It is technically possible to clone a human being. The result of the procedure would be a human being in its own right. Given the current level of cloning technology concerning other animals there is every reason to believe that early human clones will have shorter-than-average life-spans, and will be unusually prone to disease. In addition, they would be unusually at risk of genetic defects, though they would still, probably, have lives worth living. But with experimentation and experience, seriously unequal (...) prospects between cloned and noncloned people should erode. We shall ignore arguments about cloning that focus on the potential for harm to the fetus or resultant human being, where harm is understood solely in terms of physical and mental health. Unless the resultant people would generally have lives worth living there is no positive case for cloning, or any other form of reproduction, for that matter. If the resultant beings will generally have lives worth living there is a prima facie case for allowing cloning. We imagine the case in which the resultant beings will have lives well worth living. (shrink)

This paper identifies four criteria, all of which an ideal real utopian proposal would meet. We argue for a moderate skepticism that it is possible to give a real utopian proposal to guide the design of education for a society that meets these criteria; both for the practical reason that what happens in schools depends on the background environment within which they operate, and for the principled reason that when educating children we should attend to their individual future well-being in (...) ways that militate against taking the risk that we are preparing them for an environment that they will not, in fact, inhabit. In place of a real utopian proposal, then, we embark on the easier task of defending a moderate set of feasible reforms that, implemented in the context of an unreformed US economy, would make the school system realize, somewhat better than it does, the principles that should guide the design of school systems in ideal and nonideal contexts. These include reducing the size of schools, lengthening the amount of time that children spend in school, and constructing cross-school standards that can guide professional development of teachers. (shrink)

In the liberal egalitarian literature, the concept of talent is inflected according to its use in broader arguments surrounding the nature of justice. In particular, sometimes talent is understood as a desirable inborn property, while at other times it is understood as a matter of inhabiting a favorable social position. Rawls’s arguments in A Theory of Justice provide useful expressions of these two very different conceptions of talent and their relationship to justice, and much of this paper involves an exploration (...) of those arguments. The former sense of talent informs Rawls’s fair equality of opportunity principle: those with equivalent levels of talent and effort are to face similar prospects. According to the latter, what is significant about talent is not its innate origins, but rather its enabling the possession of desirable goods. This second sense of talent is implicit in Rawls’s difference principle: though it is arbitrary that the talented have the ability to command high wages, it is nonetheless fair to keep those wages because the worst off benefit most from that arrangement. In this paper I explore how the two conceptions of talent operate in these influential arguments, with the broader aims of clarifying the nature of talent and its relevance to social justice. (shrink)

In the liberal egalitarian literature, the concept of talent is inflected according to its use in broader arguments surrounding the nature of justice. In particular, sometimes talent is understood as a desirable inborn property, while at other times it is understood as a matter of inhabiting a favorable social position. Rawls’s arguments in A Theory of Justice provide useful expressions of these two very different conceptions of talent and their relationship to justice, and much of this paper involves an exploration (...) of those arguments. The former sense of talent informs Rawls’s fair equality of opportunity principle: those with equivalent levels of talent and effort are to face similar prospects. According to the latter, what is significant about talent is not its innate origins, but rather its enabling the possession of desirable goods. This second sense of talent is implicit in Rawls’s difference principle: though it is arbitrary that the talented have the ability to command high wages, it is nonetheless fair to keep those wages because the worst off benefit most from that arrangement. In this paper I explore how the two conceptions of talent operate in these influential arguments, with the broader aims of clarifying the nature of talent and its relevance to social justice. (shrink)

The Enneagram opens a remarkable window into the truth about us, but simply diagnosing our number doesn't do justice to who we are. Transformation happens as we grow in awareness and learn how to apply Enneagram insights to the rhythms of our daily lives. Filled with exercises to engage, challenge, encourage, and sustain, this handbook will help us grow in greater awareness and lead us to spiritual and relational transformation.

In the pursuit of a dramaturgy of telematics as a compositional practice, the author builds a position on technology as externalized technique, develops a dramaturgic strategy with notions of an extended theatre practice and reports on a realized telematized performance where a practical implementation was explored. The theatrical site is viewed as a construct of attention, generated by the performers through the performance composition. The composition determines the audience experience, orchestrated by how the construction of the site manages their perspectives, (...) and how the performers are situated in the consciousness site of the audience. In the performed event the performers articulate as a collective extended entity, incorporating the transformation of the performance site via the articulation strategies implemented in the staging. Telematics is argued to be a technology facilitating specific modes of thinking, generating specific modes of actions and presence, which enable new performance sites and new modes of situating performance. (shrink)

