Over the past decade, interest in human enhancement has waxed and waned. The initial surge of interest and funding, driven by the US Army’s desire for a ‘Future Force Warrior’ has partly given way to the challenges of meeting operational demands abroad. However the ethical opportunities provided by soldier enhancement demand that investigation of its possibilities continue. Benefits include enhanced decision-making, improved force capability, reduced force size and lower casualty rates. These benefits — and enhancement itself — carry concomitant risks, (...) including morale issues due to tension between enhanced and unenhanced soldiers, the issues of enhanced veterans and ownership of enhanced bodies, challenges to the army’s core values and personal identity issues. A range of measures should be designed to highlight the opportunities offered by enhancement while also minimising the potential risks. This includes providing advice on which areas the army ought to demonstrate restraint in research for ethical reasons. (shrink)

Abstract The debate about the ethics of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) is failing to keep pace with the rise of the technology. Therefore, all the key players, including ethicists, lawyers, and roboticists, are keen to offer their views on the use of these drone aircraft. Some are opposed to their use, citing a range of ethical, legal and operational issues, while others argue for their ethically mandated use. B.J. Strawser fits into this latter category. He develops a principle of ?unnecessary (...) risk?, from which he argues that we have an ethical obligation to employ UAVs if we can do so without incurring a loss of capability. Strawser defends his argument against a number of potential objections, most questionably, the argument that the use of distance weaponry such as drones, against another state without distance weaponry, crosses some moral threshold that makes the combat immoral. Utilising Jeff McMahan's work on the inequality of combatants, Strawser essentially argues that there are no grounds for a ?fair fight?. However, this paper will argue that it is not so easy to overturn the doctrine of the moral equality of combatants, nor dismiss the problem with asymmetry. It will demonstrate that if the asymmetry reaches a certain level, the justification for resorting to war may be removed and some sort of policing action may remain the only option. (shrink)

What's wrong with targeted advertising in political campaigns? Are echo chambers a matter of genuine concern? How does data collection impact on trust in society? As decision-making becomes increasingly automated, how can decision-makers be held to account? This collection consider potential solutions to these challenges.

Ethics settings allow for morally significant decisions made by humans to be programmed into autonomous machines, such as autonomous vehicles or autonomous weapons. Customizable ethics settings are a type of ethics setting in which the users of autonomous machines make such decisions. Here two arguments are provided in defence of customizable ethics settings. Firstly, by approaching ethics settings in the context of failure management, it is argued that customizable ethics settings are instrumentally and inherently valuable for building resilience into the (...) larger socio-technical systems in which autonomous machines operate. Secondly, after defining the preliminary condition of responsibility attribution and demonstrating how ethics settings enable humans to exert control over the outcomes of morally significant incidents, it is shown that ethics settings narrow the responsibility gap. (shrink)

Reductive intellectualists hold that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. For this thesis to hold water, it is obviously important that knowledge-how and knowledge-that have the same epistemic properties. In particular, knowledge-how ought to be compatible with epistemic luck to the same extent as knowledge-that. It is argued, contra reductive intellectualism, that knowledge-how is compatible with a species of epistemic luck which is not compatible with knowledge-that, and thus it is claimed that knowledge-how and knowledge-that come apart.

Autonomous weapon systems could in principle release military personnel from the onus of killing during combat missions, reducing the related risk of suffering a moral injury and its debilita...

Aristotle is widely regarded as the greatest of all philosophers; indeed, he is traditionally referred to simply as `the philosopher'. Today, after more than two millennia, his arguments and ideas continue to stimulate philosophers and provoke them to controversy. In this book J.L. Ackrill conveys the force and excitement of Aristotle's philosophical investigations, thereby showing why contemporary philosophers still draw from him and return to him. He quotes extensively from Aristotle's works in his own notably clear English translation, and a (...) picture emerges of a lucid, lively, subtle and tough-minded thinker of astonishing range and penetration. Professor Ackrill identifies many striking connections between Aristotle's ideas and ideas in recent philosophy; he also raises philosophical questions of his own, and exemplifies the way in which Aristotle can still be argued with and learned from. (shrink)

This article investigates the question concerning moral deskilling in the context of autonomous weapon systems. To this end, it interrogates the appropriateness of deskilling as an analytical tool, the consequences of the conflation of the terms “the warrior” and “the soldier,” and the impact of the dominant, but commonplace, understanding of autonomous weapons that underwrites the concerns that have been expressed thus far. While affirming the critical importance of the question regarding moral deskilling in the context of advanced weapons and (...) technologies, this article argues (a) that the notion of deskilling may not be an adequate or even appropriate analytical tool to investigate the matter on hand; (b) that the conflation of the terms “the warrior” and “the soldier” only serves to obfuscate the critical issues at stake; and (c) that the understanding of autonomous weapons that underwrites the concern is highly speculative. To this extent, the concern regarding moral deskilling in the context of autonomous weapon systems is ill-served. By way of a conclusion, the article calls for a more careful and nuanced approach and makes some preliminary suggestions as to how the question regarding moral deskilling in the context of autonomous weapon systems may be addressed. (shrink)

Today, with the advent of unmanned systems, military hopes are attached to the idea that battles can be fought with soldiers pressing buttons in distant command centres. However, soldiers must now be highly trained, super strong and have the intelligence and mental capacity to handle the highly complex and dynamic military operating environment. This book provides the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the moral, legal and social questions concerning military human enhancement, with a view toward developing guidance and policy (...) that may influence real-world decision making. (shrink)

. VIEWPOINT ARTICLE CLOSING WITH COMPLETENESS: THE ASYMMETRIC DRONE WARFARE DEBATE. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 353-356. doi: 10.1080/15027570.2012.760245.

