Professional communities are experiencing scandals involving unethical and illegal practices daily. Yet it should not take a national major structure failure to highlight the importance of ethical awareness and behavior, or the need for the development and practice of ethical behavior in engineering students. Development of ethical behavior skills in future engineers is a key competency for engineering schools as ethical behavior is a part of the professional identity and practice of engineers. While engineering educators have somewhat established instructional methods (...) to teach engineering ethics, they still rely heavily on teaching ethical awareness, and pay little attention to how well ethical awareness predicts ethical behavior. However the ability to exercise ethical judgement does not mean that students are ethically educated or likely to behave in an ethical manner. This paper argues measuring ethical judgment is insufficient for evaluating the teaching of engineering ethics, because ethical awareness has not been demonstrated to translate into ethical behavior. The focus of this paper is to propose a model that correlates with both, ethical awareness and ethical behavior. This model integrates the theory of planned behavior, person and thing orientation, and spheres of control. Applying this model will allow educators to build confidence and trust in their students’ ability to build a professional identity and be prepared for the engineering profession and practice. (shrink)

Looking back, the moral panic that precipitated the decimation of horror comics in the 1950s seems quaint, yet concerns about the psychological impact of violent media on consumers have never disappeared. In this article, I outline a particular type of psychological impact we ought to take seriously when evaluating the moral status of entertainment. I then consider (a) ways in which comics seem immune from claims that they create this kind of impact for their readers, as well as (b) ways (...) in which we might think that comics generate special instances of moral danger for readers. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made in the recent literature to provide a viable definition of the virtue of modesty. The most prominent of these comes from Julia Driver, who claims that modesty is the virtue of being disposed to persistently underestimate one’s self-worth despite available evidence to the contrary. In this paper, I argue that none of the recently presented definitions of modesty manage to capture its elusive nature. I argue that Driver and her critics fail to accurately define modesty (...) because they do not adequately account for the virtue’s social dimensions. Modesty is a valuable disposition for human agents to possess because it alleviates the jealousy, bitterness and other caustic emotions that arise in social contexts where our comparative merits are publicly acknowledged. This social function of modesty is often recognized, but it is consistently set aside when definitions of the virtue are presented. To correct this oversight, I propose a definition of modesty that faithfully captures our intuitions about the motives and behaviour of modest agents without failing to do justice to the social dimensions of the virtue. (shrink)

Book Information Freedom. An Introduction with Readings. By Warburton Nigel. Routledge. London. 2001. Pp. viii + 252. Paperback, £12.99.

In this Introduction we introduce the central themes of the Evaluative Perception volume. After identifying historical and recent contemporary work on this topic, we discuss some central questions under three headings: (1) Questions about the Existence and Nature of Evaluative Perception: Are there perceptual experiences of values? If so, what is their nature? Are experiences of values sui generis? Are values necessary for certain kinds of experience? (2) Questions about the Epistemology of Evaluative Perception: Can evaluative experiences ever justify evaluative (...) judgments? Are experiences of values necessary for certain kinds of justified evaluative judgments? (3) Questions about Value Theory and Evaluative Perception: Is the existence of evaluative experience supported or undermined by particular views in value theory? Are particular views in value theory supported or undermined by the existence of value experience? (shrink)

Edward Osborne Wilson sformułował hipotezę biofilii, według której biofilia jest tendencją do skupiania się na życiu i procesach podobnych do życia. Status tej hipotezy jest kontrowersyjny zarówno w naukach przyrodniczych, społecznych i środowiskowych, jak i w etyce ekologicznej. Na płaszczyźnie metodologicznej stawiany jest m.in. zarzut niefalsyfikowalności; etycy ekologiczni krytykują hipotezę za jej antropocentryczne implikacje. W artykule proponujemy filozoficzną interpretację biofilii jako formy biomorfizmu, według którego pojęcie bytu substancjalnego, wartości i normy moralności jest oparte na paradygmacie bytu żywego.

