An unusual and thought-provoking history of humankind traces the evolution of emotions and personal relationships through the ages and among diverse cultures, discussing such varied topics as the art of conversation, inter-gender friendships, lifestyles, and cookery.

Psychopathy has been the subject of investigations in both philosophy and psychiatry and yet the conceptual issues remain largely unresolved. This volume approaches psychopathy by considering the question of what psychopaths lack. The contributors investigate specific moral dysfunctions or deficits, shedding light on the capacities people need to be moral by examining cases of real people who seem to lack those capacities. -/- The volume proceeds from the basic assumption that psychopathy is not characterized by a single deficit--for example, the (...) lack of empathy, as some philosophers have proposed—but by a range of them. Thus contributors address specific deficits that include impairments in rationality, language, fellow-feeling, volition, evaluation, and sympathy. They also consider such issues in moral psychology as moral motivation, moral emotions, and moral character; and they examine social aspects of psychopathic behavior, including ascriptions of moral responsibility, justification of moral blame, and social and legal responses to people perceived to be dangerous. -/- As this volume demonstrates, philosophers will be better equipped to determine what they mean by “the moral point of view” when they connect debates in moral philosophy to the psychiatric notion of psychopathy, which provides some guidance on what humans need in order be able to feel the normative pull of morality. And the empirical work done by psychiatrists and researchers in psychopathy can benefit from the conceptual clarifications offered by philosophy. (shrink)

Decision-making capacity or mental competence is one of the most intensively discussed concepts in contemporary bioethics and medical ethics. In this paper I argue that anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder primarily afflicting adolescent girls and young women, seriously challenges what I label the traditional account of decision-making capacity. In light of these results, it may in addition be necessary to rethink a certain popular type of paternalistic argumentation that grounds the justification of compulsory treatment, for example of anorexic persons who (...) refuse treatment, on a lack of decision-making capacity. (shrink)

Upon separation of the protein from the nucleic acid component of tobacco mosaic virus by phenol, using a fast and gentle procedure, the nucleic acid is infective in assays on tobacco leaves. A series of qualitative and quantitative control experiments demonstrates that the biological activity cannot depend on residual proteins in the preparation, but is a property of isolated nucleic acid which is thus the genetic material of the virus.

This is the first wide-ranging, multi-authored handbook in the field of philosophy of medicine, covering the underlying conceptual issues of many important social, political and ethical issues in health care. It introduces and develops over 70 topics, concepts, and issues in the field. It is written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, health sciences, nursing, sociology, political theory, and medicine. Many difficult social and ethical issues in health care are based on conceptual problems, most prominently on the definitions (...) of health and disease, or on epistemological issues regarding causality or diagnosis. Philosophy is the discipline that deals with such conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, and axiological matters. (shrink)

Misunderstanding other people can be interpreted as the result of an insufficient performance of people’s skills to understand other persons and their experiences. But what does understand mean in these contexts? And what are the relevant skills that need to be engaged to successfully understand other people? I argue that understanding other people is a form of recognition of the epistemic validity of another person’s perspective. I claim that minimal understanding does not require an endorsement of another person’s perspective. This (...) makes the avoidance of lack of understanding a feasible achievement in almost all cases, though it often requires effort in the interactive process of understanding. I specifically analyse the epistemic and normative roles of empathy in this process. In pursuing this aim, I also defend empathy against recent philosophical arguments that point at moral dangers of empathic processes. (shrink)

Brackets and tables, circles and maps, 1554-1872 -- Early botanical networks and trees, 1766-1815 -- The first evolutionary tree, 1786-1820 -- Diverse and unusual trees of the early nineteenth century, 1817-1834 -- The rule of five, 1819-1854 -- Pre-Darwinian branching diagrams, 1828-1858 -- Evolution and the trees of Charles Darwin, 1837-1868 -- The trees of Ernst Haeckel, 1866-1905 -- Post-Darwinian nonconformists, 1868-1896 -- More late-nineteenth-century trees, 1874-1897 -- Trees of the early twentieth century, 1901-1930 -- The trees of Alfred Sherwood (...) Romer, 1933-1966 -- Additional trees of the mid-twentieth century, 1931-1943 -- The trees of William King Gregory, 1938-1951 -- Hints of new approaches, 1954-1969 -- Phenograms and cladograms, 1958-1966 -- Early molecular trees, 1962-1987 -- Notable trees of the past four decades, 1970-2010 -- Primeval branches and universal trees of life, 1997-2010. (shrink)

An intense and lively debate on literature and art between thinkers who became some of the great figures of twentieth-century philosophy and literature.

