Introduction: bearing politics -- Abortion, sin, and the state -- A history of the abortion debate -- Conceiving the nation: representations of abortion in Thailand -- Corrupt girls, victims of men, desperate women: representations of women who abort -- 'A small sin': everyday acts -- 'The truth of our day by day lives': situational ethics -- Global debates, local dilemmas.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Gregorian University).

Accompanying DVD is a filmed segment of the conversation.

Theories of binding have recently come into the focus of the consciousness debate. In this review, we discuss the potential relevance of temporal binding mechanisms for sensory awareness. Specifically, we suggest that neural synchrony with a precision in the millisecond range may be crucial for conscious processing, and may be involved in arousal, perceptual integration, attentional selection and working memory. Recent evidence from both animal and human studies demonstrates that specific changes in neuronal synchrony occur during all of these processes (...) and that they are distinguished by the emergence of fast oscillations with frequencies in the gamma-range. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken ist ein unveränderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1894. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernährung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitäten erhältlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bücher neu und trägt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch für die Zukunft (...) bei. (shrink)

El presente artículo intentará mostrar el punto de transición que se da en el pensamiento merleau-pontyano entre un primado de la percepción y una rehabilitación ontológica de lo sensible. Dicho punto se refiere a una prioridad ontológica del mundo percibido, el cual pone de manifiesto el paso hacia una ontología de lo percibido, hacia la descripción del ser de lo percibido. Con ello podremos dar cuenta de la exposición del propio autor del modo en cómo la percepción puede ser entendida (...) como un verdadero acceso al ser: el primado de la percepción abarcaría una prioridad propiamente ontológica. El objetivo principal de esta investigación se situará en la exposición de una red conceptual que nos permita dar cuenta del fenómeno perceptivo que no sólo nos proporciona el mundo, tal y como se le aparece al sujeto, sino que intenta ir más allá del aspecto visible, intentará dar cuenta del ser de lo percibido. Expresar, en definitiva, este circuito de incorporación donde se hallan inseridos tanto el ser como el sujeto, donde hay una co-pertenencia entre ambos. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit geht es um Entscheidungsspielräume und Entscheidungsprozesse von hauptamtlichen Hospizmitarbeiterinnen und -mitarbeitern in ethisch relevanten Situationen. Wie sich diese Prozesse und Spielräume konkret in der Praxis gestalten, erforschten wir mittels einer qualitativen Studie, die wir in drei Hospizen in Nordrhein-Westfalen durchführten. Als ethische Haupthandlungsfelder nannten die befragten Pflegekräfte die Medikation in der präfinalen Phase, den Umgang mit terminaler Sedierung und mit der Flüssigkeitszufuhr und Ernährung am Lebensende. Entscheidungen innerhalb dieser Felder werden i. d. R. kollektiv getroffen. Die (...) individuellen Entscheidungsspielräume der Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter betreffen hauptsächlich den Pflegestil und das auf den Gast bezogene Zeitmanagement. Die Gestaltung dieser Entscheidungsspielräume hängt dabei häufig weniger von einem Rahmenkonzept ab, wie es Leitbilder oder Ethikkodizes nahelegen könnten, als vielmehr von einer Anspruchsanpassung der Pflegenden in der Praxis, wie es Modelle eingeschränkter Rationalität nahelegen. Damit übernehmen die Pflegekräfte in einem Hospiz eine sich selbst beratende wie korrigierende Funktion in ethischen Fragen, die angesichts des individuellen Sterbens eines Gastes immer wieder von Neuem ausgehandelt werden. (shrink)