The debate over the objects of episodic memory has for some time been stalled, with few alternatives to familiar forms of direct and indirect realism being advanced. This paper moves the debate forward by building on insights from the recent psychological literature on memory as a form of episodic hypothetical thought (or mental time travel) and the recent philosophical literature on relationalist and representationalist approaches to perception. The former suggests that an adequate account of the objects of episodic memory will (...) have to be a special case of an account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought more generally. The latter suggests that an adequate account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought will have to combine features of direct realism and representationalism. We develop a novel pragmatist-inspired account of the objects of episodic hypothetical thought that has the requisite features. (shrink)

Mental state reasoning or theory-of-mind has been the subject of a rich body of imaging research. Although such investigations routinely tap a common set of regions, the precise function of each area remains a contentious matter. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sought to determine which areas are involved when processing mental state or intentional metarepresentations by focusing on the relational aspect of such representations. Using non-intentional relational representations such as spatial relations between persons and between (...) objects as a contrast, the results ascertained the involvement of the precuneus, the temporal poles, and the medial prefrontal cortex in the processing of intentional representations. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal sulcus and the left temporo-parietal junction were implicated when processing representations that refer to the presence of persons in relational contexts in general. The right temporo-parietal junction, however, was specifically activated for persons entering spatial relations. The level of representational complexity, a previously unexplored factor, was also found to modulate the neural response in some brain regions, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction. These findings highlight the need to take into account the critical roles played by an extensive network of neural regions during mental state reasoning. (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

Ancient ethical theories, based on the notions of virtue and happiness, have struck many as an attractive alternative to modern theories. But we cannot find out whether this is true until we understand ancient ethics--and to do this we need to examine the basic structure of ancient ethical theory, not just the details of one or two theories. In this book, Annas brings together the results of a wide-ranging study of ancient ethical philosophy and presents it in a way that (...) is easily accessible to anyone with an interest in ancient or modern ethics. She examines the fundamental notions of happiness and virtue, the role of nature in ethical justification and the relation between concern for self and concern for others. Her careful examination of the ancient debates and arguments shows that many widespread assumptions about ancient ethics are quite mistaken. Ancient ethical theories are not egoistic, and do not depend for their acceptance on metaphysical theories of a teleological kind. Most centrally, they are recognizably theories of morality, and the ancient disputes about the place of virtue in happiness can be seen as akin to modern disputes about the demands of morality. (shrink)

Wie verändern sich Mensch und Körper durch Technik? Und welches Menschenverständnis vertritt der Transhumanismus? Anna Puzio befasst sich in der ersten philosophischen Studie zur Anthropologie des Transhumanismus mit führenden Personen des Feldes, u. a. mit Nick Bostrom, David Pearce und Natasha Vita-More. Neben Körperoptimierung und Medizintechnologien beleuchtet sie auch Alltagstechnologien wie Wearables. Dabei entwickelt sie einen neuen Ansatz zur Technikanthropologie und ein neues inklusives Menschen- und Körperverständnis im Anschluss an Donna Haraway und den Kritischen Posthumanismus im amerikanischen Raum.

This article is both an elaborated critique on the one-sided analysis of the misogynist nature of ballet as a cultural practice, and a contribution to a more embodied feminist theory. Based on empirical material, that was brought together by observing the body practices in ballet and listening to the life stories of dancers, the author explores the contradictions that the body in ballet provokes. In describing the embodied experiences ofprofessional ballet dancers she shows that ballet offers women the possibility to (...) transcend the discontinuity of body, mind and emotions. (shrink)

Offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought, highlighting the differences between ancient & modern assumptions & stressing the need to be ...

Introduction 1. Language and meaning Nothing is as easily overlooked, or as easily forgotten, as the most obvious truths. The tenet that language is a tool ...

