DESCARTES’S PASSIONS OF THE SOUL AND THE CONTEMPORARY DISPUTE ABOUT THE NATURE OF EMOTION In my article I discuss the connection between the Cartesian theory of passions of the soul and the contemporary dispute between the cognitive and non-cognitive theories of emotions. Defenders of the cognitive theory of emotions identify emotions with judgments. On the other hand, non-cognitivists claim that emotions are feelings caused by changes in physiological conditions relating to the autonomic and motor functions. Both cognitivists’ and non-cognitivists’ approaches (...) meet serious problems. In the paper, I want to show that the Cartesian theory of passions can be considered an anticipation of contemporary views and a compromise between the cognitive and non-cognitive theories of emotions. Keywords: DESCARTES, NATURE OF EMOTION, SOUL, COGNITIVE AND NON-COGNITIVE THEORIES OF EMOTIONS. (shrink)

The amount allocated to publicly funded health care for 2005/06 in New Zealand, a small country of some four million people, is $NZ 9.68 billion, or 6.2% of GDP, an increase from the 5.7% of GDP in 2000/01. The Minister of Finance has recently signalled that spending in health and education has outpaced economic growth, and that the present rate of growth in health spending, which has grown at about 7% a year over the last decade, is unsustainable. Despite these (...) big funding increases in recent years, the perception of New Zealanders is that the extra spending has made little difference, at least to hospital services and to people’s ability to access treatment. In surveys, health emerges as a leading concern for New Zealanders. Their concern is apparently less about the quality of services, than about their ability to access treatment - whether they will be able to access timely health care when they or their family members need it. (shrink)

The amount allocated to publicly funded health care for 2005/06 in New Zealand, a small country of some four million people, is $NZ 9.68 billion, or 6.2% of GDP, an increase from the 5.7% of GDP in 2000/01. The Minister of Finance has recently signalled that spending in health and education has outpaced economic growth, and that the present rate of growth in health spending, which has grown at about 7% a year over the last decade, is unsustainable. Despite these (...) big funding increases in recent years, the perception of New Zealanders is that the extra spending has made little difference, at least to hospital services and to people’s ability to access treatment. In surveys, health emerges as a leading concern for New Zealanders. Their concern is apparently less about the quality of services, than about their ability to access treatment - whether they will be able to access timely health care when they or their family members need it. (shrink)

This rich and diverse collection offers a range of perspectives and practices of Philosophy for Children (P4C). P4C has become a significant educational and philosophical movement with growing impact on schools and educational policy. Its community of inquiry pedagogy has been taken up in community, adult, higher, further and informal educational settings around the world. The internationally sourced chapters offer research findings as well as insights into debates provoked by bringing children’s voices into moral and political arenas and to philosophy (...) and the broader educational issues this raises, for example: historical perspectives on the field; democratic participation and epistemic, pedagogical and political relationships; philosophy as a subject and philosophy as a practice; philosophical teaching across the curriculum; embodied enquiry, emotions and space; knowledge, truth and philosophical progress; resources and texts for philosophical inquiry; ethos and values of P4C practice and research. The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children will spark new discussions and identify emerging questions and themes in this diverse and controversial field. It is an accessible, engaging and provocative read for all students, researchers, academics and educators who have an interest in Philosophy for Children, its educational philosophy and its pedagogy. (shrink)

Confucian ethics as applied to the study of business ethics often relate to the micro consideration of personal ethics and the character of a virtuous person. Actually, Confucius and his school have much to say about the morals of the public administration and the market institutions in a more macro level. While Weber emphasizes the role of culture on the development of the economy, and Marx the determining influence of the material base on ideology, we see an interaction between culture (...) – specifically Confucian business ethics – and the economy. In this paper, we are going to study this interaction in several crucial stages of development of Confucianism. The paper concludes by postulating the relevance of Confucian business ethics to the global knowledge economy. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to enhance our understanding about the processing of implicit and explicit temporal chronological relations by investigating the roles of temporal connectives and verbal tenses, separately and in interaction. In particular, we investigate how two temporal connectives (ensuiteandpuis, both meaning ‘then’) and two verbal tenses expressing past time (the simple and compound past) act as processing instructions for chronological relations in French. Theoretical studies have suggested that the simple past encodes the instruction to relate events sequentially, (...) unlike the more flexible compound past, which does not. Using an online experiment with a self-paced reading task, we show that these temporal connectives facilitate the processing of chronological relations when they are expressed with both verbal tenses, and that no significant difference is found between the two verbal tenses, nor between the two connectives. By means of an offline experiment with an evaluation task, we find, contrary to previous studies, that comprehenders prefer chronological relations to be overtly marked rather than implicitly expressed, and prefer to use the connectivepuisin particular. Furthermore, comprehenders prefer it when these relations are expressed using the compound past, rather than the simple past. Instead of using thecontinuityhypothesis (Segal et al. 1991,Murray 1997) to explain the processing of temporal relations, we conclude that a more accurate explanation considers a cluster of factors including linguistic knowledge (connectives, tenses, grammatical and lexical aspect) and world knowledge. (shrink)