In einem Brief nennt Adorno die "Negative Dialektik" kurz nach ihrem Erscheinen unter seinen Schriften "das philosophische Hauptwerk, wenn ich so sagen darf“. Dieser herausgehobenen Bedeutung, die das Werk für Adorno hatte, entspricht nicht nur die lange Zeit, die er mit der Abfassung des Buchs beschäftigt war, sondern auch die lange Geschichte, die ihre zentralen Motive in seinem Denken haben. Philosophische Begriffsklärung, die Arbeit an "Begriff und Kategorien“ einer negativen Dialektik, versteht Adorno dabei als dialektischen Übergang in inhaltliches Denken – (...) und so betreibt er sie auch hier. Das hat Konsequenzen für die Form des kooperativen Kommentars, der in diesem Band versucht wird. Adornos "Negative Dialektik" zu kommentieren, kann nur in dem Bewußtsein der unüberbrückbaren Kluft gelingen, die den Kommentar von diesem Text trennt. (shrink)

Research on parasocial interactions and parasocial relationships refers back to a tradition of 50 years. However, research on both phenomena still suffers from overlapping definitions and resulting measurements that do not distinguish between PSI and PSR. The present study presents a post-exposure measurement tool that aims to measure PSI instead of PSR. It is derived from a theoretical model that specifically focuses on PSI. Psychometric analyses indicate the tool's high usability. It is capable of displaying both the intensity and the (...) dimensionality of PSI. It can be applied to measure both positive and negative PSI across all TV formats, without changing the item wording. In sum, the PSI-Process-Scales may offer a valuable alternative for researchers in the field, specifically if they want to assess parasocial processes that take place throughout TV exposure. (shrink)

In many European countries, the explicit discussion of race as a biological phenomenon has long been avoided. This has not meant that race has become obsolete or irrelevant all together. Rather, it is a slippery object that keeps shifting and changing. To understand its slippery nature, we suggest that race in Europe is best viewed as an absent presence, something that oscillates between reality and nonreality, which appears on the surface and then hides underground. In this special issue, we explore (...) how race has been configured in different practices and how race-based identities and technologies are entwined in various European settings. (shrink)

It is held that absolute poverty causes approximately one third of all human deaths, some 18 million annually, and blights billions of lives with hunger and disease. This book develops universalizable norms aimed at tackling absolute poverty and the complex and multilayered problems associated with it.

Territorial borders just like other boundaries are involved in a politics of belonging, a politics of “us” and “them”. Border management regimes are thus part of processes of othering. In this article, we use the management of borders and populations in Europe as an empirical example to make a theoretical claim about race. We introduce the notion of the phenotypic other to argue that race is a topological object, an object that is spatially and temporally folded in distributed technologies of (...) governance. To elaborate on these notions, we first examine a number of border management technologies through which both race and Europe are brought into being. More specifically we focus on how various such technologies aimed at monitoring the movement of individuals together with the management of populations have come to play crucial roles in Europe. Different border management regimes, we argue, do not only enact different versions of Europe but also different phenotypic others. We then shift the focus from border regimes to internal practices of governance, examining forensic DNA databanks to unravel articulations of race in the traffic between databases and societies. (shrink)

Attempts have been made to prove God's non-existence. Often this takes the form of an appeal to the so-called Argument from Evil: if God were to exist, then he would not permit as much suffering in the world as there actually is. Hence the fact that there is so much suffering constitutes evidence for God's non-existence. In this essay I propose a variation which I shall call ‘The Argument from Non-belief’. Its basic idea is that if God were to exist, (...) then he would not permit as much non-belief in the world as there actually is. Hence the fact that there is so much non-belief constitutes evidence for God's non-existence. (shrink)

What is the basis of our capacity to act morally? This is a question that has been discussed for millennia, with philosophical debate typically distinguishing two sources of morality: reason and sentiment. This collection aims to shed light on whether the human capacity to feel for others really is central for morality and, if so, in what way. To tackle these questions, the authors discuss how fellow feeling is to be understood: its structure, content and empirical conditions. Also discussed are (...) the exact roles that relevant psychological features - specifically: empathy, sympathy and concern - may play within morality. The collection is unique in bringing together the key participants in the various discussions of the relation of fellow feeling to moral norms, moral concepts and moral agency. By integrating conceptually sophisticated and empirically informed perspectives, Forms of Fellow Feeling will appeal to readers from philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

The following is the transcript of a lecture taken in shorthand by Hans-Georg Backhaus. The transcript was originally published as an appendix in Hans-Georg Backhaus, Dialektik der Wertform. Untersuchungen zur marxschen Ökonomiekritik, a complete translation of which is forthcoming in the Historical Materialism book series.