Cognitive science is experiencing a pragmatic turn away from the traditional representation-centered framework toward a view that focuses on understanding cognition as "enactive." This enactive view holds that cognition does not produce models of the world but rather subserves action as it is grounded in sensorimotor skills. In this volume, experts from cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, robotics, and philosophy of mind assess the foundations and implications of a novel action-oriented view of cognition. Their contributions and supporting experimental evidence show that (...) an enactive approach to cognitive science enables strong conceptual advances, and the chapters explore key concepts for this new model of cognition. The contributors discuss the implications of an enactive approach for cognitive development; action-oriented models of cognitive processing; action-oriented understandings of consciousness and experience; and the accompanying paradigm shifts in the fields of philosophy, brain science, robotics, and psychology. ContributorsMoshe Bar, Lawrence W. Barsalov, Olaf Blanke, Jeannette Bohg, Martin V. Butz, Peter F. Dominey, Andreas K. Engel, Judith M. Ford, Karl J. Friston, Chris D. Frith, Shaun Gallagher, Antonia Hamilton, Tobias Heed, Cecilia Heyes, Elisabeth Hill, Matej Hoffmann, Jakob Hohwy, Bernhard Hommel, Atsushi Iriki, Pierre Jacob, Henrik Jörntell, Jürgen Jost, James Kilner, Günther Knoblich, Peter König, Danica Kragic, Miriam Kyselo, Alexander Maye, Marek McGann, Richard Menary, Thomas Metzinger, Ezequiel Morsella, Saskia Nagel, Kevin J. O'Regan, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Giovanni Pezzulo, Tony J. Prescott, Wolfgang Prinz, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Robert Rupert, Marti Sanchez-Fibla, Andrew Schwartz, Anil K. Seth, Vicky Southgate, Antonella Tramacere, John K. Tsotsos, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Gabriella Vigliocco, Gottfried Vosgerau. (shrink)

Many of our endeavors -- be it personal or communal, technological or artistic -- aim at eradicating all traces of dissatisfaction from our daily lives. They seek to cure us of our discontent in order to deliver us a fuller and flourishing existence. But what if ubiquitous pleasure and instant fulfilment make our lives worse, not better? What if discontent isn't an obstacle to the good life but one of its essential ingredients? In Propelled, Andreas Elpidorou makes a lively (...) case for the value of discontent and illustrates how boredom, frustration, and anticipation are good for us. Weaving together stories from sources as wide-ranging as classical literature, social and cognitive psychology, philosophy, art, and video games, Elpidorou shows that these psychological states aren't unpleasant accidents of our lives. Rather, they illuminate our desires and expectations, inform us when we find ourselves stuck in unpleasant and unfulfilling situations, and motivate us to furnish our lives with meaning, interest, and value. Boredom, frustration, and anticipation aren't obstacles to our goals--they are our guides, propelling us into lives that are truly our own. (shrink)

Die Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) ist eine der ältesten undrenommiertesten internationalen Buchreihen zur neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Seit 1923 publiziert sie wegweisende Forschungsarbeiten zum frühen Christentum und angrenzenden Themengebieten. Die Reihe ist historisch-kritisch verankert und steht neuen methodischen Ansätzen, die unser Verständnis des Neuen Testaments befördern, gleichfalls offen gegenüber.

Not all homo sapiens are human subjects. This paper explores the lived experience of homo sapiens but not human that I call “lived flesh.” A lived experience/distinction that shouldn’t be possible on Merleau-Ponty’s account of human subjectivity in Phenomenology of Perception and “The Intertwining – The Chiasm.” The use of flesh is deliberate and emerges from my engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and “The Intertwining – The Chiasm” through Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Hortense Spillers’ “Interstices: A Small Drama of Words” (...) and “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Amber Musser’s Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance, and Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. The affective, experiential, and ethical practices of american Blackwomxn in these texts problematize Merleau-Ponty’s account of human subjectivity and his account of the generality of Being (“The Intertwining – The Chiasm”). Merleau-Ponty’s effacement of raced, sexed, and gendered difference results in a construct of the human subject that cannot include all homo sapiens. (shrink)

Cognitive functions like perception, memory, language, or consciousness are based on highly parallel and distributed information processing by the brain. One of the major unresolved questions is how information can be integrated and how coherent representational states can be established in the distributed neuronal systems subserving these functions. It has been suggested that this so-called ''binding problem'' may be solved in the temporal domain. The hypothesis is that synchronization of neuronal discharges can serve for the integration of distributed neurons into (...) cell assemblies and that this process may underlie the selection of perceptually and behaviorally relevant information. As we intend to show here, this temporal binding hypothesis has implications for the search of the neural correlate of consciousness. We review experimental results, mainly obtained in the visual system, which support the notion of temporal binding. In particular, we discuss recent experiments on the neural mechanisms of binocular rivalry which suggest that appropriate synchronization among cortical neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli. (shrink)

Despite the impressive progress that has been made on both the empirical and conceptual fronts of boredom research, there is one facet of boredom that has received remarkably little attention. This is boredom's relationship to morality. The aim of this article is to explore the moral dimensions of boredom and to argue that boredom is a morally relevant personality trait. The presence of trait boredom hinders our capacity to flourish and in doing so hurts our prospects for a moral life. (...) -/- . (shrink)