One of the most widely applied techniques used to examine associative memory errors is the Deese-Roediger- McDermott paradigm. The aim of the present studies was to demonstrate a Polish version of the DRM paradigm and to test the characteristics of memory illusions evoked by this procedure for both recall and recognition. A normative study was conducted to prepare Polish stimuli material sharing similar characteristics as the lists in the English language version. Subsequently, the lists were applied to examine the effect (...) of prior recall on recognition, as well as the influence of retention interval on recall. The results revealed that the Polish version of the DRM paradigm induced a robust effect of false recall and recognition. Moreover, it was revealed that immediate recall of a single list led to a higher rate of both correct and false recall and that prior recall positively influenced recognition, leading to a higher rate of hits. (shrink)

In recent years, countries have begun to establish ministries of transitional justice as part of political transitions from authoritarianism to democracy or from conflict to peace. This may reflect a broader historical trend in the administration of TJ, which has evolved from isolated offices within a particular ministry to ad hoc cross-ministry coordinating bodies to the establishment of dedicated ministries. The reasons for the establishment of specific ministries to pursue TJ, what we call ministerialization, have not attracted scholarly attention. This (...) article explores the causes and likely consequences of this development. In particular, it applies international relations, comparative politics, and public policy theories to explain the phenomenon. Contrary to some TJ literature that is concerned about hegemonic transnational discourse, international actors have played little to no role in shaping how TJ is bureaucratically managed. Rather, based upon fieldwork in Solomon Islands and Tunisia, the article concludes that ministerialization has been the result of domestic policy entrepreneurship. For TJ ministries to become a norm, however, more transnational actors will need to be convinced of the benefits of such an institutional arrangement. (shrink)

In this response to David Bradnick's and Bradford McCall's defense of Amos Yong's usage of emergence theory, we defend our previous argument regarding the tension between Yong's Pentecostal commitments and the philosophical entailments of emergence theory. We clarify and extend our previous concerns in three ways. First, we explore the difficulties of construing divine action naturalistically. Second, we clarify the problems of employing supervenience in theology. Third, we show why Bradnick's and McCall's advice to Yong to adopt weak emergence is (...) theologically costly. In conclusion, it is suggested that theologians within the science and religion dialogue should not fear, but recover, the language of supernaturalism and dualism. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 277-287.

In the paper I describe John MacFarlane’s version of relativism about truth. I begin by discussing Twardowski’s (1900) and Kokoszynska’s (1948; 1951) arguments against relativism. They think — just as Haack does (see 2011) — that sentences may be relatively true, if they are incomplete, but once they are completed they become true (or false) absolutely. MacFarlane distinguishes between nonindexical contextualism (which was anticipated by Kokoszynska (sic!)) and relativism which requires the introduction of the context of assessment. According to him (...) only the view which postulates double-indexed (to contexts of utterance and to contexts of assessments) truth is able to explain disagreement in subjective domains and contradicting intuitions about the truth-value of future-contingents. (shrink)