A property, F, is maximal iff, roughly, large parts of an F are not themselves Fs.' Maximality makes trouble for a recent analysis of intrinsicality by Rae Langton and David Lewis.

Calls to hold artificial intelligence to account are intensifying. Activists and researchers alike warn of an “accountability gap” or even a “crisis of accountability” in AI. Meanwhile, several prominent scholars maintain that accountability holds the key to governing AI. But usage of the term varies widely in discussions of AI ethics and governance. This chapter begins by disambiguating some different senses and dimensions of accountability, distinguishing it from neighboring concepts, and identifying sources of confusion. It proceeds to explore the idea (...) that AI operates within an accountability gap arising from technical features of AI as well as the social context in which it is deployed. The chapter also evaluates various proposals for closing this gap. I conclude that the role of accountability in AI ethics and governance is vital but also more limited than some suggest. Accountability’s primary job description is to verify compliance with substantive normative principles—once those principles are settled. Theories of accountability cannot ultimately tell us what substantive standards to account for, especially when norms are contested or still emerging. Nonetheless, formal mechanisms of accountability provide a way of diagnosing and discouraging egregious wrongdoing even in the absence of normative agreement. Providing accounts can also be an important first step toward the development of more comprehensive regulatory standards for AI. (shrink)

Traditional debate on the metaphysics of gender has been a contrast of essentialist and social-constructionist positions. The standard reaction to this opposition is that neither position alone has the theoretical resources required to satisfy an equitable politics. This has caused a number of theorists to suggest ways in which gender is unified on the basis of social rather than biological characteristics but is “real” or “objective” nonetheless – a position I term social objectivism. This essay begins by making explicit the (...) motivations for, and central assumptions of, social objectivism. I then propose that gender is better understood as a real kind with a historical essence, analogous to the biologist’s claim that species are historical entities. I argue that this proposal achieves a better solution to the problems that motivate social objectivism. Moreover, the account is consistent with a post-positivist understanding of the classificatory practices employed within the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

A certain conception of Hell is inconsistent with God's traditional attributes. My argument is novel in focusing on considerations involving vagueness. God is in charge of the selection procedure, so the selection procedure must be just; any just procedure will have borderline cases; but according to the traditional conception, the afterlife is binary and has no borderline cases.

Michael Slote has long been one of the foremost contributors to discussions in moral theory. Both his work on consequentialism and his particular version of virtue ethics have been highly influential. In recent years, Slote has developed a distinctive and original voice, placing his various theoretical endeavours under the title of “sentimentalism”. His key ethical work in this context is Moral Sentimentalism, which, uniquely, defends versions of both a metaethical and aretaic sentimentalist theory. The present volume is an extended discussion (...) of that work, containing eight original commentaries and a substantial response by Slote, which provide fresh insights into his position. The collection will be of significant value to anyone interested in contemporary debates in meta-ethics or normative ethics. (shrink)

Zillmann's mood-management theory has acquired a prominent place in media psychology and makes reliable predictions about people's hedonistically motivated mood regulation via entertainment offerings. However, the full potential for explaining affect regulation through media usage has not been exhausted so far. Therefore, we aim at an integrative view of the field based on empirical findings from communication studies as well as on the background of contemporary theories of mood and emotion. The purpose of this analysis is to argue towards an (...) integrative theoretical perspective which considers both unconscious and conscious/reflected processes of affect regulation through media, supplements the hedonistic motive with other non-hedonistic, instrumental motives of affect regulation, looks at selection behavior as well as at other behavioral and cognitive strategies of affect regulation, and encompasses individual attributes. (shrink)

According to four dimensionalism, the material world is divided into momentary stages. In a four-dimensional world, which objects are the ordinary things, the things we normally name and quantify over? Aggregates of stages, according to most four-dimensionalists, but according to stage theorists (or exdurantists), ordinary objects are instead to be identified with the stages themselves. (A temporal counterpart theoretic account of de re temporal predication is then given.) This paper argues that a stage theorist is best positioned to accept David (...) Lewis's argument from temporary intrinsics for four-dimensionalism, since stage theorists are the only four-dimensionalists who attribute monadic temporary intrinsic properties to ordinary things. (shrink)