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

Most recent philosophical theories of consciousness account for it in terms of representation, the bulk of the debate revolving around whether (suitably) representing something is sufficient for consciousness (as per first-order representationalism) or some further (meta-)representation is needed (as per higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism). In this paper, I explore an alternative theory of consciousness, one that aims to explain consciousness not in terms of representation but in terms of the epistemically and metaphysically direct relation of acquaintance. I call this the (...) Inner Acquaintance Theory of consciousness (IAT). Roughly, on IAT, what makes a mental state conscious is its subject being acquainted with it. Though not wholly unprecedented, IAT is still at the fringe of consciousness debates and remains largely underexplored. The main goal of this paper is to take some steps toward developing the details of IAT, illustrate its potential explanatory power, and put it forward as a plausible alternative to representational theories, with the hope that this will contribute to shifting IAT closer to the center of the debate. Here is how I proceed. In §2 I introduce a notion—inner awareness—that is crucial both to contextualize and to understand IAT. In §3 I provide some preliminary motivation for exploring IAT. In §4 I explain the notion of acquaintance and illustrate some of the features that are typically attributed to it in the literature. The details of IAT are then shaped through four main decision points. I address them in §§5-8, where I suggest a particular choice at each decision point, thereby progressively building up a view that I consider particularly promising. (shrink)

Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis of empirical (...) cross-linguistic studies it vindicates the old notion of the "psychic unity of mankind", while at the same time offering a framework for the rigorous description of different languages and cultures. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between a prominent version of the relational view of memory and recent work on forms of unsuccessful remembering or memory errors. I argue that unsuccessful remembering poses an important challenge for the relational view. Unsuccessful remembering can be divided into two kinds: misremembering and confabulating. I discuss each of these cases in light of a recent relational account, according to which remembering is characterized by an experiential relation to past events, and I argue that experiential (...) relations do not adequately distinguish between remembering and unsuccessful remembering. This is because there are, on the one hand, cases of remembering that do not instantiate the relevant experiential relations, and, on the other hand, cases of confabulation and misremembering that do instantiate the relevant experiential relations. I conclude by suggesting that any successful relationalist attempt to explain remembering needs to come to grips with unsuccessful remembering. (shrink)

This lively and accessible book focuses on the philosophy and argument of Plato's writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy and the general themes of his thinking. It discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. It also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude towards women, and towards homosexual love. It explores Plato's claim that virtue is (...) sufficient for happiness and touches on his arguments for the immorality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe. (shrink)

Julia Annas offers a new account of virtue and happiness as central ethical ideas. She argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of the kind we find in someone exercising an everyday practical skill, such as farming, building, or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing.

The idea that the soul has a guardian daemon was a common topic among Platonists, informed by different readings of Plato, especially Symp. 202e and Resp. 620e. In his philosophically dense interpretation, Plotinus describes the daemon as the ‘pole of attraction’ or the erotic disposition that keeps the core of one’s personality directed towards the Good. In this way, the daemon promotes the soul’s ascent to higher levels of reality through a transition from unconsciousness into consciousness that, across different incarnations, (...) will eventually flow into the disembodied self. In order to unpack this view, this article brings together Enn. III.4 and III.5 with Enn. VI.7, where Plotinus discusses the difference between soul (ψυχή) and the expressed principle (λόγος) belonging to soul. This difference if fundamental to fully understand the role of the guardian daemon in the soul’s πρόοδος and ἐπιστροφή. (shrink)

Supportive peer relationships are crucial for mental and physical health. Early adolescence is an especially important period in which peer influence and school environment strongly shape psychological development and maturation of core social-emotional regulatory functions. Yet, there is no integrated evidence based model of SPR in this age group to inform future research and practice. The current meta-analysis synthetizes evidence from 364 studies into an integrated model of potential determinants of SPR in early adolescence. The model encompasses links with 93 (...) variables referring to individual and environmental potential influences on SPR based on cross-sectional correlational data. Findings suggest the central importance of identity and social–emotional skills in SPR. School environment stands out as a compelling setting for future prevention programs. Finally, we underscore an alarming gap of research on the influence of the virtual and online environment on youth's social realm given its unquestionable importance as a globally expanding social interaction setting. Hence, we propose an integrated model that can serve as organizational framework, which may ultimately lead to the adoption of a more structured and integrated approach to understanding peer relationship processes in youth and contribute to overcoming marked fragmentation in the field. (shrink)