BackgroundIn this study, we analyze the association of social isolation in the first phase of the pandemic with perceived stress among residents of Poland and Italy with a look at how these populations adjust to and comply with implemented regulations, guidelines, and restrictions.Materials and MethodsInternet survey with Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and questions regarding mobility patterns, attitude, and propensity to adjust toward the implemented measures and current health condition was made among Polish and Italian residents (Cronbach’s alpha 0.86 and 0.79, (...) respectively). The sample size was 7,108 (6,169 completed questionnaires in Poland and 939 in Italy).ResultsThe Polish group had a higher stress level than the Italian group (mean PSS-10 total score 22,14 vs 17,01, respectively;p< 0.01). There was a greater prevalence of chronic diseases among Polish respondents. Italian subjects expressed more concern about their health, as well as about their future employment. Italian subjects did not comply with suggested restrictions as much as Polish subjects and were less eager to restrain from their usual activities (social, physical, and religious), which were more often perceived as “most needed matters” in Italian than in Polish residents.ConclusionHigher activity level was found to be correlated with lower perceived stress, but the causality is unclear. Difference in adherence to restrictions between Polish and Italian residents suggests that introducing similar lockdown policies worldwide may not be as beneficial as expected. However, due to the applied method of convenience sampling and uneven study groups, one should be careful with generalizing these results. (shrink)

Artykuł prezentuje cząstkowe wyniki ogólnopolskich badań, poświęconych nauczaniu etyki. Omawia miejsce etyki w polskim systemie szkolnictwa i tendencje rozwojowe widoczne od momentu jej wprowadzenia (1991). Analizie poddano akty prawne z poziomu ustaw, rozporządzeń Ministra Edukacji Narodowej oraz, uzupełniająco wobec aktów prawnych, orzeczenia Trybunału Konstytucyjnego, regulujące zasady nauczania przedmiotu etyka oraz jego oceniania. Ważnym aspektem tych regulacji, ze względu na ich praktyczne konsekwencje, jest lokowanie etyki jako alternatywy dla przedmiotu religia. Przeanalizowane zostały również dane statystyczne, pozwalające w skali ogólnopolskiej ocenić rozwój (...) zainteresowania przedmiotem etyka – przyrost liczebności szkół, w których realizowany jest przedmiot etyka, w zależności od etapu kształcenia oraz rodzaju szkoły, a także przyrost etatów przeliczeniowych przypadających na nauczycieli etyki. Ten ostatni wzrost, choć od roku 2014 skokowy, jest mimo wszystko w liczbach bezwzględnych niewielki; etyka pozostaje nadal przedmiotem niszowym. Na przestrzeni lat można obserwować poprawę jej statusu i wzrost społecznego zapotrzebowania; niemniej, obecne definiowanie etyki jako przedmiotu fakultatywnego sprawia, że poziom uczestnictwa wciąż pozostaje niewielki. (shrink)

During an initial palliative care assessment, a dying man discloses that he had killed several people whilst a young man. The junior doctor, to whom he revealed his story, consulted with senior palliative care colleagues. It was agreed that legal advice would be sought on the issue of breaching the man’s confidentiality. Two legal opinions conflicted with each other. A decision was made by the clinical team not to inform the police.In this article the junior doctor, the palliative medicine specialist, (...) a medical ethicist, and a lawyer consider the case from their various perspectives. (shrink)

Przekład na podstawie: „Do We Believe in Penal Substitution?”, Philosophical Papers 26 : 203-209. Przekład za zgodą Wydawcy Artykuł D. Lewisa rozważa dopuszczalność poniesienia kary w zastępstwie za winowajcę w odniesieniu do aktualnie obowiązującego systemu prawa karnego, w którym kara nie pełni funkcji rekompensaty, i do chrześcijańskiej interpretacji śmierci Chrystusa w kategoriach Odkupienia. Może wydawać się, że obecnie kara zastępcza nie jest akceptowana, okazuje się jednak, że de facto akceptowana jest wybiórczo. Przynajmniej niektórzy chrześcijanie rozumieją śmierć Chrystusa w kategoriach spłacenia (...) długu win grzeszników, ale jednocześnie nie dopuszczają możliwości, by przyjaciel mordercy poniósł za niego karę więzienia. Większość z nas uznaje możliwość kary zastępczej w odniesieniu do kar pieniężnych, ale nie w odniesieniu do dowolnej innej kary. W obu wypadkach w przekonaniach na temat dopuszczalności kary zastępczej wyraźnie brakuje spójności. Skoro jednak wybiórcze dopuszczenie kary zastępczej jest tak powszechne, być może nie jest pozbawione sensu. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Volume: 2013 Issue: 195 Pages: 197-248.