For deliberations on the ethical and meta-ethical implications of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, here are abstracts and papers from the Ethics Section of the 6th International Whitehead Conference held at the University of Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria in July 2006. In accordance with the conference schedule, there are three subsections. The subsection on "Metaphysics of Morals and Moral Theory" includes contributions from Franklin I. Gamwell (Does Morality Presuppose God?), John W. Lango (abstract only), Duane Voskuil ("Ethics' Dipolar Necessities and (...) Theistic Implications), and Theodore Walker Jr. ("Neoclassical Cosmology and Matthew 22:36-40). The subsection on "Evaluating Moral Practices" includes contributions from Frederick Ferrè (abstract only), Seung Gap Lee (Hope for the Earth: A Process Eschatological Eco-ethics for South Korea), Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore (Compassion, Creativity, and Form: The Ethics of Institutions), and George W. Shields (Ruse, Altruism, and Process Philosophy). The subsection on "Ethics and Aesthetic Values" includes contributions from Stephen T. Franklin (abstract only), Brian G. Henning (Is There an Ethics of Creativity?), Mihàly Tòth (Art of Life and the Ethics of Life Forming), and Guorong Yang (Problems and Perspectives in the Emerging of Global Society). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 136-137 [Access article in PDF] John Watkins. Human Freedom after Darwin: A Critical Rationalist View. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1999. Pp. xi + 348. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $24.95. John Watkins examines man's place in nature since Darwin. As a critical rationalist, using the methods of science, Watkins hopes to construct a world-view which challenges competing hypotheses and supports his own. He (...) recognizes that his view is, also, a candidate for critical rejection. All scientific views are, in principle, fallible. He divides his book into two parts: Naturalism and Freedom. [End Page 137]In evolutionary development, he accepts, as critically established, the sequence: matter before life, life before mind, and, no mind without a brain. Thus, naturalism is preferred beforesupernaturalism or divine intervention. These guides may support a continuous, steady evolutionaryprocess or discontinuity, mutations, and various stages of change. Darwin acceptedthe former and held physical changes were unaffected by consciousness. All change is, in principle,present from the beginning and unfolds over time. Darwin's view, then, is deterministic.Watkins challenges this position and argues for consciousness affecting physical change in new and unpredictable ways. It is herein that the possibility of animal and human freedom lies. Watkins gives examples of the actions of the hunter and hunted among animals, and of strategies developed by humans during crises, to support the view that there are novel and unpredictable actions by conscious beings. These actions can hardly be called predetermined in the nature of things. There is a huge difference between a general genetic structure for kinds of behavior and specific actions during crises (not that these are the only instances of freedom). At any rate, there is a reciprocal action between an individual and its environment and not merely a unilinear one.In Part II, Freedom, Watkins examines some classical, philosophical views of human freedom. He gives brief, but penetrating, analyses of Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Spinoza. Either they account for human action in strictly physical terms that are causally deterministic or they turn to non-empirical sources that are not verifiable. Since the latter make no difference in our account of behavior, they are entities multiplied beyond necessity. Those who give a completely deterministic view—Hobbes, Hume, and Schopenhauer—offer no continuum between cause and chance. Chance turns out to depend upon our ignorance of causes; further examination would show it causally determined.Watkins seems most sympathetic to Spinoza's treatment. In his hard-headed naturalism, Spinoza rejects any non-natural or supernatural accounts of human behavior. He is a strict determinist where man's confrontation with nature is concerned. Human emotions are passive and react to our environment; they do not affect it. Human reason makes no difference, but in its capacity to contemplate eternal truths it offers a way out. Instead of reacting to nature, man may transcend it. This transcendence is the key to Spinoza's view of the intellectual love of God, and human freedom. Watkins criticizes this flight from man's place in nature and the limited use of reason. In this vein, Spinoza seems to abandon the confrontation of nature for a flight to eternal truths. For Watkins, however, reasons must be used in confronting nature. As we saw, he claims that reason may have an effect upon the environment that is novel and unpredictable. Human agency is a part of the evolutionary story. Human agency is not an either/or proposition. There are degrees of effectiveness in human response to nature.In his analysis of human freedom, Watkins turns to the works of Newton, Faraday, Einstein, and others. In studying the problems posed by the consideration of natural phenomena during their time, they showed intellectual perspicacity of the highest order. Faraday's unified field theory brought electrical and magnetic phenomena, previously thought to be disparate, together. Newton's laws of motion brought celestial and terrestrial mechanics under one theory. Einstein changed the way in which space, time, mass, energy, and light were conceived. In a real sense, they were... (shrink)

Contributes a black Atlantic perspective to postmodernism, theology, and metaphysics.