Recent research put forward the hypothesis that eye movements are integrated in memory representations and are reactivated when later recalled. However, “looking back to nothing” during recall might be a consequence of spatial memory retrieval. Here, we aimed at distinguishing between the effect of spatial and oculomotor information on perceptual memory. Participants’ task was to judge whether a morph looked rather like the first or second previously presented face. Crucially, faces and morphs were presented in a way that the morph (...) reactivated oculomotor and/or spatial information associated with one of the previously encoded faces. Perceptual face memory was largely influenced by these manipulations. We considered a simple computational model with an excellent match that expresses these biases as a linear combination of recency, saccade, and location. Surprisingly, saccades did not play a role. The results suggest that spatial and temporal rather than oculomotor information biases perceptual face memory. (shrink)

This article explores how neutralisation can explain people's lack of commitment to buying Fair Trade products, even when they identify FT as an ethical concern. It examines the theoretical tenets of neutralisation theory and critically assesses its applicability to the purchase of FT products. Exploratory research provides illustrative examples of neutralisation techniques being used in the FT consumer context. A conceptual framework and research propositions delineate the role of neutralisation in explaining the attitude-behaviour discrepancies evident in relation to consumers' FT (...) purchase behaviour, providing direction for further research that will generate new knowledge of consumers' FT purchase behaviour and other aspects of ethical consumer behaviour. (shrink)

A long-standing puzzle for moral philosophers and psychologists alike is the concept of psychopathy, a personality disorder marked by tendencies to defy moral norms despite cognitive knowledge about right and wrong. Previously, discussions of the moral deficits of psychopathy have focused on willingness to harm and cheat others as well as reasoning about rule-based transgressions. Yet recent research in moral psychology has begun to more clearly define the domains of morality, en- compassing issues of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and spiritual (...) purity. Clinical descriptions and theories of psychopathy suggest that deficits may exist primarily in the areas of harm and fairness, although quantitative evidence is scarce. Within a broad sample of participants, we found that scores on a measure of psychopathy predicted sharply lower scores on the harm and fairness subscales of a measure of moral concern, but showed no relationship with authority, and very small relationships with ingroup and purity. On a measure of willingness to violate moral standards for money, psychopathy scores predicted greater willingness to violate moral concerns of any type. Results are further explored via potential mediators and analyses of the two factors of psychopathy. (shrink)

L'ingegneria concettuale è una branca della filosofia caratterizzata da un approccio normativo nei confronti della rappresentazione. Assunzione fondamentale è che i nostri dispositivi rappresentazionali possano essere difettosi. Si configura dunque come l'attività che consiste nell'identificare i difetti in tali dispositivi e mettere in atto strategie di miglioramento. Verranno illustrate le questioni fondamentali a cui una teoria di ingegneria concettuale deve rispondere: in cosa consiste esattamente questa attività? Come possiamo attuarla? Quali meccanismi regolano la formazione dei dispositivi rappresentazionali? Possiamo influire su (...) tali meccanismi? Verrà inoltre presentata un'obiezione all'ingegneria concettuale e varie risposte. -/- Conceptual engineering is a branch of philosophy characterised by a normative approach towards representation. The fundamental assumption of it is that our representational devices can be defective. Conceptual engineering is then the activity consisting of identifying the defects of such devices and putting in place ameliorative strategies. This paper illustrates the fundamental issues for a theory of conceptual engineering: what does this activity consist of? How can we implement it? What mechanisms regulate the formation of representational devices? Can we have an influence over those mechanisms? Moreover, it will be presented an objection to conceptual engineering and various responses to it. (shrink)

In der Tugendlehre Kants findet die allgemeine ethische Orientierung, wie sie der Kategorische Imperativ ausdrückt, Anwendung auf die Bedingungen der menschlichen Existenz. Die vorliegende Untersuchung rekonstruiert den Kantischen Ansatz vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen, vor allem aristotelischen Tugendethik und löst dabei den Kantischen Tugendbegriff kritisch von seinen zeitbedingten Prägungen. Auf so erneuerter Grundlage wird eine transzendentalphilosophische Ethikkonzeption entfaltet, die den methodischen und inhaltlichen Einsichten der jüngeren Theorieentwicklung Rechnung trägt. Zu den Ergebnissen zählt die Bestimmung einzelner Tugenden, deren ethische Orientierung an (...) konkreten Strukturen unserer alltäglichen Praxis demonstriert wird. (shrink)

By examining boredom through the lens of Sartre’s account of the emotions, I argue for the significance of boredom. Boredom matters, I show, for it is both informative and regulatory of one’s behavior: it informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation; and, at the same time, owing to its affective, cognitive, and volitional character, boredom motivates the pursuit of a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive, or meaningful. In the absent of boredom, one (...) would remain trapped in unfulfilling situations, thereby missing out on many rewarding experiences. In helping us to articulate the function and significance of boredom, Sartre’s account provides a much-needed counterbalance to accounts of boredom that portray it as a distinctively negative state. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings of education.