Children’s linguistic and social skills develop through play with siblings, but there is little research into sibling interaction using naturally occurring data. This conversation analytic case study presents an evidence-based account of how an older sibling responds to verbal challenges from her younger sibling during free play at home. The older sibling employs prosodic, rhetorical and linguistic devices to deflect challenges while avoiding conflict. She does this by acknowledging the grounds of the challenge, before invoking privileged information or epistemic differences (...) to reject it. Structurally, the older sibling inserts extended digressions which obfuscate challenges by engaging the challenger and switching topic. These phenomena blur the traditional accept/reject response dichotomy. The findings provide insight into the complexity of a 5-/6-year-old’s challenge-defence strategies and highlight the importance of face preservation and mitigation of disagreement. We propose that the ability to respond to challenges while maintaining intersubjectivity is a component of communicative competence. (shrink)

In the Fifth Meditation Descartes considers the problem of knowledge preservation : the challenge of accounting for the diachronic certainty of perfect knowledge [scientia]. There are two general solutions to PKP in the literature: the regeneration solution and the infallible memory solution. While both readings pick up on features of Descartes’ considered view, I argue that they ultimately fall short. Salvaging pieces from both readings and drawing from Descartes’ virtue theory, I argue on textual and systematic grounds for a dispositionalist (...) solution. On this view, the diachronic certainty of scientia is achieved through virtuous habits of belief. (shrink)

This article describes the main topics of Descartes’ ethics through discussion of key primary texts and corresponding interpretations in the secondary literature. Although Descartes never wrote a treatise dedicated solely to ethics, commentators have uncovered an array of texts that demonstrate a rich analysis of virtue, the good, happiness, moral judgment, the passions, and the systematic relationship between ethics and the rest of philosophy. The following ethical claims are often attributed to Descartes: the supreme good consists in virtue, which is (...) a firm and constant resolution to use the will well; virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and natural philosophy; happiness is the supreme contentment of mind which results from exercising virtue; the virtue of generosity is the key to all the virtues and a general remedy for regulating the passions; and virtue can be secured even though our first-order moral judgments never amount to knowledge. -/- Descartes’ ethics was a neglected aspect of his philosophical system until the late 20th century. Since then, standard interpretations of Descartes’ ethics have emerged, debates have ensued, and commentators have carved out key interpretive questions that anyone must answer in trying to understand Descartes’ ethics. For example: what kind of normative ethics does Descartes espouse? Are the passions representational or merely motivational states? At what point in the progress of knowledge can the moral agent acquire and exercise virtue? Is Descartes’ ethics as systematic as he sometimes seems to envision? (shrink)

The standard interpretation of Descartes's ethics maintains that virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and the sciences. Lisa Shapiro, however, has argued that the meditator acquires the virtue of generosity in the Fourth Meditation, and that generosity contributes to her metaphysical achievements. Descartes's ethics and metaphsyics, then, must be intertwined. This view has been gaining traction in the recent literature. Omri Boehm, for example, has argued that generosity is foundational to the cogito. In this paper, I offer a close reading of (...) Cartesian generosity, arguing that the meditator cannot acquire generosity in the Second or Fourth Meditation. (shrink)

Commentators have noticed the striking similarities between the skep­tical arguments of al-Ghazālī’s Deliverance from Error and Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. However, commentators agree that their solutions to skepticism are radically different. Al-Ghazālī does not use rational proofs to defeat skepticism; rather, he relies on a supernatural light [nūr] sent by God to rescue him from skepticism. Descartes, on the other hand, relies on the natural light of reason [lumen naturale] to prove the existence of God, (...) mind, and body. In this paper, I argue that Descartes’ solution is closer to al-Ghazālī’s than commentators have allowed. A close reading of the cosmological argument of the Third Meditation reveals that there is also a type of divine intervention em­ployed in the Meditations, which helps Descartes defeat skepticism. This reading may buttress the case made by some that al-Ghazālī influenced Descartes; but more importantly, it requires us to rethink key features of Descartes’ epistemology. (shrink)

