality as perversion, lesbians, like blacks and other groups, have fought to have the same rights as others in their communities and even in their own homes. Lesbian feminists have also sought to define themselves as a community that would be distinctly different, a community that would disavow the traditional American obsession with individual advancement in the world as it is. In this controversial study of political philosophy and the women’s movement, Phelan argues that "the failure to date to produce a satisfying theory and program for lesbian action is reflective of the failure of modern political thinking to produce a compelling, nonsuspect alternative to liberalism." In the series Women in the Political Economy, edited by Ronnie J. Steinberg. (shrink)

In February 1975, a group of leading scientists, physicians, and policymakers convened at Asilomar, California, to consider the safety of proceeding with recombinant DNA research. The excitement generated by the promise of this new technology was counterbalanced by concerns regarding dangers that might arise from it, including the potential for accidental release of genetically modified organisms into the environment. Guidelines developed at the conference to direct future research endeavors had several consequences. They permitted research to resume, bringing to an end (...) the voluntary moratorium that the National Academy of Sciences had instituted several months earlier. They also served to illustrate that the scientific community was capable of self-governance, thereby securing public trust and persuading Congress not to institute legislative restrictions. Finally, they underscored the importance of weighing unforeseen risks inherent in some research against potential benefits that may arise from these same endeavors. (shrink)

Introduction -- Marion's claims -- The hermeneutic structure of phenomenality -- The theory of saturated phenomena -- Events -- Dazzling idols and paintings -- Flesh as absolute -- The face as irregardable icon -- Revelation : the phenomenon of God's appearing -- Conclusion: Revising the phenomenology of givenness.

Phelan examines lesbian political theory and points out the pitfalls of a lesbian feminism that ignores the specificities of race. As she searches for a democratic identity politics, she explores the possibilities for lesbian community and for alliances with other groups, as well as the political goals of lesbian action.