PurposeThe COVID-19 lockdown interrupted normal daily activities, which may have led to an increase in sedentary behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level of physical activity among Swiss office workers.MethodsOffice workers from two Swiss organizations, aged 18–65 years, were included. Baseline data from January 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic became effective in Switzerland were compared with follow-up data during the lockdown phase in April 2020. Levels of physical activity were (...) assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Paired sample t-tests or Wilcoxon signed-rank test were performed for statistical analysis.ResultsData from 76 participants were analyzed. Fifty-four participants were female. The mean age was 42.7 years at baseline. About 75% of the participants met the recommendations on minimal physical activity, both before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the lockdown. Weak statistical evidence for a decline in total physical activity in metabolic equivalent of task minutes per week was found, with no evidence for a decrease in the three types of activity: walking, moderate-intensity activity and vigorous-intensity activity. Across the three categories “high,” “moderate,” and “low” physical activity, 17% of the participants became less active during the lockdown while 29% became more active.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic did not result in a reduction in total physical activity levels among a sample of Swiss office workers during the first weeks of lockdown. Improved work-life balance and working times may have contributed to this finding.Clinical Trial Registrationwww.ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04169646. Registered 15 November 2019 – Retrospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04169646. (shrink)

Traditionally, the manufacturer/operator of a machine is held (morally and legally) responsible for the consequences of its operation. Autonomous, learning machines, based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and agent architectures, create a new situation, where the manufacturer/operator of the machine is in principle not capable of predicting the future machine behaviour any more, and thus cannot be held morally responsible or liable for it. The society must decide between not using this kind of machine any more (which is not a (...) realistic option), or facing a responsibility gap, which cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility ascription. (shrink)

Several scholars have recognized the limitations of theories of moral reasoning in explaining moral behavior. They have argued that moral behavior may also be influenced by moral identity, or how central morality is to one’s sense of self. This idea has been supported by findings that people who exemplify moral behavior tend to place more importance on moral traits when defining their self-concepts (Colby & Damon, 1995). This paper takes the next step of examining individual variation in a construct highly (...) associated with immoral behavior — psychopathy. In Study 1, we test the hypothesis that individuals with a greater degree of psychopathic traits have a weaker moral identity. Within a large online sample, we found that individuals who scored higher on a measure of psychopathic traits were less likely to base their self-concepts on moral traits. In Study 2, we test whether this reduced sense of moral identity can be attributed to differences in moral judgment, which is another factor that could influence immoral behavior. Our results indicated that the reduced sense of moral identity among more psychopathic individuals was independent of variation in moral judgment. These results suggest that individuals with psychopathic traits may display immoral behavior partially because they do not construe their personal identities in moral terms. (shrink)

Adolf Reinach’s theory of social acts and Czesław Znamierowski theory of the environment can show a new perspective of analysis in the fields of computer science and digital communication. This paper will begin analysing the performance of social acts in two categories of digital environments: (i) fictional digital environment and (ii) real digital environment. The analysis will be supported by examples from the history of computer science. In both kinds of digital environments, organigrams play a significant role and depend on (...) the users’ digital power to perform a real or fictional social act. Finally, the paper will analyse one of the possible roles that AI plays in performing social acts in digital environments. It will show how AI could affect the perception of social acts. (shrink)

This is the introductory chapter to The Moral Psychology of Boredom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). It discusses the various ways in which boredom is morally significant and offers a summary of the experiential profile of boredom.

This article reviews evidence suggesting that the cause of approach and avoidance behavior lies not so much in the presence (i.e., the stimulus) but, rather, in the behavior’s anticipated future consequences (i.e., the goal): Approach is motivated by the goal to produce a desired consequence or end-state, while avoidance is motivated by the goal to prevent an undesired consequence or end-state. However, even though approach and avoidance are controlled by goals rather than stimuli, affective stimuli can influence action control by (...) priming associated goals. An integrative ideomotor model of approach and avoidance is presented and discussed. (shrink)

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong towards women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. (...) We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal. (shrink)