Heidegger and ethics is a contentious conjunction of terms. Martin Heidegger himself rejected the notion of ethics, while his endorsement of Nazism is widely seen as unethical. This major new study examines the complex and controversial issues involved in bringing them together. By working backwards through his work, from his 1964 claim that philosophy has been completed to _Being and Time_, his first major work, Joanna Hodge questions Heidegger's denial that his enquires were concerned with ethics. She discovers a (...) form of ethics in Heidegger's thinking which elucidates his important distinction between metaphysics and philosophy. Against many contemporary views, she proposes therefore that ethics can be retrieved and questions the relation between ethics and metaphysics that Heidegger had made so pervasive. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Al-Ghazālī’s engagement with scepticism in the Deliverance from Error has received much attention in recent literature, often in the context of comparing him with Descartes. However, there is one curious text that has gone largely unnoticed by commentators. In his account of how he overcame scepticism vis-à-vis a divine light cast unto his heart, al-Ghazālī makes a cryptic claim that suggests that primary truths are inherent to the mind, and that said cognitive status of primary truths is related to (...) his overcoming of scepticism. Although this one text does not straightforwardly prove that al-Ghazālī is a nativist, I argue that there are other texts that plausibly reveal his nativism. As such, I argue that al-Ghazālī can be read as a nativist, and I reconstruct a way in which his nativism helps explain how he overcomes scepticism. In doing so, I defend the (standard) strong divine interventionist reading of al-Ghazālī’s response to scepticism, against Hadisi’s recent weak divine interventionist reading. (shrink)

A revisionary reading of Descartes's epistemology has emerged in the literature. Some commentators have argued that Descartes subscribes to passionate epistemology, which claims that epistemic progress in the Meditations requires contributions from the meditator's passions. This paper argues that the passions cannot perform any epistemic work in the Meditations. As such, the meditator's passions do not require us to revise our canonical understanding of the Meditations as an exercise of pure thought. Furthermore, we need not abandon the standard claim that (...) ethical practice emerges in the tree of philosophy only after metaphysics and epistemology have been established. (shrink)

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2012! Contemporary picturebooks open up spaces for philosophical dialogues between people of all ages. As works of art, picturebooks offer unique opportunities to explore ideas and to create meaning collaboratively. This book considers censorship of certain well-known picturebooks, challenging the assumptions on which this censorship is based. Through a lively exploration of children's responses to these same picturebooks the authors paint a way of working philosophically based on respectful listening and creative and authentic interactions, rather (...) than scripted lessons. This dialogical process challenges much current practice in education. The authors propose that a courageous and critical practice of listening is central to the facilitation of mutually educative dialogue. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of education studies, philosophy of education, literacy teaching and learning, children's literature, childhood and pedagogy. (shrink)

Exercise-based rehabilitation forms a key part of the UK National Health Service patient-care pathway for cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Only around half of all eligible patients attend core CR, however, with social inequalities affecting participation. Few qualitative studies have explored in-depth the key factors influencing engagement with CR, specifically from a sociological theoretical, and ethnographic perspective. Utilising an ethnographic approach allowed us to get a sense of the embodied experiences of 10 participants attending or declining core CR, together with a further (...) seven family members/significant others. This provided in-depth appreciation of participants’ lifeworld contexts as key influences on CR participation. The article draws on these qualitative data and focuses on 1) participants’ initial thoughts about CR; and 2) navigating the field of CR, analysed via thematic analysis. We utilise a Bourdieusian theoretical perspective to theorise the findings, including salient socio-cultural factors influencing attendance/non-attendance and (non)adherence. The article findings highlight how perceptions of CR and the ability to navigate the field are strongly influenced by habitus and capital, and how personal biographies and socio-material conditions affect adherence to CR programmes. The study provides original insights into embodied experiences of exercise-based CR, and novel understandings of the reasons for drop-out/poor adherence, theorised from a Bourdieusian perspective. (shrink)

A person who is liable to defensive harm has forfeited his rights against the imposition of the harm, and so is not wronged if that harm is imposed. A number of philosophers, most notably Jeff McMahan, argue for an instrumental account of liability, whereby a person is liable to defensive harm when he is either morally or culpably responsible for an unjust threat of harm to others, and when the imposition of defensive harm is necessary to avert the threatened unjust (...) harm. Others may favour a purely noninstrumental account of liability: one that looks only to the past behaviour of the potentially liable person. We argue that both views are vulnerable to serious objections. Instead we develop and defend a new view of liability to defensive harm: the pluralist account. The pluralist account states that liability to defensive harm has at least two bases. First, if an attacker is morally or culpably responsible for an unjust attack then he has forfeited what we call his agency right, and in doing so he has made himself partially liable to defensive harm. Whether the attacker is fully liable to defensive harm depends, however, on whether the imposition of defensive harm would infringe a different right held by the attacker: his humanitarian right. Humanitarian rights are rights to be provided with urgently needed resources or to be protected from serious harms when others can do so at reasonably low cost. We argue the pluralist account avoids the objections to which the instrumental and noninstrumental views are vulnerable, coheres with our intuitive reactions in a wide range of cases, and sheds new light on the way different rights combine to determine a person's liability to suffer harm. (shrink)