Both Novalis and Günderrode provide grounds for a number of different kinds of hope. The first part of this chapter briefly sketches the most obvious of these: the hope for union with loved ones after death. This section also explains Günderrode’s metaphysics, which entails significant differences from Novalis in the other areas of hope that she identifies. Part two explores “epistemological hope”: the hope for knowledge or experience of that which lies outside the limitations of reason. Part three considers Günderrode’s (...) “moral hope,” which emerges from her critique of Kantian morality. Finally, parts four and five consider “political hope” and “ontological hope,” i.e., hope for improvement in the world as a whole and human society in particular. For Novalis, this famously takes the form of “raising,” “Romanticizing” or “cultivating,” effected by human beings. In Günderrode, this kind of improvement is largely beyond human control (although human beings can contribute to it), leaving us in a state of hopeful ambiguity regarding the possibility of the eventual realization of an “immortal ideal” for the earth and the establishment of ideal human communities. (shrink)

This paper examines the varied cultural meanings of computer game play in competitive and professional computer gaming and live-streaming. To do so it riffs off Andrew Feenberg’s 1994 work exploring the changing meanings of the ancient board game of Go in mid-century Japan. We argue that whereas Go saw a de-aestheticization with the growth of newspaper reporting and a new breed of ‘westernized’ player, the rise of professionalized computer gameplay has upset this trend, causing a re-aestheticization of professional game competition (...) as a result of the many informal elements that contribute to the successes, and public perceptions, of professional players. In doing so we open up the consideration of the aesthetics of broadcasted gameplay, how they reflect back upon the players and the game, and locate this shift historically and culturally within the last two decades of computer games as a creative industry, entertainment industry, a media form, and as an embodied practice. (shrink)

American healthcare -- Bioterror and bioart -- State of emergency -- Licensed to torture -- Hunger strikes -- War -- Cancer -- Drug dealing -- Toxic tinkering -- Abortion -- Culture of death -- Patient safety -- Global health -- Statue of security -- Pandemic fear -- Bioidentifiers -- Genetic genocide.

Future mobility planning to cope with ongoing environmental challenges such as air pollution has to be anchored in the work of every public authority worldwide. One recent trend that could support public authorities to meet the European Union’s sustainability targets is the creation and sharing of transport and mobility “big” data between public authorities via tools such as crowdsourcing. While the benefits of the use of big data to increase public authorities’ efficiency and effectivity and their citizens’ lives is well (...) understood, examples from the public sector that highlight public authorities’ engagement in such sharing activities is still missing. To date relevant literature has highlighted issues around the capacity of public authorities that hinder shared activities. In this paper we want to raise distrust as a key reason for lack of engagement. Based on comprehensive data collected over the period of 4 years via several workshops and semi-structured interviews with seven public authorities in Europe, we are able to demonstrate that a major obstacle for not providing and sharing data via crowdsourcing for mutual benefit lies primarily in the hands of the public authority’s servants of the middle and high-level management. Our results show firstly, that distrust may emerge toward different referents such as the community, particular individuals, or the technology itself and thus, managerial implications have to be very specific to overcome distrust. Secondly, we show how distrust may spread from one referent to another through negative reciprocity and which, if unchecked may lead to an all-encompassing state that affects the whole sharing economy framework and inhibits potential benefits. (shrink)

According to Johansson (2009: 22) an infinite regress is vicious just in case “what comes first [in the regress-order] is for its definition dependent on what comes afterwards.” Given a few qualifications (to be spelled out below (section 3)), I agree. Again according to Johansson (ibid.), one of the consequences of accepting this way of distinguishing vicious from benign regresses is that the so-called Russellian Resemblance Regress (RRR), if generated in a one-category trope-theoretical framework, is vicious and that, therefore, the (...) existence of tropes only makes sense if trope-theory is understood (minimally) as a two-category theory which accepts, besides the existence of tropes, also the existence of at least one universal: resemblance.1 I disagree. But how can that be? How can Johansson and I agree about what distinguishes a vicious from a benign regress, yet disagree about which regresses are vicious and which are benign? In this paper I attempt to answer that question by first setting out and defending the sense of viciousness which both Johansson and I accept, only to then argue that to be able to determine if a particular regress is vicious in this sense, more than features intrinsic to the regress itself must be taken into account. This is why, although the RRR as originally set out by Russell is vicious, the seemingly identical resemblance regress which ensues in a one-category (standard) trope-theoretical context is not (provided, that is, that we accept certain views about how the nature of tropes relates to the resemblance between tropes, and given that we set our theory in a truthmaker theoretical framework – all of which are standard assumptions for proponents of (the standard-version of) the trope-theory).2. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive overview of the influence of Platonism on the English literary tradition, showing how English writers, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Yeats, Pound and Iris Murdoch, used Platonic themes and images within their own imaginative work.

