In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing in mind (...) the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 355-366.

Governing Europe is the first book to systematically link Michel Foucault's hypotheses on power and 'governmentality' with the study of European integration. Through a series of empirical encounters that spans the fifty-year history of European integration, it explores both the diverse political dreams that have framed means and ends of integration and the political technologies that have made 'Europe' a calculable, administrable domain. The book illustrates how a genealogy of European integration differs from conventional approaches. By suspending the (...) assumption that we already know what/where Europe is, it opens a space for analysis where we can ask: how did Europe come to be governed as this and not that? The themes covered by this book include: * the different constructions of Europe within discourses of modernization, democratization, insecurity and 'governance' * the imprint of modernism, liberalism, ordoliberalism, neoliberalism and crime on the identity of the European Community/European Union * the historical relationship between European government and specific technologies of power, technologies as diverse as planning, price control, transparency and benchmarking. (shrink)

The Europe of many voices is founded on a balance between me and us. Even if persons, regions and countries communicate with their own voices, each voice is imbued with its inner and outer alienness, which can be represented but not replaced by others. There is no single European language, there is a variety of European languages. Interregional, international and intercultural experiences are characterized by the interweaving of one’s own and the foreign. We can be more or less close (...) to one another. Humanity can be understood only as an open horizon. Europe is not a stop on the path to a worldwide state, but a specific answer to global challenges. When the struggle for economic and military survival prevails, alienness turns into enmity. And the enemy is voiceless, just like the Barbarians. (shrink)

Starting from the observation of the seriousness and recurrence of the “European crises” for more than fifteen years, this article proposes to study one of their main causes: the “midstream” that characterizes the contemporary political and institutional situation of Europe, in particular of the European Union, the eurozone and the Schengen area, that is, the unsustainable tension between, on the one hand, the irreducibly contradictory diversity of the member states of these institutions at this intermediate stage of their integration, (...) and, on the other hand, the necessity, for the overcoming of the crises, of the accomplishment of their integration into a European political unity. The main thesis of the article is that only such a unification could overcome the current crises, provided that it is open to the rest of the world, on the internal mode of hospitality and external mode of contribution to the unification of the world itself. (shrink)

The future of Europe and the role it will play in the 21st century are among the most important political questions of our time. The optimism of a decade ago has now faded but the stakes are higher than ever. The way these questions are answered will have enormous implications not only for all Europeans but also for the citizens of Europe's closest and oldest ally - the USA. In this new book, one of Europe's leading intellectuals (...) examines the political alternatives facing Europe today and outlines a course of action for the future. Habermas advocates a policy of gradual integration of Europe in which key decisions about Europe's future are put in the hands of its peoples, and a “bipolar commonality” of the West in which a more unified Europe is able to work closely with the United States to build a more stable and equitable international order. This book includes Habermas's portraits of three long-time philosophical companions, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida and Ronald Dworkin. It also includes several important new texts by Habermas on the impact of the media on the public sphere, on the enduring importance religion in "post-secular" societies, and on the design of a democratic constitutional order for the emergent world society. (shrink)

The future of Europe and the role it will play in the 21st century are among the most important political questions of our time. The optimism of a decade ago has now faded but the stakes are higher than ever. The way these questions are answered will have enormous implications not only for all Europeans but also for the citizens of Europe's closest and oldest ally - the USA. In this new book, one of Europe's leading intellectuals (...) examines the political alternatives facing Europe today and outlines a course of action for the future. Habermas advocates a policy of gradual integration of Europe in which key decisions about Europe's future are put in the hands of its peoples, and a “bipolar commonality” of the West in which a more unified Europe is able to work closely with the United States to build a more stable and equitable international order. This book includes Habermas's portraits of three long-time philosophical companions, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida and Ronald Dworkin. It also includes several important new texts by Habermas on the impact of the media on the public sphere, on the enduring importance religion in "post-secular" societies, and on the design of a democratic constitutional order for the emergent world society. (shrink)

Europe: The Space and Time of ReflectionOn the Complutense Research Group La Europa de la Escritura.