Al-Ghazālı̄ famously claims in the Incoherence of the Philosophers that al-Fārābī and Avicenna are unbelievers because they hold philosophical positions that conflict with Islam. What is less well-known, however, is that Averroës claims in the Decisive Treatise that al-Fārābī and Avicenna are not unbelievers; rather, al-Ghazālı̄ is the true unbeliever for writing the Incoherence of the Philosophers. In this paper, my aim is to present a sustained reconstruction of Averroës’ legal and philosophical argument for why al-Ghazālı̄ is an unbeliever. The (...) crux of Averroës’ argument is that al-Ghazālı̄ has expressed false allegorical interpretations of scripture to unqualified persons, which has led them into unbelief. By being causally responsible for other people’s unbelief, al-Ghazālı̄ is an unbeliever as well. (shrink)

Unprecedented advances in medicine, genetic engineering, and demographic forecasting raise new questions that strain the categories and assumptions of traditional ethical theories. Heyd's approach resolves many paradoxes in intergenerational justice, while offering a major test case for the profound problems of the limits of ethics and the nature of value.

This fully revised second edition suggests ways in which you can introduce philosophical enquiry to your Personal, Social and Health Education and Citizenship teaching and across the curriculum.

The question of whether AI systems such as robots can or should be afforded moral agency or patiency is not one amenable either to discovery or simple reasoning, because we as societies constantly reconstruct our artefacts, including our ethical systems. Consequently, the place of AI systems in society is a matter of normative, not descriptive ethics. Here I start from a functionalist assumption, that ethics is the set of behaviour that maintains a society. This assumption allows me to exploit the (...) theoretical biology of sociality and autonomy to explain our moral intuitions. From this grounding I extend to consider possible ethics for maintaining either human- or of artefact-centred societies. I conclude that while constructing AI systems as either moral agents or patients is possible, neither is desirable. In particular, I argue that we are unlikely to construct a coherent ethics in which it it is ethical to afford AI moral subjectivity. We are therefore obliged not to build AI we are obliged to. (shrink)

My paper is a reaction to polemic of Tomasz Sieczkowski "Discrimination nonetheless. A reply to Krzysztof Saja” [ICF "Diametros" (36) 2013] that he wrote against my paper "Discrimination against same-sex couples" [ICF “Diametros" (34) 2012]. The purpose of the paper is to refute Sieczkowski’s objections that rely on wrong interpretation of the structure of my main argument. I will describe the proper course of the reasoning that I have expressed in the first article and undermine the Sieczkowski’s proposal to (...) justify gay marriages by referring to values such as dignity, freedom and equality. (shrink)

Most ethical discussions about diet are focused on the justification of specific kinds of products rather than an individual assessment of the moral footprint of eating products of certain animal species. This way of thinking is represented in the typical division of four dietary attitudes. There are vegans, vegetarians, welfarists and ordinary meat -eaters. However, the common “all or nothing” discussions between meat -eaters, vegans and vegetarians bypass very important factors in assessing dietary habits. I argue that if we want (...) to discover a properly assessed moral footprint of animal products, we should take into consideration not only life quality of animals during farming or violation of their rights—as is typically done—but, most of all, their body weight, life time in farms and time efficiency in animal products acquisition. Without these factors, an assessment of animal products is much too simplified. If we assume some easily accepted premises, we can justify a thesis that, regardless of the treatment of animals during farming and slaughtering, for example, eating chicken can be 163 times morally worse than eating beef, drinking milk can be 58 times morally better than eating eggs, and eating some types of fish can be even 501 times worse than eating beef. In order to justify such a thesis there is no need to reform common morality by, for example, criticizing its speciesism. The thesis that some animal products are much worse than others can be justified on common moral grounds. (shrink)

Joanna Demers argues that Houellebecqs apocalypse can be understood as a system analogous to Hegels, and interrogates the ethics of such a system.