Despite much philosophical attention on forgiveness itself, the phenomenon of un-forgiving is relatively neglected. Some views of forgiveness commit us to denying that we can ever permissibly un-forgive. Some go so far as to say the concept of un-forgiving is incomprehensible—it is the nature of forgiveness to be permanent. Yet many apparent cases of un-forgiving strike us as both real and justified. In what follows, I will address the latter view, that genuine un-forgiving is impossible or incomprehensible as a phenomenon, (...) advanced by a character I will call the “Un-Forgiving Denier.” I address two views which purport to describe candidate un-forgiving cases in alternative ways and deny that any candidate un-forgiving cases are truly cases of un-forgiving: the “epistemic invalidation” and “new forgiveness opportunity” views. In creating problems for those views, I hope to defend the possibility of genuine un-forgiving. Even if it’s possible to respond to the “Un-Forgiving Denier,” a defender of genuine un-forgiving still faces the “Un-Forgiving Critic,” who insists that un-forgiving, while possible, is morally indefensible. Against this view, I argue that un-forgiving enables an ideal of forgiveness wherein victims hold wrongdoers accountable for their moral development and allows certain opportunities for relational repair. I conclude that there is good reason to think un-forgiving is both possible and permissible. Embracing genuine un-forgiving puts constraints on how we should theorize about forgiveness itself and gives us an additional tool for understanding and navigating our relationships. (shrink)

Edited by one of the most renowned scholars in the field, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader is a unique and accessible introduction to the richness of ancient philosophy. Featuring a topical--as opposed to chronological--organization, this text introduces students to the wide range of approaches and traditions in ancient philosophy. In each section Annas presents the ancient debates on a particular philosophical topic, drawing on a greater diversity of ancient sources than a chronological approach allows. The book is divided (...) into six sections: Fate and Freedom; Reason and Emotion; Knowledge, Belief, and Skepticism; Metaphysical Questions; How Should You Live?; and Society and the State. Annas includes a generous selection of the works of Plato and Aristotle, as well as those of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics. She also includes selections from less familiar philosophers and from authors in whose works philosophical issues arise, such as poets, medical writers, historians, and Jewish and Christian writers. The volume features biographical sketches of the philosophers, a timeline, and short discussions of the major movements in ancient philosophy. An excellent text for courses in ancient philosophy and history of philosophy, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader will also be of interest to scholars and general readers. (shrink)

Physical activities are generally accepted as promoting important psychological benefits. However, studies examining martial arts as a form of physical activity and mental health have exhibited many methodological limitations in the past. Additionally, recent philosophical discussion has debated whether martial arts training promotes psychological wellbeing or illness. Self-efficacy has an important relationship with mental health and may be an important mechanism underpinning the potential of martial arts training to promote mental health. This study examined the effect of martial arts training (...) on the psychological construct of self-efficacy. A total of 283 secondary school students with a mean age of 12.76 (SD = 0.68) years were recruited to complete a time-limited (10-session) martial arts intervention, which was examined using a randomised controlled trial. Univariate ANOVAs found that the intervention improved the experimental group’s self-efficacy compared to the control group, which was sustained at follow-up. Regression analysis indicated that socio-educational status moderated this outcome. These findings support the martial arts-based intervention’s potential to improve self-efficacy and promote wellbeing through physical activity. Martial arts training may be an efficacious psychosocial treatment that can be used as a complementary approach to promote mental health. (shrink)