Europe is inseparable from its history. That history has been extensively studied in terms of its political history, its economic history, its religious history, its literary and cultural history, and so on. Could there be a distinctively philosophical history of Europe? Not a history of philosophy in Europe, but a history of Europe that focuses on what, in its history and identity, ties it to philosophy. In the two volumes of Europe: A Philosophical History - (...) The Promise of Modernity and Beyond Modernity - Simon Glendinning takes up this question, telling the story of Europe's history as a philosophical history. In Part 1, The Promise of Modernity, Glendinning examines the conception of Europe that links it to ideas of rational Enlightenment and modernity. Tracking this self-understanding as it unfolds in the writings of Kant, Hegel and Marx, Glendinning explores the transition in Europe from a conception of its modernity that was philosophical and religious to one which was philosophical and scientific. While this transition profoundly altered Europe's own history, Glendinning shows how its self-confident core remained intact in this development. But not for long. This volume ends with an examination of the abrupt shattering of this confidence brought on by the first world-wide war of European origin - and the imminence of a second. The promise of modernity was in ruins. Nothing, for Europe, would ever be the same again. (shrink)

This article examines the proximity of the conceptions of Europe defended by Edmund Husserl and Paul Valéry during the interwar period, their common diagnosis of a European crisis and their attempt to give a non-geographical definition of Europe, based on the notion of spirit. It is shown that, behind the common use of the term and lexicon of spirit, the two authors actually put forward two different paradigms to account for Europe’s cultural specificity (a dynamic paradigm in (...) Valéry and a teleological paradigm in Husserl), and that this duality is reflected in the way they understand European modernity, the significance of science, and finally the idea of a Europeanization of the world. In so doing, the article enters into a critical discussion with those readings that have noted the proximity of the two authors only to see in them the same spiritualism, suspected of perpetuating the Eurocentric prejudice. (shrink)

This article argues that the social construction of the borders of Europe is the combined effect of a historical trajectory in which the construction of its outer and its inner boundaries interact. These boundaries make sense to the people because they have a narrative plausibility. On such narrative resonance, real hard borders are grounded. The idea of narrative boundary construction is embedded in a minimalist theory of identity that claims that anything can serve as a boundary within a historically (...) specific situation. The only restriction regarding boundary construction is that a new boundary continues the narrative – either in a continuous or a discontinuous way, either as conservative caring for a tradition or as a revolutionary break with a tradition. This radical break with substantialist notions of Europe's borders and identity implies that such trajectories do not imply any necessity. Whether the European integration process is continuing an old narrative or whether it points towards a specific discontinuity in the further telling of Europe's story, is historically contingent. Europe has just to continue to tell a story about itself that makes narrative sense. (shrink)

Why is American punishment so cruel? While in continental Europe great efforts are made to guarantee that prisoners are treated humanely, in America sentences have gotten longer and rehabilitation programs have fallen by the wayside. Western Europe attempts to prepare its criminals for life after prison, whereas many American prisons today leave their inhabitants reduced and debased. In the last quarter of a century, Europe has worked to ensure that the baser human inclination toward vengeance is not (...) reflected by state policy, yet America has shown a systemic drive toward ever increasing levels of harshness in its criminal policies. Why is America so short on mercy? In this deeply researched, comparative work, James Q. Whitman reaches back to the 17th and 18th centuries to trace how and why American and European practices came to diverge. Eschewing the usual historical imprisonment narratives, Whitman focuses instead on intriguing differences in the development of punishment in the age of Western democracy. European traditions of social hierarchy and state power, so consciously rejected by the American colonies, nevertheless supported a more merciful and dignified treatment of offenders. The hierarchical class system on the continent kept alive a tradition of less-degrading "high-status" punishments that eventually became applied across the board in Europe. The distinctly American, draconian regime, on the other hand, grows, Whitman argues, out of America's longstanding distrust of state power and its peculiar, broad-brush sense of egalitarianism. Low-status punishments were evenly meted out to all offenders, regardless of class or standing. America's unrelentingly harsh treatment of trangressors--this "equal opportunity degradation"-- is, in a very real sense, the dark side of the nation's much vaunted individualism. A sobering look at the growing rift between the United States and Europe, Harsh Justice exposes the deep cultural roots of America's degrading punishment practices. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl. Infinite tasks -- Universality and spatial form -- Universality in the making -- Martin Heidegger. Singular essence -- The strangeness of beginnings -- The originary world of tragedy -- Jan Patoka. Care of the soul -- The genealogy of Europe-responsibility -- Jacques Derrida. European memories -- This little thing that is Europe -- De-closing the horizon.

