Gerechtigkeit ist ein Thema, das Wissenschaft und Politik, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften und viele philosophische Schulen gleichermaßen interessiert. Aufgrund seiner Relevanz und integrativen Kraft wurde "Gerechtigkeit" zum Thema eines internationalen Kongresses, den die Österreichische Gesellschaft für Philosophie im Februar 2004 ausgerichtet hat. Namhafte internationale Gäste haben ihre Gedanken zu Fragen der Gerechtigkeit dargelegt. So entsteht eine tour d'horizon des gegenwärtigen Fragens nach Gerechtigkeit. Neben den Hauptvorträgen des Kongresses (Wolfgang Kersting, Peter Koller, Avishai Margalit, Onora O'Neill) umfasst der Band Highlights des Kongresses, (...) die um das Thema "Gerechtigkeit" kreisen. (shrink)

Are Scientists responsible for the usage of the results of their research? Scientists belong to the most favourite group of people who are declared to be responsible for many various things. On the other hand, there is severe disagreement with regard to the question what it is that scientists are responsible for. According to some people, scientific responsibility essentially covers the correct acquisition, processing and publication of information, whereas others make scientists responsible for almost all consequences of their research, even (...) if they cannot influence them. This disagreement is exemplified by the attitudes towards Otto Hahn’s research on nuclear fission which range from blaming him for the development of the nuclear bomb to acquitting him from any responsibility because of the (alleged) lack of knowledge on the possible consequences of his research. In order to (dis-) solve this problem it is necessary to formulate clearly the conditions for ascribing responsibility to someone. By doing so, it is shown in the present paper, (i) that it is indeed possible to ascribe to scientists responsibility for certain consequences of their research (including the usage of its results), and (ii) that, as a matter of fact, it is implausible to make Hahn responsible for the nuclear bomb, but that it isn’t justified either to regard him as a kind of “naive country scientist”, because there is a lot of information he could and should have had as a (responsible) scientist. (shrink)

Are Scientists responsible for the usage of the results of their research? Scientists belong to the most favourite group of people who are declared to be responsible for many various things. On the other hand, there is severe disagreement with regard to the question what it is that scientists are responsible for. According to some people, scientific responsibility essentially covers the correct acquisition, processing and publication of information, whereas others make scientists responsible for almost all consequences of their research, even (...) if they cannot influence them. This disagreement is exemplified by the attitudes towards Otto Hahn’s research on nuclear fission which range from blaming him for the development of the nuclear bomb to acquitting him from any responsibility because of the lack of knowledge on the possible consequences of his research. In order to solve this problem it is necessary to formulate clearly the conditions for ascribing responsibility to someone. By doing so, it is shown in the present paper, that it is indeed possible to ascribe to scientists responsibility for certain consequences of their research, and that, as a matter of fact, it is implausible to make Hahn responsible for the nuclear bomb, but that it isn’t justified either to regard him as a kind of “naive country scientist”, because there is a lot of information he could and should have had as a scientist. (shrink)

This article traces the different classifications of diesel emissions either as “safe” or as “hazardous” in the US and in West Germany between 1977 and 1995. It argues that the environmental regulation of diesel emissions was a political threshold. It contributes to our general understanding of how politicians, environmental lobbyists, scientists, and engineers constructed the standards and norms that defined the “safe” limit of environmental pollutants. After discussing how diesel emissions came under review as a potential carcinogen, I will show (...) that the coding as “safe” or as “hazardous” resulted from negotiations that were entirely dependent on the temporal, geographical, and intellectual contexts in which diesel technology, scientific research on their emissions, and political regulation were embedded. In particular, I trace the differences in German and US regulatory policy. While US regulation relied more on epidemiology that provided only weak data on the carcinogenicity of diesel particulates in the early 1980s, German government agencies tended to base their policy around the mid-1980s more on the results of animal tests and shortly afterwards also on epidemiology. Furthermore, the article reveals how US and German automakers tried to foster doubt on the carcinogenicity of diesel emissions and how their approaches differed and shifted. Thereby, it sheds light on the triangular relationship between technology, science, and politics in regulatory processes by analyzing the different roles of the state, automakers, scientists, and environmental agencies in Germany and in the United States. (shrink)

While most business ethics texts focus exclusively on individual decision making--what should an individual do--this resource presents the whole business ethics story. Highly realistic, readable, and down-to-earth, it moves from the individual to the managerial to the organizational level, focusing on business ethics in an organizational context to promote an understanding of complex influences on behavior. The new Fifth Edition is the perfect text for students entering the workplace, those seeking to become professionals in training, communications, compliance, in addition to (...) chief ethics officers, corporate counsel, heads of human resources, and senior executives. (shrink)

The 23 papers that were prepared for a 1991 symposium that was cancelled beneath the weight of public and professional protests at some of the speakers invited, particularly Peter Singer. They analyze the application of theoretical considerations arising from philosophical reflection to particular concrete cases and situations of moral conflict in such fields as the environment, biology and medicine, business and professions, politics, law, and society. Among the topics are a philosophical critique of legal rights for natural objects, comparing the (...) value of human and nonhuman life, business ethics as a goal-rights system, liberal society and planned morality, and moral philosophy and its function. No subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