We must understand that with the possibility of commercial space travel on our horizon, it comes with a number of significant practical and moral challenges. This volume provides the first comprehensive and unifying analysis concerning the rise of private space exploration, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The plethora of questions demanding serious attention - privatisation and commercialisation, the impact on the environment, health futures, risk assessment, responsibility and governance - are directly addressed in (...) this scholarly work. (shrink)

This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and (...) how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general. (shrink)

Discusses nuances required to balance out the debate surrounding the moral and legal permissibility of using autonomous weapon systems in war fighting.

The question of whether new rules or regulations are required to govern, restrict, or even prohibit the use of autonomous weapon systems has been the subject of debate for the better part of a decade. Despite the claims of advocacy groups, the way ahead remains unclear since the international community has yet to agree on a specific definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and the great powers have largely refused to support an effective ban. In this vacuum, the public has (...) been presented with a heavily one-sided view of Killer Robots. This interdisciplinary volume presents a more nuanced approach to autonomous weapon systems that recognizes the need to progress beyond a discourse framed by the Terminator and HAL 9000. Re-shaping the discussion around this emerging military innovation requires a new line of thought and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Lethal Autonomous Weapons focuses on exploring the moral and legal issues associated with the design, development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. The volume brings together some of the most prominent academics and academic-practitioners in the lethal autonomous weapons space and seeks to return some balance to the debate. As part of this effort, it recognizes that society needs to invest in hard conversations that tackle the ethics, morality, and law of these new digital technologies and understand the human role in their creation and operation. (shrink)

The US military is a globally recognizable force politically, ethically and, to some extent, economically. It is not generally realized, however, that such an influential military force also holds...

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

Presents general information about meteorology, weather, and climate and includes more than thirty activities to help study these topics, including making a ...

This paper argues that for the purposes of any sort of serious discussion about immoral conduct in sport very little is illuminated by claiming that the conduct in question is cheating. In fact, describing some behavior as cheating is typically little more than expressing strong, but thoroughly vague and imprecise, moral disapproval or condemnation of another person or institution about a wide and ill-defined range of improper advantage-seeking behavior. Such expressions of disapproval fail to distinguish cheating from many other types (...) of immoral conduct. The discussion shows that we should set the concept aside and assess the moral disapproval implied by claims of cheating by reference to the moral and other principles that underlie the practice of sport. This allows us to consider carefully the complexity of the issues that are raised when allegations of cheating are made and not be distracted by the emotionally loaded, conversation-stopping tendency of the concept. This means that some types of disputes in sport will be messy and demand more effort to resolve, but the payoff will be better informed and more thoughtful discussions and greater awareness of the moral complexity of sport and of its principled underpinnings. (shrink)

Isaac Newton wrote the manuscript Questiones quaedam philosophicae at the very beginning of his scientific career. This small notebook thus affords rare insight into the beginnings of Newton's thought and the foundations of his subsequent intellectual development. The Questiones contains a series of entries in Newton's hand that range over many topics in science, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the foundations of mathematics. These notes, written in English, provide a very detailed picture of Newton's early interests, and record his critical appraisal (...) of contemporary issues in natural philosophy. Written predominantly in 1664-5, they give a significant perspective on Newton's thought just prior to his annus mirabilis, 1666. This volume provides a complete transcription of the Questiones, together with an 'expansion' into modern English, and a full editorial commentary on the content and significance of the notebook in the development of Newton's thought. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Newton and the intellectual foundations of science. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is the most likely site where egocentric spatial relationships are represented in the brain. PPC cells receive visual, auditory, somaesthetic, and vestibular sensory inputs; oculomotor, head, limb, and body motor signals; and strong motivational projections from the limbic system. Their discharge increases not only when an animal moves towards a sensory target, but also when it directs its attention to it. PPC lesions have the opposite effect: sensory inattention and neglect. The PPC does not seem (...) to contain a “map” of the location of objects in space but a distributed neural network for transforming one set of sensory vectors into other sensory reference frames or into various motor coordinate systems. Which set of transformation rules is used probably depends on attention, which selectively enhances the synapses needed for making a particular sensory comparison or aiming a particular movement. (shrink)

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

Providing an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of..

"The ancient and modern question of what is the nature of man and his activity and what ought to be the directions pursued in this activity is once again being ...

According to realist structuralism, mathematical objects are places in abstract structures. We argue that in spite of its many attractions, realist structuralism must be rejected. For, first, mathematical structures typically contain intra-structurally indiscernible places. Second, any account of place-identity available to the realist structuralist entails that intra-structurally indiscernible places are identical. Since for her mathematical singular terms denote places in structures, she would have to say, for example, that 1 = − 1 in the group (Z, +). We call this (...) the identity problem and conclude that nominalism is presently the safest route for the structuralist. (shrink)