In Imagining Europe, Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand explore the formation of modern European identity. Europe has not always been there, although we have been imagining it for quite some time. Even after the birth of a polity called the European Union, the meaning of Europe remained a very much contested topic. What is Europe? What are its boundaries? Is there a specific European identity or is the EU just the name for a group of institutions? (...) This book answers these questions, showing that in Europe's formation, myth and memory, although distinct, are often merged in a common attempt to construct an identity for its present and its future. In a time when Europe is facing an existential crisis, when its meaning is being questioned, Imagining Europe explores a vital and often unacknowledged aspect of the European project. (shrink)

This article analyses the central themes in the works of Claudio Magris through a critical reading of Danube, A Different Sea, Microcosms, Utopia e disincanto [Utopia and disenchantment], Blindly, Journeying, and Alfabeti [Alphabets]. Magris’s work, be it his fiction or essays, abounds with descriptions and narrations of spaces and places, which become central to his world-view as an author. These spaces and places, located primarily in Central Europe and in the surroundings of his own city, Trieste, inspired his turn (...) to Eastern Europe, including the Slavic countries. Conscious of the Western Europeans’ often condescending view of the East, Magris became a vocal critic of Western Eurocentrism, which he attributed to their insufficient familiarity with the cultures and histories of their Eastern neighbours. Magris’s primary interest has always been Europe’s ethnic and cultural coexistence, with a particular affinity with dissident, nationless, and exiled literary figures, in line with his notion of hybrid, fluid, and multiple identities. The works of Magris offer compelling reflections on a Europe viewed through the contradictory encounters between East and West. As such they have contributed to the gradual creation of hybrid identities, which, through their historical palimpsests, have become part of a broader cultural geography. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

L’une des difficultés majeures de l’idée européenne s’énonce aujourd’hui en termes de définition du modèle fédéral le mieux adapté au projet européen. À la séduction qu’exercent les formules politiques fédérales se joint régulièrement la crainte qu’il ne s’agisse pas d’une solution adaptée aux problèmes et aux besoins de l’Europe contemporaine. Y aurait-il une forme de fédéralisme particulièrement adaptée ou adaptable aux besoins de l’Europe contemporaine? Dispose-t-on d’une série d’expériences historiques déjà réalisées qui seraient transposables sous certaines conditions? Ou (...) s’agit-il plutôt de définir, sur la base de l’histoire et des tensions que l’Europe incarne de manière inédite, une nouvelle espèce de fédéralisme? (shrink)

Que signifie l’Europe pour les juristes? La première réponse, de caractère descriptif, renvoie aux deux ordres juridiques européens, celui de l’Union Européenne et celui du Conseil de l’Europe. Ces deux ordres juridiques reposent sur des traités et les États qui adhèrent à ces traités sont reconnus comme « européens ». Le concept juridique d’Europe est donc distinct du concept géographique : il intègre des territoires situés en Asie ou outremer. L’Europe juridique ne correspond pas non plus (...) à un peuple européen, mais à une pluralité de peuples reliés à des États-nations dont les institutions démocratiques ont approuvé l’adhésion à l’Europe. La soumission au droit des traités européens est ainsi à la base, conventionnelle, de l’Europe juridique. Cette situation peut être envisagée comme une série de fictions qui ont donné naissance à un réseau, relativement stables, de règles sur la protection des droits de l’homme. C’est ce droit cosmopolite des droits de l’homme qui peut être considéré comme la structure fondamentale du concept juridique d’Europe. (shrink)

There are, it is said nowadays, “Renaissances,” in order to emphasize the diversity of expressions in this period of civilization and because of the concern for restoring the originality of the historical situations experienced at that time by the peoples of Europe. It is true that from the fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries, the Renaissance touched many areas in order to provide a response to challenges of the times. But even though these responses were varied, the world view was (...) the same. (shrink)

L’Europe et les géographes arabes du Moyen Âge : “La grande terre” et ses peuples. Conceptualisation d’un espace ethnique et politique. By Jean-Charles Ducène. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2018. Pp. 502. €27.