In 1804, when asked by the aspiring writer Clemens Brentano why she had chosen to publish her work, Karoline von Günderrode wrote that she longed “mein Leben in einer bleibenden Form auszusprechen, in einer Gestalt, die würdig sei, zu den Vortreflichsten hinzutreten, sie zu grüssen und Gemeinschaft mit ihnen zu haben.” In light of this kind of statement, it is perhaps not surprising if, despite some exceptions, much of the still relatively scant literature on Günderrode reads her works largely in (...) terms of how they articulate and manifest Günderrode’s desires, frustrations, and character, for the most part ignoring their imaginary, creative, and intellectual aspects. This interpretation of the author’s works as biography is, in Günderrode’s case, often accompanied by an interpretation of her biography, particularly her suicide, as literary work. This paper is not the first to question the conflation of Günderrode’s life, death, and writing, but it is one of only a handful that aim to address the autopoietic element of Günderrode’s work in a way that does not reduce her writings to biographical and psychological expressions, or Günderrode herself to an image – or a legend – encapsulated by her writings and her relationship to them. This paper argues that Günderrode’s own position on what the self is has been largely neglected as a result of this conflation, and that taking this position into account changes how we understand Günderrode’s articulations of self in her writings. Thus this paper has two goals: to address difficulties in articulating and even constituting oneself sincerely when one’s efforts are unrecognized, belittled, censored, and forced to conform to the conventions of a society in which one is marginalized; and to unearth a neglected and potentially rich account of the modern self. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to argue that Philippa Foot fails to provide a convincing basis for moral evaluation in her bookNatural Goodness.Foot's proposal fails because her conception of natural goodness and defect in human beings either sanctions prescriptive claims that are clearly objectionable or else it inadvertently begs the question of what constitutes a good human life by tacitly appealing to an independent ethical standpoint to sanitize the theory's normative implications. Foot's appeal to natural facts about human goodness (...) is in this way singled out as an Achilles' heel that undermines her attempt to establish an independent framework for virtue ethics. This problem might seem to be one that is uniquely applicable to the bold naturalism of Foot's methodology; however, I claim that the problem is indicative of a more general problem for all contemporary articulations of virtue ethics. (shrink)

The book provides a commentary on Plato's Republic which encourages the reader to be stimulated to philosophical thinking by Plato's wide-ranging discussions.

A widely accepted view in the philosophy of humour is that immoral jokes, like racist, sexist or homophobic jokes, can nevertheless be funny. What remains controversial is whether the moral flaws in these jokes can sometimes increase their humour. Moderate comic immoralism claims that it is possible, in at least some cases, for moral flaws to increase the humour of jokes. Critics of moderate comic immoralism deny that this ever occurs. They recognise that some jokes are both funny and immoral, (...) yet they claim that it is always something other than the moral flaws of jokes that contribute to their humour. In a series of recent papers, Aaron Smuts has pressed this objection to moderate comic immoralism. I argue that Smuts' attempt to narrow the range of cases in which humour can be attributed to immoral features is not sufficient to demonstrate that moderate comic immoralism is false. Specifically, I claim that Smuts cannot rule out a case for moderate comic immoralism grounded in the possibility that humour is normatively relative while the ethical status of jokes is not. (shrink)

Much has been written about the puzzling aesthetic appeal of horror films that include scenes of brutal, graphic violence. More recently, however, some philosophers have proposed that viewing certain horror films as a source of entertainment is morally problematic because of the impact they might have on our moral psychology. By contrast, Ian Stoner argues that viewing fictional depictions of violence in horror films is not morally problematic because horror films do not present violence in ways that risk damaging the (...) kinds of reactive attitudes required to exhibit a well-functioning moral psychology. In this paper I note some the ways in which Stoner is correct about horror films, yet I argue that he has overstated his case for the permissibility of viewing all instances of horrific violence as entertainment. (shrink)