'Two things', wrote Kant, 'fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within'. Many would argue that since Kant's day, the study of the starry heavens has advanced while ethics has stagnated, and in particular that Kant's ethics offers an empty formalism that tells us nothing about how we should live. In Acting on Principle Onora O'Neill shows that Kantian ethics has practical as well as philosophical importance. First published (...) in 1975, the book is regarded as a classic account and defence of the Kantian ethical position. It addresses Kant's account of reasoning about action, in particular his controversial claim that the Categorical Imperative guides action and is basic to ethics and justice. This second edition offers a substantial new introduction and updated bibliography, and will be valuable for a wide readership in Kant studies and those studying ethics. (shrink)

Esta dissertação encontra-se construída em torno de um núcleo central - a exposição, aná-lise e discussão do chamado 'Argumento da linguagem privada', de Wittengstein. A dinâmica própria da abordagem e discussão do tema leva necessariamente a percorrer o conjunto da obra de Wittengstein, o que motiva um notável aprofundamento do assunto e torna ainda mais aliciante este ensaio.

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

A contemporary examination of the past, present, and future of Marxist philosophy.

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag analysiert, wie sich die Einstufung der Dieselabgasemissionen entweder als „gesundheitlich unbedenklich“ oder als „gesundheitsschädlich“ in den USA und in Westdeutschland zwischen 1977 und 1995 wandelte. Es wird argumentiert, dass die eingeführten Abgasgrenzwerte politisch definiert wurden. Damit wird mit diesem Artikel ein Beitrag zu der Frage geleistet, wie Politiker, Umweltschützer, Wissenschaftler und Ingenieure die Abgasstandards und -normen definierten, die als „unbedenklich“ galten. Nachdem eingangs diskutiert wird, warum Dieselabgasemissionen als mögliches Karzinogen galten, zeige ich anschließend, wie das Kodieren der Schadstoffe (...) als „gesundheitlich unbedenklich“ oder als „gesundheitsschädlich“ das Resultat von Verhandlungen war. Deren Ergebnisse waren wiederum abhängig von den spezifischen zeitlichen, geographischen und intellektuellen Kontexten, in die die Dieseltechnik, die wissenschaftliche Forschung zu Abgasemissionen und die politische Regulierung von Schadstoffen eingebettet waren. Insbesondere werden dabei die Unterschiede der deutschen und der US-amerikanischen Regulierungspolitiken herausgearbeitet. Während in den USA politische Entscheidungsträger sich Anfang der 1980er Jahre vor allem auf epidemiologische Daten verließen, die nur ein schwaches krebserregendes Potenzial von Dieselabgasen aufzeigten, basierten deutsche Regierungsbehörden ihr Urteil nach 1985 zunächst vor allem auf den Ergebnissen von Tierversuchen und kurze Zeit später auch auf epidemiologischen Studien. Zudem zeigt der Artikel, wie US-amerikanische und deutsche Automobilhersteller versuchten, Zweifel an der Kanzerogenität von Dieselpartikeln zu streuen, und wie sich ihre Herangehensweisen unterschieden und veränderten. In dem die Rolle des Staates, der Automobilhersteller, der Wissenschaftler und der Umweltbehörden in Deutschland und in den USA in den Blick genommen wird, zeigt dieser Beitrag auf, wie sich die drei Bezugspunkte Technik, Wissenschaft und Politik bei Regulierungsprozessen zueinander verhielten. (shrink)

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching (...) for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham. (shrink)

W. Neumaier, Antike Rhythmustheorien, historische Form und aktuelle Substanz, Grüner, Amsterdam, 1989, 141 p. - Études grecques et latines.

Das Placebo - konzipiert, um die Wirksamkeit des Arzneimittels objektiv zu überprüfen - entfaltet selbst unterschiedliche Eigenschaften und erzeugt vielfältige Effekte. Anhand von Vertreter_innen der Philosophie, wie Fleck, Rheinberger, Foucault, Baudrillard, Latour und Haraway, zeigt Ulrike Neumaier, dass sich - stellt man das Placebo in den Mittelpunkt einer Untersuchung - nicht nur in der Medizin Begriffe wie »Krankheit« und »Körper« verändern. Vielmehr wird sichtbar, wie Wissenschaft, Technik und Gesellschaft sich vernetzen, wie sich dadurch der Begriff von »Wissenschaft« wandelt und (...) warum vom Zeitalter der Technowissenschaften gesprochen werden kann. (shrink)

Das Placebo - konzipiert, um die Wirksamkeit des Arzneimittels objektiv zu überprüfen - entfaltet selbst unterschiedliche Eigenschaften und erzeugt vielfältige Effekte. Anhand von Vertreter_innen der Philosophie, wie Fleck, Rheinberger, Foucault, Baudrillard, Latour und Haraway, zeigt Ulrike Neumaier, dass sich - stellt man das Placebo in den Mittelpunkt einer Untersuchung - nicht nur in der Medizin Begriffe wie »Krankheit« und »Körper« verändern. Vielmehr wird sichtbar, wie Wissenschaft, Technik und Gesellschaft sich vernetzen, wie sich dadurch der Begriff von »Wissenschaft« wandelt und (...) warum vom Zeitalter der Technowissenschaften gesprochen werden kann. (shrink)

This is the first modern, annotated and scholarly edition of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos’ _Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting_, one of the seminal works of modern aesthetics in any language.