The year 1968 is universally considered a watershed in history, as the world was experiencing an accelerated growth of anti-establishment protests that would have long-lasting impacts on the cultural, social, and political spheres of human life. On September 26, amid social and political unrest across the globe, 62 physicists gathered in Geneva to found the European Physical Society. Among these were the official representatives of the national physical societies of 18 countries in both Eastern and Western Europe, who signed (...) the constitution in spite of the political divides of the Cold War. According to the main proponent of the society, Italian physicist Gilberto Bernardini, the success of the initiative was the realization of a dream: the institutional formation of a single community of European physicists, a representation of a culturally unified Europe that he described as a “single highly civilized nation.” The analysis of as yet unexplored archival materials of Bernardini and other protagonists in the establishment of the society has enabled an investigation of the historical development of science diplomacy in two interconnected ways: first, by elucidating how the actors involved, especially those in Western Europe, interpreted their role as diplomats amid particularly turbulent reconfigurations of international political relations; second, by interpreting the attempt to institutionalize transnational scientific networks with the establishment of a non-governmental organization as a tool to influence world political affairs. It will first be shown that the political ideal of a culturally unified Europe was deeply intertwined with the socio-professional interests of a specific community, mostly involved with CERN. I will argue that, in the process of establishing the society, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armed forces led many of the Western physicists involved in this process to reframe the role of the European Physical Society as a tool to diffuse liberal-democratic values and to support political dissidents in Eastern Europe. (shrink)

This paper focuses on sections of Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols that deal with Goethe, with the aim of reflecting on the anthropological ideal that Nietzsche outlines in his late period. I give particular attention to the way in which Nietzsche deals with concepts such as "German", "(good) European", and "free spirit", connecting them in a coherent picture. Finally, I argue that the Renaissance plays an important role in Nietzsche's anthropological project, for it helps to define the spiritual strength that (...) characterizes the healthy type of man whom Nietzsche thought destined to realize his late philosophy. (shrink)

This article argues that, despite the efforts to expunge race from the European political sphere, racism continues to define the sociality of Europe. The post-war drive to replace race with other signifiers, such as culture or ethnicity, has done little to overcome the effects of the race idea, one less based on naturalist conceptions of hierarchical humanity, and more on fundamental conceptions of Europeanness and non-Europeanness. The silence about race in Europe allows European states to declare themselves non-racist, (...) or even anti-racist, while at the same time continuing to imply an inherent European superiority, which determines both international relationships and relationships with those seen as `in but not of Europe' within its domestic spheres. The article concludes by asking what the repercussions of this are in the context of the contemporary discourse on cohesion and integration that replaces multiculturalism as a possible way of living together in a Europe always less homogeneous in reality than it is commonly imagined to be. (shrink)

The EU has recently introduced a cultural policy. This includes symbolic initiatives, among which is the creation of the `European Cities of Culture' (ECC), that are a primary example of EU attempts at awakening European consciousness by promoting its symbols, while respecting the content of national cultures. This goes together with the realization that the idea of `Europe' as the foundation of an identity is key for the legitimization of the EU. This article addresses the question of European cultural (...) identity as it is appropriated and shaped by the EU in the process of becoming an `imagined community'. It is grounded on a critical systematization of current ideas of Europe as a cultural identity and on a fieldwork analysis of the nine ECCs in 2000. The article argues that if we are to appreciate how Europe is imagined, it is important both to take EU symbolic initiatives seriously, and to try and grasp the specificity of these symbols and the peculiar conditions of their use. (shrink)