It is rarely, if at all, thought that Socrates committed suicide; but such was the case, or so I want to suggest. My suggestion turns not upon any new interpretation of ancient sources but rather upon seeking a determination of the concept of suicide itself.

Philosophy of religion is a general term, which includes the study of any religion in the world with philosophical perspective. Philosophy of religion with Christian perspective went through its three important stages in the 20th century. First in the 1960s, the topic was related to the arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, and the relation between faith and reason. A second major development, stemming from the late 1960s and early 1970s, was in the context of the (...) comparative study of religions and religious pluralism. A third major development has been in the application of techniques of philosophical analysis to the central doctrines of Christian faith-philosophical theology. Unfortunately, Christian philosopphy of religion, also known as Christian religious philosophy, is not distinguished from the general study of the philosophy of religion in the twentieth century. There is an urgent need of formulating a Christian philosophy of religion, which is a gift of the twenty-first century. It is a new branch under Christian Philosophy and a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the philosophical study of religion with Christian perspective. It is too late for us to come back to the philosophy of biblical Christianity. Only a Christ-centred philosophy can change the world from the anarchy and present chaos of the world. Many philosophical speculations and theories have emerged, but the need is a world-changing Christian philosophy. Contra-biblical philosophy stands against biblical teachings, extra-biblical philosophy may be partly acceptable and biblical philosophy is fully acceptable, because it is biblically based-Publisher. (shrink)

The most common view of suicide today is that it is intentional self-killing. 1 Because of the self-killing component, suicide is often described as self-inflicted death or as dying by one's own hand, and the victim is in turn often described as having done himself to death or as having taken his own life. But must one's death be self-inflicted in order to be suicide? The answer, I want to suggest, is arguably no.

The paper explores the severity of the problem of soil erosion and a variety of approaches to the problem. The typology of approaches includes doing nothing, individual party litigation, the state's invocation of public trust doctrine, and the state's exercise of its police power. The Reinvest in Minnesota Program reflects the state's exercise of its police power and addresses the problem of soil erosion by retiring marginal land from crop production through conservation easements. Programs such as Reinvest in Minnesota also (...) reflect a certain ethic about the land. (shrink)

A premise of Corballis's theory is that speech arose when vocalization co-opted existing gestural functions in the left ventral premotor cortex. Yet, visuomotor functions in this region remain largely unchanged between humans and macaques and have no discernible connection to gestural communication. This functional continuity suggests that language production is not the result of modifying existing motor functions in this region.

Glover suggests that representational systems for planning versus control are mapped exclusively to the inferior (IPL) versus superior (SPL) parietal lobules respectively. Yet, there is ample evidence that the IPL and SPL both contribute to action planning and control. Alternatively, I distinguish between the parietal-frontal systems involved in the representation of acquired manual skills versus nonskilled actions.

The Western metaphor of self-as-identity?as a static, inherently exclusive entity?has been instrumental, historically, to our radical separation from nature, and still hampers a reviving of genuine participation with nature. Suggesting an alternative to this metaphor (informed by literacy as technology), I explore the more nature-informed metaphor of dynamic, complex self-systems, involving both natural and human subsystems. Through this latter metaphor, I re-vision radical participation with nature: in the process of perception, in epistemology/ontology, and in the ways of indigenous, oral cultures. (...) This systems metaphor also sheds contrasting light on literacy-informed, Western ways. (shrink)

Der Band fragt nach der Rolle des Körpers im Recht. Vertreter:innen der Philosophie, Theologie und Rechtswissenschaft untersuchen ein vielseitiges und komplexes Spektrum an Fragen, die sich aus dem Verhältnis der Begriffe „Recht" und „Körper" ergeben. In welcher rechtlichen Gestalt tritt ein (menschliches) Rechtssubjekt als Körper auf? Wie wird seine Körperlichkeit vom Recht erfasst, geschützt und normativ bestimmt und gestaltet? Was unterscheidet aus einer rechtlichen Perspektive den menschlichen vom tierischen Körper? Kann der menschliche Körper als Eigentum verstanden werden oder gehorcht er (...) einer fundamental anderen Logik? (shrink)

Scientific knowledge has not stabilized in the current, early, phase of research and development of nanotechnologies creating a challenge to ‘upstream’ public engagement. Nevertheless, the idea that the public should be involved in deliberative discussions and assessments of emerging technologies at this early stage is widely shared among governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders. Many forums for public debate including focus groups, and citizen juries, have thus been organized to explore public opinions on nanotechnologies in a variety of countries over the past (...) few years. In Switzerland the Centre for Technology Assessment (TA-Swiss) organized such a citizen panel in fall 2006. Drawing from an ethnographic study of this panel called ‘publifocus on nanotechnologies, health, and environment’ this paper looks at the ways members of a stakeholder group deal with the epistemic uncertainty in their deliberation of nanotechnologies. By exploring the statements of the participants in the stakeholder discussion group, this paper reconstructs the narratives that constitute the epistemic foundations of the participants’ evaluations of nanotechnologies. (shrink)

This volume offers interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary biomedicine as a cultural practice.

Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume.Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary (...) focus on discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. This Oxford Handbook is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems. Several chapters in this volume explore matters that have never previously been examined by philosophers.The authors of the thirty-five chapters come from a diverse set of philosophical interests in the History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Biology, the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, the Philosophy of Language, Ethical Theory, and Practical Ethics. They explore many theoretical issues about animal minds and an array of practical concerns about animal products, farm animals, hunting, circuses, zoos, the entertainment industry, safety-testing on animals, the status and moral significance of species, environmental ethics, the nature and significance of the minds of animals, and so on. They also investigate what the future may be expected to bring in the way of new scientific developments and new moral problems.This book of original essays is the most comprehensive single volume ever published on animal minds and the ethics of our use of animals. (shrink)

Distortions in memory impose important bounds on rationality but have been largely disregarded in economics. While it is possible to learn, it is more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to unlearn. This retention effect lowers individual utility directly or via reduced productivity, and adds costs to principal-agent relationships. The engraving effect states that the more one tries to forget a piece of information the more vivid it stays in memory, leading to a paradoxical outcome. The effects are based on, and are (...) supported by, psychological experiments, and it is shown that they are relevant in many economic situations and beyond. (shrink)

Pain alone does not settle the issue of vivisectionIn his paper, Lab animals and the art of empathy, David Thomas presents his case against animal experimentation. That case is a rather unusual one in certain respects. It turns upon the fact that, for Thomas, nothing can be proved or established in ethics, with the result that what we are left to operate with, apart from assumptions about cases that we might choose to make, are people’s feelings. We cannot show or (...) demonstrate that Pol Pot did anything morally wrong; we just have to hope, as seems not unreasonably demanding, that most people feel pretty strongly about large scale slaughter of human beings. Since nothing can be proven, we turn instead to our feelings and the three claims that Thomas features in his paper: that we should empathise with all creatures who can feel pain and suffer; that we should be consistent in condemning things based upon a similar degree of suffering involved and so treat like cases alike, and that we should take consent seriously, and, where the possibility of consent is absent, take seriously the notion of the best interests of the creature involved. Thomas concludes his paper with a succinct statement of his position: “In other words, we should look at things from the perspective of the victim, human or animal, not that of the would be exploiter. By this yardstick, animal experiments are as immoral as non-consensual experiments on people. In each case, the degree of immorality is in direct proportion to the degree of suffering caused—experiments causing severe suffering are more immoral than those causing only mild, transient suffering. Crucially, however, an experiment causing severe suffering to an animal is as immoral as one causing severe suffering to a person.”All animal experiments, therefore, have …. (shrink)

The practical use of a combination of trauma psychotherapy and neurofeedback [infra-low-frequency neurofeedback and alpha-theta training] is described for the treatment of patients diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. The indication for this combined treatment is the persistence of symptoms of a hyper-aroused state, anxiety, and sleep disorders even with adequate trauma-focused psychotherapy and supportive medication, according to the Guidelines of the German Society of Psycho-Traumatology. Another indication for a supplementary treatment with neurofeedback is the persistence of dissociative symptoms. Last (...) but not least, the neurofeedback treatment after a trauma-focused psychotherapy session helps to calm the trauma-related reactions and to process the memories. The process of the combined therapy is described and illustrated using two representative case reports. Overall, a rather satisfying result of this outpatient treatment program can be seen in the qualitative appraisal of 7 years of practical application. (shrink)

The moral issues involved in doctors assisting patients to die with dignity are of absolutely central concern to the medical profession, ethicists, and the public at large. The debate is fuelled by cases that extend far beyond passive euthanasia to the active consideration of killing by physicians. The need for a sophisticated but lucid exposition of the two sides of the argument is now urgent. This book supplies that need. Two prominent philosophers, Gerald Dworkin and R. G. Frey present (...) the case for legalization of physician-assisted suicide. One of the best-known ethicists in the US, Sissela Bok, argues the case against. (shrink)

Previous research indicates positive effects of a person’s attractiveness on evaluations of opposite-sex persons, but less positive or even negative effects of attractiveness on same-sex evaluations. These biases are consistent with social motives linked to mate search and intrasexual rivalry. In line with the hypothesis that such motives should not become operative until after puberty, 6- to 12-year-old participants (i.e., children) displayed no evidence for biased social evaluations based on other people’s attractiveness. In contrast, 13- to 19-year-old participants (i.e., adolescents) (...) displayed positive and negative attractiveness biases toward opposite- and same-sex targets, respectively. Moreover, these biases increased with the age—and thus the reproductive relevance—of the targets being evaluated. Findings corroborate the relevance of mating-related motives for social judgment and illustrate how such biases can grow during human development. At a broader conceptual level, this research demonstrates the utility of investigating proximate social judgment processes through the lens of adaptationist thinking. (shrink)

Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs is the author of a famous collection of alchemical poems entitled Shudhūr al-dhahab. In addition to Shudhūr al-dhahab, he authored several other works, including a commentary on Shudhūr, which is discussed here at some length for the first time, and strophic poetry on alchemy. The attribution of other works to him seems to be incorrect, and this applies especially to two works on magic. This contribution focusses on our findings on the identity of Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs and (...) on his life, challenging the identification of the alchemist Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs with a Mālikī religious scholar known as Ibn al-Naqirāt. Based both on manuscripts and on bio-bibliographical literature, we argue that from an early period, two different people, both from sixth/twelfth century Morocco, have been fused into one. Considering all sources, we also suggest that Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs might have left the Islamic west and have written at least some of his works in the east, more specifically in Egypt, thereby explaining the broad reception of Shudhūr al-dhahab throughout the Islamic world, particularly in the Mashriq. (shrink)

Arabo-Islamic alchemy enjoyed considerable popularity until well into the 19th and 20th centuries. It can be considered both as a predecessor of modern chemistry and as a natural philosophy whose purpose is to explain the world. Yet one of the unresolved questions concerning alchemy is how one was supposed to learn it, since it was an art that was meant to be kept secret and only revealed to a few select individuals. While the practicalities of the learning experience remain obscure, (...) it is noteworthy that Arabic alchemical literature often makes use of the literary form of the dialogue, a genre strongly associated with teaching and learning. This paper focuses on three Arabic dialogues on alchemy; namely, Masāʼil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib, Kitāb Mihrārīs al-ḥakīm and Risālat al-ḥakīm Qaydarūs, and discusses how the transfer of secret knowledge is represented. I will focus on the literary frames of these texts, their mise-enscéne, the master-disciple relation as represented within them, and the question of interaction between unequal partners. (shrink)

Alchemy is the art of transforming base metals into precious ones, usually silver and/or gold. The most important method conceived to reach this goal was the creation of the elixir, also called the philosophers’ stone, which, applied to the prime-matter, would lead to an accelerated process of ripening of metals, eventually ending in gold. How did Arabo-Islamic alchemists suppose that the transmutation worked? What were the conditions the adept had to fulfil in order to succeed? And what did they think (...) would happen when one finally has created the philosophers’ stone? Will the economy collapse because gold and silver will lose their validity? Will the alchemist simply lean back and enjoy? Or will the world end, because man has finally attained the knowledge that should be God’s only? (shrink)

This paper describes a one-day workshop format for introducing ethics into the engineering curriculum prepared at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM). It responds to the ethics criteria newly integrated into the accreditation process by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). It also employs an ethics across the curriculum (EAC) approach; engineers identify the ethical issues, write cases that dramatize these issues, and then develop exercises making use of these cases that are specially tailored to mainstream (...) engineering classes. The different activities and strategies employed in this workshop are set forth. Specific references are made to the cases and exercises developed as a result of these workshops. The paper ends by summarizing the different assessments made of the workshop by addressing the following questions: how did it contribute to the overall ABET effort at UPRM; could other universities benefit from a similar activity; and how did the participants evaluate the workshop? (shrink)

This paper explores how scientists perceive public engagement initiatives. By drawing on interviews with nanoscientists, it analyzes how researchers imagine science–society interactions in an early phase of technological development. More specifically, the paper inquires into the implicit framings of citizens, of scientists, and of the public in scientists’ discourses. It identifies four different models of how nanoscientists understand public engagement which are described as educational, paternalistic, elitist, and economistic. These models are contrasted with the dialog model of public engagement promoted (...) by social scientists and policymakers. The paper asks if and in what ways participatory discourses and practices feed back into scientists’ understandings, thus co-producing public discourses and science. (shrink)

Online science and engineering ethics (SEE) education can support appropriate goals for SEE and the highly interactive pedagogy that attains those goals. Recent work in moral psychology suggests pedagogical goals for SEE education that are surprisingly similar to goals enunciated by several panels in SEE. Classroom-based interactive study of SEE cases is a suitable method to achieve these goals. Well-designed cases, with appropriate goals and structure can be easily adapted to courses that have online components. It is less clear that (...) exclusively online methods can support the wide range of goals necessary to good moral pedagogy in SEE, though there seems no a priori reason to rule this out. Only careful, goal-based assessment of online case study SEE teaching can resolve this question. (shrink)

Building on the emotion-centered model of voluntary work behavior, this research tests the relations between leader narcissism, followers’ malicious and benign envy, and supervisor-targeted counterproductive work behavior. Results across five studies, two experimental studies, and two field surveys indicate that leader narcissism relates positively to followers’ negative emotions, which in turn mediates the positive relation between leader narcissism and supervisor-targeted CWB. Proposed negative relations between leader narcissism and positive emotions were only partly supported. Our findings advance the understanding of envy (...) and the detrimental impact of leader narcissism on organizational functioning. (shrink)