We make the case that the Prisoner’s Dilemma, notwithstanding its fame and the quantity of intellectual resources devoted to it, has largely failed to explain any phenomena of social scientific or biological interest. In the heart of the paper we examine in detail a famous purported example of Prisoner’s Dilemma empirical success, namely Axelrod’s analysis of WWI trench warfare, and argue that this success is greatly overstated. Further, we explain why this negative verdict is likely true generally and not just (...) in our case study. We also address some possible defenses of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. (shrink)

In this book I look at the tradition of eudaimonistic ethics which stems from Aristotle's treatment of ethics, and which takes distinct, though related forms in Epicurus, the Stoics and the Sceptics. I look at this tradition from different points of view: how is it related to human nature, how does it account for other-related virtue and action, and how much does it require in terms of revising previously held priorities. I discuss the methodology of discussing ancient texts in ways (...) that relate them to contemporary concerns, particularly the importance of respecting the texts and avoiding anachronism. (shrink)

The 1994 US spectrum auction is now a paradigmatic case of the successful use of microeconomic theory for policy-making. We use a detailed analysis of it to review standard accounts in philosophy of science of how idealized models are connected to messy reality. We show that in order to understand what made the design of the spectrum auction successful, a new such account is required, and we present it here. Of especial interest is the light this sheds on the issue (...) of progress in economics. In particular, it enables us to get clear on exactly what has been progressing, and on exactly what theory has – and has not – contributed to that. This in turn has important implications for just what it is about economic theory that we should value. (shrink)

Are horror films immoral? Gianluca Di Muzio argues that horror films of a certain kind are immoral because they undermine the reactive attitudes that are responsible for human agents being disposed to respond compassionately to instances of victimization. I begin with this argument as one instance of what I call the Argument from Reactive Attitudes (ARA), and I argue that Di Muzio’s attempt to identify what is morally suspect about horror films must be revised to provide the most persuasive interpretation (...) of the ARA. I then argue that the ARA provides a compelling standard for evaluating the moral permissibility of creating and viewing horror films, yet I note that it is an exceedingly difficult practical task evaluating the risk that these films create for our reactive attitudes. My conclusion is that the ARA provides a useful way or orienting ourselves to the complicated details of evaluating the moral status of horror films. (shrink)

In this article we present a phenomenological single-case study of a client’s experience of her therapist’s bodily movement in the context of narrative therapy. A client was interviewed regarding her experience of selected bodily movements of the therapist based on a video recording of one of her therapeutic sessions. The movements were analyzed through Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s cardinal structures of movement while the interview was analyzed through a modification of Giorgi’s method for phenomenological psychology. We focused on the relationship between the (...) therapist’s bodily movement and therapeutic movement in the client and arrived at general structures of the client’s experience of being moved by movement. The experience comprises three core constituents: ‘shifts in sense of self’, ‘sense of togetherness’ and ‘feelings of mobility’, and reveals that the therapist’s bodily movements can lead to therapeutic changes compatible with the aim of narrative therapy. (shrink)

New technological developments have fundamentally transformed human life. Throughout this process, fundamental questions about human beings have once again been posed. The paper examines how technological change affects understandings of human beings and their bodies, thereby requiring new approaches to anthropology. First, Section 2 illustrates how the use of technology has changed the understanding of human beings and their bodies. A new connection between the human being or the body and technology has emerged. Section 3 then moves onto considering the (...) increasing blurring of the boundaries between organisms and machines, showing how the understanding of humans and bodies is constantly being renegotiated in relation to machines. Based on this, Section 4 explores how the understanding of the human being and the body can be redesigned in the context of modern technology. To this end, approaches for a contemporary anthropology can be derived from critical posthumanism. Section 5 addresses concrete practice and examines the construction of identity in social media platforms such as Instagram. The paper argues that technological processes and social media are places where theology is constructed and appeals for a responsible theological co-creation of these places. It advocates that technology offers the opportunity to question traditional anthropological concepts and to renegotiate understandings of the human being and the body. -- Puzio, Anna: Digital and Technological Identities – In Whose Image? A philosophical-theological approach to identity construction in social media and technology. In: Cursor (2021). (shrink)