It is suggested how one can imaginatively use a design strategy utilizing performers as tools in the creation of augmented, performative artwork. In order to establish meaningful constructions of performative and augmentative technology, one can use the formal methodologies of advanced formal body language as a tool in the creation process, and thereby have ‘the actual experience’ present in the process as a monitor and a constructive tool. To use a human being as a design tool is a method that (...) uses the skilled performer as a ‘super-’ or ‘extra-’ human tool to investigate through action and analysis. It is a way to test how realities occur under fluid and dynamic conditions within a controlled environment of time and space. This ‘technical’ use of the body as an extra-human behavioural entity, involves the total complex spectrum of intellect, emotions, desires, memory, actions, etc. as a formalized ‘machine’. (shrink)

V pričujočem prispevku bom kritično presodil dva splošno sprejeta pristopa k umetnosti in estetiki, ki nakazujeta, da filozofska estetika ni več mogoča. Tako sociologija umetnosti kot tudi številni poststrukturalistični pristopi k umetnosti trdijo, da so pokazali, da sta tradicionalna umetnostna zgodovina in filozofija umetnosti nelegitimni. Sociologija umetnosti in poststrukturalistična teorija sta obe prišli - po povsem različnih poteh -do podobnega sklepa: estetika je v osnovi ideološki diskurz, ki mora biti demaskiran. Poskušal bom pokazati, da Bourdieujev pristop - čeprav razjasni nekatere (...) aspekte umetnostne presoje -resno napačno razlaga naravo sodobne filozofske estetike. Zdi se mi, da so mnogi poststrukturalistični misleci zagrešili isto napako, kot jo je Bourdieu: nagnjeni so k temu, da tradicionalno umetnostno in literarno zgodovino itd. razumejo kot neizpodbitno »logocentrično« in »esencialistično«. To je tako, kot da bi hoteli povedati, da mrrabiti vsaka, svojega imena vredna estetika esencialistična, nezgodovinska in zatorej ideološka. Trdim, daje koncept umetnosti, kot ga mi poznamo in ki seje izoblikoval v sedanjo obliko konec 18. stoletja, zgodovinski koncept. Umetnost, kot jo mi poznamo, ni večna, čeprav presega naše življenje. To pa ne pomeni, da umetniškega vzgiba, kije soroden simbolnemu in kije lahko uresničen na mnogo načinov v različnih zgodovinskih in kulturnih pogojih, ne moremo legitimno obravnavati kot stalno odliko človeške narave. Človek ni samo zoon politikon, temveč tudi zoon symbolikon. Estetika je med drugim racionalni odraz naše potrebe po simbolih ter naše zmožnosti simbolizacije. (shrink)

Kritika okularocentrizma, prevladujoče težnje privilegirati vid na račun drugih čutnih modalnosti v zahodnem mišljenju, je pred nedavnim postala predmet napada poststrukturalističnih in postfenomenoloških mislecev. Kritika okularo-centrizma naj bi okrepila in dopolnila kritiko logo-centrizma in metafizike navzočnosti. Povedano drugače, ta kritika tvori del kritike razsvetljenske racionalnosti. V članku zagovarjam mnenje, da kritika razsvetljenstva pogosto cilja višje kot pa leži njena tarča. Heideggrova kritika »skopične« racionalnosti naše kulture naj bi služila kot radikalna alternativa okularocentričnemu mišljenju. Pokazati skušam, da Heideggrova kritika razsvetljenske racionalnosti (...) in modernosti ni radikalno antiesencialistična in antifundacionalistična, kot trdijo njegovi učenci. Pokazati tudi skušam, da je Heidegger, zaradi svoje problematične politične preteklosti in kritike modernosti, v najboljšem primeru dvomljiv zaveznik v boju proti zatiralski »skopični« racionalnosti. (shrink)

_Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights_ explores important issues at the nexus of two burgeoning areas within moral and social philosophy: procreative ethics and parental rights. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little scholarly engagement across these subdisciplinary boundaries, despite the fact that parental rights are paradigmatically ascribed to individuals responsible for procreating particular children. This collection thus aims to bring expert practitioners from these literatures into fruitful and innovative dialogue around questions at the intersection of procreation and parenthood. Among these questions (...) are: Must individuals be found competent in order to have the right to procreate or to parent? What, if anything, can justify parents' special authority over, or special obligations toward, their children, particularly children they biologically procreate? How is the relationship between the right to procreate and the right to parent best understood? How ought liberal societies understand the parent-child relationship and the rights and claims it gives rise to? A distinguishing feature of the collection is that several of its chapters address these issues by drawing on philosophical work in the realm of education, one of the most controversial areas in the ethics of parenthood. This book represents a distinctive synthesis of topics and literatures likely to appeal to scholars and advanced students working across a wide range of disciplines. (shrink)